JoshuaZ comments on Outside the Laboratory - Less Wrong

63 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 21 January 2007 03:46AM

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Comment author: nick012000 12 July 2010 02:11:14PM 0 points [-]

I'd like to think I put as much thought into it as I think so! :P I don't think I wrote down the answer first and then filled in the proof, but I suppose I can't be totally sure I didn't. I did get raised in a Christian environment, but we were hardly the type who'd go to Church every week.

One of my friends as a teenager had his mother converting into Judaism; apparently people who convert into the religion have to go through the diet strictures and whatnot extra-strictly. That's what I meant by "almost impossible to convert into". My understanding of the Jewish view of the afterlife is that they either go to Heaven or cease existing (Sheol) which is infinitely worse than eternal hellfire, and a decent Christian will still get into Jewish heaven since we'd follow the Noahide laws, so that way I'm covered.

Mormonism was rejected because the guy who founded it was a known con man, and the nature of the Book of Mormon is such that if it is true, you can't not believe in it and go to Heaven, and if it isn't, then you can't believe in it and go to Heaven. Since he was a con man and therefore it probably isn't true, it's probably not a good idea to believe in it.

I'll admit that I don't think I did much looking into Bahai, other than seeing that they were basically a religion that splintered off of Islam. Looking it up on Wikipedia, though, it looks like they believe in reincarnation? Bleh. My mind is who I am; if it gets deleted when I go onto the next world, there's no point.

Comment author: JoshuaZ 12 July 2010 09:38:06PM 4 points [-]

One other thought: If you are as concerned about continuing to exist as you say you are then you should be much more worried about religions in which believers don't stop existing and non-believers do stop at death. In that case, your options become a bit more limited. I take it you aren't either a Jehovah Witness or a classical Karaite?