Afterlife?

@Brandon9000,

This one's made for you Brandon.

https://babylonbee.com/news/enlightened-minecraft-character-denies-existence-game-designer/

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@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

Where is the evidence that your car or toaster ceases to operate after it breaks? You can see with your own eyes that it's not operating any more. You don't need any more evidence than seeing it to conclude that your car or toaster are no longer working.

That is evidence that the car or toaster has died.

It is not evidence that there is no afterlife for the car or toaster.

Brandon9000 wrote:

What would require evidence is the belief that some essence of the car or toaster continues to operate in some other magical place.

Just because we can't define an afterlife with our current knowledge does not mean that it is magical if it exists.

Although, who knows. I guess that is one possibility.

Brandon9000 wrote:

So, again, give me one single scrap of evidence that some essence of people continues after the body breaks.

If I ever make an argument that there definitely is an afterlife, I will back it with evidence.

Until such time as I make such an argument, I am not obligated to back it up.

1 Reply

Actually the questions "is there a God" and "is there an afterlife" are two entirely separate issues.

This point was raised earlier (in part) when it was pointed out that some religions that worship God don't recognize the existence of an afterlife.

But the separation works the other way too. What if there is no God, but we still have an afterlife anyway? Maybe when we pray, our prayers are heard by the spirits of our ancestors.

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@Brandon9000,

Brandon9000 wrote:

oralloy wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
I believe that the body is a machine because it appears to be one. Organs function by electro-chemical processes which are capable of being understood and interacted with. At some point it breaks. Believing something because it appears to be true isn't zealotry.

Scientists function by gathering evidence, uniting it in a theory which explains it, then performing tests to see if it behaves as it would if the theory were true. Scientists do not believe things for which there is no evidence.

There is no evidence that we cease to exist when we die. Therefore there is no scientific reason to believe that we cease to exist when we die.

Brandon9000 wrote:
Give me one single piece of evidence that there's an afterlife.

There is none.

But, as I noted above, there is also zero evidence that there is not.

Thus agnosticism.

Where is the evidence that your car or toaster ceases to operate after it breaks? You can see with your own eyes that it's not operating any more. You don't need any more evidence than seeing it to conclude that your car or toaster are no longer working. What would require evidence is the belief that some essence of the car or toaster continues to operate in some other magical place. So, again, give me one single scrap of evidence that some essence of people continues after the body breaks.

You seem to be saying that there is no afterlife of any sort.

Is that what you are saying?

Or are you saying that there may be an afterlife of some sort, but that there is no proof or unambiguous evidence of it?

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@Frank Apisa,

Thanks for your response; your points have been duly noted.

1 Reply

@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Thanks for your response; your points have been duly noted.

Apparently you have no questions for me. I find that unusual, but I accept it.

I have posed several questions of you...and you have avoided them. Two of those questions were posed in my last response...the one for which you thanked me.

Here they are again:

You seem to be saying that there is no afterlife of any sort.

Is that what you are saying?

Or are you saying that there may be an afterlife of some sort, but that there is no proof or unambiguous evidence of it?

Since I am only asking you to clarify what you are attempting to communicate...why are you not answering them? (Another question.)

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Quote:

You seem to be saying that there is no afterlife of any sort.

Is that what you are saying?

It's not a belief that I hold.

Quote:

Or are you saying that there may be an afterlife of some sort, but that there is no proof or unambiguous evidence of it?

No, I'm not saying that. It's so amorphous — if someone wants to say that I'd be inclined to simply let the comment pass. One could speculate on the existence all sorts of beings according to the form of that particular question. Why is speculating on the possibility of an afterlife any more important than imagining a planet where animals can talk and keep humans as pets?

Quote:

Since I am only asking you to clarify what you are attempting to communicate...why are you not answering them?

Because I have a life offline and had other things to do this morning.

I guess the only question I have for you, more of an observation, is that discussing the possibility of an invisible god (or gods) that we can't perceive and which never interferes in human affairs or acts as human beings would expect it to act seems like a way to reduce the subject to total irrelevance. It certainly doesn't inspire worship or devotion. Whether such a being exists , can or cannot exist, or doesn't exist at all is hardly worth discussing, let alone arguing over.

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@hightor,

I know. Frank won’t accept my answers either.

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

Quote:

You seem to be saying that there is no afterlife of any sort.

Is that what you are saying?

It's not a belief that I hold.

Quote:

Or are you saying that there may be an afterlife of some sort, but that there is no proof or unambiguous evidence of it?

No, I'm not saying that. It's so amorphous — if someone wants to say that I'd be inclined to simply let the comment pass. One could speculate on the existence all sorts of beings according to the form of that particular question. Why is speculating on the possibility of an afterlife any more important than imagining a planet where animals can talk and keep humans as pets?

Quote:
Since I am only asking you to clarify what you are attempting to communicate...why are you not answering them?

Because I have a life offline and had other things to do this morning.

I guess the only question I have for you, more of an observation, is that discussing the possibility of an invisible god (or gods) that we can't perceive and which never interferes in human affairs or acts as human beings would expect it to act seems like a way to reduce the subject to total irrelevance. It certainly doesn't inspire worship or devotion. Whether such a being exists , can or cannot exist, or doesn't exist at all is hardly worth discussing, let alone arguing over.

Allow me to deal with that last "observation."

In my opinion, not only is the question "Are there any gods?" worth discussing...it is, once again in my opinion, THE MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION any of us can be asking of each other. (More on that in a second.)

Obviously I am of the opinion that the question cannot be answered...and I extend that to "Is it more likely that at least one god exists than that none exist?"...which I also suppose to be unanswerable.

Why do I think it important (VERY, VERY important)? Because until we all get to the point where we acknowledge that we do not know...and probably CANNOT know either of those things...we will never clean up the many messes created by some people (many, actually) abusing the right to "believe" in a god and being willing to kill others who do not.

It is my opinion that the preponderance of war and hatred starts at the level of "deity worship" that gets out of control. Let me stress that not all people who are into deity worship allow themselves to become monsters in the name of their deity, but lots do. Some even do it on a subconscious level.

People who claim there are no gods...or that it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one...can never be successful at dealing with that problem. All people like you do is to say that the question can be answered reasonably...and that you have the answer.

There is no way to get to the answers through reason or logic or math or science, Hightor. One cannot use reason, logic, math, or science to concluse:

There is at least one god;
There are no gods;
It is more likely that there is at least one god than that there are none;
It is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.

Humanity has to learn that.

That is why I think it is important to discuss it.

1 Reply

But not with the only other person willing to seriously discuss it.

Curious

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@Leadfoot,

Maybe it's for the best.

If he is so unhinged that he needs to put us on ignore for politely disagreeing with him, then if he didn't put us on ignore he would probably instead be subjecting us to abusive name-calling.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

One cannot use reason, logic, math, or science to concluse:

There is at least one god;
There are no gods;
It is more likely that there is at least one god than that there are none;
It is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.

Humanity has to learn that.

Militant atheists feel that humanity has to learn that there is no God.

Militant adherents of various religions feel that humanity has to learn that their religion is the only correct one and the rest of us will burn in Hell.

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@hightor,

I'm quoting from two separate posts here.

hightor wrote:

What would be the evolutionary function of an afterlife?

hightor wrote:

Some people try to argue for the afterlife by referring to NDE's but those stories have been pretty well explained without recourse to supernaturalism.

Presuming for the sake of argument that NDEs have a mundane explanation and are not related to an afterlife, what would be the evolutionary function of these NDEs?

It's hard to see how these experiences further the propagation of future generations of life.

1 Reply

@hightor,

my discussions with Frank have gotten amazingly more collegial. My points have been that no valiid evidence exists for an afterlife with the exception of Conservation of Energy Laws . Evidence does not exist on the scientific scene supporting afterlife while evidence counter to an afterlife does, (mostly through archeological and literary accounts)
So. In that I can prove neither positions from a hard data point, I am agnostic. While I live my life without a need of a heap of gods, I am atheistic.

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Evidence does not exist on the scientific scene supporting afterlife

Agreed.

farmerman wrote:

while evidence counter to an afterlife does, (mostly through archeological and literary accounts)

What counter-evidence is this?

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

...what would be the evolutionary function of these NDEs?

I don't believe that NDE's have an evolutionary function, as they are a temporary brain state not experienced by everyone who approaches death and recovers. I don't think that every human experience is necessarily connected to natural selection. I posed the question with regard to an afterlife because some people think it a universal phenomenon as natural as birth, sickness, and death, common to us all, part of our universal human inheritance.

Quote:

It's hard to see how these experiences further the propagation of future generations of life.

I feel the same about life after death.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

Quote:

Maybe it's for the best.

If he is so unhinged that he needs to put us on ignore for politely disagreeing with him, then if he didn't put us on ignore he would probably instead be subjecting us to abusive name-calling.

Possibly, but I’d be as hypocritical as Frank if I claimed to not fear death but was bothered by name-calling.

And I am curious about anyone's story of how they made the ultimate choice on that all important question.

Frank's is interesting because on one hand he takes the question seriously, but then also claims he renounced his 'faith' because one day he simply “grew up “. He doesn’t want any questions related to whatever that meant.

Maybe I should respect his wishes. But I’d feel like I avoided my own responsibility if I did.

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@farmerman,

I've got nothing against Frank and was very happy to see him return to this site. I'll choose my interactions with him more carefully going forward. That's simple enough.

1 Reply

@oralloy,

archeological accounts and the historical record of things as basic as "authorship" and the discrepencies of all the Gospels that did NOT pass into the vulgate. "Jubilees", "Book of Mary Magdelan" etc etc.

The overlap and superposition of gospel events ( as far as Judaism Christianity , Islam and Latter Day Saints go) do not support anything but a series of poetic stories of civilization history.
Other civilizations had many incongruent tales of their gods and the earth.
So many cults have their oown history (Many of which are borrowed singularly for other applications by othercults), and these are all a forensic mish mash.
We do find artifacts from the pre Hss span on the planet of images of gods and evidences of things like "gods of good luck in hunting and gathering" to figurines evoking smooth shildbirth. The tales of actual after lives in which hominins as a group would participate is a very late story line, an one of which I can't see any evidence of reason for being.
Like hightor first mentioned ,and a point tht I shall forever glom onto and utilize (with his "lenity"),
"What evolutionary benefit does the existence of an afterlife present?"

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

my discussions with Frank have gotten amazingly more collegial. My points have been that no valiid evidence exists for an afterlife with the exception of Conservation of Energy Laws . Evidence does not exist on the scientific scene supporting afterlife while evidence counter to an afterlife does, (mostly through archeological and literary accounts)
So. In that I can prove neither positions from a hard data point, I am agnostic. While I live my life without a need of a heap of gods, I am atheistic.

I, too, am happy that we have been able to discuss things on a more collegial level, FM.

The issue of atheism is a tough one to handle here on the Internet...at least as difficult as is obtained with theists about theism.

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