Shoutbox

It's got it pretty mapped out hasn't he.

Untill I see it for my own eyes ......

It's fake

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Originally posted by traxor
I don't believe that we can just stop, nothing just disappears like that...

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I feel that we do just 'stop'... sure, our body is still there, it may even look exactly as it did before we died (for a short while) but the difference is that it isn't working.

Think of a toy with batteries. The batteries run out, and it stops working. It hasn't gone anywhere or 'disappeared' at all.
Note: The above is not an analogy upon my opinion of death, rather an analogy of how we don't disappear

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Originally posted by lizard.boy
I do however belive that the whole idea of life after death does make it easier for us to handle death

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That's exactly what I think, people will believe what's most convienient for them, whether it's true or not.

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Originally posted by UTI
Hence my theory of reincarnation... You'll basically wake up, in a different body, with no memories except those that are your instincts in life.

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This is where theories and things get to me. Reincarnation; it's a very 'hopeful' way of thinking. If you have no memories of your past life, and past body, what brings you to the conclusion that you have been reincarnated?

Hypothetically, if reincarnation were possible, and every time you died you came back in a body, we would have a bit of a drama. Let's assume that 200 000 people die today, let's also assume that 280 000 people are born today. Where did these extra 80 000 'souls' come from? Are some people now living two lives? I personally feel that logic rules out any possibility of reincarnation. (edit before post: I kept reading and thekid already mentioned this )

As for your idea that you will have basic life instincts 'from a past life', I tend to disagree... people are born with attributes similar to their parents and other family. This of course due to genes. Any instincts you have you are born with, or they are 'taught' (conciously or subconciously) into you from a young age.

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Originally posted by GiantSpider
What's the point in actually doing this (life) to take a loada shit all the time, work dead end jobs, knowing that there is nothing afterwards.

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I personally don't work a dead end job to achieve something after my death. I work to live, and to enjoy my life while it's going.

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I think marissa has a great point of view, being able to look over someone after your dead, and not for everything to just 'end', but again, I think it's just something hopeful - thought up for piece of mind.

People see life after death through two different perspectives. Physical, such as reincarnation, and spiritual, such as looking on from above etc. I tend to see everyone's opinion of being able to live after death as these apparent 'spirits'.

Everyone knows, once we die our body will decompose away etc. The idea that these particals can then go into the soil which seeps into the river which is drunk by a horse which goes to the toilet leaving manure which is used in a garden.... etc etc etc. Sure, our particals won't just disappear. But it doesn't make whoever we end up "in" any more "us", they are just using our 'parts'. Let's say, for argument' sake, while living, one of us transplanted our finger to another living person. Are we living two lives? We are a part of them after all.

Basically, yes, we are a part of people after death, but I don't think this can be considered 'life' after death.

As for such theories as our spirits or souls living on, I don't believe in that at all... I don't value such theories as they don't have a scientific backing. Call me one-eyed, but I personally need logic to believe in such things as god(s), life after death, and creation etc... I don't want to venture into the does god exist argument in this thread so I'll leave this part of the argument as is.

edit: I forgot to add how much I agree with what ajd was saying, but I'm too lazy to put that into detail...
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Originally posted by ajd

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Originally posted by absorbation/Mr.G
Mr.G wants to say this.......

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What... nice theories. It's a shame that they're completely ridiculous. I was actually laughing like hell as I read them

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As much as Mr. G can be annoying, and as rediculous as his theories may seem to you and me, he is entitled to his own opinion on how things work.


hmmmm, a bit of an essay by me here, enjoy reading it all

For those of you who dont believe in reincarnation, souls and that kind of stuff, read this, it's interesting :

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... "It's completely natural," I say, "to think of Europeans who believed in ghosts or Indians who believed in ghosts as ignorant. The scientific point of view has wiped out every other view to a point where they all seem primitive, so that if a person today talks about ghosts or spirits he is considered ignorant or maybe nutty. It's just all but completely impossible to imagine a world where ghosts can actually exist."

John nods affirmatively and I continue.

"My own opinion is that the intellect of modern man isn't that superior. IQs aren't that much different. Those Indians and medieval men were just as intelligent as we are, but the context in which they thought was completely different. Within that context of thought, ghosts and spirits are quite as real as atoms, particles, photons and quants are to a modern man. In that sense I believe in ghosts. Modern man has his ghosts and spirits too, you know."

"What?"

"Oh, the laws of physics and of logic -- the number system -- the principle of algebraic substitution. These are ghosts. We just believe in them so thoroughly they seem real.

"They seem real to me," John says.

"I don't get it," says Chris.

So I go on. "For example, it seems completely natural to presume that gravitation and the law of gravitation existed before Isaac Newton. It would sound nutty to think that until the seventeenth century there was no gravity."

"Of course."

"So when did this law start? Has it always existed?"

John is frowning, wondering what I am getting at.

"What I'm driving at," I say, "is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed."

"Sure."

"Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's mind because there wasn't anyone, not in space because there was no space either, not anywhere...this law of gravity still existed?"

Now John seems not so sure.

"If that law of gravity existed," I say, "I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. It seems to me that law of gravity has passed every test of nonexistence there is. You cannot think of a single attribute of nonexistence that that law of gravity didn't have. Or a single scientific attribute of existence it did have. And yet it is still `common sense' to believe that it existed."

John says, "I guess I'd have to think about it."

"Well, I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton. No other conclusion makes sense.

"And what that means," I say before he can interrupt, "and what that means is that that law of gravity exists nowhere except in people's heads! It's a ghost! We are all of us very arrogant and conceited about running down other people's ghosts but just as ignorant and barbaric and superstitious about our own."

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(Robert Pirsig - ‘Zen and The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance’ if you're interested )

Sure you can counter his words, but it still makes you think

Well, I always try to be "correct". Thus, I think when I die, that's it. I died. And I won't come back and float around as an entity (< sorry).

But I love things that are not real, I'm a writer, anyway. I have a big imagination, naturally. If I had to answer as the fan I am, I'd say: when I die, I'll come back and post the answer.

But well, you see. I'll finish it rationally: I die, the end.

About Chrono's quote: At first, it made me think. But then again, we'd be floating (or smashed) if the gravitation was only in our heads.

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Originally posted by segosa
For those who're interested take a look at this:

http://141592653589.org/video/TheWayOfTheMaster.avi

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That's really interesting actually

Still an atheist agnostic though

And that guy they interviewed first sucked! They need someone who actually has intelligence to argue back

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Originally posted by Leonardo


About Chrono's quote: At first, it made me think. But then again, we'd be floating (or smashed) if the gravitation was only in our heads.

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in the same way that people thought that you might roll off if the world wasn't flat?

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Originally posted by gif83
in the same way that people thought that you might roll off if the world wasn't flat?

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no, because that's actually untrue... and you can see whether the world is flat or not... gravity, you can't see it.... Little does anybody know that there is indeed gravity in space... no matter where you are (to my knowledge)....

In space you float, because your in continuous freefall, not zero-gravity.... It's there, even if you don't think it is, or don't know it is... so it's actually a bit different

The whole issue evolves around the the understanding of the brain. Although that might sound scientific, there is actually still room for religion and believes in this...

That the brain is extremely complex (actually way beyond what we could grasp... making it actually kind of a paradox ). We can understand how it works chemically and stuff, but we never can fully explain the ins and outs of it (yet). Like what is dreaming exactly (sure it are some chemicals things going on in the brain, and we can perfectly pinpoint where it occurs, but how does it work?).

If people report that they saw a tunnle of white light, are they liars because you don't believe there isn't something as a soul, life after dead, etc? No, those people really really really saw that. But it is a question of how they saw it. What were the chemical balances in their brain which produced such an image, and where does that image comes from? Culture and surroundings is only part of the explanation.

I for one, had a desease called epilepsy (the falling desease as it is sometimes unrightfully called) when I was younger (not in a severe form, so I was able to "grow out" of it). I have experienced many times very strange stuff right before I went uncounscience. And sometimes I did see myself lying on the floor and the people around me. The last time I went down I afterwads even could describe some stuff (in the room/people) which would be almost impossible to know without actually being consience and standing in the back. I even could recall some stuff people were saying which standed way back while I couldn't describe what other were saying who stood right beside me.

Does that mean there is something as a "floating soul" or whatever? I dunno. It sure means there are things going on which we still don't fully understand and the brain is way more powerfull and capable of doing things then we actually think or have prooven by now. Does it mean I believe in supernatural things like life after dead? not really. The question is also, is all this even "supernatural", it is quite possible that the brain records stuff in a very particular and maybe distored way when you are unconscience, so it could pick out sounds further away, while it couldn't 'focus' on stuff right behind it. The images could come from a very very deep memory, etc... The brain works totally different (inrational some might say) when your unconsience, and the most trouble here is, since the person is unconscience it is extremely hard to do research about this as you can't have scientific feedback.

Does that exclude religion and other stuff like that? Nope, since we don't understand the brain fully, we also still can't say something is scientific true or false or that there is something else out there.

In most cases, we say it is "supernatural" or "something out there" (or even "god" if you wish), for stuff we still connot explain fully in a scientific way or for things we don't know yet (eg: earth is flat issue). It doesn't mean it actually is "supernatural" and stuff (eg: mindreaders; are they truely "mindreaders" or are they people who can pick up and interpret body signals better than an average person.)...

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Originally posted by Time
Humans just dislike the feeling of existential anxiety. It should click in your mind that you don't have sufficient knowledge about what will happen after you die, and that, no matter what, the individuality you hold at this single moment will become a part of something you can never experience again; just a memory... or worse, just forgotten. It's negation of identity. So you invent heaven and hell so that your identity can continue after death.

Feel and believe what you want but the basic biology of it is that you cease to exist and you fade to nothing. All the electrical impulses that feed your thoughts stop. Heaven and hell are thoughts, ethereal whispers of abstract electricity passing between neurons in your brain expressed as a tailor made image of some utopia, they aren't real.

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Beautiful...