Life after death

[yungerkid]

dang right. not only is that a fault, that also contradicts the Bible. those fools. if only they would become Christians. i agree with you about them.

[Keron]

Back to the topic...

What about NDEs? I was surprised to find no talk on near-death experiences. People who have such experiences consistently tell—with confidence—of facts they couldn't possibly have known, such as in one woman's case after surgery: she pointed out that a dirty tennis shoe was on the roof of the hospital, and was able to name its brand. Another told doctors that her niece was waiting outside the door for her, when the girl had came with her mother and the two waited for the patient after the woman had already been knocked out for the operation. She described her niece BEFORE the girl came through the door into the patient's room, down to the clothes, shoes, and hairstyle that she had on. It was impossible for these people to know, and there are more cases—how? They say they were able to see themselves being operated on, and could hover and pass through walls... all consistent descriptors of a soul that surpasses the physical realm.

NDE patients also (only some, or all? I don't remember) reference moving through a tunnel of light, and some skeptics have dismissed the image as the brain returning to the trauma of birth... but that's impossible because babies' heads, when born, are facing UP, face-first into the mother's flesh, not above their bodies towards the end of the womb. :P Plus there's the memory rebuttal (we can't even remember anything from before the age of 3 or 4 in general, and we all know how we warp memories anyways). At any rate I was curious to know what you think of such patients' experiences.

[DemonzLunchBreak]

atheists have respect too, tsukatu. they're not all abusive and choleric. and Christianity as a religion did not invent love. we are not the only ones who practice it. i don't know where you got that "only Christians can feel respect" (paraphrased) idea.

That's the worst paraphrasing I've ever seen. Re-read what Suki wrote.

i believe that humans are machines and objects, and i still maintain a certain level of respect for them. he's asking you to do something that is *in your nature*. is it really that hard or that contrary to your core beliefs?

You respect inanimate objects that nobody owns and that have no value to anyone ever? That's absurd.

Edit: Keron, the human brain releases DMT, a powerful hallucinogen, when it is close to dying. All the phenomena you've presented can be explained through this mechanism and confirmation bias.

[blue_tetris]

Back to the topic...

What about NDEs? I was surprised to find no talk on near-death experiences. People who have such experiences consistently tell—with confidence—of facts they couldn't possibly have known, such as in one woman's case after surgery: she pointed out that a dirty tennis shoe was on the roof of the hospital, and was able to name its brand. Another told doctors that her niece was waiting outside the door for her, when the girl had came with her mother and the two waited for the patient after the woman had already been knocked out for the operation. She described her niece BEFORE the girl came through the door into the patient's room, down to the clothes, shoes, and hairstyle that she had on. It was impossible for these people to know, and there are more cases—how? They say they were able to see themselves being operated on, and could hover and pass through walls... all consistent descriptors of a soul that surpasses the physical realm.

NDE patients also (only some, or all? I don't remember) reference moving through a tunnel of light, and some skeptics have dismissed the image as the brain returning to the trauma of birth... but that's impossible because babies' heads, when born, are facing UP, face-first into the mother's flesh, not above their bodies towards the end of the womb. :P Plus there's the memory rebuttal (we can't even remember anything from before the age of 3 or 4 in general, and we all know how we warp memories anyways). At any rate I was curious to know what you think of such patients' experiences.

I haven't seen any believable evidence that says people with NDEs have accurately predicted distant or future events accurately. I'd love to see links of this proof of psychic activity working. James Randi will also pay you a million dollars for it if you give him the link. Seriously, if it's proof, you can get rich off of it.

About the experience itself:

Every night I go to far off worlds, see people I haven't seen in a long time, and experience bizarre and unique revelations. I must be nearly dying each night. I better start monitoring my cholesterol better.

[Keron]

DMT doesn't explain how the people could learn of facts that were clearly unknown to them in their physical state, and limited body on the operating table. They were right, 100% of the time. And they were not events that they knew of, Dave—just presences of objects, like our own perception. One of them could point out the exact materials the surgeons were using at what moment of the operations. Unfortunately, I don't have a link; I saw this all on a long documentary on NDEs some time ago.

[lord_day]

After reading Keron's post, I headed over to good old wiki to read this article. If you scroll down to 'Spiritual viewpoints' it talks about some of the things Keron was talking about. It talks about the stories, and possible explanations.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

atheists have respect too, tsukatu. they're not all abusive and choleric. and Christianity as a religion did not invent love. we are not the only ones who practice it. i don't know where you got that "only Christians can feel respect" (paraphrased) idea.

Wow, that's not at all what I said.
I didn't say that Christians are the only ones who can show or feel respect, and neither did I accuse Christians of thinking so. I didn't say that atheists can't have respect, either, although I totally wouldn't put it past a typical Christian to accuse an atheist of that (which is not saying that you or incluye feel this way).
What I did say is that I don't find it reasonable to give unconditional respect, as incluye appeared to think his religion advocated. I also asked him why he thought his question was reasonable.

i believe that humans are machines and objects

Are you sure you're a Christian? Even given whatever modern conception your overeager youth group pastor might mistakenly call Christianity?

he's asking you to do something that is *in your nature*. is it really that hard or that contrary to your core beliefs?

I don't think it's at all in my nature to respect unconditionally, or to respect someone on the basis of them doing something I think is a bad idea.

[yungerkid]

your whole post can be summed up thus: unconditional respect is not logical. to put it simply, i agree. with that. in our faith, however, God loves us unconditionally. we do not love or respect other people unconditionally. we respect other people on the condition that they are God's creation, and we love other people on the condition that God first loved us. and i by no means advocate unconditional anything. everything must have a reason. including God's "unconditional" love. oh and by the way, the church that i attend does not have a youth section. God is a machine and an object. there's nothing wrong with that.

[Tanner]

I sure hope there's no afterlife. Eternity'd be boring as... well, boring as hell.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

your whole post can be summed up thus: unconditional respect is not logical. to put it simply, i agree. with that. in our faith, however, God loves us unconditionally. we do not love or respect other people unconditionally. we respect other people on the condition that they are God's creation, and we love other people on the condition that God first loved us. and i by no means advocate unconditional anything. everything must have a reason. including God's "unconditional" love.

What a cop-out. It's not even a functional one; it's a poor attempt at a distraction in the hope that making the issue a tiny bit more complicated will increase the odds that a misunderstanding will develop in your favor.
If your condition for respecting someone is something unconditional, then your respect is by extension unconditional.
Everything was created by God, which makes "I only respect things God created" into "I respect absolutely everything." The meaning is exactly the same -- the respect in question is still unconditional.

God is a machine and an object. there's nothing wrong with that.

You best be joking.
If God is a machine, then omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence no longer apply to It. It doesn't have any impulse, consciousness, free will, morality, choice, capacity to hear your prayers or care about your church attendance, inspire laws about human conduct, send a Son to Earth to die for the sins of humanity, etc. You've completely killed your God yet again.
So that one didn't work, either. Go ahead and move on to another arbitrary and romantic conception of God that you completely invent, as you're bound to, because this is another defunct one. Only this time, could I ask that you do the thinking yourself in your critical evaluation so that I don't have to do it for you? 'Preciate it.

[jean-luc]

You best be joking.
If God is a machine, then omnipotence, omniscience, and omnibenevolence no longer apply to It. It doesn't have any impulse, consciousness, free will, morality, choice, capacity to hear your prayers or care about your church attendance, inspire laws about human conduct, send a Son to Earth to die for the sins of humanity, etc. You've completely killed your God yet again.
So that one didn't work, either. Go ahead and move on to another arbitrary and romantic conception of God that you completely invent, as you're bound to, because this is another defunct one. Only this time, could I ask that you do the thinking yourself in your critical evaluation so that I don't have to do it for you? 'Preciate it.

Have you ever seriously considered the possibility of god being a computer?
I'm not saying I think so, but it's worth considering. There are books upon books, both from the fiction and nonfic sectors, about the concept.
If the final point of human evolution is, as some have proposed, the transformation in to computers (which are far closer to perfect than our bodies are capable of) than does it not stand to reason that God would be naught but a very powerful and well-connected AI?

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

Have you ever seriously considered the possibility of god being a computer?
I'm not saying I think so, but it's worth considering. There are books upon books, both from the fiction and nonfic sectors, about the concept.
If the final point of human evolution is, as some have proposed, the transformation in to computers (which are far closer to perfect than our bodies are capable of) than does it not stand to reason that God would be naught but a very powerful and well-connected AI?

Absolutely, I have thought about it. And with the amount I feel you ought to know about me, I'm a little insulted that you don't think I've spent too much time thinking about that, specifically.
It really boils down to the definition of a computer. To me, once you discuss how much like computers a human is, it boils down to the universe being deterministic, no free will, etc. Humans are complicated computers, and theoretically are 100% predictable. If God is such, then He has no free will either, besides conforming to human limitations within the concept of what it means to be like a computer. Both of these are severely troubling, and I would argue that such an entity does not deserve the name "god."

[jean-luc]

Ah, if god was a computer, I would think that god would have to be capable of 'thought' in our conventional sense, or perhaps a more advanced one. Of course, then that does come down to one's definition of computer. If a computer is capable of thought as we are, is it still a 'computer,' or simply an animal of different physiology?
Tricky.

[blue_tetris]

Computing used to be a humans-only activity. We started making devices that compute; it's no wonder those devices blur the line between man and man-made.

If God is anything like man--and the early witnesses to God say that we were made in His image--then God's processes are likely as electrical as man's. It'll only be a matter of centuries before man is done making God on paper and starts programming God into code.

[otters]

I sure hope there's no afterlife. Eternity'd be boring as... well, boring as hell.

That was really a bad joke, but the New Jerusalem is supposed to be, like, the most exciting, stimulating, satisfying experience on...uh...not on earth.
Think of it kinda like an eternal orgasm, if that helps.

[blue_tetris]

I sure hope there's no afterlife. Eternity'd be boring as... well, boring as hell.

That was really a bad joke, but the New Jerusalem is supposed to be, like, the most exciting, stimulating, satisfying experience on...uh...not on earth.
Think of it kinda like an eternal orgasm, if that helps.

That would be boring. Not only that, but it would ruin the experience of the orgasm for you, I think.



The novelty and brevity of life is the what makes life worth experiencing. If life went on for too long, it would no longer be novel nor brief.

[otters]

I sure hope there's no afterlife. Eternity'd be boring as... well, boring as hell.

That was really a bad joke, but the New Jerusalem is supposed to be, like, the most exciting, stimulating, satisfying experience on...uh...not on earth.
Think of it kinda like an eternal orgasm, if that helps.

That would be boring. Not only that, but it would ruin the experience of the orgasm for you, I think.

Exactly. Bad example. I knew I should have explained it better.

[Maligus]

well...you cant NOT exist...its not very likely...its more likely that you would have some sort of existence after death...whatever that existence may be...

[b3njamin]

*replying to the first post*


No I do not believe in heaven. I'm kinda down-to-earth, even so much that I think that there isn't a live after dead or 'a' God. Why? because I don't notice anything of 'a' god. many people disagree in me but if I seriously can notice there is a god then I would believe. I think when you die it would be a 'giant sleep forever'.

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

well...you cant NOT exist...its not very likely...its more likely that you would have some sort of existence after death...whatever that existence may be...

What makes you think it's more likely than not?

[Maligus]

well...you cant NOT exist...its not very likely...its more likely that you would have some sort of existence after death...whatever that existence may be...

What makes you think it's more likely than not?

the simple fact that once something exists then....according to science....it cannot NOT exist...its always there no matter in what form

[otters]

well...you cant NOT exist...its not very likely...its more likely that you would have some sort of existence after death...whatever that existence may be...

What makes you think it's more likely than not?

the simple fact that once something exists then....according to science....it cannot NOT exist...its always there no matter in what form

The Law of the Conservation of Energy. Which doesn't apply to the soul. Which...brings us back to the question of whether people have souls or not. (NDEs, anybody?)

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

well...you cant NOT exist...its not very likely...its more likely that you would have some sort of existence after death...whatever that existence may be...

What makes you think it's more likely than not?

the simple fact that once something exists then....according to science....it cannot NOT exist...its always there no matter in what form

Yeah, incluye pretty much just said it.
Every constituent bit of you is recycled back into the universe, and the only reason you had consciousness in the first place was because the matter you were composed of happened to be in such a configuration that it formed a brain and allowed the capacity for thought, just like a bunch of scrap metal might be in such a configuration that it works like a jet airplane. When your machinery fails, as all machines are bound to do eventually, you break down and cease functioning, at which point bacteria pull apart your constituent bits just as humans might salvage parts from a downed airplane. Your parts can then be reused, or otherwise lay around for a while decomposing (especially if you ate a lot of junk food).
That is the way science says that matter/energy is not created or destroyed.
So the issues that come up with your implication are:

• Neither biology nor physics has ever addressed the soul. The sciences have made pretty detailed study on anatomy, but the alleged soul has not actually ever been observed in a human by science. You could say that there is probably an afterlife because matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed, but that would only be valid if physics had found the soul to be made from matter or energy... at this point, physics hasn't even found it in the first place.
• The conservation of matter and energy occurs in a closed, isolated system (e.g. our universe as science can describe it right now). This means that matter and energy are recycled. So if a part of you is recycled into Heaven or Hell, then Heaven and Hell would have to be within our universe (maybe in the form of a planet, or deep underground). And if you go the route of defining Heaven as being in God's presence and Hell as lacking God's presence, then that would have profound implications in and of itself.
• I should've said this first, but you just described supernatural activity with science, which means you are guaranteed to lose this argument.

[Maligus]

what created matter then...that is the real question

[t̷s͢uk̕a͡t͜ư]

what created matter then...that is the real question

No, what that is is a non-sequitur.
I think we're done here.