Would there be any point in a religion that didn't offer some kind of afterlife to it's followers?

[Helm]

An afterlife seems to be the running theme for almost all of them. Though I realise there's more to it than just that aspect alone.

[Arch-hereticK]

It's a secret knowledge that only they "know." Petty things like that make people feel superior over others, that seems to be a driving factor aswell.

[Azog 150]

It's a secret knowledge that only they "know." Petty things like that make people feel superior over others, that seems to be a driving factor aswell.

Afterlife is hardly petty and nothing to do with feeling superior. Its just something people use to re-assure themselves. Death isn't nice. People like to think that their family, friends and eventually themselves are going somewhere better and they aren't just going to rot in the ground.

[Arch-hereticK]

Its just something people use to re-assure themselves.

And there's nothing vacuous or petty about that?

[Monarchist]

It's a secret knowledge that only they "know." Petty things like that make people feel superior over others, that seems to be a driving factor aswell.

That's hostile nonsense. The majority of us evil elitist believers, as you perceive us, want everyone to get into Heaven. We simply don't believe God would allow Adolph Hitler and Andrew Carnegie suffer the same fate after life is over. Our whole point is that there is a difference between good and evil, but that it isn't very hard to learn the difference. Your stereotype of us, thinking that we have some secret knowledge, is silly, because theists tend to see God as easily evident in all things. Some Christians who preach about the unwashed masses that need enlightenment are just being arrogant, of course. You can't lump all believers into that one category of "Haughty Secret-Knowledge Possessors".

But would there really be a point adhering to a specific code of religious ethics and values if ultimately there would be no reward or punishment? And would such a thing really be a religion or would it ultimately just be a philosophy in the same way as humanism would be?

I don't believe there would be any incentive to adhere to the codes. Human beings are despicable animals in the sub-conscious, and we need the threat of punishment to be moral. To deny that is to assume that human beings are essentially good, but I don't think that's the case. We can't be essentially good at base when we do such horrible things, can we? It's quite logical and elementary, and I know atheists like that sort of thing.

My least favourite notion is the one that says "it is less authentic to do good things if you think you will be rewarded. It is better to do good things for selfless purposes". Who cares if a person did good expecting a reward? I care that the person does something good, regardless of motives. Intent only matters in potentially criminal cases.

I don't feel superior over anyone who could have gotten into Heaven but didn't because I was too lazy to be a friend and try to help that person. It's not closely-held secret knowledge to love human beings and want them to succeed in the Cosmos, as it were...

[Arch-hereticK]

That's hostile nonsense. The majority of us evil elitist believers, as you perceive us, want everyone to get into Heaven. We simply don't believe God would allow Adolph Hitler and Andrew Carnegie suffer the same fate after life is over. Our whole point is that there is a difference between good and evil, but that it isn't very hard to learn the difference. Your stereotype of us, thinking that we have some secret knowledge, is silly, because theists tend to see God as easily evident in all things. Some Christians who preach about the unwashed masses that need enlightenment are just being arrogant, of course. You can't lump all believers into that one category of "Haughty Secret-Knowledge Possessors".

I'm not being intentionally hostile. I never said haughty, but people possessing sectret "knowledge" who express themselves in convoluted ways are always percieved as being arrogant and self-righteous. Prove me wrong.

[Fiyenyaa]

There already is one in a sense. The central idea of Buddhism is that life is inherently full of suffering, and that the ultimate point of existence to to cease existing - Nirvana is the the obliteration of the self.

[Helm]

There already is one in a sense. The central idea of Buddhism is that life is inherently full of suffering, and that the ultimate point of existence to to cease existing - Nirvana is the the obliteration of the self.

Nirvana is still very much an existence even if it's an existence free from everything.

[Fiyenyaa]

Nirvana is still very much an existence even if it's an existence free from everything.

It's no kind of existence that we would truly understand, as far as I can see.

[Helm]

It's no kind of existence that we would truly understand, as far as I can see.

It's kind of baffling and I don't think they even know for sure what it's meant to be. But that's the ultimate goal whatever it is.

Though there are religions that don't offer an after, you have Pantheism and Satanism, though Satanism goes a step further and provides a strong literal belief in no afterlife. Though I think is a kind of an interesting twist.

[roy34543]

Isnt the ultimate point of buddhism to stop having an afterlife? ie nirvana?

Though there are religions that don't offer an after, you have Pantheism and Satanism, though Satanism goes a step further and provides a strong literal belief in no afterlife. Though I think is a kind of an interesting twist.

You seem still not to understanad that pantheism isnt what you think it is.
while it doesnt technically promise an afterlife, it doesnt exclude you from having another supernatural religion that does promise one.
Satanism is practically a joke, But even if you think it isnt, its directly linked to abrahamic beleifs, its just the same thing with worshipping satan and not god. In that sense it very much does have an afterlife, probably in hell.

[Arch-hereticK]

Isnt the ultimate point of buddhism to stop having an afterlife? ie nirvana?

Yeah, that's why Helm said "most of them."

[Helm]

Isnt the ultimate point of buddhism to stop having an afterlife? ie nirvana?

Nirvana may not be an afterlife but it isn't non-existence either.

You seem still not to understanad that pantheism isnt what you think it is.
while it doesnt technically promise an afterlife, it doesnt exclude you from having another supernatural religion that does promise one.

The general belief is "You return back into the universe after you die" and you do, at least physically. If there's a metaphysical element to the mind I'd imagine the same general thing will happen to that, but that's not really what Pantheism covers.

Satanism is practically a joke, But even if you think it isnt, its directly linked to abrahamic beleifs, its just the same thing with worshipping satan and not god. In that sense it very much does have an afterlife, probably in hell.

Actually Satanism (if you're doing it properly) isn't about the worship of Satan it is the worship of yourself as a god, because through you the universe as you perceive it is brought into existence. When you die your universe dies with you. So it's all about making the most of now.

[Hax]

Shinto.

Nirvana may not be an afterlife but it isn't non-existence either.

Also, yes it is. That's exactly what Nirvana is

[Helm]

Nirvana is emptiness not non-existence.

[Hax]

It's more difficult than that. From the Heart Sutra (Prajnaparmita hridhya or Hannya Shinkyou):

Shariputra, all dharmas are empty of characteristics. They are not produced. Not destroyed, not defiled, not pure, and they neither increase nor diminish. Therefore, in emptiness there is no form, feeling, cognition, formation, or consciousness; no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, or mind; no sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects of touch, or dharmas; no field of the eyes, up to and including no field of mind-consciousness; and no ignorance or ending of ignorance, up to and including no old age and death or ending of old age and death. There is no suffering, no accumulating, no extinction, no way, and no understanding and no attaining. Because nothing is attained, the Bodhisattva, through reliance on prajna paramita, is unimpeded in his mind. Because there is no impediment, he is not afraid, and he leaves distorted dream-thinking far behind. Ultimately Nirvana

You cannot define Nirvana as being part of this "existence". That's exactly what it's all about: seeing that all form is emptiness and thus being liberated from it. It is liberation from existence itself.

[Djûn]

Nirvana is emptiness not non-existence.

Nirvana leads to a cessation of afterlife...

[Helm]

Nirvana leads to a cessation of afterlife...

Nirvana is "baffling bull" basically. There are Christians and such who have a notion of heaven not being an Earthly place but some kind of immaterial Nirvana like state where you are at one with God, but I suppose that is in a way a more sophiscated if vague belief.

[Djûn]

Nirvana is "baffling bull" basically.

Baffling? Almost certainly. ? Impossible to say one way or the other, as with most metaphysical problems.

At any rate, it's irrelevant whether it is indeed true or not. The question was 'would there be any point in a religion that didn't offer some kind of afterlife', the Nibbana of Buddhism leads to a cessation of the afterlife (or, more strictly, afterlives). From this we can pose the question as 'is there any point to Buddhism', to which I respond with a wholehearted 'yes'.

[Strelok]

Promising an afterlife is a dillema that accomplishes two things:

Quenches fears of death and brings comforting thoughts of a promised reward to followers [keeps them within the religion easier].
Reigns in people gullible enough to succumb to the fear of living in torment after death.