I am not explaining my beliefs further to you. Your inability to listen to my experiences out of your constant need to proselytize, going as far as to bring up the completely irrelevant topic of objective evil as every proselytizer does, is offensive. You aren’t listening to me at all. You completely disregard my view at how there is beauty even in something that isn’t eternal. You completely disregard how I am more than comfortable living as I am, having wasted years on that search anyway when you think I should spend my whole life doing it. How arrogant of you to think I didn’t do enough research, that I should dedicate the rest of my life to finding your faith instead of being a good person in the world. If I live a virtuous life doing good to the people around me, and you believe I will go to hell simply bc I did not pray to your God in your specific way instead of some other one, then I will reiterate:

I am interested in being a good virtuous person, not in joining your nepotistic vip club

The fact that agnosticism and science are open to possibilities does not give credence to your unfalsifiable belief. This is not us having doubts about whether or not to have faith, it is a feature that lets us investigate if we're wrong, unlike you

You do not need to convince me to live a fulfilling worthwhile wasteless life through theism bc I already do with my agnosticism. You waste your breath the more you repeat that point

My only loss is if I am going to hell despite being a good person in which I am thankful for not falling prey to an evil god who is more interested in worship than in humankind being good

If you think me living a good life isn’t good enough for your God, then go proselytize somewhere else. I have no desire to hear you talk at me about what you think I should feel instead of listening to what I say

You seem to ask me about this personally, so I’ll answer personally. I am agnostic. I can be wrong, but I have already investigated claims of theism and life after death, and found no reason to believe and no reason to think there is a way to definitively say one way or the other. Occam’s Razor is that reality is the way it appears to be unless there is definitive proof, and I do not consider hundreds of religions and sects with contradictory end games as proof. Why would I waste more time on that instead of living my life as best as I can? I do not need a god to tell me to help those around me and to do good

As for the reality of loss via naturalism, that is just how life is. Life has loss and I find it immature to think it’s bad to accept that life has gifts and losses. I won’t live in a fantasy just bc it more comfortable than real life

Yes to trash a manuscript is a waste. That has nothing to do with believing in an afterlife though. Your example is a deliberate trashing that reveals your presumption, not the inevitable degradation of paper over hundreds of years or the unfortunate reality that there are destructive people or accidents that happen that destroy things dear to us. We are not meant to be naive children anymore

It is not waiting to die, it is about living my life without wasting time speculating about something that seems impossible to prove. Nihilism and blind faith are waiting to die, and I am neither. If an after life exists, then I will learn that when I get there. If I live as good of a life as I can for myself, my friends, my family, my community, my world including the people and cultures I haven’t met, and that still isn’t enough for me to not be sent to hell, then I am comfortable calling the god that made it that way evil bc then the afterlife is no longer for the virtuous, it is merely a nepotistic vip club

No, I don’t believe that naturalism must be true. My argument is about hope based on comfort alone and how it’s ridiculous to push that onto naturalists as if you know better when you don’t understand what they believe. This argument has shifted in so many directions from the basis of the OP. I’ll be bold and say it seems clear that you aren’t arguing to find a truth or to understand others

“Why would moving on with life matter when you will die and lose everything?” I already addressed this. If you think it’s a waste, then you are once again operating on blind hope and comfort and ignoring what others find value and beauty in

“These are not life or death” I take strong issue with someone hoping for years despite all contrary evidence that an ex will take them back, that an abuser will stop abusing, that a job will magically appear when I need it. That is all needless pain or passivity all in the service of hope. Tell this to the guys who still hope an ex will come back even after they’ve married someone else. You do not argue temporary coping, you argue for a perpetual mechanism to go through life and for everyone else to take it into consideration

If you still wonder those questions, then I don’t think you understand my point, so I’ll spell it out. Do I want an afterlife? Yes. Do I want to never again feel physical or emotional pain in my entire life? Yes. Do I want to end all suffering in the world? Yes. Do I want the ability to time travel and change things in my life? Yes. Were there many things I wanted for myself and for others as a kid that I later learned could not happen bc life doesn’t work that way? Yes. What do any of those wants get me? Nothing. We operate in reality, not fantasy. We grow up from being naive children because maturity is an admirable trait. This is the world, regardless of what we hope for in our heads, regardless of what we find comfortable

If you want to ask a direct answer to understand my view, go ahead. If we are just going to keep arguing Pascal and returning to points already addressed, then I’m gonna bid farewell. It’s been a pleasure

If you want to operate off that hope, okay, but I take issue with you saying that others should operate off your blind hope and pursuit of comfort over life. Is there a good reason to hope that no one will ever murder ever again? To hope that an abusive relative will stop hurting me if I just love them even harder? I’m not saying acceptance of naturalism is a mark of maturity, I am saying that arguing based entirely on hope and comfort is antithetical to children learning about life and maturing

It’s not that anyone is hoping there isn’t an afterlife in any form whatsoever, it is that is completely pointless to hope for something that will not happen. Blind hope based on nothing but comfort keeps people from moving on with their lives. It can waste emotional energy, it can encourage unhealthy passivity, and it can be directly harmful to life. Hoping for years that an ex partner will take me back will prevent me from moving on and finding the relationship I am meant to be in. Hoping that every driver will swerve away as I’m walking into traffic blind will not be conducive to a goal of long life. The whole point of maturing is learning that life and existence do not operate on hope, no matter how much any of us want it to be

Your use of the analogy to say that it is either inaction or action is flawed by you are assuming that there must be a stage for action, a place of loss and gain. That isn’t a good argument for hope bc you are already supposing too much and has the exact same flaws as Pascal’s Wager

The motivation to seek out holes in naturalism based on the discomfort of facts of reality sounds exactly like going into denial bc facts of life and society are uncomfortable. Not every answer in life is comfortable, regardless of if someone believes in the supernatural or not. It is how life is, it isn’t perfect, it isn’t always happy. To me, that motivation is antithetical to humans maturing from childhood and adolescence

A naturalist is in all likelihood a supporter of science, and science is not based on answers we find comfortable. Not liking a fact in front of us and deciding to believe something else solely bc it is more comfortable is not a persuasive argument. There isn’t anything prudent about it, it feels more immature than anything

Besides, no human being will be around for the heat death of the universe. The sun will go supernova in 5 billion years, a time frame 1 million times longer than human civilization has existed

If science is used to better our world away from the interference of political ideology or reliance on miracles, and a consequence of that is knowing of the end to the universe being so far away that the human mind cannot even comprehend a time scale that large, where any life is long long gone, I and many people are perfectly okay with that

Naturalism only has infinite loss if you are starting with the axiom that there is an afterlife. It doesn’t matter if your argument isn’t literally the exact framing of Pascal, it is rooted in the exact same logic

I apologize, I edited my comment entirely once I realized what you were saying and I didn’t get it done before you saw and responded. I’ll repost here

My bad, perhaps I’ve just continually misinterpreted you if you only discussing the purely metaphorical permadeath bc I kept thinking you were arguing both the metaphor and the literal. I got lost in the metaphor in that case

But this is just Pascal, again. “If there is permadeath and I don’t pray, I die. If there is permadeath and I do pray, I die. If there is an afterlife and I don’t pray, I die. If there is an afterlife and I do pray, I live. Therefore, I should pray bc I lose nothing but possibly gain everything”

I don’t know how many naturalists would deny others of the comfort of a metaphorical life jacket to permadeath, but if someone is frantically searching and finding nothing, then it seems reasonable for a naturalist to help them come to terms with the situation instead of living in eternal panic

My bad, perhaps I’ve just continually misinterpreted you if you only discussing the purely metaphorical permadeath bc I kept thinking you were arguing both the metaphor and the literal. I got lost in the metaphor in that case

But this is just Pascal, again. “If there is permadeath and I don’t pray, I die. If there is permadeath and I do pray, I die. If there is an afterlife and I don’t pray, I die. If there is an afterlife and I do pray, I live. Therefore, I should pray bc I lose nothing but possibly gain everything”

I don’t know how many naturalists would deny others of the comfort of a metaphorical life jacket to permadeath, but if someone is frantically searching and finding nothing, then it seems reasonable for a naturalist to help them come to terms with the situation instead of living in eternal panic

I see the problem finally. You think that bc naturalists don’t believe in a supernatural afterlife, they must have absolutely no desire to fight for their own life and don’t even believe in the value of a literal life jacket. You won’t engage in my contrasting story bc it doesn’t affirm your rigid strawman. I can’t tell if your arguing in good faith

My first paragraph is relevant bc you are specifically framing naturalism as pessimistic nihilism when it isn’t. You claim naturalism doesn’t offer “real” value or purpose just bc it isn’t as allegedly objective as theistic claims given to us by other humans, and then you compare your own framing to alternatives ala Pascal

You are still focusing on the argument within my story when I am telling you my point is that stories like this can be crafted to paint any narrative you want, so your story is just as valid as mine despite them coming to opposite conclusions

I don’t understand how you can say my story validates your framing. You are comparing a pessimistic nihilist giving up vs a theist with optimism. I am comparing a guy being pragmatic in self-preservation vs a theist relying solely on a divine miracle to intervene. I don’t think you can seriously say in good faith (pun intended) that praying is more pragmatic than taking actionable steps to survive. I am very glad that countries didn’t wait for their god to finally declare slavery to be immoral after thousands of years

There will always be debates over what is real. Secular reasoning for values are still real unless you say only objective values of supernatural origins are real, which is a claim. If you say secular arguments can disagree therefore they aren’t as real, well, theists disagree between religions or within their own over the nuances of values. Basically everyone says “Murder is wrong”, naturalist or theist. Naturalism is not pessimistic nihilism. I see plantation slavery being outlawed as a wonderful moment of society directing its values towards good bc if theism was going to be the catalyst of that, it would’ve done that a long long time ago

I’ll admit I was being cheeky with my wording, but it’s effectively the same effect. You paint your own view of what naturalism has to offer and then pull the Pascal of “Well it doesn’t have as much to offer so it’s only logical”

I don’t think you understood my point with the story. I wasn’t creating a story to disprove your story, I created a story to show how anyone can create a story that creates ideal framing, so it is a bad argument. It can be done for anything especially if you necessitate the naturalist as someone saying “We’re all gonna die, there’s no point in trying anything” just like I necessitated the guy with faith to rely on his god saving him rather than making any effort of his own to save his own life

The lack of objective value does not mean the only value of worth must be objective or else live a life without any value or purpose. Naturalism does not necessitate pessimistic nihilism

As for this not being Pascal, ‘I’m not telling you to do X, I’m just telling you to not do non-X’

Your story is just painting a scenario, not demonstrating a robust point. A similar story with a similar effect: You’re on a sinking boat. You try to find the life jacket you know should be there, but your religious friend stops you, says “Stop doing that, God will surely perform a miracle and save us”, and sits down waiting for a miracle that doesn’t arrive. Therefore, faith does not offer pragmatic value compared to your active efforts of self-preservation