Of course, to any person, his religion can't be wrong. (If it can, then it is at least in some sense not "his religion.") So to every strong believer, someone else's afterlife precautions are either superfluous or futile.
Of course, that doesn't mean the question should be taken lightly, but it seems that as long as there are different religions, people have to believe that other people's afterlife precautions are not correct.
So really, simply choosing to live the life you want to live is only marginally less risky than living in fear of the wrath of the god or gods which happen to coincide with the cultural norms in existence at the time. Either way it seems a bit like Russian Roulette.
My personal wager: God† may or may not exist, but if he doesn't I'd sure as hell better make the best out of this life because there won't be another one, otherwise I might as well not exist.
† or whatever
How many of those tales give you a single point of failure, that if you can explain away one point then internally the whole belief system collapses? (http://bit.ly/1uNpRwT with a modern explanation at http://www.reasonablefaith.org/the-resurrection-of-jesus)
Seems to me there might be more to the story than just a random dart throw at a wall of choices.
The Gregorian calendar does attempt to count the number of years since Jesus.
The Bahá'í calendar counts since Báb had his first religious experience [0]
The Bengali calendar counts (possibly) since the reign of King of Gour, Shashanka [1]
The Buddhist calendar counts since Buddha attained parinibbāna [2]
The Hindu calendar Kali Yuga counts since Krishna left Earth to return to his abode [3]
I'm sure there are more, I only looked at a few. Look how many calendars there are that are in use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_calendars
Also, I don't think explaining anything can make a belief system collapse.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bah%C3%A1%27%C3%AD_timeline [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengali_calendar [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_calendar [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kali_Yuga
>How many of those tales give you a single point of failure, that if you can explain away one point then internally the whole belief system collapses?
All of them, if you don't believe in the existence of the supernatural. But this argument, in itself, reveals another fallacy, as it assumes the narrative consistency or cultural relevance of a religion has any bearing on its actual truth. Reality doesn't have to be logically consistent nor does it have to follow a narrative path - one only has to look at scientific progress over the last century to see that. And the argument that Christianity must be true because so many people believe in it is undermined by the fact that more people have consistently believed otherwise over time.
>Seems to me there might be more to the story than just a random dart throw at a wall of choices.
Thing is, that's what they all say.
I hope you'd agree with me when I say that love is more natural to human beings than fear. That peace is more desirable than troubling. I believe that no matter what religion or belief system one's in at the time, for whatever reasons, seeking love and peace and cultivating them among people around, will set them on the right path. Anything else is like me, a simple worker, saying to another one that he'll be fired because he done whatever. It's not my decision, although I can have that belief. Or delusion.
I wouldn't agree with that. Fear is one of the most basic instincts. A core emotion to most species along with joy, sadness, anxiety and anger.
Love, while most are certainly capable of it, isn't among those core emotions.
If you believe that victims of suicide are consigned to hellfire for all eternity, you might as well go to their funerals and preach to all of the friends and family who loved them that their loved one will suffer eternally from now on. Victims of rape, violence, neglect, abuse, poverty, other types of trauma, people with serious mental disorders, or anyone who wasn't lucky enough to survive their first suicide attempts (i've survived at least 4 myself), don't get any more chances and deserve to suffer, because God is always just and fair.
To many of us that have decided to reject religion, such a seemingly at-odds message (God is just and fair, but life is unfair, and some people just don't get second chances) is despicable and insane. It's people trying to assuage their own fear of the unknown, and guilt for their wrongdoings, by subscribing to a cosmology that of course they will be forgiven for their crimes and attain everlasting happiness and utopia, but everyone else is damned. A number of religions, and sects within religions, maintain exclusivity for their beliefs about who gets into heaven and who doesn't, yet adherents always believe there can be no doubt that they themselves are correct and everybody else is wrong.
I choose to believe that if God exists, He/She/They are at least as just and fair, compassionate and loving and forgiving, as the best human has ever been. If we devote ourselves to good deeds and works, not judging and condemning our fellow man, nor resting on our laurels and often arbitrary convictions, then we are more likely to find favor from any judge weighing the value of our lives and deeds, and the trajectory of our hearts.
>to any person, his religion can't be wrong //
I disagree with this quite strongly, at least as far as "religion" is a placeholder word suitable for "Christian faith".
There is an oft repeated aphorism in Christian circles that says if certain proof of God's works existed then faith wouldn't be needed to put one's trust in Jesus, as the way back to God and on in life. Doesn't the idea of faith require that one considers such a thing could be wrong?
When I became a Christian I spent some time trying to explain what I'd experienced in a way that was consistent with my former world view. My view then was perhaps best described as Pyrhonic Popperism [I think that's not a common description!] - nothing is certain but everything falsified should be held untrue so long as this forms a consistent view. That's pretty much as I am now. I'd say there is a tiny element of post-modernism in there but the majority of my thought has held to the position that there is a single discoverable truth about the nature of the universe; since my formative years however I've held that science creates a largely consistent view that is not necessarily true (that's built in to scientific method) but is mostly useful for describing our interactions with the true universe.
That said, my point is that there's probably not a day goes past when I don't consider my faith could be misplaced (in one aspect or other). There is a common thread of doubt that forms a central part of most Christian's lives AFAICT too. Saint Thomas's doubt is not a reason for chastisement but a simple reflection of his humanity.
It's the same in physical and spiritual worlds - I doubt the existence of m-branes or axions (and CDM in general) and that causes me to reflect on their true nature and enquire as to their being.
