Oh, you know, it's just someone that thinks everyone except them is wrong!

Doesn’t really add anything to the conversation though

You quoted evidence without providing any, and conflate evidence with belief. That also doesn't really add anything to the conversation.

The smart money says 'there is no afterlife, so use what you've got'. If you - or anybody else - is so sure that an afterlife exists then it would be nice to present some actual proof and absent that to admit that you're making it up or that it's hearsay.

The smart money? Do you think that Buddhists make up the whole idea of succession just for show?

No, I think they made that up because they fell for the exact same trap as most other religions did: a desire to explain that which they didn't know anything about. They obviously didn't do it 'just for show' so I'm not sure why you would make it seem like I was thinking that.

Religions are several thing: power structures, coping mechanisms, focal points for social functions, explanatory mechanisms, scams and stories (origin myths etc) all rolled into one. Depending on which religion you are looking at one or more of these traits may be more dominant.

Every religion lays claim to some unique knowledge and tries to explain a lot more than they can and as a result they are - to me comically - incapable of adjusting to knowledge as it became available. The result is dogma, in one form or another.

I don’t know man. How many people do you know in your immediate circle that would say that they wholeheartedly believe that we only live once?

Do you not feel like life on this planet would be very different if that was the case? It’s a really deep question and I would prefer you contemplate it if you plan on responding.

Haha, ok, seriously: any answer I give you that you don't like and I haven't contemplated enough?

It's not a deep question at all, it's super superficial: the afterlife is a ruse to keep the gullible beholden to various power structures. It's a man-made construct that requires at a minimum something extra-dimensional for which there isn't a shred of evidence. How people live if they believe or if they do not believe is entirely up to them, and if they would live in a different way if they didn't believe in an afterlife means they've bought into the lies. I'd much rather people make their decisions eyes wide open informed by an ethical framework that does not rely on fairytales or outright lies.

And yes, pretty much everybody in my immediate circle except for one believes that we live only once and that one is a catholic priest of whom that would be expected. But I can't look in his head so who knows what he really believes...

> lies

> superficial

It sounds like you're not up for a discussion whatsoever. And I respect that. I just dislike when people dismiss thousands of years of history because they themselves have no inherit experience with something.

Hacker News is sometimes crazy like that. You stumble into ideas/people who present to you concepts that perhaps are too crazy to take it all at once.

It's not that they are delusional, it's that they can't prove it. They don't have evidence, they have faith.