hyporational comments on Open Thread, November 15-22, 2013 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: drethelin 16 November 2013 01:36AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 18 November 2013 01:40:23PM 3 points [-]

If this is the case, then one might ask why the same thing doesn't happen with religions that believe in an afterlife.

The religion I'm familiar with (dunno about others) explicitly says that the death of either spouse terminates the marriage.

That could be because they believe that everyone will be resurrected.

Yeah, but some people will go to heaven and other people will go to hell, so I don't think that's the answer.

Comment author: hyporational 18 November 2013 04:25:04PM *  -1 points [-]

Do I correctly suspect they have polyamory in heaven?

Yeah, but some people will go to heaven and other people will go to hell, so I don't think that's the answer.

I bet minority of people who believe in heaven actually believe in hell, or at least believe that you have to be really evil to go there.

Comment author: Lumifer 18 November 2013 04:39:39PM 4 points [-]

I bet minority of people who believe in heaven actually believe in hell

Kinda: 62% of Americans believe in heaven and 53% believe in hell (source). I bet there is more data in Pew reports.

Comment author: hyporational 18 November 2013 04:41:39PM *  2 points [-]

Those silly Americans :)

It seems I live in heaven already.

ETA: I blitz-googled second hand info about a World Values Survey 2000: 50 % of Finns believe in heaven, but only 25 % believe in hell. 74 % believe in god.

In a 2012 survey done by our church only 1/8 believe in "the Christian promise of eternal afterlife".

Comment author: Lumifer 18 November 2013 05:00:32PM 4 points [-]

The funny thing is that Jesus is very very specific that more people will end up in hell than in heaven :-D

Matthew 7:13-14: "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

Comment author: CAE_Jones 18 November 2013 05:29:55PM 1 point [-]

I wouldn't call that "very very specific", since the words are destruction (I think it can also be "lost") and life, rather than Heaven/the Kingdom or Gehenna/Hades/everlasting punishment. It does, however, make it abundantly clear that the overwhelming majority is doomed in some fashion.

Comment author: Lumifer 18 November 2013 05:55:43PM *  1 point [-]

I wouldn't call that "very very specific", since the words are destruction

True, here Jesus is speaking about the alternative to the everlasting life. But I don't know -- is there a branch of Christian theology which holds that it's heaven or nothing -- as in, if God doesn't let you into heaven you don't go to hell but just cease to exist?

P.S. As far as I remember there are mainstream Christian interpretations of hell as nothing more than absence of God's love/grace.

Comment author: hyporational 18 November 2013 06:23:17PM *  2 points [-]

Some Jehova's witnesses who I tried to deconvert at my door seemed to believe that. It was eternal life in paradise on earth or nothing.

Comment author: Lumifer 18 November 2013 06:35:10PM 1 point [-]

Ah, yes, it seems Jehova's Witnesses do have a "doctrine of annihilation" and for them it is heaven or nothing.

Comment author: CAE_Jones 19 November 2013 05:12:23AM 2 points [-]

Seventh-day Adventists appear to be annihilationist as well. Then there are Universalists, who insist that Aeonian in the first Century CE could not possibly mean "eternal", so that everyone eventually gets out of Hell.

Comment author: polymathwannabe 22 November 2013 07:05:48PM 0 points [-]

I like the Eastern Orthodox version: Heaven for everyone---like it or not.

Comment author: Adele_L 19 November 2013 06:39:07AM 1 point [-]

Do I correctly suspect they have polyamory in heaven?

There is (still) in Mormon heaven (at least polygamy).

Comment author: [deleted] 19 November 2013 12:21:06AM 1 point [-]

Do I correctly suspect they have polyamory in heaven?

ISTR that someone asked Jesus what happens if a widow gets married again, after everyone dies and is resurrected -- which husband does she get back with? I can't remember the answer, though.

Comment author: gwern 19 November 2013 12:38:41AM 7 points [-]

He ducked the question, I think, in simply saying that non-marriage was superior and/or in heaven no one is married maybe: Luke 20:27-38:

Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. "Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and have children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. The second and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. Finally, the woman died too. Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?"

Jesus replied, "The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection."

Comment author: jmmcd 22 November 2013 01:37:12AM 1 point [-]

Golly, that sounds to me as if the people of this age don't go to heaven!