When is consciousness going to end?

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Buddhism’s answer to this question is, when you finally get fully enlightened. Christianity simply doesn’t have an answer to the question.

What I consider when I want to answer this question largely is, why in the world would anybody want consciousness to end? It can only come from a perspective of scarcity and loss and trauma and falsity. If these things did not happen to you, then you won’t ever want cessation. But they’re temporal, they don’t happen to everybody. So anybody who would want it won’t want it forever. Which means it’s not a real want.

If you ask me, that’s the end of the answer. Whoever wants it will eventually be confronted with true eternity, and once so confronted, the person will not really want oblivion. It’s not a matter of what religion you are, but rather what your soul truly wants. Anybody with real desires not borne of temporal desires will have the same answer, never. Consciousness will last forever. What does forever mean? Simple, until the being is able to forget what led them to have the desire.

This kicks the temporal can down the road a bit. If you’re serious about rigor, ok, it’s not really forever. But it’s long enough.

A lot of people make a lot of bones out of the fact that David’s lineage, promised by God, who is omnipotent, to last forever, but yet has done nothing of the sort. Christians have taken pains to claim that Jesus is from the line of David, but have never been truly convincing about that.

But look at it from God’s perspective. Israelites simply didn’t hold up their end of the bargain. Sure, God knew they wouldn’t, being omniscient and all. That David’s kingdom lasted as long as it did is a kindness. The Israelites didn’t deserve it. Is God really beholden to his promise to David no matter what?

I’d argue no. To keep that promise would invariably cause God’s power to facilitate evil. Such power should only be God’s, not outside of Him. Nobody ever considers the consequences of divine action and promise.

God eventually fulfilled the spirit of His promise, by sending Jesus. Jesus didn’t need to be literally of the line of David in order to be what humanity and God needed Him to be. And Jesus was successful beyond anybody’s wildest dreams.

So, my answer to this question is, that this fails on purpose to truly understand eternity, and in these situations, God will fulfill what’s important about His promises and not even try anymore to fulfill what isn’t. If people hate God for that, then I personally am fine with that.

So to bring this to a conclusion, consciousness lasts as long as you would want it to last if you loved being alive, because eventually you will have that desire, despite how you feel now. To expect God to act differently is to say He shouldn’t be omnibenevolent.