Afterlife?

@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Quote:
If you value your existence it would seem that you would be upset about the possibility of that existence ending.

Not if you simply assume that the concept of an afterlife – "life after life" – is oxymoronic.

The idea of some kind of life after what we humans consider "life" IS NOT an oxymoron. It is merely one of two possibilities...either their is an afterlife or there is no afterlife.

What you are doing is identical except in direction to what the people who assert an afterlife (or possibility of an afterlife) do...making a blind guess on the question and then disparage any guess in the other direction.

I guess there is a reason why people so love their blind guesses that they defend them in that way...but it seems absurd to me.

1 Reply

@hightor,

Quote:

Leadfoot Quote:
It’s as if hi is unable to even imagine anything that ought not to die, no matter whether it does or not.

hightor replied:
I can imagine eternal life, but not the "ought".

That was exactly my point.

The rest of my post was comparing Elon vs you, not attributing those things to you.

As for this society, we seem to be in complete agreement. I renounced any attachment to it some years ago.

Eternal life or not, I would consider myself a failure if I did not find or 'imagine' something better than 'this' before I die.

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@Frank Apisa,

In this case no guessing involved, Frank. We have a word, "death" which describes the end of life, the cessation of life. We have another word, "after", which means following or subsequent to. So it's difficult to understand what "life" in an "afterlife" even means. I'm not making any conjectures or assertions other than that the word "death" is being misused. Why not just say that humans never die? I've never heard it claimed that dead plants and animals exist in an afterlife; for some reason this mechanism of immortality only applies to our own species. Which makes me wonder when this phenomenon first occurred in the evolution of hominids, and in the gestation of Homo sapiens.

I prefer methodic skepticism to the systematic or radical approach you seem to employ in these discussions. Doubt is a check on new or as yet unproven ideas — one doubts if one has reason to doubt. Why is that so harmful? As long as one is open to new discoveries and doesn't simply close the door I see nothing wrong with making tentative conclusions.

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@hightor,

There’s a lot of anecdotal evidence to support reincarnation. I remember watching a documentary on the subject.

On case in particular is an Indian boy who always claimed his parents were his second parents. He was able to detail his first parents and his manner of death, and those parents were tracked down. The Kid recognised them as his first parents, and the story of their kid’s death matched his account.

I don’t dismiss anyone’s beliefs, unless they’re in the game of dividing people into sheep and goats and spreading hate which so many religious people seem to do.

Oralloy being a casein point, he ridicules the victims of gun violence, mocks and insults murder victims and their families, and calls whole groups of people vermin because they worship the god of Abraham in a different way.

How someone can believe in an afterlife yet reject the tenets of all major religions and embrace division and hate is beyond me.

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@izzythepush,

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I don’t dismiss anyone’s beliefs, unless they’re in the game of dividing people into sheep and goats and spreading hate which so many religious people seem to do.

I have criteria for dismissal of people's beliefs, based on what I consider to be "reasonable". Few things are more pathetic than someone defending an opinion by falling back on "But this is what I believe" – as if that made it sacrosanct. I don't ordinarily mock people for their beliefs, nor do I try to change them, but I don't have to agree with them either. While I see no value in simply putting every claim on an equal footing I try not to be an asshole about it.

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@hightor,

You do put it through a filter, you are the judge of what is ‘reasonable.’

Such an approach can be quite condescending.

1 Reply

@hightor,

hightor wrote:

In this case no guessing involved, Frank. We have a word, "death" which describes the end of life, the cessation of life. We have another word, "after", which means following or subsequent to. So it's difficult to understand what "life" in an "afterlife" even means. I'm not making any conjectures or assertions other than that the word "death" is being misused.

To me, it sounded as though you were mocking and disparaging his blind guesses about REALITY. It seemed to be the kind of thing I see so often from people on the theistic and atheistic side of questions about gods. If I was wrong and the only thing you were doing was noting that the word "death" is being misused, accept my apologies.

Quote:

Why not just say that humans never die? I've never heard it claimed that dead plants and animals exist in an afterlife; for some reason this mechanism of immortality only applies to our own species. Which makes me wonder when this phenomenon first occurred in the evolution of hominids, and in the gestation of Homo sapiens.

I suspect that the notion of gods and ideas of some sort of immortality are peculiar to humans because it seem to be the only species intelligent enough to come up with notions of that sort in order to deal with fear of death and harm...which appears to be more wide-spread among living things.

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I prefer methodic skepticism to the systematic or radical approach you seem to employ in these discussions.

Do you?

That is an interesting variation on the kinds of responses I get to many of my "systematic/radical" comments questioning blind guesses about the many unknowns of REALITY.

They seem to be nothing more than different ways of saying, "My blind guesses about the REALITY are better than his blind guesses."

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Doubt is a check on new or as yet unproven ideas — one doubts if one has reason to doubt.

I do not understand what you were attempting to say here.

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Why is that so harmful? As long as one is open to new discoveries and doesn't simply close the door I see nothing wrong with making tentative conclusions.

You mean "what is so harmful" other than the many wars, slaughters, genocides; pogroms; suicides; patricides; matricides; fratricides; regicides and **** like that which are a direct result of "tentative conclusions?"

Well...not much, if one ignores the mountains of hatred that spew because of them.

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

Oralloy being a casein point, he ridicules the victims of gun violence,

Only when they are used as weapons to try to violate my civil liberties.

izzythepush wrote:

mocks and insults murder victims and their families,

Only when they are used as weapons to harm innocent people.

izzythepush wrote:

and calls whole groups of people vermin because they worship the god of Abraham in a different way.

That isn't even remotely the reason why I refer to Palestinians as vermin.

I call Palestinians vermin because I'm sick and tired of them murdering people.

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@izzythepush,

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You do put it through a filter...

Not really — my brain isn't equipped with a "filter"; I need to weigh pros and cons before assessing the reasonableness of a statement.

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...you are the judge of what is ‘reasonable.’

Absolutely — what's wrong with that? I have a lifetime of experiences which tend to confirm the soundness of my impressions, perceptions, and hypotheses as well as exposing logical lapses, prejudices, and clearly mistaken beliefs.

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Such an approach can be quite condescending.

Not necessarily though. The "everyone's entitled to his own beliefs" approach can also be condescending, akin to Marcuse's notion of "repressive tolerance". If you want to believe in reincarnation, have at it, I'll still consider your views on that and on other subjects to be worthy of consideration as I think you're a decent person.

1 Reply

@hightor,

You’re judging people, those who don’t believe the same as you are stupid and therefore inferior.

You’re not interested in having a theological discussion just in telling people how clever you are.

It’s no different from the evangelicals approach, they also differentiate between deserving, undeserving, good, bad, smart or stupid.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

You mean "what is so harmful" other than the many wars, slaughters, genocides; pogroms; suicides; patricides; matricides; fratricides; regicides and **** like that which are a direct result of "tentative conclusions?"

No, those are not based on "tentative conclusions" at all, those are the acts of "true believers". There's nothing "tentative" about the sorts of conclusions which lead to those decisions — those people's minds are made up.

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@hightor,

So is yours.

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I don’t know if anyone remembers Reasoning Logic. He was another one who thought being an atheist made him smarter than other people, and he would constantly reference smart atheists like Stephen Hawking.

The only problem was RL would believe all sorts of mad **** about the illuminati and other crazy conspiracy bollocks.

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@izzythepush,

Quote:

You’re judging people, those who don’t believe the same as you are stupid and therefore inferior.

You're judging me, ffs. I assume that people who have different beliefs come to those beliefs through their own experiences. You apparently think I'm condescending and therefore inferior.

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You’re not interested in having a theological discussion just in telling people how clever you are.

If I wanted to exhibit cleverness I wouldn't attempt to do it when discussing theology.

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It’s no different from the evangelicals approach, they also differentiate between deserving, undeserving, good, bad, smart or stupid.

I never said anyone else was "deserving, undeserving, good, bad, smart or stupid". I said that I find some beliefs reasonable, some unreasonable. Most people can do that without engaging in blanket condemnation and character assassination of others. People may disagree about one topic and strongly bond on another.

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@hightor,

I can’t see any difference between you and certain evangelicals, it all boils down to saying your beliefs are better and you are therefore better.

1 Reply

@hightor,

I have not attempted to character assassinate you, I have noticed a general intolerance towards others that some religious people have.

You may not damn them for all eternity, but you look down on them all the same.

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Quote:

hightor Quote:
Why is that so harmful? As long as one is open to new discoveries and doesn't simply close the door I see nothing wrong with making tentative conclusions.

Frank said:
You mean "what is so harmful" other than the many wars, slaughters, genocides; pogroms; suicides; patricides; matricides; fratricides; regicides and **** like that which are a direct result of "tentative conclusions?"

Frank has me on 'Ignore' but I cannot restrain myself from an involuntary' Oh PLEASE...'. cast into cyberspace

1 Reply

@izzythepush,

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He was another one...

I'm really sorry that I've offended you but I don't understand your hostility and insistence that I'm making my beliefs out to be "better" or myself "smarter" than others. I don't think the way you do on this topic so you start insulting me. Okay.

See ya.

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@hightor,

I wasn’t insulting you, and you’ve not offended me.

I have not seen a spirit of live and let live in your debate, I’ve seen you dismissive of others, people who do not believe the same as you are gullible and therefore stupid.

That’s the word you used, if you want to pretend that isn’t the same as saying you’re smarter than such believers then that’s down to you.

Sounds like you’re the one being gullible.

You’ve not said what you would consider a reasonable belief in an afterlife.

1 Reply

@Leadfoot,

Leadfoot wrote:

Frank has me on 'Ignore'

Me too. Apparently he can't handle the fact that I don't hate Mr. Trump.

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