this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2024
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.
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I wouldn't be so sure. There might be, for all we know. But I agree there's no point acting like there is, relying on it, as there might not be. And even if there is, it might well not be pleasant. Or reincarnation might be true.
I am pretty damn sure. Your brain, everything that makes you you, is a biological computer (for lack of a better word) of which we have an extremely comprehensive understanding of how it functions and the processes, both biological and psychological, that form a personality. There is no magic sauce or spirit that leaks out into the void when you die. It is your biological circuits ceasing to function and decaying.
I say this as someone who believed in an afterlife well into my late 20's. It is a belief we tell ourselves to cope with the reality of our own mortality. We will die and there will be nothing, so we tell ourselves that maybe there will be something because it makes the pain easier to handle.
Maybe we are not done yet with understanding how our biological computer works.
On topics like this, I like to think about bacteria:
Before microscopes, it was unimagible to have little organisms on us and everywhere around us. People have been labelled crazy for believing that there is a whole small universe of organisms everywhere.
Then came microscopes, and suddenly everyone could see it for themselves.
What if we just don't have the right tools to make our magic sauce, spirit, soul, whatever visible to us yet?
Oh for sure, that might be the case. But everything already written in some holy book or told in some ritual now definitely lacked those sophisticated machines, making all their content moot and you can safely disregard them.
So due to the lack of any information, you can't prepare and therefore can't expect anything. So it's better to be good for its own sake, then trying to appease some bronze/iron age divinity.