Atheism

@ossobuco,

Ultimately I'd love a green burial buried without a coffin. Maybe that'd be a more likely option by the time I kick it. The problem I have with cremation is that it is polluting.

The idea of ashes is nice though. I'd want family members and maybe friends to scatter me where they felt they could connect to me in the future if they so desired. If I hike with my niece in a place over many years, she might choose to toss me there. My brother might choose to scatter me at the National Seashore. What happens after I'm dead is really all for the sake of the living who cared.

4 Replies

@ebrown p,

I don't think of being unused heat in space as all that much of a problem.

1 Reply

@panzade,

Quote:

Well...the existence of God, for one.

THE WHAT!!!!???? What the **** do I know about that? Where on earth did you get the idea that I had a view on matters of that nature. I'm a scientist for goodness sake.

The common belief in such an entity is a fact though. And to a materialist ideas are physical objects existing in the brain for varying amounts of time. In the case of the average atheist the time is often quite short in between the time the Christian ideas exist.

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@edgarblythe,

Quote:

Spendius is trying to derail this thread, the way he tries to derail the evolution threads. I am putting the thumbs down on all his posts. I am not interested in his blather.

Good for you Ed. It will save you a lot of trouble. You will be abled to spread your message without fear of contradiction. Very sensible.

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@littlek,

littlek wrote:

Ultimately I'd love a green burial buried without a coffin. Maybe that'd be a more likely option by the time I kick it. This appeals to me too. The problem I have with cremation is that it is polluting. Yeah. Maybe they'll work that part out somehow..

The idea of ashes is nice though. I'd want family members and maybe friends to scatter me where they felt they could connect to me in the future if they so desired. If I hike with my niece in a place over many years, she might choose to toss me there. My brother might choose to scatter me at the National Seashore. What happens after I'm dead is really all for the sake of the living who cared.
Right, I like that too. Of course, this would leave my ashes messing up Venice California's Ocean Front Walk. Kidding, more likely the Pacific Ocean, which I wouldn't mind if I had a mind at the time.. it would be fitting. I could float over to all those plastic bags mid ocean..

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Spendius - Who are we trying to spread it to? Other atheists. What's your problem with that?

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@littlek,

Quote:

I'd want family members and maybe friends to scatter me where they felt they could connect to me in the future if they so desired.

Having a barbecue of you would be the most efficient method I think. With mustard or ketchup.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Seems kind of redundant to burn me twice. And ashes don't really do much for the flavor of BBQ.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

Quote:

I only hope my crazy cousin Eddie's kid never gets married. Id hate to be part of that pool even by familial connection.

Sheesh!! Fancy hoping for that for Eddie's kid just because "I'd hate" it. Some evolutionist fm is I must say. Denying Eddie's kid snuggling up with a juicy squeeze just because it isn't to his liking. Ye Gods--that's arrogance of the highest order.

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@littlek,

Quote:

Ideally, it goes back into the earth to be dismantled into individual elements (each which carries their own energy) so it can be taken up by living things (yes worms, but also trees, flowers and food crops).

That's heading into metempsychosis littlek. Do you think the soul is dismantled or do you think there is no such thing as soul as an atheist is supposed to do.

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@ossobuco,

The Universe is 15 billion years old. A hundred thousand years is 0.00001 of a universe life time (a very short time indeed).

Yet in a mere hundred thousand years nothing about my insigificantly short little existance will have had zero real effect on the universe. I will be wiped from memory (and quite likely my species will be wiped from memory). My accomplishments will be nothing. Even how much plastic I dropped in the environment will be forgotten.

The idea that I get 80 years to exist... and then nothing, may be from all evidence, true-- but it bothers me. There is probably no rational basis for any meaning to our lives except for some randomly occurring chemical reactions that believed themselves to have consciousness for the brief instance they occurred on a some insignficant spec of dust in the vast univserse.

The idea that my atoms may be useful to some worms before our insignificant little planet is snuffed out by an expanding (soon to be extinguished) sun doesn't make me feel any better.

Any attempt to ascribe meaning to life is religious in nature and unsupportable by rational thought-- whether or not there is an alleged deity involved.

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@spendius,

I said nothing of a soul. I am talking about the elements that make up my living body.

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@ebrown p,

Do you not think it quite amusing eb?

Quote:

Any attempt to ascribe meaning to life is religious in nature and unsupportable by rational thought--

Very true. Thus this thread is a religious one.

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Spendius:
Homework assignment: Please list your core beliefs.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.

You have the choice to limit them to a Top Ten or get completely naked and list them all.

Oh, five bonus points if you can give evidence that any of them are more than conjecture, superstition or the result of some unresolved childhood experience involving the fear of a good beating.

Joe(this is your last chance)Nation

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@littlek,

Sounds like something from Stranger in a Strange Land.

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@ebrown p,

You nailed it, ebrown.

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@Joe Nation,

It's no use Joe. The pusillanimous lad won't even admit to believing there is a God

1 Reply

@ebrown p,

You ascribe to me that I ascribe meaning. I get the science. I don't promote that my life affects the universe in any measurable way, except possible aggravation of others for a nanospeck of time (kidding again, there is love), thus raising body temperatures. I get you don't feel better re the worms eating, and so on, and not just about the worms, but the timing.

I just have come to grips with becoming part of the whorl of the universe, no implied meaning.

At present, I prefer to put this off.

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@ossobuco,

I am utterly indifferent about what happens to my meat when my soul software has stopped running on it. As far as I am concerned, they can process it into protein powder and feed it to the chicken. Indeed, I like the grim poetic justice in chickenkind getting even with me like that. That's not going to happen of course. Burials are about the living, not the deceased. That's fine with me, too.

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@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Do you think the soul is dismantled or do you think there is no such thing as soul as an atheist is supposed to do.

It is perfectly consistent for atheists to believe we have souls. Buddhists, for instance, believe in (nearly) immortal souls. (You get reborn again and again, unless you earn the privilege to break the circle and retire into non-existence, also known as Nirvana.) But even nonbelievers of a more general kind can consistently believe we have souls -- just not immortal ones. For details on how it may work, see Daniel Dennett: Freedom Evolves. Viking Books (2003).

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