Terry wrote:No, I do not think that there is life after physical death. Everything we know about the brain and consciousness indicates that the destruction of any part of the physical brain (whether due to drugs, disease, defects, or trauma) affects our experience of consciousness. Once the brain has been deprived of oxygen for more than a few minutes, it is no longer possible for consciousness to return even if the body is kept alive.
At the very least, consciousness requires some kind of patterned energy. There must be some kind of physical system to keep this energy from immediately dispersing, collect sensory data, process it, store and retrieve memories, and use it to create coherent patterns of thought. In addition, you will need biochemical processes if you want to feel emotions.
How, then, do you suppose that your alleged spirit can exist after the physical brain that produced the coherent brain waves that are the hallmark of awareness, is nothing but rotten meat?
Sorry, real life et al, but the Bible is not a reliable guide to anything.
Terry's comments are limited entirely by their assumption that the construct of science is more objective than religion. both scientific and spiritual beliefs derive from what we know and are able to comprehend from our experiences and our scensory (and otherwise) interaction with reality.
neither is more reliable than the other and yet both should seek to provide functional insight into the mechanics of existance.
at the end of the day, religion and spirituality are still built around people's experiences of the world, their minds...what ever and these experiences are chemical reactions in essence but yet have great, unquestionable meaning for the protagonists.
in some religious ceremonies, people work themselves up into a staight where they believe they are 'filled with the Holy Spirit'. in this staight people have thought to have seen visions, talked with God, found peace etc and this is all when they are presumably sober! sigmund freud's views are widely influential and intrinsic to alot of contemporary psychology and yet he was a heavy opium user. how can science accept his ideas as objective, not least because his work is based on pure observational techniques?!
most of modern science is based on assumptions and tests made in light of the evidence available and sometimes more evidence comes to light that proves contrary to what we at one time, held as truth eg we now know the is infact not flat. knowledge is a composition of theory on which to base action or belief as is faith.
sometimes i can feel a harmony with life that leads me to wonder whether there is an elemental human spirit that encompasses so much more than just my body. there is so much we dont understand that we dont have time to make catagorical statements about the nature of body and soul that are limited by one set of criteria. we should embrace the unknown and put our faith in the things that make the world go round smoother rather than a nihilistic apathy that can arise from th notion that my body will rot and all that i am in mind means nothing and will rot with it.
hows this...the movement or vibrations of atoms create, density, texture, colour and all physical manifestations of matter and anti matter right? i think that maybe there's a different frequency of matter, a kind of submatter, that exists at the same point in space as this frequency of matter and time and our consciousness resonates at this frequncey but is contained within the body which is resonating at a different rate. when the body dies, the consciousness (soul) continues to exist in submatter. i think that the submatter resonates at the same frequency as the elemental vibrations that cause atoms to create matter and this is the source of all living energy (God). this would mean that when we die, we become the same as the elemental energies that create matter itself and at this point our consciouness is aware of everything all at once (heaven).
of course, all this is up for discussion....
