![]() It was a rejection of a model premised upon a new set of facts as defined by that model. If it is the brevity or finiteness of human life that gives it shape and purpose (an argument associated with the philosopher Bernard Williams), then an eternal afterlife cannot, in and of itself, have any purpose. When Copernicus proposed a heliocentric alternative it was not the result of an accumulation of facts. Reliance on an eternal afterlife not only postpones the question of life’s purpose but also dissuades or at least discourages us from determining a purpose or purposes for what may be the only life that we do have. The concept of the afterlife merely displaces the problem to one remove, begging the question: What then is the purpose of the afterlife? If the afterlife has a pre-determined purpose, again, we do not know what that is, and, whatever it is, we would rather be able to do without it. Even if there were such an afterlife, living forever is not in itself a purpose.It is not at all clear that there is, or even can be, some form of eternal afterlife that entails the survival of the personal ego. ![]() You might yet object that talk about the meaning of life is neither here nor there because life is merely a prelude to some form of eternal afterlife, and this, if you will, is its purpose.īut I can marshal up at least four arguments against this position:
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