A lot of you may be surprised to know that as an atheist, I actually believe in eternal life.
Most people regard it as an afterlife. Heaven or hell or perhaps something in between. Not me.
You see, I don’t believe in an afterlife. I get one shot. That’s it. No dress rehearsal. When I die, it’s game over, no respawns, no continues. It’s for this reason that I put infinitely more value on the life I have.
But I’ll tell you what I do believe. I will have life eternal, but not as a vagrant specter, or an ethereal sycophant, or even a tortured soul.
We already have words and an appeal for eternal life on the non-believers’ side. It’s called a legacy and a bloodline. One of these is optional, but as a secular humanist, I firmly believe that a legacy is mandatory.
I’m going to make sure that I’m going to be remembered. I will leave this world in a better state than I found it… and if everyone on this planet could follow this simple principle, you would see the end of a lot of strife.
I will live on forever through the projects I’ve completed. Through the people I’ve touched. Through the young man I’ve put into this world.
And no deity, no matter how powerful they may think they are, will ever be able to take any of that away from me.
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I went ahead and I approved your copypaste from your blog, but I don't see how it's at all relevant to my post.
ReplyDeleteYour first biblical assertion, right out of the gate, using Mark 16:16 (which says "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned.") is nothing more than doctrinal assertion.
You first have to give contemporary evidence that Jesus even said half of what the Bible allegedly attributes to him, not simply assert that "all this stuff was scripture and therefore authoritative before it was canonized".
Your final statement is therefore exploding with irony:
"MAN-MADE CREED BOOKS AND MAN-MADE ORAL TRADITION WAS AND IS NOT SCRIPTURE."
Which is funny, because that's what ALL of scripture is. Man-made. Written by men. For men. To claim otherwise is somewhat arrogant.