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[OutrageousFacts]

PS could be full of typo's and hard to read, didn't read it through because i got it busy but decided to post anyway.

Let me bore you to death,. I think about this alot and frankly i tend to talk about it with other people a lot over the years i exist.. I think death is the most interesting concept even while most people don't like thinking about it at all. It's fascinating on what will happen after u die so i will get a bit more into it why i think the way i think.

To make it short for people that don't want to read a lot.

Under here i explain why i think resurrection is a thing and why souls exist and how i come to that conclusion. I also talk about religion how religions conclusions are illogical but understandable.

Long theory now:

Why do i exist now? why did i not exist 100 years before i was born? why did i not exist 200 years before i was born or a 1000 years? What decided that i had to live now and that it's the current times or even a 100 years after now? Only logical conclusion is i either got super amounts of luck with hitting this time period with existing or what's more likely the case that u will exist again. How frequently and as what, that's up to debate because i actually never though about that myself as future and multiple dimensions could also be placed into this concept + religions. It's a lot of information. But its safe to assume i will exist again, because i exist now. It's illogical to assume i will never exist again because i most likely would not exist right now. The fact that i exist is proof that i will exist again.

Now what exactly happens after death or what transpires that's where religions casters towards and creates worlds to cater towards their audiences like waiting rooms ( hell / heaven ), buddhists resurrection, stardust scientology, muslim great resurrection. Which is kinda interesting if you think about it. At the end religions are useful by the fact that a bunch of people really though deep about what happens when u die. However they are just opinions and aren't really something u can base the reality around because u cannot confirm it as it doesn't affect your own experience which is the only experience u can work with outside of unbiased research.

I think it's crucial to base things on facts u can confirm yourself rather then rely on information from outside sources that is out of your control.
For example jesus resurrection is a nice story but total bullshit he never died or he died, because your body degrades ridiculously hard the moment it stops functioning. This is a good example of why religions aren't particularly useful to think about what really is going to happen. Because they are most of all story's or idea's rather then factual material, specially with changing documents over time which we also call open documents.

The thing about jesus or any resurrection is in the same body and character idea, u can confirm this yourself. By simple knowing your past life. While some people tend to know who they where, or at least they say. Humans also have the most irritating feature that is lying. This means u cannot confirm this unless i can confirm it for myself as i can't relay on other people's opinion because of this. And the conclusion i draw out of this is that i sadly don't know nothing or at any stage of my life anything about a past life. So this means i started with a full reset. My brain kinda remembers a lot and tends to keep detailed records of my experiences. Because i still remember things perfectly fine when i was as young as 3 years old. It's weird but that's how my brain functions. And even then i could not recall anything of a earlier past or even bits off it.

The conclusion out of this is, that i cannot relay on outside resources because i cannot confirm if they are true or not. ( however i can use research that is based on factual information and has no bias) i do not know if you function the same way as i function or if you are actually even alive to start with, i assume u are because that's how i am. But i cannot confirm that. This is where theory's come in where people come out and say well there are only a fixed amount of souls in the universe and a whole lot of nobody's that are just people that do the same thing and are programmed to do the same thing but will never be able to critical think as they have no soul or personality but just follows the flow.

Now this could be true even while it sounds ridiculous. But it could also be complete bullshit which is more likely the case. However i cannot confirm or deny it. Because i cannot control you or somebody else. So i only have limited experience in my own body and i reflect on that.

Which brings me to the next part souls.

I do think souls exist and with soul i mean something outside of your flesh and tissue.

Now we all know, that the true end game of you as person is your brain. everything else is replaceable and u will still be fine as person. If your brain gets damaged u are not. The most logical conclusion u can draw at this point is that your brain is you as person and that's it. However there is another thing where souls comes into the mix.

How come if you clone me, i will not be able to control two body's. Because i am the same brain after all. With cloned animals they behave at the end different and have different characters even while they have the same traits. That's the information that these researches come out with ( there is no reason to assume these researches lie as there is no gain by it ). This means that if you get cloned u will lose the control over the other body. Now if your brain was supposed to be really you. and it was only 1 soul connected towards it And with really you i mean being able to control that other person, then u would be able to control multiple body's through cloning or if you basically are a twin. This is not the case. Twins are also 2 individual persons that cannot control both body's. U can test this by simple putting a twin in another room ask him a question to execute something, the other will not execute it.

This basically means that as u cannot control anybody body in your family like brother/sister/mother/dad/child, u can only control your own body and u are stuck in that body and that body alone until your brain dies. So there needs to be something outside of the brain itself. The only logical explanation is there is something more. But at the same time there also isn't anything more because as twins cannot control each other.

However i still exist, and i exist now which gets me back to the start. That there is proof of something outside of a body structure by the simple fact that i exist right now. And i can only sit in this body and nobody else i can control. But why do i sit in this body and am i not my sister or my dad or the neighbor etc.

This means your brain is not the end game after all, u have something else that decides that this is you that gets control over this person. Your whole flesh body is just that a machine. Nothing more. Something connects towards it that results in you controlling it but what? well religions would call it a soul. But if a soul exists what happens with to that soul when u die? Then we get the point again u will resurrect. How long this would take, is unclear. do you keep your personality that's highly unlikely because your personality is linked towards what your brain learns so that doesn't seem likely at all. Which makes heaven and hell idea kinda a high unlikely concept. Which sounds logical as there is a reason why the religion wants u to believe in it for control.

This is why religions don't make a lot of sense even while they are super helpful in providing well though out idea's on what could possibly happen. U need to stimulate your brain in order to come towards to new idea's that so u can base new theory's on. Religions help a lot here.

Now what happens with the soul after u die.

Now that soul could be going to a parking spot until it lashes to a living being again which u could call the after life. But i highly doubt that the afterlife exists because the soul is disconnected from your brain. And your brain decides all those things. Now what decides this soul to link towards you as body is unclear because i would not know.

That's basically the idea that i get out of it.

Now to get back to religion, they don't make a lot of sense in the fact that they keep your personality ( brain ) . No matter which religion u select they all have this idea. Scientology / buddisme / even the oldest zoro religion known to men, christianity and islam, pharoa's , and jewish part etc etc etc.

However that makes zero sense as the brain dies off and with that your personality.

Your 'multi body controlling' is rather silly, but I think you're on the right way overall. My own thoughts have taken a similar path.

But why do i sit in this body and am i not my sister or my dad

There's an incest joke somewhere, though.

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

Source? YOUR ASSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Look, I'll be totally honest, I believe it because I want to believe it, I don't like the idea of just blanking out of existence and it's utterly bizarre to me that anyone would want to honestly believe that's the case.

I'm serious though when I say that when I think about it the idea of just blanking out of existence makes zero sense to me.

How about this idea? What if when you die.... your life simply starts over again from the beginning? I'd be willing to be it's at least something like that.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

Look, I'll be totally honest, I believe it because I want to believe it, I don't like the idea of just blanking out of existence and it's utterly bizarre to me that anyone would want to honestly believe that's the case.

I'm serious though when I say that when I think about it the idea of just blanking out of existence makes zero sense to me.

How about this idea? What if when you die.... your life simply starts over again from the beginning? I'd be willing to be it's at least something like that.

That sounds terrible

 

[Red Crayon Aristocrat]

That sounds terrible

I'd be ok with it, the idea of being able to go back to the past sounds great to me, but of course I've been lucky enough to not have too bad a life.

But who's to say your life is exactly the same every time, maybe things change?

But either way I feel very confident in saying it's something like that at least, your consciousness either exists forever or it would never have existed in the first place, it doesn't make sense to me that your consciousness could be there one day and gone the next.

Remember, human beings perceive time in a linear fashion but that doesn't mean time quite works that way in terms of how the universe functions, maybe now is forever.

 

[Verdanth]

Hell no, at least I wanna see my beach.

 

[SLoWMoTIoN]

I'd be ok with it, the idea of being able to go back to the past sounds great to me, but of course I've been lucky enough to not have too bad a life.

But who's to say your life is exactly the same every time, maybe things change?

But either way I feel very confident in saying it's something like that at least, your consciousness either exists forever or it would never have existed in the first place, it doesn't make sense to me that your consciousness could be there one day and gone the next.

Remember, human beings perceive time in a linear fashion but that doesn't mean time quite works that way in terms of how the universe functions, maybe now is forever.

The idea of existing again in any shape or form sounds like a bad deal to me. I hope I don't come back. ;/

 

[LaughingStock]

Even those who study consciousness don't know what it actually is. Please tell us more.

Sure. Let's make an experiment. I'll grab a big sledge hammer and hit you in the head until your brain becomes gray matter pate. Then you tell me how you feel.

 

[Airola]

So instead "because the majority of people says to be nice" you think "one person [that does not exist] says to be nice" is a better / stronger reason?

No.

In pure naturalism, morality is a completely subjective thing that could be reversed any day and any good or bad thing that has happened will eventually be as if it never existed. So it is an illusion to think kindness has inherent irrefutable value. I don't think it's wrong to live in that illusion. I think it's good to live in that illusion and I think it's great we live in that illusion.

If God exists, it's the only way for morality to not be subjective and our good and bad actions have meaning even after the universe has stopped existing. Obviously you think that, if something, is an illusion because you think God is an illusion. But we are comparing ideas here and we should look at each of them as if they were the truth and then see how each of them compares to the idea of morality.

Now, sure it could be that both are illusions. But I think only the religious view, if true, can be something else than an illusion. It might not be, but it can be. And I can't say the same about a completely naturalistic worldview.

Moreover, if you look at what Yahweh says in the bible you are supposed to do, it clearly is not what most people nowadays would call being nice. In fact, what people believe Yahweh wants of them still is largely the moral consensus of a bunch of church officials who spin a story around the wishes of Yahweh that has little to no basis in the bible. If the ultimate source of our morality was the bible and what is ascribed to Yahweh in there, we would be much closer to Iran than to how we are now.

Yes, being nice and kind hasn't ever been a black and white issue. Sometimes being kind means to do things that would probably make the receiver of kindness angry, like taking away the drugs of a major drug addict. Sometimes a person even shouldn't be treated kindly, like a rapist getting caught in the act. It's not a kind thing to take away freedom from a person, yet we force people in jail when they break certain rules, and we think that's good.

When we look at the law of God especially in the Old Testament, we have to look at the context and the chronology too. The Mosaic law anti-religious people usually criticize was a thing that happened after there already were countless amounts of people doing bad things. The law was given to a certain group of people as a means to bring order to their disorder. It's not as if it happened on a whim by a tyrannic ruler. Those rules were set up for a reason. There wouldn't had been a need for that if people wouldn't have first fucked up things. Still today we need all kinds of laws and rules. Without laws and rules I don't think our society would last long because of our nature.

Sure, our laws today differ from what the law was back then for the Israelites. In some aspects they are harsher and in some aspects they are lighter. Something that wasn't seen important back then might be a thing that is punishable today. Something that was forbidden back then, is now complete wild west for whoever wants to do it.

 

[Airola]

PS could be full of typo's and hard to read, didn't read it through because i got it busy but decided to post anyway.

Let me bore you to death,. I think about this alot and frankly i tend to talk about it with other people a lot over the years i exist.. I think death is the most interesting concept even while most people don't like thinking about it at all. It's fascinating on what will happen after u die so i will get a bit more into it why i think the way i think.

To make it short for people that don't want to read a lot.

Under here i explain why i think resurrection is a thing and why souls exist and how i come to that conclusion. I also talk about religion how religions conclusions are illogical but understandable.

Long theory now:

Why do i exist now? why did i not exist 100 years before i was born? why did i not exist 200 years before i was born or a 1000 years? What decided that i had to live now and that it's the current times or even a 100 years after now? Only logical conclusion is i either got super amounts of luck with hitting this time period with existing or what's more likely the case that u will exist again. How frequently and as what, that's up to debate because i actually never though about that myself as future and multiple dimensions could also be placed into this concept + religions. It's a lot of information. But its safe to assume i will exist again, because i exist now. It's illogical to assume i will never exist again because i most likely would not exist right now. The fact that i exist is proof that i will exist again.

Now what exactly happens after death or what transpires that's where religions casters towards and creates worlds to cater towards their audiences like waiting rooms ( hell / heaven ), buddhists resurrection, stardust scientology, muslim great resurrection. Which is kinda interesting if you think about it. At the end religions are useful by the fact that a bunch of people really though deep about what happens when u die. However they are just opinions and aren't really something u can base the reality around because u cannot confirm it as it doesn't affect your own experience which is the only experience u can work with outside of unbiased research.

I think it's crucial to base things on facts u can confirm yourself rather then rely on information from outside sources that is out of your control.
For example jesus resurrection is a nice story but total bullshit he never died or he died, because your body degrades ridiculously hard the moment it stops functioning. This is a good example of why religions aren't particularly useful to think about what really is going to happen. Because they are most of all story's or idea's rather then factual material, specially with changing documents over time which we also call open documents.

The thing about jesus or any resurrection is in the same body and character idea, u can confirm this yourself. By simple knowing your past life. While some people tend to know who they where, or at least they say. Humans also have the most irritating feature that is lying. This means u cannot confirm this unless i can confirm it for myself as i can't relay on other people's opinion because of this. And the conclusion i draw out of this is that i sadly don't know nothing or at any stage of my life anything about a past life. So this means i started with a full reset. My brain kinda remembers a lot and tends to keep detailed records of my experiences. Because i still remember things perfectly fine when i was as young as 3 years old. It's weird but that's how my brain functions. And even then i could not recall anything of a earlier past or even bits off it.

The conclusion out of this is, that i cannot relay on outside resources because i cannot confirm if they are true or not. ( however i can use research that is based on factual information and has no bias) i do not know if you function the same way as i function or if you are actually even alive to start with, i assume u are because that's how i am. But i cannot confirm that. This is where theory's come in where people come out and say well there are only a fixed amount of souls in the universe and a whole lot of nobody's that are just people that do the same thing and are programmed to do the same thing but will never be able to critical think as they have no soul or personality but just follows the flow.

Now this could be true even while it sounds ridiculous. But it could also be complete bullshit which is more likely the case. However i cannot confirm or deny it. Because i cannot control you or somebody else. So i only have limited experience in my own body and i reflect on that.

Which brings me to the next part souls.

I do think souls exist and with soul i mean something outside of your flesh and tissue.

Now we all know, that the true end game of you as person is your brain. everything else is replaceable and u will still be fine as person. If your brain gets damaged u are not. The most logical conclusion u can draw at this point is that your brain is you as person and that's it. However there is another thing where souls comes into the mix.

How come if you clone me, i will not be able to control two body's. Because i am the same brain after all. With cloned animals they behave at the end different and have different characters even while they have the same traits. That's the information that these researches come out with ( there is no reason to assume these researches lie as there is no gain by it ). This means that if you get cloned u will lose the control over the other body. Now if your brain was supposed to be really you. and it was only 1 soul connected towards it And with really you i mean being able to control that other person, then u would be able to control multiple body's through cloning or if you basically are a twin. This is not the case. Twins are also 2 individual persons that cannot control both body's. U can test this by simple putting a twin in another room ask him a question to execute something, the other will not execute it.

This basically means that as u cannot control anybody body in your family like brother/sister/mother/dad/child, u can only control your own body and u are stuck in that body and that body alone until your brain dies. So there needs to be something outside of the brain itself. The only logical explanation is there is something more. But at the same time there also isn't anything more because as twins cannot control each other.

However i still exist, and i exist now which gets me back to the start. That there is proof of something outside of a body structure by the simple fact that i exist right now. And i can only sit in this body and nobody else i can control. But why do i sit in this body and am i not my sister or my dad or the neighbor etc.

This means your brain is not the end game after all, u have something else that decides that this is you that gets control over this person. Your whole flesh body is just that a machine. Nothing more. Something connects towards it that results in you controlling it but what? well religions would call it a soul. But if a soul exists what happens with to that soul when u die? Then we get the point again u will resurrect. How long this would take, is unclear. do you keep your personality that's highly unlikely because your personality is linked towards what your brain learns so that doesn't seem likely at all. Which makes heaven and hell idea kinda a high unlikely concept. Which sounds logical as there is a reason why the religion wants u to believe in it for control.

This is why religions don't make a lot of sense even while they are super helpful in providing well though out idea's on what could possibly happen. U need to stimulate your brain in order to come towards to new idea's that so u can base new theory's on. Religions help a lot here.

Now what happens with the soul after u die.

Now that soul could be going to a parking spot until it lashes to a living being again which u could call the after life. But i highly doubt that the afterlife exists because the soul is disconnected from your brain. And your brain decides all those things. Now what decides this soul to link towards you as body is unclear because i would not know.

That's basically the idea that i get out of it.

Now to get back to religion, they don't make a lot of sense in the fact that they keep your personality ( brain ) . No matter which religion u select they all have this idea. Scientology / buddisme / even the oldest zoro religion known to men, christianity and islam, pharoa's , and jewish part etc etc etc.

However that makes zero sense as the brain dies off and with that your personality.

What if brain isn't the source for your personality?

How about identical twins who even when living in same environment become completely different personalitywise.

Maybe one could say that brain obviously is the source because sometimes people with brain damage seem to become completely different persons.
Ok, maybe, but isn't personality more of a spectrum than a certain set of behaviour patterns? We can already be amazingly different people based on our current mood. For an outsider if they see the same person when they are hungry, horny, sad, frustrated, happy, calm, it could look like it's a completely different person in all of those circumstances. Sometimes it even feels like I'm not "myself" when I'm consumed by frustration. Or at least I don't feel like I'm the person I would like to be or what I think I should be or what I expected to be.

What if people who are changed by a brain damage just have their other parts of their personality suppressed, and now have a part that before was suppressed becoming the most visible, or even the only accessible, part of personality.

What if personality is in the electricity that goes through the brain? It might be the electricity itself or it might use the electricity as a vehicle to move around the brain. The brain needs the body to make visible signs of expression of personality. The personality needs brain to make the body to make visible signs of expression of personality. Inability to move the body doesn't mean the brain doesn't exist to move the body. A brain not being able to make the body to move doesn't necessarily mean the personality doesn't exist anymore.

If we reincarnate it doesn't necessarily mean we aren't quite the same personalitywise what our previous forms were. Maybe if I tend to be arrogant now, my previous lives had the habit to be arrogant too.

Of babies and little kids seemingly learning to have a personality, I've toyed with this thought of humans in their early stage of existence being too wild and uncontrollable so that they are made to be less able to do things for a reason. If you give and adult the power of God, it would probably bring destruction. If you look at a child and see how much they do stupid things and have tantrums, I can't even imagine how bad things would be if they had the power of God. Even if they had only the power of an adult, it would be an absolute disaster. So there might be a deeper reason why we are omitted the skills to do much of anything when we are born and live the first part of our lives. That's why it might seem like we don't have a personality. It's because we can't be given too much of an ability to express it if we want to keep ourselves safe from ourselves.
Obviously I'm talking out of my ass there, but it's an interesting thing I've been wondering about.

 

[appaws]

Catholic.

I was agnostic early in my adult life (18-20). The argument from first cause got me to a rough Deism, when combined with a sincere belief that Christian morality is the best moral construct possible, that morphed my belief into a Jeffersonian style of Deism.

The study of history brought me back to the door of the true church, and love of my ancestors made me walk back in.

 

[Kadayi]

It will be the end of my posting so maybe

 

[Yoshi]

In pure naturalism, morality is a completely subjective thing that could be reversed any day and any good or bad thing that has happened will eventually be as if it never existed. So it is an illusion to think kindness has inherent irrefutable value. I don't think it's wrong to live in that illusion. I think it's good to live in that illusion and I think it's great we live in that illusion.

This is not correct. Cooperativeness is at the core of humanity, the advantage of humans over other animals can only really be used effectively when cooperating. The purely egoistical view is only beneficial to the individual when compared to its surroundings, but the overall effect on all individuals if all were acting purely egoistical would be much worse. Basically, human civilisation is a huge prisoner's dilemma: You can take advantages of others and as long as only you are acting recklessly, you an benefit, but if everyone was acting like that, society would collapse. Therefore, being cooperative is actually an inherent value in humanity. Sure, some detailsof what it means to be cooperative may change over time, so this leads to a change in laws and different working legal systems, but at the core, cooperativeness in a sense is crucial to all societies, no matter what or if and religion is dominant.

If God exists, it's the only way for morality to not be subjective and our good and bad actions have meaning even after the universe has stopped existing. Obviously you think that, if something, is an illusion because you think God is an illusion. But we are comparing ideas here and we should look at each of them as if they were the truth and then see how each of them compares to the idea of morality.

It would still be subjective. Just because Yahweh says one should do something does not make it morally right. It makes it the expected behaviour of a more powerful being, but that's it. It may or may not be morally right. It is as much of an objective measure for the morality of an action as if you or I say something is morally right.

Now, sure it could be that both are illusions. But I think only the religious view, if true, can be something else than an illusion. It might not be, but it can be. And I can't say the same about a completely naturalistic worldview.

That moral / cooperative behaviour is beneficial to humans at large and also on an individual level (though this involves indirect effects) is not an illusion. This is true independent of whether there exists a conscious being that created earth.

Yes, being nice and kind hasn't ever been a black and white issue. Sometimes being kind means to do things that would probably make the receiver of kindness angry, like taking away the drugs of a major drug addict. Sometimes a person even shouldn't be treated kindly, like a rapist getting caught in the act. It's not a kind thing to take away freedom from a person, yet we force people in jail when they break certain rules, and we think that's good.

When we look at the law of God especially in the Old Testament, we have to look at the context and the chronology too. The Mosaic law anti-religious people usually criticize was a thing that happened after there already were countless amounts of people doing bad things. The law was given to a certain group of people as a means to bring order to their disorder. It's not as if it happened on a whim by a tyrannic ruler. Those rules were set up for a reason. There wouldn't had been a need for that if people wouldn't have first fucked up things. Still today we need all kinds of laws and rules. Without laws and rules I don't think our society would last long because of our nature.

How are rules pertaining to sexuality, slave trade and obedience, or sabbath (including death penalty for disobedience) necessary to bring order to the people? Rules like it's forbidden for two men to have sex with one another, punishable by death, serve no purpose other than being tyrannical. What about Yahweh's demands to eradicate the people that were invaded and kill each and every one from the native tribes? How is that a rule that can be regarded as reasonable or a necessary evil in any way?

Sure, our laws today differ from what the law was back then for the Israelites. In some aspects they are harsher and in some aspects they are lighter. Something that wasn't seen important back then might be a thing that is punishable today. Something that was forbidden back then, is now complete wild west for whoever wants to do it.

The point is, our laws are not derived from the bible and if one were to directly derive the laws from the bible, it would be an insufferable state. What is regarded as Yahweh's wish today by most Christians is supreme cherry picking of the bible, or, in many cases, even directly opposing the bible. The source for "Christian morality" is contemporary values much moreso than scripture.

What if brain isn't the source for your personality?

This is an irrelevant question, because it is.

 

[OutrageousFacts]

.

This is an irrelevant question, because it is.

Disagree. Although it depends what is meant by 'personality'.

 

[Belmonte]

Like I said in some other thread, after seeing some videos and reading about quantum physics, I lost the confidence in my own reasoning when I face these kind of questions. Everything I saw is way beyond what I would call intuitive, and to be more precise, ridiculous. The thing is, this stuff works, some of our technology is based in it, so it seems reality, when you see it close enough, is bonkers.

It is easy to dismiss the concept of walking in the clouds or having 40+ virgins but perhaps we have some kind of existence, not as epic or wishful-thinking, after death. We barely understand what conscience or reality is, and how both entangles. Some very serious people says the universe is like a computer program or even more far fetched: a computer program, a simulation of the real deal. If this is the case, we only need a reset.

And if time is not a river but a solid structure and our conscience understand as a river because...we don't know why... then there isn't even a death as we understand, only a final destination to our conscience perception. We would have our own piece of space-time, for all eternity, or at least, until the end of time.

 

[wondermega]

I really need to finish reading all the replies in here when it is very late at night and infinitely quiet. Anyway.. I don't welcome death nor look forward to it, although I certainly get rather tired of my life at times. I imagine many folks feel the same, impossible to know but that's my suspicion of the human condition.
Anyway..
As far as I expect, sleeping is a good hint at what death is, minus the dreaming and eventual reawakening. Not sure how to expect otherwise. I guess I'm not terribly psyched about that, but it at least seems peaceful. Immortality can be achieved however, and that's the true gift our species can enjoy over any other in quite a profound way. Your body, your mind can die - but the legacy you leave in your wake can be exponentially powerful, in ways you could never know. Spend your life meaningfully, be a productive person, try to learn, to teach, to create. Figure some things out and share them, try to advance the world somehow. For most people (and other animals) this is simply having children, but you can actually transmit your thoughts and feelings, your ideas in a more direct way; be artistic, and not only in creating things, but also figuring out how to get people to connect with what you've created, to make that connection meaningful and important.
There's the only life after death, that I can see.

 

[Cutty Flam]

I actually think it can vary depending on the individual. I believe in Almighty God and I do not believe there is just one way of doing things. I believe you can go to the Eternal God or Source or The Father however you wish to call the Creator since we do not know his one and only true name, unfortunately. I believe you can get mixed up with some horrifying and truly terrible energy many people may call hell, I am unsure how it is but I think a reality like that in which pain and torture exists upon a spiritual level is possible. Tho what extent and for how long, I cannot say. I believe it may be possible to go straight to the Heavens where there is paradise and peace, tranquility and love in the spiritual with all that you know and wish to be with and around. I also think it possible to merely be wiped off clean, no consciousness, just pure rest until your soul's next chance at life; I guess that period would be rest and healing until you're ready

I've looked into NDE and nothing points to one conclusive path after death. So I think Death is perhaps more complicated that simply not existing

 

[Cutty Flam]

But all the same, I think death is natural and although it is instinct to avoid it and fear it, it is the ultimate price to pay as a living being who possesses such knowledge that all points towards trying to live well and avoid it. Insects are given a life and in no time it's already spent and gone in a very vicious cycle. I sometimes wonder if humans are no less more purposeful than those insects? Certainly we have the ability to achieve something as a race? We have a purpose, maybe as a collective, but what is it, and how do we find out for certain?

Sorry if I'm rambling, I'm deep in thought right now

 

[Farawayfromhell]

I rationally believe that once the "machine" body is turned off there is nothing else, end, stop working.
On the other hand I like to think that we are not just this... not being religious I don't believe in hell and heaven... but I believe that our energy, our being us, our self (sorry for the pun) will not be completely lost, and I'm not talking about posterity, children or similar, I speak of energy, something mystical that only when the time comes will we know if it exist.

 

[Starfield]

Someone put it like this....

You know that bright light people say they see during death? What if it was the light you see when you are re(born) when the doctors are pulling you from your new mother and all that crying and screaming is you because you’re in an unfamiliar place and then you realize you have been born again!

Ever see anyone new born baby and think to yourself or say out loud that this child has been here before?

What about the people who get crushed by a falling piano

 

[Airola]

This is not correct. Cooperativeness is at the core of humanity, the advantage of humans over other animals can only really be used effectively when cooperating. The purely egoistical view is only beneficial to the individual when compared to its surroundings, but the overall effect on all individuals if all were acting purely egoistical would be much worse. Basically, human civilisation is a huge prisoner's dilemma: You can take advantages of others and as long as only you are acting recklessly, you an benefit, but if everyone was acting like that, society would collapse. Therefore, being cooperative is actually an inherent value in humanity. Sure, some detailsof what it means to be cooperative may change over time, so this leads to a change in laws and different working legal systems, but at the core, cooperativeness in a sense is crucial to all societies, no matter what or if and religion is dominant.

Cooperativeness does not equal kindness.

It would still be subjective. Just because Yahweh says one should do something does not make it morally right. It makes it the expected behaviour of a more powerful being, but that's it. It may or may not be morally right. It is as much of an objective measure for the morality of an action as if you or I say something is morally right.

That only tells about what you think about God, and what you think our relation to God is. And I would say you believe you are more God than God, am I right? You are more god than god in the sense that in your view god doesn't exist so that makes you basically a god as a creative conscious entity. And even if god existed, you are more god than god because you don't believe he shouldn't and couldn't have moral or any sort of authority towards us, and that whatever we decide is best for us surpasses whatever god would think is best for us. Correct me if I'm wrong about your view on the idea of god.

That moral / cooperative behaviour is beneficial to humans at large and also on an individual level (though this involves indirect effects) is not an illusion. This is true independent of whether there exists a conscious being that created earth.

I would say temporary benefits are absolutely true.

How are rules pertaining to sexuality, slave trade and obedience, or sabbath (including death penalty for disobedience) necessary to bring order to the people? Rules like it's forbidden for two men to have sex with one another, punishable by death, serve no purpose other than being tyrannical. What about Yahweh's demands to eradicate the people that were invaded and kill each and every one from the native tribes? How is that a rule that can be regarded as reasonable or a necessary evil in any way?

Ok so in your view god doesn't exist and didn't exists back then. So when those laws were made, there was no influence by god whatsoever. Did those people make these laws for no reason?

Back then people died a lot and there weren't too many people anyway. I wouldn't think it's surprising at all that people would try to get rid of homosexual behavior to make the odds of survival and amount of offspring greater. Today things are different in that front at least what comes to making sure humanity continues to live on. STDs are a problem and were a major problem in gay communities. STDs obviously are a problem in heterosexual relations too.

While AIDS first was the biggest threat in gay communities, it has become a big threat in heterosexual relations later too. It's actually quite a wonder how AIDS didn't wipe out more people in a world where sexual revolution had just been a big thing and people were having sex with each other like there's no tomorrow. Sexualitywise our current way of life and our way of life past 40 years has been something that had it happened in this scale back in Moses' days we might be extinct already. It is very much true that the only way for the world to not have an STD problem is that people would be committed to one person only and would not have sex outside of that bond ever. Now, I'm not the one to give any moral lectures about that with my own supportive behavior of sexual immorality, but I can't lie about what the facts are.

What comes to Sabbath, people were living in rough times already. Maybe overworking was a huge problem. Made people stressed out and created unrest within communities. Surely having a day to rest was a good idea.

Rules about slavery were about a thing that already existed. Slavery in itself wasn't ordered to happen by God.

What comes to killing tribes, it's funny how people would hold not stopping Nazis as a sign of God's immorality and indifference, but when things are stopped people go and say how terrible God is to allow that happen.

In any case, if we criticize God, we should criticize him by first giving account in what it means that God exists. You are reducing god as being just one of us. No dictator of this world knows much of the potential consequences of actions of groups or individual people. God would be the only one who would have the ability to know about every single different outcome in every single scenario. When Pol Pot orders a group of people to be killed, he does it purely based on guesswork and not knowing what effect it would have any other than what comes to his and their groups. When God does it, he knows what the whole world would be with and without that group's influence even 10,000 years from that moment.

So when you criticize god for things, don't first give him the properties of a human being and compare his actions in what our similar actions would be with zero foresight.

The point is, our laws are not derived from the bible and if one were to directly derive the laws from the bible, it would be an insufferable state. What is regarded as Yahweh's wish today by most Christians is supreme cherry picking of the bible, or, in many cases, even directly opposing the bible. The source for "Christian morality" is contemporary values much moreso than scripture.

I agree it would be insufferable. It would be that especially because we have already gotten used to do a lot of what was forbidden there. Would we gladly walk away from our rights to have sex out of wedlock with whoever is willing to do it? Hell no. It doesn't tell much about how good the original law was for people but it surely tells how far we have walked from god. Would I like to live under the kind of law that where with what I have done and how I have behaved I would've been physically punished a lot or even killed? No. But does that mean my past, present and future behaviors are good for me or to the world? Hell no. Could living under that kind of law make my character stronger? Maybe. Would I want to live under that law? No. Luckily to me, I'm a gentile who wouldn't even had been under that law in the first place. Am I a better person because of it? Can't say. Maybe not.

What I mean is, what I like isn't necessarily what should be. What I would like isn't necessarily for good in a cosmic scale of things, assuming God exists. Even in a world where god wouldn't exist I can safely say what I like might not be for the good of us in the long run, or even in a shorter scale for that matter. Assuming God exists, those Mosaic laws actually aren't what should be either. In a perfect world without our rebellion there wouldn't be a need for such laws. It often is so in a world without God too that it's not laws that make our actions bad. It's our bad actions that make the law happen.

This is an irrelevant question, because it is.

Ok, let me know when anyone knows where in your brain and in what form memories, mental images and ideas are. Sure, we can say this and that thing happens when this and that part of a brain is active and this and that neuron moves around, but no-one knows what it actually is that actually is the idea or the thought. We know how information in computers is stored, but we don't really know what thoughts actually are. When a hard drive gets damaged, it's hard to get information out from it, but even if the hard drive doesn't work in normal use, we know what to look for to get the information out there even if it's faulty. When a brain gets damaged, we only know how to fix the brain but couldn't be able to take the memories out from there. We have zero idea what is the combination of chemicals and atoms and whatnot that would create a certain thought. Surely if the world is fully naturalistic, every single idea and thought should be a combination of some physical things.

 

[Dazrael]

Nature is an fascinating construct but it is nowhere near as exciting as we humans claim it to be. The many ideas of the afterlife are man made and effectively comfort food for what is to come. No one really knows what is going to happen and it really wouldn’t surprise me if there was nothing.

Humans like to put themselves on pedestals and their perceived importance allows fanciful ideas of an after death safety blanket, it’s been that way for millennia. However we are but one aspect of the universe and probably an inconsequential one at that. I can’t imagine their being a specific “place” for humans to call paradise after living a just life. We will all go the same way as everything else in the universe.

I imagine death would be like being under anaesthetic, sleeping without dreams forever. You aren’t aware of the passage of time and won’t even be annoyed by it because you don’t exist enough to notice.

 

[synchronicity]

For me, it seems obvious that the only real thing is "now" - the living moment. All language, concepts, ideas, beliefs, etc are abstraction and mostly unverifiable speculation.

It's normal for the mind to wonder and consider and for the ego to wish to protect itself, but the only thing that can ever be known is the present experience of the moment.

Plus there's no need to fret. We're all on a ride we can't get off. The destination is inevitable, whatever it may be.

 

[Makariel]

What's done is done,
what's gone is gone.

 

[Siri]

When a person suffers a severe brain injury they cease to function. There isn’t a spirit inside that person waiting to get out. Brain injuries don’t trap souls. Your brain is your consciousness. Your brain is your soul.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

when you see a book, the words, the ideas and the stories in it are distinct from the very ink and paper that makes up the physical book. Destroying the physical book does not destroy the actual story.

A similar relation exists between the physical brain and consciousness.

Your brain will inevitably cease function, and you will again have no synapses firing, etc.

Ship of Theseus? The brain replaces the matter that composes it over time, the vast majority of the physical matter that makes up your brain right now is distinct from the matter that made it up a decade ago. Yet despite being made up of different matter you still remain, because the general patterns remain.

A new brain would simply be replacing all the matter in one go rather than gradually, but that goes into the ship of Theseus issue of how fast a replacement can be made while still remaining the same.

Does your playstation continue to play the game when you turn it off? What makes you so different? Cause you're made of meat?

But does the game end where you left it if your playstation stops working, or is there gameplay and stories that exists and continues in other consoles?

To think that once there was nothing and from that nothing

Answer this: if conservation of mass is a physical law, how did molecules in existence come to be?

if the cyclical universe theories are right, there never was and never will be a moment of nothing. The fact matter and energy can't be created or destroyed likely implies they've existed forever in one manner or another.

Your 'multi body controlling' is rather silly, but I think you're on the right way overall. My own thoughts have taken a similar path.

The idea of multibody controlling is plausible, the bodies simply wouldn't have one shared control center but multiple independent ones with the same consciousness but different memories and personalities. That would go along with the ancient ideas of oneness.

Think of it like someone that travels to the past, they exist in the past in two bodies controlling them independently.

How about identical twins who even when living in same environment become completely different personalitywise.

Biological development even with identical genes has some level of randomness(for example fingerprints are different despite same genes), and there are also mutations even in identical twins.

 

[Whitesnake]

Ship of Theseus? The brain replaces the matter that composes it over time, the vast majority of the physical matter that makes up your brain right now is distinct from the matter that made it up a decade ago. Yet despite being made up of different matter you still remain, because the general patterns remain.

A new brain would simply be replacing all the matter in one go rather than gradually, but that goes into the ship of Theseus issue of how fast a replacement can be made while still remaining the same.

Your brain (and indeed many other organs) doesn’t actually continually regenerate cells like your epidermis does. You only grow neurons throughout pregnancy and infancy. You cannot naturally grow more of them during adulthood. Your brain can only regrow certain types of cells under certain specific conditions.

People often have the misunderstanding that your entire body is getting rid of cells and will regenerate entirely within such and such period of time. That really only applies to your outermost layer (outer skin, hair, nails).

Moreover, as I’ve said at other points in this thread, YOU are the electrical signals surging through the brain. You are speaking as if the brain is a hard drive and you are the data, but that’s not really the right way of thinking about it.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

Your brain (and indeed many other organs) doesn’t actually continually regenerate cells like your epidermis does. You only grow neurons throughout pregnancy and infancy. You cannot naturally grow more of them during adulthood. Your brain can only regrow certain types of cells under certain specific conditions.

People often have the misunderstanding that your entire body is getting rid of cells and will regenerate entirely within such and such period of time. That really only applies to your outermost layer (outer skin, hair, nails).

Moreover, as I’ve said at other points in this thread, YOU are the electrical signals surging through the brain. You are speaking as if the brain is a hard drive and you are the data, but that’s not really the right way of thinking about it.

True neurons are not replaced in most of the brain, but you forget cells do replace the molecules that make them up over time. With the exception of DNA, virtually all other molecules in the cell are transient.

As for electrical signals, they occur in many places. But in the brain, it is the particular patterns, the information that they carry, that results in consciousness. The brain receives electric signals from the sensory organs, but it is when the information from these is extracted and put together in some unknown way that consciousness emerges.

 

[Jooxed]

Eh, I have always been kind of an atheist I guess. I would like to believe this isn't it but the idea of heaven and hell is far fetched to me. I'm kinda in the mind set that we will find out eventually and who cares just try to live in the now.

 

[Bogey]

I don't really know.

I certainly don't believe in any religious "we'll all be in heaven" kind of afterlife.

But I do think we have absolutely now clue about our reality. Is the universe finite? How was it created, will it ever end or "spin off", is it unique at all? Does time even exist?

A certain gut feeling in me says "beginning" and "end" are man made concepts. We think our existence begins and ends, because everything we know begins and ends.

And of course that's not even true, the matter we're made of has always existed, and will always exist, for all we know. We don't really know anything that has any clear beginning it end - just different compositions.

And and if that is true, wouldn't it be likely that at some point down the line, the same matter that makes us us will find itself in the composition again - as well as any other conceivable combination?

Very esoteric and I have no idea of course. But bottom line is, I'm not convinced death is really the end.

 

[Blade2.0]

No one has ever come back from it. (No, I don't believe the claims of theists that say it has happened.) It's pretty definitive that once we're gone, there's no coming back from it.

 

[Northeastmonk]

No one has ever come back from it. (No, I don't believe the claims of theists that say it has happened.) It's pretty definitive that once we're gone, there's no coming back from it.

There are those life and death stories about people who swear up and down that they had a vision. You could claim that those were environmental factors like lights and sounds or biological ones like your brain and its chemical makeup. I've heard of a few. A christian book called "23 minutes in hell'' or "Heaven is for Real". There's those pictures from a Korean artist who apparently visited hell with Christ https://singaporechristian.com/2015...ctures-she-drew-warning-scary-pictures-ahead/

We can't flatline and come back so easily, like Kiefer Sutherland in Flatliners. We're told that the people who didn't believe in Christ are in the worst part of hell. That means you're pretty much screwed if you're aware. Then you place that belief against science and logic. It's a hard thing to grasp. Does the person living their entire life inside a tribe or in a non-religious country get sent there for just not knowing? I find its a hard pill to swallow. I also find the belief of just shutting off hard to swallow.

You're probably right in that I can't imagine my brain being shut off. That's a hard shut off. At least when you sleep your brain is still active. Which produces dreams and comfort throughout your body.

 

[Blade2.0]

There are those life and death stories about people who swear up and down that they had a vision. You could claim that those were environmental factors like lights and sounds or biological ones like your brain and its chemical makeup. I've heard of a few. A christian book called "23 minutes in hell'' or "Heaven is for Real". There's those pictures from a Korean artist who apparently visited hell with Christ https://singaporechristian.com/2015...ctures-she-drew-warning-scary-pictures-ahead/

We can't flatline and come back so easily, like Kiefer Sutherland in Flatliners. We're told that the people who didn't believe in Christ are in the worst part of hell. That means you're pretty much screwed if you're aware. Then you place that belief against science and logic. It's a hard thing to grasp. Does the person living their entire life inside a tribe or in a non-religious country get sent there for just not knowing? I find its a hard pill to swallow. I also find the belief of just shutting off hard to swallow.

You're probably right in that I can't imagine my brain being shut off. That's a hard shut off. At least when you sleep your brain is still active. Which produces dreams and comfort throughout your body.

That's not true death, brain was still functioning. Once oxygen supply to the brain has ceased, no one has come back, and those that come back before absolute brain death aren't even the same as before. We are who we are because of that organ

 

[Humdinger]

I believe in the afterlife. I was pretty much atheist/agnostic for 20 years -- steeped in Camus, Nietzsche, and Rand -- but I have always had a spiritual sense, and I kept searching, in part because the atheist/materialist worldview felt liberating at first but eventually like a dead-end.

I'm a very skeptical person, cynical at times, and have a very pragmatic, scientifically trained, investigative mind with a PhD that's included a dozen doctoral-level courses in research methods and design, and I've conducted my own research. In other words, I was a hard sell.

But I got there, through persistence and wide reading. It was not so much religion or spiritual feeling that finally convinced me (although those played a role, for sure); it was the evidence. That was about 25 years ago. Since then, I've read probably a couple hundred books on the subject. I'm not an expert, but I'm certainly well-versed. In my opinion, the evidence is clear and overwhelming that we are more than just material bodies, that consciousness survives death of the body, and that there is an afterlife.

The evidence exists in the afterlife literature pertaining to near-death experiences, out-of-body experiences, deathbed visions, apparitions, dozens of different types of after-death communications, evidential medium reports, carefully investigated channeled literature, research on psi phenomenon, research supporting the notion that the brain is independent of the mind, non-locality of consciousness, and reincarnation research. The remarkable thing is how consistent it is, across such a wide variety of sources and over hundreds of years.

Please don't misunderstand me -- I'm not saying all of this literature is credible. There is plenty of BS, wishful thinking, and fraud. But there is also plenty of real, undeniable material as well. As William James said, in order to disprove that all crows are black, it's not necessary to prove that all crows are white. All you need is one white crow. I'd say we've got thousands of white crows at this point.

It's a complicated, multidimensional afterlife, not the Heaven and Hell of traditional religion. Much of how it works runs contrary to what religion says, although some is consistent with some religious teachings. I study both and find it very interesting to use both of them in concert to help better understand the big picture.

Interesting topic, thanks for asking. I also appreciate you framing the OP in a way as to discourage ridicule.

 

[#Phonepunk#]

No one has ever come back from it. (No, I don't believe the claims of theists that say it has happened.) It's pretty definitive that once we're gone, there's no coming back from it.

wrong. this happens all the time. people go into comas. their heart stops. there are moments where they are technically dead, it is only through medical procedure that the body can be returned to self functioning. my sister in law works in an ER room. she tells me all kinds of crazy stories. "coming back from it" is something she does to people on a daily basis. clearly there is some kind of life still maintaining while these people's bodies have shut down. that to me indicates some kinda spirit.

that said an afterlife need not require "coming back" in any way, it is often seen as moving on. FWIW i don't believe life/death is as simple as living and dying. i don't think it's a binary. i think there is a spectrum. people get amnesia. they get illnesses. they get better. they go senile. are old people less alive bc their body is failing? i dunno, that wouldn't make sense.

it has been proven the brain releases DMT upon death or blacking out, this is a drug that can induce hallucinations, spiritual visuals, and slow down time. i have done this drug before. it can feel like you are spending hours doing something but only a few minutes have passed. it is not beyond the realm of possibility that the brain induces a religious experience upon a natural death that genuinely feels like an eternity to the dying. certainly this would unite the afterlife/no afterlife believers. it could be that religious figures are some of the oldest, most well known archetypes, that the iconography and rituals are such a foundational part of the collective unconscious, whether you believe or not, that you interpret these visions naturally according to your own region's religious tradition. if you are born in India you see Vishnu and Krishna, if you are born in America you see Jesus and angels, etc. as the brain shorts out, the life feed cutting from existence, you recognize these archetypal symbols, generated as if tho dreaming, the sublime echos of ancient cultures filling your mind. perhaps you do come to some clarity, some supernatural realization. maybe if you lived a guilty life, you will give yourself a hard death, making Hell feel real. who knows? dreams can be weird, death has to be at least weirder than dreams.

as for the physicality of what happens, i don't know what to tell you, or even if that matters. matters of the spirit need not be tied to the material world. so ultimately, i don't think science can really make a judgement on this, past doing it's best to save people from premature death. IMO science would have to really advance, to the point where we can fully communicate with animals & have mastered interstellar flight, and finally teleportation, before we can definitively say.

 

[Blade2.0]

That's hearts not pumping blood to the brain death, nottrue brain death. When the brain is dead, it's all over.

 

[PanzerAzel]

.

 

[PanzerAzel]

I think this is what MadAnon tried to say, but you said it better and gave a better argument.

I think that you have some wrong assumptions and misunderstandings there though. If someone lives their lives thinking they can do whatever they want and do the most horrible things and in the end bargain with god in their deathbeds, I think there is quite a low chance for the actual conversion happening. Sure we can say the idea is there, that an evil person could have a deathbed conversion, but the reality of that might not be very likely.

There's the joke:
"I prayed for god to give me a bicycle, but didn't get it. I understood God doesn't work that way so I stole the bike and asked for forgiveness."
It's a funny joke and it has some truth to it too. Not in the sense that it tells anything about god's character but it tells a lot about what a lot of people think god's character is.

Calling that religion a death cult is not really honest though. First of all the religion is just honest about the facts of life: We are all going to die. None of us escapes that. This will end for all of us one day. And we have the capability to be awful people. And we don't just have the capability to be awful but we quite often are awful people. And not a single one of us gets a pass on that either. Every single one of us does awful things. We do awful things when we are childred and we do awful things when we are adults. We all do awful things and we all eventually die.

It brings our awfulness into a spotlight. And by god do we do our best to avoid that spotlight.

The point of that religion is to bring some sense to the dissonance between our lives being gifts that we ought to cherish and us being complete asses for a lot of time in spite of having this gift.

The thought of an afterlife doesn't give a pass on any of us in this world. We might be able to have a thought of redemption after our lives but during this life we have to face the consequences. Our possible position in afterlife doesn't give us a pass in this life even though looking at how priests have protected other priests from facing the consequences for raping kids seems to prove otherwise. Some sects of the religion even believe that not only we have to face consequences of our crimes in this world we also have to face the consequences again in afterlife too. That's essentially the idea of a purgatory.

People would still rape kids and people would still protect people who rape kids even if there were no religions around it. I find it a bit more comforting to think that we are not like that purely by our biological nature by accident but that there is an actual set of cosmic standard that is against that and our habit to do shitty things comes from our conscious choice to rebel against that standard. We can't hide behind biology but we have to admit we rebel against the standards of cosmic goodness by choice.

I think it's also important to understand that it's not only about people who do super awful things being able to have a redemption, but it's also about less awful actions having severe consequences too. It's to say that while we can point our fingers at people who do hideous things where we can see their terrible consequences immediately, we might ignore our less awful deeds because they don't seem that bad especially when compared to the clearly evil things someone else did. But in the end whatever we do, the ripples of those actions can be felt long way in the future and they might escalate too.

In my view if there is a god and an afterlife, looking at what we do in between all the nice and neutral things we do, we need some sort of a redeemer. There might still be something bad going on that exists because someone did something bad 1000 years ago, be it an actual action or just a general sense of dread or disarray. And after I'm gone, there might still be something bad going on 1000 years from now because I did something bad or didn't stop something bad from happening. Good and bad things reflect from other people to others all the time. You do something to someone and that person might later do something partly because of what you did to him. It can be good and it can be bad.

I'm not saying that we should be accountable in this world for the sins of the people 1000 years ago did or that I should now be held accountable for things that might happen 1000 years from now, but IF there is a god and IF we are eternal beings with eternal consciousness, then things are different in a cosmic scale and whatever rules use beyond this world should set us straight after all is said and done.

Taking God out of equation doesn't mean we would stop being terrible just because we suddenly don't have a cosmic forgiver. Religion didn't make us do bad things. We were doing bad things long before religion was a thing. I think having laws is a good thing. It's a good thing even if there are officials and politicians who use their position as people dealing with law to do bad things and hide behind their profession. Laws didn't make them do bad things. They chose to do that themselves. Laws and rules haven't stopped us doing bad things either. They at best lessen the amount we do bad things, but we still do it. Some people are more respectful towards law and rules than others. Everyone seems to disrespect them in some senses though. And that wouldn't change if God was taken out of the equation.

Sorry for rambling too much. The point was just to say that I agree with some of your worries and it has a lot to do with hypocrisy. That's the issue and it's an issue that is heavily talked about in the Bible. People being hypocrites doesn't mean the idea they are hypocritical and indirectly disrespectful about isn't valid. If I'm being hypocritical about something it doesn't mean the idea itself is necessarily wrong. It just says I'm wrong with my actions relative to the idea. Hypocrites would still exist even in a world without God and where morality would supposedly be "far more a paramount concern for our well being and survival" as you said. You would still have to deal with people who don't agree with your view of morality or who pretend as if they do but sometimes or even often act against it. And there would even be people who would genuinely believe this certain set of morality codes is good but still go against it sometimes. It's quite an assumption to think people would somehow be less immoral in that world or that the set of moral rules in that world would be easier to follow or even more helpful what comes to our survival. It's more wishful thinking than a statement of truth.

Thank you for the articulate and thoughtful response, I appreciate it.

 

[farmerboy]

If there's nothing, well, there's nothing. Take heart that all things eventually end. Even the stars and universe.

The only problem I have with that, is that it means my children end too, and that is something I have trouble reconciling.

If it all truly ends then our relationship never existed, as neither of us will remember it. To me it will have been for nothing.

 

[pauljeremiah]

I know it is coming, and I do not fear it, because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.

I hope to be spared as much pain as possible on the approach path. I was perfectly content before I was born, and I think of death as the same state.

What I will be grateful for is the gift of intelligence, and for life, love, wonder, and laughter. You can't say it wasn't interesting. My lifetime's memories are what I will bring home from the trip. I will require them for eternity no more than that little souvenir of the Eiffel Tower I brought home from Paris.

 

[Chromata]

Some of the responses in this thread have alluded to death as an eternal blackness or a black screen and nothing more. This doesn't make any sense to me.

Black is a concept, it is something. Even when staring into a void, we are noting the lack of light. Our brains are still perceiving and experiencing. So black isn't nothingness and death isn't blackness.

The closest we can reach true nothingness is during deep sleep. We don't see black during deep sleep, it's a hole in our memory, like gaps between time spliced together. We have been through "death" or nothingness before, it was during the billions of years passing before our birth. So you won't experience eternal nothingness at all, just as you never experienced all those years before your birth.

That's just my take. Nobody has the answers, I doubt we ever will because of the nature of the material. Ultimately, trying to imagine death is a futile effort because death lies beyond the very act of imagination itself.

 

[OutrageousFacts]

Adding a more 'real' question (using this thread because I can't create a new one):

Have you ever thought about the fact that you will die eventually? From my experience, people only think of death as something that happens to others, is something for movies/books/games or is faaar off into the future - thus ignoring the reality of death.

I find that fascinating, because, as this thread also shows, while death is such a mysterious, unkown 'event', something that can feel like it's magical, as if made up for some fantasy story, it *is* real, and it *will* happen to all of us.

So, have you thought about this unshakable fact? Do you actively try not to think about it? What's your way of handling your own death?

 

[Tesseract]

yes

 

[TindalosPup]

May b

Adding a more 'real' question (using this thread because I can't create a new one):

Have you ever thought about the fact that you will die eventually? From my experience, people only think of death as something that happens to others, is something for movies/books/games or is faaar off into the future - thus ignoring the reality of death.

I find that fascinating, because, as this thread also shows, while death is such a mysterious, unkown 'event', something that can feel like it's magical, as if made up for some fantasy story, it *is* real, and it *will* happen to all of us.

So, have you thought about this unshakable fact? Do you actively try not to think about it? What's your way of handling your own death?

I started learning about how I'd like to be disposed of after death once I realized that it will happen to me (after losing someone once a year for 4 years straight)

There's a lot of options out there besides being embalmed and showcased and regular old cremation; body farms, natural burials, "aquamation" (which is a chemical process, known more commonly as hydrolysis), being planted with a tree, your remains turned into a diamond, and even mummification is offered, if that's what your into. How you'd like others to say goodbye to you, and whether you want them to be able to visit your remains, is an important part of your end and coming to terms with your own death

I know I'd like to be returned to the Earth that birthed me and fed me, but I'm still unsure of how. I know I'll have to figure it out sometime, but there's a sort of whimsy in knowing you have options

 

[TaySan]

Adding a more 'real' question (using this thread because I can't create a new one):

Have you ever thought about the fact that you will die eventually? From my experience, people only think of death as something that happens to others, is something for movies/books/games or is faaar off into the future - thus ignoring the reality of death.

I find that fascinating, because, as this thread also shows, while death is such a mysterious, unkown 'event', something that can feel like it's magical, as if made up for some fantasy story, it *is* real, and it *will* happen to all of us.

So, have you thought about this unshakable fact? Do you actively try not to think about it? What's your way of handling your own death?

Yes i have, but i try not to think about it because there is no point. It's going to happen to me whether i like it or not so i need to make the most of my life.

 

[Halo is Back]

All good things must come to an end. Without death, there would be no life

 

[GymWolf]

eh, not more than getting married.

 

[12Goblins]

It's all an illusion, even the "end".

 

[OutrageousFacts]

All good things must come to an end. Without death, there would be no life

That's a nice fortune cookie text, but how do you personally feel about death, in regards to your very person?

 

[Halo is Back]

That's a nice fortune cookie text, but how do you personally feel about death, in regards to your very person?

Thats is exactly how I feel. Death is as natural as hunger, thirst, sex. If no one died the earth would have been over populated long ago. Death is the natural end to all life, that is what I believe.

 

[OutrageousFacts]

Thats is exactly how I feel. Death is as natural as hunger, thirst, sex. If no one died the earth would have been over populated long ago. Death is the natural end to all life, that is what I believe.

You explained a process. I still don't know how you feel about it, although I assume you're indifferent about death and don't think it's especially bad or anything. That correct?