"Why believe in something awful...

@fmf said
It's proof that we all die.

Obviously we're agreed on that point.

@fmf said
If you have proof that all 100 billion or so humans who have ever lived are still living in some shape or form, I am willing to listen to what it is.

That seems rather trite.

There's proof, but you've already rejected it.

@secondson said
There's proof, but you've already rejected it.

If you have proof that all 100 billion or so humans who have ever lived are still living in some shape or form, just say what it is.

@secondson said
Thing is though, you think life is finite, that it ends abruptly upon the death of the body.

That, by all rights, is inferior, and severely limits the appreciation for life as an "opportunity to be grabbed and embraced" because there's a limit to it.

How does being at peace with the finality of life "limit" my "appreciation" of life?

@secondson said
On the other hand, eternal life, and the scope of appreciation for it far outweighs the limited, finite and temporal opportunities that a single lifetime can provide.

There's no comparison.

I understand that you prefer to think that you have eternal life than to think you don't but I don't see how that hope/expectation enhances your appreciation of the life you're living now; it would make more sense if you were claiming that the prospect of eternal life renders the life you are living now meaningless.

@fmf said
Translation: you like your idea that you will live forever more than the idea that you won't.

Exactly.

What I "like" or think relative to this temporal life is underpinned by what you call a fiction.

It gives me the understanding that the idea of the cessation of life at death is inferior to the idea of life everlasting.

The mindset that informs one that they die and never live again, by comparison to the mindset of eternal life, makes the former idea seem abhorrent. How one can except that kind of defeat cognitively is beyond reason, especially since it is within the capacity of the human intellect to conceive of, and experience, something greater than themselves that informs them of having eternal life.

@fmf said
A limited or uncertain supply of heroin makes each fix all the more precious.

Therefore more precious still an unlimited supply.

@secondson said
What I "like" or think relative to this temporal life is underpinned by what you call a fiction.

It gives me the understanding that the idea of the cessation of life at death is inferior to the idea of life everlasting.

The preference you have for the notion that you have eternal life is not evidence of eternal life.

@secondson said
The mindset that informs one that they die and never live again, by comparison to the mindset of eternal life, makes the former idea seem abhorrent.

You find the idea of NOT having everlasting life abhorrent. OK.

@fmf said
If you have proof that all 100 billion or so humans who have ever lived are still living in some shape or form, just say what it is.

If you have proof that 100 billion human lives were annihilated in death just say what it is.

@secondson said
How one can except that kind of defeat cognitively is beyond reason, especially since it is within the capacity of the human intellect to conceive of, and experience, something greater than themselves that informs them of having eternal life.

It is within the capacity of the human intellect to conceive of being able to walk around invisible, talk to dead people in a seance, or to practice clairvoyance, but this capacity is not evidence that any of those things are real.

@secondson said
If you have proof that 100 billion human lives were annihilated in death just say what it is.

The burden of proof for your extraordinary claim is surely yours. We both agree that the 100 billion are dead. But you assert they are still alive in some form. What is your proof?

@secondson said
Therefore more precious still an unlimited supply.

Having an unlimited supply of heroin is not going to make the savouring of each fix more precious. Unless you mean 'worth a lot of money' when you use the word "precious"?

Perhaps believing in everlasting life, and seeing the life one is living now through that prism, is a part of the idea that many people, for psychological and anthropological reasons, have a God figure shaped hole in their lives and so they gravitate towards various religious traditions to fill it.

@fmf said
How does being at peace with the finality of life "limit" my "appreciation" of life?

Because it's limited by the temporal.

You seem to be interested in the spiritual, but it seems you limit the extent of the experience of the spiritual to the finite and material. Notwithstanding your attempts to spiritualize human experience within the realm of the temporal.

The scope of things spiritual relative to the idea of life being limited by time is shortsighted at best.