I don’t understand how this makes sense:
If you stop existing after death whatever you decide to do now doesn’t matter any more.
How does existing after death make the things you do matter? How does not existing make them not matter? I genuinely don’t understand what you mean.
Not trying to trivialize your position, just make sense of it, but I think the hidden assumption is something like: you are an algorithm for trying to create good experiences for your brain/human; the things you do matter only if they, ultimately result in better experiences for you; if, eventually, you have no experiences, there is no point striving for anything?
Is it something like that? That still doesn’t really make sense to me. Even if we accept the assumptions, why wouldn’t creating good experiences for your human temporarily, just until you die, matter?
affenlehrer@feddit.org 1 day ago
I think my phrasing wasn’t very good. Creating positive experiences for oneself makes sense regardless of life after death.
However, some behavior is motivated by long term consequences. These matter less or differently if you believe there is no afterlife.
E.g. some people behave differently in at a party with people they will never see again than a party with e.g. colleagues and family.
Or many people leave public toilets dirty while they keep the one at home clean.
People who believe in an afterlife might have the mindset they will see people from their life again and they might (if they believe in reincarnation) walk the earth again. So it’s a motivation to keep the environment liveable for future generations (beyond just family and kids) or to be nice to people you likely don’t meet again.
The behavior could be identical for people with or without a belief in an afterlife but their motivation and thought process behind it might be different.
Arctic_monkey@leminal.space 23 hours ago
Thanks, that makes more sense. I especially like the public toilet analogy. Afterlife beliefs really do bring the urinal home.