[QUOTE=xZippy;42333540]Some believe he wasn't "caused" at all, because he's in a place where time is nonexistent, therefore there wouldn't be a pre-era where God never existed. Even some NDE's have people who entered realms which had no time. I don't fully believe all that though.
And to those of you who are blatantly saying "Nope. There's no afterlife, period." and not much else, what's your definite proof of that?[/QUOTE]
There is no proof that there is no afterlife, but since you are making the claim that there is or might be one, you are the one who needs to provide evidence or else it is meaningless.
[QUOTE=xZippy;42333540]Some believe he wasn't "caused" at all, because he's in a place where time is nonexistent, therefore there wouldn't be a pre-era where God never existed. Even some NDE's have people who entered realms which had no time. I don't fully believe all that though.[/quote]
This is a shoddy. Why is the first cause exempt, and which god is it?
[quote]And to those of you who are blatantly saying "Nope. There's no afterlife, period." and not much else, what's your definite proof of that?[/QUOTE]
You have to provide proof it exists, not the other way around.
It doesn't exist until we have evidence of it existing.
[QUOTE=xZippy;42333540]And to those of you who are blatantly saying "Nope. There's no afterlife, period." and not much else, what's your definite proof of that?[/QUOTE]
If there was afterlife, only the dead would know something about it. And there are a HELL of a lot of dead forms of life across our Universe, so.. Are they all in the afterlife?
So, as far as we know, there is no afterlife, just life after death after life after death, just like it has been -- and for a long time too, as seemingly evident on our planet.
I just don't see how it's logically or scientifically possible to live on after you're dead :v:
[editline]28th September 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=jobizzle;42329025]Existence of the universe isn't evidence enough? The first cause argument? I don't see how the universe could be eternal, nor how it could have just appeared from nothingness.[/QUOTE]
I doubt the Universe is "eternal" (whatever that means in a Cosmological discussion) or came from "nothing" (again whatever that means in a Cosmological discussion) but I have no doubt what was before/beyond our universe is also a natural process of some kind.
[QUOTE=TurboSax;42321888]I'm personally a believer in the idea of a consciousness that succeeds the physical body in some form, be it a soul or some other phenomenon. I'm somewhat religious (Christian), so I believe in heaven and hell, God and Christ, etc., but I think the idea of a non-physical embodiment of the conscious mind that survives when the body dies could be scientifically possible as well.
I've wondered about this thing quite a bit, honestly. What if consciousness has its own energy, and what is religiously perceived as a soul is really a scientific phenomenon? What if consciousness is so far and alien from our world that it exists in another plane, and the sentience-capable body serves as an anchor-point to this plane for the consciousness, which is either partially or fully severed from this plane once the body dies? What if we and/or other animals are actually some form of multi-stage life that takes another form in an unperceivable but close parallel of this world upon death, like a tadpole becoming a frog and leaving the water (but with dying involved)?
I suppose you could even explain religion scientifically this way, with God or a group of gods being extremely strong consciousnesses/lifeforms and/or the first to exist, and the various realms of the many afterlifes being conjured forth by the powers of the beings that exist beyond the veil of death, or by the first consciousness(es). Perhaps going by this logic, all afterlifes could exist and all gods and demons could as well, since all would be created by the minds or beings that inhabited that space. The sheer number of religions that exist and the fervent belief in them, as well as the effects that devotion to said religions seem to have on this world mean that it's very likely that there's something awaiting us beyond death.
Some form of scientific phenomenon that makes communication and semi-physical manifestation of the new lifeform or severed consciousness far more difficult would certainly explain how rare and hard to contact/perceive ghosts/apparitions are. Being in a state of dimensional flux when trying to make contact with this world would certainly explain such difficulties very well. I'm betting we'll get a lot closer to knowing the answer to all of our questions regarding death and consciousness if we ever figure out how to observe or travel to other dimensions, assuming they even exist.
Apologies if any of this seems jumbled or muddled, I'm tired as hell. Tried to make sure it was coherent though.[/QUOTE]
If the soul is real, and your personality is reliant on it, then no damage to the brain should be able to change who you are unless it also effects the "soul" something that would then be physical, because it can be effected by a physical change. If it's physical, we can detect it. So where is it? We literally can't measure any energy leaving the body like you would imagine a soul to leave the body. So then it's non physical and undetectable, and somehow it still interacts with the world. So that doesn't seem scientifically possible as of yet and I don't see a reason to believe it.
[editline]28th September 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=xZippy;42333540]Some believe he wasn't "caused" at all, because he's in a place where time is nonexistent, therefore there wouldn't be a pre-era where God never existed. Even some NDE's have people who entered realms which had no time. I don't fully believe all that though.
And to those of you who are blatantly saying "Nope. There's no afterlife, period." and not much else, what's your definite proof of that?[/QUOTE]
I can't be definite about it. I can be pretty sure about it though. Just like I can be pretty sure that God doesn't get an exemption from "First cause".
[editline]28th September 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=jobizzle;42329004]Are you stupid? I'm not saying 'Jesus was real' i'm saying many religious people believe he was and that they believe in the biblical account given of his existence.
Leviticus (king james version)
17:11 For the life (also translatable as 'soul') of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.
17:12 Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.[/QUOTE]
the king james bible was literally rewritten to be closer to poetry
don't quote it like it's relevant please.
[editline]28th September 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=matt000024;42329389]Not everything is directly understood Sobotnik.
What would you do if somebody one day provided direct proof of a strange idea like that they could predict the future directly. Or what if it happened to you directly? You had a vision which came perfectly true. Would you instantly dismiss it because you could not find a scientific reason? Isn't the point of science to find out why and how? By dismissing an idea immediately just because it does not logically fit you are closing doors to possible truths. What if every scientist immediately dismissed the idea of atoms being able to be broken down just because they could not realize so with their current technology?[/QUOTE]
important difference between your hypothetical and what we're talking about here.
none of us have experienced it so we have no reason to believe it.
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;42334192]This is a shoddy. Why is the first cause exempt, and which god is it?[/quote]
Wait what? "Exempt"? I'm not stating this stuff as fact. That's just how some people would respond to the "who created god?" thing. As for which god, I don't know, the one that's presumably responsible for making people.
To me, the idea of the "soul" and by extension ghosts and afterlives kind of reduces the world to a vastly more simple and unexciting version of what it actually is.
I mean, let's think about the human brain for a moment. It's made up of neurons, ~20,000,000,000 of them. That's three times the amount of people on the planet, all in a single brain. All these neurons fit perfectly together like a 3-dimensional jigsaw, without gaps in between, and they're constantly firing and communicating with each other and affecting how each other works.
[URL="http://youtu.be/AqK6eE51Ctk?t=49m30s"]With our current technology it'd take 4000 years to make a map of where all the neurons fit together in one [I]mouse[/I] brain. For a [I]human[/I] it'd take 1000x that - 4,000,000 years.[/URL] It'd take that long to even build that map, let alone for anyone to comprehend it, or how all of that functions as a whole, with every one of those neurons touching and twisting and going around each other in 3-dimensional space and messages flying throughout and changing what all the others are doing, every moment of the day.
Now think about what we can do with computers - they're all made out of physical stuff but put together in such a complex way that transcends that - the parts all affect the other parts, and emerging from all that is information, language, behaviour. We can do complex calculations that a human couldn't do in a decade, we can make it learn human speech patterns and respond accordingly, we can make pictures appear on flat surfaces, we can create entire worlds that can almost fool you into thinking they're the real thing, especially with new tech like the Rift. All of that emerges out of the way all those physical parts are organised and interact, in a really complex way that to the layperson you'd find it extremely difficult to comprehend. And our most powerful and complex computers are [I]extremely[/I] simple in comparison to a human brain. Just think what emergent behaviour something as complex as that can create.
I find it kind of sad that people bring all that insane amount of complexity down to something as basic and mundane as a "soul", like it's some kind of supernatural sludge that you just pour in and it makes things intelligent with no explanation (that's just what it does, don't ask questions - that's destructive). It's as if instead of all the incredible ingenuity people used to design computers and make them work in such a complex way that gives us the marvels we have today, they just found a substance called "computium", and it did it all for them. It takes away all the amazement and incomprehensibility about it - instead of something so complex it's beyond our current comprehension, yet at the same time very much a part of the world we live in (which is what makes the world so wonderful), it's just magic stuff from somewhere else that you shouldn't bother thinking about to much. It's lazy thinking, it's boring, and I don't like it.
That's not an argument or logical way of thinking about how you're sure it was a god, let alone any god
Tweevle, that's a pretty good point - I personally don't understand people who give the argument that because something is so complex there can't be a scientific explanation, I mean with that kind of thinking we would be nowhere with technology today :v:
I, like many others, simply use it as something to look "back" on, in case of severity. Simply put: "If it really does all go downhill from here, I won't be gone away for too long"
Be it a paradise or simply...something else.
We can only ask the dead for this answer, truly.
Well I can't say I don't know. I mostly hope there is a place that replicate earth and you can meet relatives.
[QUOTE=Levithan;42321739]Ghosts are too affected by gravity, there is a huge ball of ectoplasm at the center of the earth where the ghosts of everything that has ever lived ever dwells in a place of perpetual heat, pressure, and agony.[/QUOTE]
So you mean hell?
Anyway, I do believe in a life after death (Christian), but in the words of Donald Rumsfeld: "Now what is the message there? The message is that there are no "knowns." There are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we do not know we don't know. So when we do the best we can and we pull all this information together, and we then say well that's basically what we see as the situation, that is really only the known knowns and the known unknowns. And each year, we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns."
I don't think the Universe ends when I die, so there is life after death.
How ridiculous is it to believe in an afterlife for yourself when we know no one who has died and come back to tell us what it's like.
Why believe what the guy who is still alive is saying? Is he/she dead?
I believe you die. The universe continues, the universe eventually dies, the universe then restarts, a new big bang, a new you. You then live a life very similar to the one you have lived for all eternity. This would also be why we have the feeling of déjà vu.
When you die you dream.
[QUOTE=theVendetta;42366452]I believe you die. The universe continues, the universe eventually dies, the universe then restarts, a new big bang, a new you. You then live a life very similar to the one you have lived for all eternity. This would also be why we have the feeling of déjà vu.[/QUOTE]
But how do you back this up, do you just believe it because it is nice to believe in it? I don't understand.
The brain is just a pile of assorted mush (as a very brief description), sending + relaying electrical impulses & whatever (correct me if I'm wrong), and once the brain has ceased to produce any electricity to circulate by, our consciousness, produced by the brain is no longer there, I don't see electrical impulses being detected at the moment of any creature's death given the purpose of being sent to a heaven-like area hidden in space, it'd make no sense, and even if that WAS the case, we'd be transferred to a new body to die in THAT, then again and again until the universe finally ends it's course.
Well, I've probably just made 100,000,000 logical mistakes in that one comment so... It's least likely that I'm right.
If we're talking about energy leaving a system, it's no different than turning off a lawnmower. There is energy within the workings of a lawnmower and then you hit the kill switch and it stops. Whatever energy is left is used either to stop the mower or given off as heat.
If there are such things as ghosts than that would mean every living thing would have a ghost. Cow ghosts, snake ghosts, fly ghosts, paramecium ghosts, bacteria ghosts, etc. Any living thing that uses energy would have a ghost.
So to answer your question, I don't believe in life after death. After death, I imagine it's like before we were born.
I think it's just end-all. Just black, no thoughts, no anything.
[QUOTE=Angry pepper;42368392]The brain is just a pile of assorted mush (as a very brief description), sending + relaying electrical impulses & whatever (correct me if I'm wrong), and once the brain has ceased to produce any electricity to circulate by, our consciousness, produced by the brain is no longer there, I don't see electrical impulses being detected at the moment of any creature's death given the purpose of being sent to a heaven-like area hidden in space, it'd make no sense, and even if that WAS the case, we'd be transferred to a new body to die in THAT, then again and again until the universe finally ends it's course.
Well, I've probably just made 100,000,000 logical mistakes in that one comment so... It's least likely that I'm right.[/QUOTE]
But from a religious point of view, heaven or hell don't have to physically exist in our universe or dimension or whatever.
[QUOTE=theVendetta;42366452]I believe you die. The universe continues, the universe eventually dies, the universe then restarts, a new big bang, a new you. You then live a life very similar to the one you have lived for all eternity. This would also be why we have the feeling of déjà vu.[/QUOTE]
How do you know this to be true?
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;42371415]How do you know this to be true?[/QUOTE]
He doesn't. How would your next self, billions of years later in the next universe, experience 'deja vu', or have any connection to his 'previous' self?
Sometimes I do sometimes I don't most of the time I don't care.
I hope there is.
I want there to be.
But I also have that voice of logic that says probably not.
[QUOTE=Cuddly;42375445]Sometimes I do sometimes I don't most of the time I don't care.[/QUOTE]
If you don't care why are you posting in a debating thread in which you are meant to post your view and argue your point?
There's little point if you just come here and say "I don't care".
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;42376919]If you don't care why are you posting in a debating thread in which you are meant to post your view and argue your point?
There's little point if you just come here and say "I don't care".[/QUOTE]
I am posting my view. Sometimes I think there might be, other times I don't, It's weird.
[QUOTE=Cuddly;42376989]I am posting my view. Sometimes I think there might be, other times I don't, It's weird.[/QUOTE]
Why do you hold this view?
[QUOTE=Sobotnik;42377001]Why do you hold this view?[/QUOTE]
I haven't seen any proof of an afterlife. But at the same time I want to believe there is.
I think it has something to do with ego, I just can't imagine or accept the idea of a permanent end.
I don't mind either, I'd rather come back though. Or would I? Fuuuuuuuu
Isn't something like an afterlife inherently un-provable?
I hope there's no life after death. Heaven does not seem appealing to me, hell even less so
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