This sounds to me like you just wanted to come here and preach, perhaps burn off some steam. In this case I'd really rather not respond to any of it, because posts like these it doesn't matter if one responds to it even if the responses were true. On the other hand, since you felt so free to be so blunt and pig-headed it makes me want to tell you how ignorant this whole topic is.
The funny part is that I'm not even all that "religious" so why would I care what you think anyways? I mean really all you did was repeat a bunch of generic ill-informed nonsense atheists have been touting what they copied from their atheist Masters for years on end. Stupid Theists right? what do they know about a reality they have been learning from since humans have existed? silly Theists always dreaming up nonsense because they are too afraid to face reality as it is right? everything they claim is based off what they wish to be true so it's all just a coping mechanism correct? well then....since I'm an atheist or some snot nosed fool who refuses to step onto one side of the fence that's what all my beliefs will be based upon! since consciousness surviving death can't be true, and the proposition of an afterlife is simply a fairy tale then I'm just going to believe that it's all just a coping mechanism Theists make up to relieve themselves from the gloomy facts of life. Besides, who are they that I can learn anything about reality from right? how could I ever learn anything from from a bunch of primitive, ignorant goatherders from the bronze age about life?
Lol, the truth is that people who tell themselves that religions and religious propositions are just coping mechanisms and results of wishful thinking aren't paying attention. These are folks who have put very little time in researching the depths of religious claims. They have put very little thought into the implications of an eternal Creator, what that means and what it may entail and believe it or not have avoided considering the obvious correlations between religious propositions about an afterlife and the life in which we observe here on earth. In other words, if God exists then what we see here reflects what exists when we leave this world in many ways. It seems to me if someone wanted to create a fantasy that avoided the fundamentals of our reality they would have been a lot more creative...
Pretty much everything that has been proposed at least through religious sources is simply an EXTENSION of what we encounter HERE, whether it be elevated or not. So I fail to see how such proposals amount to coping mechanisms, since a failure to cope with reality would entail we escape the very facts of life and what we experience here correct? wouldn't it be stupid for those who can't cope with reality create an extension that reflects the very things they wish to escape?
If those who wanted to create a pipedream fantasy story book about an afterlife where everything was just so fun and cozy they did a horrible job at it. If they wanted to sucker people into buying into the idea of a paradise where suffering no longer exists and the consequences of their actions have no relevance they did a piss poor job at it. Why would they even bother with a Ruler or King that is bothered with the concerns of morality in any way at all? With only a handful of passages in the Bible about a paradise beyond the immediate physical world (for those who live righteously) and the rest of the book about the cruel facts and suffering of life, moral principles and reality about our actions in an attempt to create some fictional fantasy land it's a complete failure!
For those who were butchered or murdered simply for their beliefs who just couldn't cope with the hardships of life and suffering they sure didn't face them eh?
I mean why the hell would an eternal Creator create more than one measly planet to live on with one lifespan to experience anyways? what sense does that make right?
-The bottom line is that you seem to be a person very unfamiliar with the reality and implications of an eternal creative Force. And in that your scope of reality is very jaded and limited.
- Atheists basically have no idea what the fck is going on despite the illusion they think they do know, all their silly assumptions revolve around the idea that Theists are deluded, stupid, mentally deranged and they just create coping mechanisms to deal with the realities of life. Atheists are mental midgets. The irony is they believe they are the mental giants lol.
- For those who go around claiming we can't know anything about God or we have no access to all the facts about life are deluded dimwits to be frank. They'll never know anything even if the truth shows up at the doorstep. Their awareness is simply forever in the clouds and their perceptions of existence will always appear hazy and too far fetched to ever be grasped.
- Most religions were never an attempt to evade or escape reality, they are based upon observations of this life and transcendental experiences.
-Spirituality is the opposite of wishful thinking, it's funny that people don't know that. Spirituality opposes what the individual wishes and wants, that assumption couldn't be any further from the truth.
- Are religious propositions all that exist within creation? hell no! absolutely not.... not at all but they do have relevance because they exist within a cosmos of experiences that go well beyond those propositions! they are only one part of a grand scheme of the journey of the eternal soul. Those extended societies only fit into a massive, layered hierarchy of experiences people normally have zero perception of. People really have no clue what an eternal creative Force creates, they have no perspective of what that means and that's okay because their little narrow perspective means everything to their personal journey. But for those who desire more out of life should not be fooled into thinking that religions are just made up nonsense, rather they should consider accepting them as just a part of God's eternal creative play for the souls who inhabit creation and that there is much more to experience beyond them.
- The soul can't be what the Creator is not, because the soul is the only one thing that directly reflects exactly what is the Creator, it is made up of the very fundamental nature of God and can be nothing else. If God is eternal, the soul must be by necessity. That has nothing to do with avoiding reality or creating coping mechanisms, it is the very essence of what consciousness is and will always be. I'm saying this from a position where I personally don't give a fck what I want to be true. Honestly, whether or not it is a fact has nothing to do with what I want or wish, I don't care one way or another, but I'm not going to avoid it either and I have no intention of saying this to avoid the facts of life.
And in this reality God has elaborated on it, so God has accommodated the eternal nature of the soul by preparing many places of experience. And the varying nature of what exists beyond this world reflects the creative nature of God, it has nothing to do with human coping mechanisms. If anything it's GODS coping mechanism not ours because the Creator also has an investment is all of this....
Yes we die, nobody is denying we lose the physical body but yes the soul moves on to the next experience. This will always be a part of creation whether or not we believe someone is pulling our chains about it, it's simply what will happen. NDE's, spiritual experience and paranormal encounters show this to be true, so we also have evidence to support the proposition. But again, I don't give a rats arse about what I want to be true, my life doesn't reflect someone who tries to avoid reality as it is, and TBH surviving death is not as comforting as people would assume because some of our experiences with life have been not so pleasant, why torture ourselves with the prospect of continuing it? I mean really come on...
What exists on the other side is not just fun and games, not in any stretch of the imagination. Yes, paradises exist beyond what you could ever dream of in many parts of creation, because beauty and creativity are simply a part of God, but there will always be the dual side of that because to have beauty there must be grotesque features as well. Just as beautiful a thing you could imagine, the most disturbing thing you could imagine exists as well. Knowing that the soul could sojourn in any environment is not a fun thought, at least not for me so again, not something I wish to be a part of.