To elaborate on the harm of the “live forever” belief, it makes people apathetic to the suffering of human life.
We all get one life, nothing more. Some—many—people spend their entire lives in great pain from starvation, diseases, oppression, etc. An observer’s belief in a perfect, eternal afterlife mitigates the horror of this waste of human life. “They may suffer now, but after death, they’ll have an eternity of happiness and content.”
This argument presupposes that the “live forever” belief is false. While it is, offering it as an explanation for why the “death is good” belief is bad is unhelpful, as nearly all the people who hold the latter belief also hold the former.
To elaborate on the harm of the “live forever” belief, it makes people apathetic to the suffering of human life.
We all get one life, nothing more. Some—many—people spend their entire lives in great pain from starvation, diseases, oppression, etc. An observer’s belief in a perfect, eternal afterlife mitigates the horror of this waste of human life. “They may suffer now, but after death, they’ll have an eternity of happiness and content.”
This argument presupposes that the “live forever” belief is false. While it is, offering it as an explanation for why the “death is good” belief is bad is unhelpful, as nearly all the people who hold the latter belief also hold the former.