Without disrespecting you, I will say that I do NOT believe that technology is at fault.  In fact, I believe most of this panic about the the mass destruction of the planet to be a powergrab by fear mongers in power who want to sucker us into into a dictatorship by "giving us the answer".  Call it a hunch or call it "sounding too bad to be true" but I do not accept ANYTHING thrown at me whether it be mass media or alternative as absolute fact, just information.     That is about all I have to say without veering off subject.  May I kindly ask that you refrain from "fearing" up the forum. 

It is NOT selfish to decide to be a bachelor at all.  As a matter of fact, I personally have no urgent need to bring in children unless I am confident that they will surely bring benefit to our healing world.

- Steve

B-man,

The logically prior question is this: Do you owe love and loyalty to anyone?  If so, how is this "debt" different than the "debt" owed to God?

Don

B-man,

The logically prior question is this: Do you owe love and loyalty to anyone?  If so, how is this "debt" different than the "debt" owed to God?

Don
*****************
Actually, I believe I DON'T owe love and loyalty to anyone or
anything, Don.
I love my parents, sure. They were, and are, great people! But what if
they had been abusive scumbags, like so many parents in this world are?
Do the children of such abominations, owe them any loyalty, or
love, or gratitude? (I say NOT!!!)
I love my country, Don. I'd fight for America, if we were genuinely
threatened by an outside enemy (imagine China was invading us,
or what have you.) But what if America descends into a dictatorship
reminiscent of bad 80's science fiction (like in "The Running Man"
or what have you?) If we end up with a situation where our own
system is as bad as anything the Chinese could impose on us, would
America still deserve my loyalty then? I'm not saying what I'd do in
THAT situation, because I don't know. READ THAT AGAIN... I don't
know!
I certainly wouldn't volunteer for the current idiot-fest in Iraq, and I'd fight any attempt to conscript me into it, or to recall me to service - hey, it could happen... I'm not married, no kids, and I'm ex-military to boot. Still fairly young and I'm in GREAT physical shape! AND I hear the military's having problems with getting new blood to sign up. (Why am I so "unpatriotic" here, Don? Because Saddam posed NO threat to us, we invaded WITHOUT just cause. This isn't behavior I associate with America, it's more fitting for some 10th-rate nation where the population is a bunch of illiterate goobers who hang garlic around their necks, and hunt werewolves on Saturday nights..!)
Am I a patriotic American? Sure! America (as it currently is) DESERVES my loyalty. But if I were a citizen of Garlic-stinkovania or whatever, I'd like to think I'd be UNPATRIOTIC. Ya dig?
To sum it up, I don't believe in blind loyalty or undiscriminating love
for anyone, or anything. To the extent that I should love or be loyal
to anyone or anything, that subject needs to DESERVE it.
***Oh, but you say I'm a "sinner" and don't deserve "God's" grace,
so I should love/be loyal to him/her/it?***
THEN WHY DID THE DUMB SH!T CREATE ME? Unless "He" is a limited being who didn't know I'd be a sinner, in which case "worshipping" him/her/it is as silly as worshipping former Ugandan dictator Idi Amin (ANOTHER megalomaniac with great, but limited, power..!)
You're not stupid, Don. Pull your head out of the sand, you're not
an ostrich! (Or are you..?)

B-man

Yes, it is a rare and extraordinary privilege to be born a human being.

love, blink

Hi B-Man-
It's interesting that most of us can, with a little effort, turn our meditative senses backwards to the Initial Event, the point of creation. To be able to do this suggests that we were somehow there, and that we've been recycled ever since in order to become whatever it is that we are now. That's interesting in the sense that the instant of Creation was evidently a more or less singular event in voidness. The Creator (whether you view It as statistical, energetic, or whatever) acted alone out of emptiness. And there you are. I wonder, could it be that You are that Creator? - or at least a projection of the nature of the Creator? In that case, you owe yourself no worship or adulation, but simply recognition of your own true nature. And that means that you can answer why You created you. My guess is that it was fun - but that's just a guess.

dave
*****************
Well, if I MYSELF was my own creator, then I guess I have no beef
worth beefing about.
If my creator was SOMEONE ELSE, however, someone NOT me,
but an "other"... then I start getting really, REALLY angry if said
"other" wants me to brown-nose him/her/it. I'm a misanthrope,
Dave. Generally speaking, I DON'T LIKE MOST PEOPLE. Especially
bully-type people (which is what the personal, "other" god of
Western religion truly is..!) When it comes to bullies, I like to
imagine them being tortured, maimed, and mutilated... in fact,
if "Hell" was strictly for bully-types, I wouldn't mind the doctrine
in the least. But "Hell" isn't for bullies, it is reserved mostly for those
who refuse to prostrate themselves and lick "God's" boots. Because
you see - being a bully ISN'T what the Western/Yahwist god dislikes,
it's failing to be a brown-nosing, groveling toady (the flip side of a bully-type, really.)
See where my beef is, now?

B-man

B-man,

It's understandable that a guy like you, who refuses to read a single book on the afterlife, keeps missing the point.  God created you with the freedom to experience and master Pure Unconditional love.  That purpose is revolting to an admitted "misanthrope" like you.  So now you get to experience the consequences of your loveless decisions, with the caveat that you will choose a Hell with souls just like youself who cannot conceal their thoughts from each other.  In other words, you will dwell in a realm where Jesus' principle, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto uou" is enforced.  It's your choice and you can make different choices. 
*****************
Well, what can I say, Don? Except that there aren't many folks
that are "just like me."
Those that ARE like me, are at least honest about their selfishness
and don't quote platitudes or try to come across as somebody they
are not (i.e. NOT being like THIS: saying "I'm such a GOOD chap, I help old ladies across the street and rescue kitties from trees and I donate 10% of my income to the American Christian Anti-Fun and Pro-Boredom society every year" while I steal you blind when you turn your back...)
SO, the "Hell" I end up in should be pretty sparsely populated, with everybody generally shunning each other... right?
What people, are like me? Basically... non-social people who value their freedom over being secure in a hierarchy. LIBERTARIANS,
essentially. So what might "Selfish Antisocial Libertarian Hell" look
like, Don???
Perhaps we'll all live in our own heavily armed compounds or something, separated by miles of rocky desert or what have
you. (So much for getting "slapped around", I could SHOOT aggressive a-holes who came my way! I'm not all that great a fist-man, but I DO have good natural marksmanship abilities, which I might still have in "Hell." AND people "like me" don't go looking for fights as a rule, so I'm O.K. there...) AND if the afterlife responds to our imaginations, maybe we'll even have slave robots or something like that to help build our compounds, grow food, and so on. I think I could deal with that; though I'd still prefer personal annihilation/oblivion/
obliteration. I would certainly be DEPRESSED at having to live forever, much as that thief in "Thief Hell" you told me about! He got what he wanted, why couldn't I? (Why must immortality be COMPULSORY, Don? You
still haven't given me a decent answer, unless you are going by
certain passages in the Book of Revelation, which Thomas Jefferson
(quite properly, I think) called "the ravings of a lunatic"...)

B-recluse

P.S. Maybe I'd read the books, if they were concise, to the
point, and not filled with abstruse obfuscations and foggy
allusions which make them a TORTURE to read, by and
large. (Much like the Bible is a torture to read...)

BE-recluseman, 

Perhaps your Hell will be composed of snarly, very private "misanthropes" likew you.  But it's human nature  to crave SOME interpersonal contact.   So what mvght that custom-made contact be like for you, Brendon?   Do some reading and find out for yourself.  You know yourelf better than any of us.  Just imagine a loveless realm of souls like you who can't conceal their thought life from each other.   What cool will that be?   Maybe you'll even like it--for a while.   

Ah, but then you forget an aspect of human nature that will fuel our postmortem progress---sheer boredom.   Astral contacts claim that a dreadful saitiation sets in after overexposure to the same old routines and social options.  Then, new longings can be awakened.  And that change creates the possibility of soul retrievals.   But, I guess--not for you.   When you get bored enough with the same old, same old, you just might find the long dreary path to the soul annihilation you seem to crave.   New thoughts and desires seem anathema to you.   Just remember that you created your own journey.

Don
*****************
I've thought about the "new desires and new thoughts" you speak
of many, many times...
But then a TRULY DEPRESSING realization comes...
I'd have to become the type of person I DESPISE, to adopt them.
Indeed, in many ways I once was that type of person, Don. My only
wish regarding THAT, is that I can't go back in time 20-25 years and SLAP SOME SENSE into the "sweetheart chump dreamy-minded idealistic utopian nice-guy idiot" that I
was back then (age about 17-23 or therebouts. Except I'm afraid
that once I started beating on my(former)self, I might not be able to stop..!)
Hence, my "rigidity" about your "new ideas and concepts." (Too
bad, so sad...)

B-man

P.S. SHOULD "new longings awaken" in me post-mortem, I'm
sure they will come naturally (much as the taste I developed
after the age of 20 for spicy food.) Meanwhile, I don't intend to
break a sweat WORKING for them. If they come, then they'll
come... 'nuff said!