What sucks most for non-believers? Believers will always have the last laugh.

[DuaneBidoux]

I mean, think about it. Look at what happened with Hitchens. If he is right he never figured it out for sure. If he was wrong then he now knows he is wrong. In the meantime believers are still laughing at him.

Of course if the believer is wrong he will die believing but by definition will never find out he was wrong.

Ever think about that? Kinda' sucks.

[Angry Dragon]

1. In the end everyone is just dead

and your energy is just recycled

[DuaneBidoux]

5. But again--if you are right you won't ever know it for sure.

[Angry Dragon]

7. Many different ways to look at that part of it

if thoughts, emotions, feelings are energy, how much of that stays together
or is it different for different people

[AlbertCat]

12. if thoughts, emotions, feelings are energy, how much of that stays together

If the brain's not there... none of it. Actually even if the brain is STILL there. Thoughts, emotions, feelings all come from the same place: your brain. The "energy" from the thoughts you had when writing your post is already dissipated and "not there" as far as your thoughts are concerned. Remembering your post required a whole new set of energy.

Pretending religion's explanations of anything are worth even being considered seriously is just sad.

[DuaneBidoux]

32. I pretty much agree.

Or I should say, I think it is likely that you are right in your point.

But I am not willing to say I know for sure.

[Duer 157099]

2. You use the term "believer" without definition

Believer in what? I believe in "life after death" and yet in no way would I call myself a "believer" in the common usage.

[DuaneBidoux]

4. Good point.

I guess I'm thinking that most atheists in the sense used by the atheists themselves don't believe in life after death and most believers (and in this case I am talking about believers who believe in a set religion with life after death) do believe in life after death.

Under this scenario I would say that my point is still valid. But, granted, the point is based on this scenario and there are many other possibilities.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

3. It's hard to tell

But I think you're presenting a bastardized version of Pascal's Wager. No one's getting the last laugh with Hitchens - he's either ashes or a rotting piece of meat (don't know which he did, if either). It's like me saying that I'm having the last laugh over a piece of corn I ate today. The corn is unknowing and unthinking, so "having the last laugh" isn't even applicable to it.

"Believers will always have the last laugh" - which believers? Christians? Muslims? Jews? Buddhists? Hindus? Mormons? Some or all of those groups?

[DuaneBidoux]

6. Any and all of those groups...

Any one who inherently believes in life after death (and this is what I mean by believer in this case) will find out if he is right but never know if he is wrong.

As far as Pascal's wager that I don't really understand your point there. It doesn't seem the same.

[EvolveOrConvolve]

8. That's why I said it was hard to tell

"If he was wrong then he now knows he is wrong."

That was the sentence I parsed to get the Pascal's Wager idea.

[DuaneBidoux]

31. Many are saying that, but I don't see how.

When I said that "Believers will always have the last laugh" - which believers? Christians? Muslims? Jews? Buddhists? Hindus? Mormons? Some or all of those groups?"

I meant anybody of any faith (or no faith) who believes in consciousness that survives the death of the physical body. Some of the faiths you mention (Buddhism for example) take no position on the form (or not) that life after death will take.

I know many Jews who take no position on life after death. My point had nothing to do with religion per se.

[Curmudgeoness]

9. But there really isn't anything we can do about it.

If you do not believe, and there happens to be a god and an afterlife, I doubt that pretending that you are a believer will pass the smell test with the guy in the sky.

[DuaneBidoux]

30. If it is a guy.

[Curmudgeoness]

34. "Guy" rhymes with "sky"......

don't make this difficult!

[Generic Brad]

10. Believers only have the last laugh if they die laughing

....I believe....

[AlbertCat]

11. meantime believers are still laughing at him

Who cares.

He wasn't an incurious serf scared of religion when he lived so he still wins!

[FiveGoodMen]

17. Who cares? Good point ... but ...

It just seems unfair that there isn't even one moment when they'll have to face the fact that they were wrong about this.

[AlbertCat]

36. It just seems unfair

At the end of the Mahabharata, Yudhisthira has seen all his brothers and his wife fall to their deaths while they climbed to the top of the world to find wisdom. He is given a chance to enter paradise and does so. All his enemies are there, eating and drinking and living in bliss. He's upset by this and wants to see his brothers and wife. He is taken into the bowels of the Earth in total darkness, with the stench of death and disease he hears the agony of his brothers and wife as they endure despair. He doesn't understand. Why should his enemies, who caused so much misery, be rewarded and the good people, his brothers and wife, be punished?
"This is your last illusion" says a voice as he enters nirvana.

Anyway.... that's the way it's staged in Peter Brook's film "The Mahabharata"

[cleanhippie]

13. Their laughs are just projections of their own insecurities.

[DavidDvorkin]

14. This is just another version of Pascal's Wager

And it suffers from the error of false dichotomy, just as the original does.

[DuaneBidoux]

29. I simply don't see that.

I know what Pascal's Wager is. My point has nothing to do with getting the benefit of any wager.
It has to do simply with the fact that if wrong they will never know it. That bugs me. That is all.

The point was not "complex" or "deep" or meant to be anything other than a splinter that gets under my consciousness.

Perhaps it is an imaginary splinter.

[DavidDvorkin]

35. Not the benefit part, but the premise that there are only two choices

[DuaneBidoux]

37. Only two choices...I'm open to other thoughts

But, as far as I know there is going to be a conscious state or a non-conscious state. I would grant you there are other possibilities but I wouldn't know what that would be.

Your thoughts on what other choices between those two states is welcome.

[DavidDvorkin]

38. You've posited a spurious choice, just as Pascal did

You're calling the two choices conscious state/non-conscious state.

Suppose that there is an afterlife, and it's under the control of a being or beings who despise what all of the religious believers in the world believe in/preach/pray about. Those angry beings might therefore leave atheists to wander around the afterlife in peace forever while subjecting any religious believers of any kind to horrible torments forever.

That's just one of infinite possibilities.

[DuaneBidoux]

39. I take you point and I think there is a relevance there

But I don't think it spurious saying that "consciousness" implies, by definition, one other state in opposition called "non-consciousness."

Just as a coin with a side called "heads" implies one other choice called "tails" within the defined system known as "a coin."

Can you give me an example where there is a adjunct condition to consciousness or non-consciousness which is an extention of but not either of those two things? The example you gave still falls within the boundaries I have defined.

[CrispyQ]

15. Let them laugh.

They spend many hours of their PRESENT life, preparing, living & hoping for a FUTURE life - which will never be.

They have less time than they think - this life only - & they are wasting precious moments on something that will never transpire.

[FiveGoodMen]

16. Thought about that one MANY times.

Bugs the crap out of me.

[DuaneBidoux]

28. Yea, it is fun to be right but it's more fun when the otherside knows it

But hey, that's me. I never pretended that the post was "deep" or "meaningful."

It's really more like an irritant.

[Wistful Vista]

18. Dead people can't "know" (or perceive) anything. It's why we call them dead.

[rexcat]

19. Just read my signature line...

it says it all.

[marginlized]

20. Whose Wager?

And laughing at people as they’re dying is another example of what? You’re idea of empathy? Sympathy? Religious Righteousness?

Does anyone 'win' at death? Gambling for an afterlife can’t be won. But it seems that winning is what matters to some people.

[Logical]

21. So which religion is right so I know what to believe. Not a deep thinker I assume?

[DuaneBidoux]

27. I do actually do believe that I am a deep thinker...

But I'm completely open to the possibility that I am wrong (i.e. that I am not a deep thinker).

As far as I can tell there is no way to know that your belief in whatever you believe is right.

[MrModerate]

22. Who cares?

Believers believe what they will regardless of any other factor. Obviously no one is going to worry about anything after they're dead.

This strikes me as a very yawn-worthy issue.

[DuaneBidoux]

26. Hey, I like to be right and I like that the wrong party knows it.

Call it a very primitive state of cognitive and emotional development but it is no fun to win at Monopoly if the other side doesn't know they lost.

However, going to you point (and slightly to the side) it is what it is--what are you going to do?

[NYC Liberal]

23. Well. Believers will also know they're wrong when they find out they chose the WRONG god to worship.

If I'm going to be wrong, better to not worship any god than to choose a false one and risk actively offending the real one. If I'm going to be wrong, better to live my life on my own terms than waste it following the dictates of a non-existent fairy tale.

[darkstar3]

24. That's called buying the premise. It usually ends badly.

[awoke_in_2003]

25. On the other hand...

most christians I know live lives of accepted servitude andt are so busy worrying about making it to the "good" afterlife that they fail to live the life they have now.

[ElboRuum]

33. This implies...

...that as an atheist I give a flying fart in space what some believer thinks.

[iris27]

40. Yeah...but what if the believer was wrong not in his belief, but in his chosen deity?

What if Falwell and Robertson burn in Muslim hell?

As others have said, this is PW rephrased.