Eternal life?

Question

Does anybody that is religious really understand the concept of eternal life?Why would you want to live forever?.I dont care how wonderful you might think the place would be,or be a spirit being,"being" forever is a punishment.And you would be a slave to God because you have to obey his rules. Anybody out there can give me a good and I mean a good answer about how living forever is a good thing please let me know.
Please, no answers about Jesus being the savior or quotes from the bible,I am asking for your opinion not Gods.One of my favorite quotes is "I will be no slave to any man or God".I think its written like that but I am not sure.It does get my point across.

Answer 1

The be a slave to an ideology simple mean your are limiting your own creative abilities to grow beyond that belief structure.



There is eternal life but not as we know through the limited teachings of a God based religion. Your spirit is eternal that can take physical form or remain in spiritual form. You know that thing called reincarnation? This is the truth of life and the eternal spirit.



Look at being in a physical body like the West World or the Disney World of the spirit. It would be pretty boring existing forever as spirit not knowing hot, cold, pain, or pleasure. Also through having a body you can learn the idea of unconditional love. Isn't sex really good? Thank your body for that pleasure because you would not be able to experience this as spirit.



Your body can parish but not your soul as spirit. It is only a matter of time man will come in to this understanding of what he really is. I know the God based religious will laugh about this. If they didn't laugh it wouldn't be truth.

Answer 2

Sounds good to me. Living in God's Heaven will be a lot better than living here. I trust God when He says, "Eye has not seen and eye has not heard what God has prepared for those who love Him." To you being a slave is degradation, to a Christian it is an honour to be called a slave to Christ. He is not harsh and His burden is easy to bear. Whether you like the idea or not is really not the question. You will have eternal life somewhere.

Answer 3

From my churches teachings...



"Eternal life is the phrase used in scripture to define the quality of life that our Eternal Father lives. The Lord declared, "This is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man". Immortality is to live forever as a resurrected being. Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ, everyone will receive this gift. Eternal life, or exaltation, is to live in God's presence and to continue as families. Like immortality, this gift is made possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. However, to inherit eternal life requires our "obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel".



Another quote:

"To use a metaphor, immortality is how long the dinner lasts. Eternal life is what is on the menu and who is with us at the table."



Eternal life is “the greatest of all the gifts of God”. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9)."

Answer 4

You don't like being a slave to anyone, it's clear. But, truth is, everyone's a slave to something. At the very least we are all slaves to our physical body. When it gets hungry, we must feed it. When it gets injured, we feel it's pain and we must heal it. Whe it breaks down completely, we lose our existence. Whether you believe in eternal life or not, you have to believe in death. You see that everyday. So we are slaves then to all the things that sustain us, that keep us alive and well. If for not those things, we die. No one ever exists on their own apart from the natural laws. We don't even get to choose if or when we come to be in this world. So, we are spiritual beings, living and existing in the physical world in our physical bodies. When that body decides to quit on us, we no longer exist in the physical world. We continue to exist in the spiritual world--for eternity. So is living forever a "good thing"? It depends on where you will spend your eternity! Heaven or hell?...

Answer 5

I have to use Christian references to answer this question, because its only way to understand why someone would prefer eternal life.



Christians believe that no matter what religion you are, everyone will have eternal life. You get to decide if it will be in a nice place or a bad place.



Many Christians prefer being a "slave" to God rather than a "slave" to the flesh that we dwell in.



Every man is a slave to something. Christians just choose to be a slave to something that is not self destructive and depressive.



Examine your life. You may be fooled into thinking that you are a "slave" to no man. One intrinsic look into yourself will show you that there are many things you are enslaved by.

Answer 6

All shoddy items one buys are designed to not last long. The better quality the longer lasting. So if you as a human live for ever its because you are a super-precious item. God wants the best for everyone, but they must enter through the gate of Christ. People can and do travel other ways but those are not ways that God has provided. (I would not want to encourage them to think those are legitimate paths; they may really pay for following invalid paths.)



Actually, eternal life, is something we can experience in this life, not just how it will be once we are with Jesus. According to St John's gospel it is knowing God. It is sharing in the divine nature (2 Peter). When your relationship with God functions well there is joy, peace, love etc in it, which come not from effort but from a union with Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.



Jesus himself came to minister to (serve) us, has actually done more for us than we will ever do for Him, and will eternally through the Holy Spirit constantly minister to us. He himself submits himself to the Father's will, so in asking us to do the same, which is all voluntary and achieved only through the Spirit's help, He is not being demeaning us really.

Answer 7

Eternal can mean one of two things. It can refer to God or it can mean that something has no beginning or end. I believe that eternal life is both of those. I think to understand eternal life, you have to understand that you will be living forever, time doesn't stop. Eternal life is where you will be happiest for that amount of time. One of the great things about eternal life is that we wills till continue to progress. Our life won't be a giant party. Nothing will get old, since we will continue to progress. This is the simplest explanation. Eternal life doesn't mean sitting on a beach forever, that would get old. Eternal life is continual progression and learning. Maybe you hate learning, but it beats playing xbox or watching soap operas 24/7 for eternity.

Answer 8

"Eternal doesn't really mean forever"? Uh, yes, it does!



From Dictinary.com:



e·ter·nal –adjective

1. without beginning or end; lasting forever; always existing



But let's not point out how easy it is for Christians to justify ANYTHING they like!



For me, I don't know about FOREVER, but I'm very curious to know what happens in a couple hundred years or so and wouldn't mind sticking around to find out.

Answer 9

I think this is an outstanding question. I personally never asked for eternal life nor expect it. It seems to me that once you die and have eternal life you can kiss your free-will goodbye since you will have to worship God eternally. That sounds like such a bore to me. I just want to be dead when I die, no heaven or hell. I am glad I haven't tricked myself into believing any of these monotheistic religions which have so much blood stained on their hands. I will never hide behind the crooked cross!

Answer 10

Eternity is a gift. Choose good over bad and be in a great place for eternity. hmmm doesnt sound bad to me. we will be made perfect and what is wrong with worshipping a God with rules instead worshipping money and material things of this world.no rules on earth what a bore. i'll take eternity.

Answer 11

well my opinion is that you got two choices. because a someone's soul is for eternity... u spent it in total destruction(hell) or you go home and spent it with the creator. My opinion also, is that there are things spiritualy that we are incapable of understanding because of our physical form, and enviroment, Good and evil are opposites, opposites that forever cannot come together... so God, being a holy and righteous being cannot have sinners in his kingdom... but if u know the rest... you know what God did, to reclaim us from sin.

Answer 12

You have it backwards.



No one who knows God and is a genuine friend of his, could think like you do.



God is the one who is stuck with providing for all of his creatures, forever, so he is really our servant, in the end.



As for slavery, I fully expect that God will provide us with an infinite number of choices ... all of them good ones ... in order to keep us perfectly happy and profitably busy, in the next life.



If that's slavery, then so be it.

Answer 13

I believe we go home after the body dies. There, waiting for us is all those whom we loved in all of our lifetimes. It is a complete society, with work, if you want to, study, enjoy sports, concerts, great food. We can choose to come back here if we want to.



That is what I think is waiting for me when this body dies.

Answer 14

In the blessedness of Heaven your worldly understanding of things would not exist which would really render your question void

Answer 15

eternal really doesnt mean forever

it is an unmeasurable period of time



all things come to an end eventually



and yes i do believe we will live eternally in this sense

Answer 16

Wow. . . . .you so don't get it that I'm not even sure where to start.

Since it seems that you are pretty entrenched in your beliefs and I'm not sure I could explain it without getting screechy. So I shall bow out gracefully, shaking my head.