Friday, May 27, 2011
Life after death - someday we will prove it (by anon)
In my Intro to Philosophy class, we had a debate on whether there is any life after death. The argument that won the case for the con team (that there is no life after death) was that since there is no proof of life after death, we have no reason to believe that it exists. My question is: what is with everyone's obsession with proof? Why does there have to be proof of something for us to believe in it? People continue to make new discoveries every day, and my theory is that life after death is real, we just have not developed the necessary tools to prove it yet. This argument links to Sextus Empiricus' argument about unknown properties. Sextus states that simply because we are unable to detect some properties, that does not necessarily mean that they do not exist. In the same way, there could be spirits that exist all around us, but we have not yet developed the senses to detect them. I believe that life after death does exist, and someday, with our always-improving technologies we will be able to prove it.
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I call bullshit. What possible reason could you have to believe something where there is no proof of it?? Should I believe that I have horns on my head when I can't see any, but I just have the hope that one day science will prove that I do? That's stupid shit. If there is life after death there should be proof now that there is. And all the so-called "proof" that there is right now is on par with Santa Claus and the Lock Ness monster. Give up now and start living on the this plane of existence.
ReplyDeleteEh Anon 10:52 you don't have to be so harsh. When it comes to life after death, one might as well believe whatever floats one's boat. It doesn't really matter in THIS life anyway whether we take on another life form after we die.... it just doesn't affect this world at all.... so why should anyone care about the truth value of the belief in life after death at all? If the thought of death is too scary to imagine, and one prefers to imagine that he/she will actually just live forever, then whatever. Sometimes I like to imagine that crossing my fingers or picking up pennies only when they are heads up are somehow lucky practices. Maybe it's bullshit, but does it matter?
ReplyDeleteStill I am curious.... in this blog does life after death necessarily mean life in heaven or hell? Or could it just be any kind of non-specified life? Because if you're talking about heaven and hell then we have a totally different playing field...
Of course, there is existence after death, but not for you, just for the molecules in your body, especially the carbon. They are not conscious and could care less where they go. Besides they are not yours anyway. They are like books from the library. After 80 years or so they have to be returned to the pool, to be used again in some other life form. If you have to believe in God and life after death to live a meaningful life and to get over the fear of "absolute death" then so be it. However, all intelligent people will or should agree that the brain is the seat of consciousness and it is nothing but an highly evolved organ. Evidence strongly indicates that one cannot think without a brain. The brain requires oxygen continuously as well as nourishment, and deprived of these necessities it dies fast. Death is not sudden but it comes in stages, but the brain is the first to go and as it goes the circuits get all fucked up, and people start to imagine things, see old friends, even see light. This is nothing more than the circuits fucking up. In short, believe whatever you want. It makes no different to the universe. You will still have to return your loaner to the Circulation Desk.
ReplyDeleteTerrific anon 5:42 - what a boring materialistic explanation of life and death. I thought death would be more exciting than that.... and way to bash those who believe in God and life after death by basically calling them unintelligent. I find that somewhat intolerant. Intelligent people can believe in God too, and even some kind of life after death, and it doesn't have to be out of fear.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, isn't there any part of you that thinks there's more to it than that?
I think there are still unanswered questions when it comes to the brain in general, which seems like an extremely complicated organ... and the process of thinking and being conscious... which also seem to be pretty complicated things that are difficult to explain how and why they happen in the first place. I'm not saying what you said is not true... I'm just saying there could always be more to it....there's always room in our world for more things we never thought would be possible.
Anon 7:07, face it. You just want there to be something else besides what you see. You WANT it. But as I'm sure you know, desire does not make for reality. Simply put, it is rational to believe only that there is no life after death.
ReplyDeleteYou even say that the brain is "an extremely complicated organ." But it is an organ nonetheless. Being complicated doesn't mean that we should start believing that there is some phantom-like thing attached to it in some way we don't even know how to explain.
Come on, humans have now lived on this earth long enough to know what works and how we get to truth. Countless religions have come and gone. None have had any shred of certifiable truth. Many people claim that they have some special insight into the life beyond. But they are all charlatans or just full of the wishful thinking. What works are math, science, experimentation, and seeing what is right before your eyes. That is what you can trust. That is what is rational to believe in. Everything else is EXACTLY like believing in Santa Claus.
You may think that I am harsh, but Anon 5:42 is right. And my guess is that you also know that I'm right. You're just fighting the inevitable truth that you will eventually accept. And there's nothing wrong with that. It is called being rational.
It could very well be the truth. All I am saying is that it is possible that there are things that are a part of this universe as a whole that go far beyond what we can understand through our puny ideas of science, math, etc. And of course I want there to be something more, but I also of course realize that desire does not make for reality.... I'm just being skeptical I guess. I mean, we're just little tiny life forms on a little tiny speck of dust in space... we don't know everything about life or why it even exists in the first place, so why is it so hard to say that we don't know everything about death, and what happens after it?
ReplyDeleteWe don't know everything. But that's not the point, is it? The point is about what to believe.
ReplyDeleteOh, we know quite a lot about outer space, very little about inner space, and even less about how they both fit together, Einstein's general theory and quantum physics, but we are learning.
ReplyDeleteYou can continue to be skeptical and questioning about life after death OUTSIDE of science, but there is no room for your speculations regarding life after death in science. There is NO life after death in science PERIOD. However, you can believe what you want to believe. Most Americans believe in an after life.
On another note, do not forget about June 16, 2011 - Bloomsday!
"...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. "
James Joyce
On the contrary Anon 9:16.... of course the point is we don't know everything, but basically just because we have this thing called science, we assume all of our speculations about life, etc. are correct... but they're just speculations. As far as what to believe... well that doesn't actually matter in this case, because chances are we'll never know until we actually die, thus it makes no difference right now what we actually believe. And Anon 3:23, you're stuck on science... why is science like the new religion?? Everything has to be based on science to be believable these days... well the science we can do as humans on Earth does not make us all-knowing... it just means we can put together some pieces of a puzzle that has an infinite number of pieces.... and some out of infinity is basically zero. We just can't see the whole picture no matter how many correlations we see and think we understand, and no matter how many theories that seem to work here in our little corner of the universe.... we just can't see it all, and to think so highly of ourselves to say that science is a means of real knowledge, and that if science says there's no life after death, then there must be no life after death... that might just be naive.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure why we are putting Santa Claus and God on the same playing field. As the story goes, Santa Claus is a person capable of some type of magic who exists wholly in the physical realm, i.e. that place defined by physics, mathematics and chemistry. As such, he is governed by the above laws, and those laws state that Santa Claus cannot make thousands of toys, visit every child on the planet, possess flying reindeer, live forever (on milk and cookies, no less), use magic, or employ hundreds or thousands of nonhuman sentient beings. Also, he can't possibly be living in the North Pole, since no residence has been found either above or below ground there.
ReplyDeleteBut enough of that. You all know Santa Claus doesn't exist, and to say that he does is foolish. However, as I said before, Santa Claus lives, breathes, works, delivers toys, and eats entirely in the physical world, and so he is governed by physical laws, which say that he cannot exist.
However, anyone who has given any thought to the notion of God, whoever God is, understands (as best as they can) that he/she/it exists maybe partially in the physical plane, but fundamentally in the spiritual plane. Clearly, that is something that we do not understand or observe. So God, a spiritual being, cannot be governed by physical laws. If God could be governed by physical laws, surely it would be impossible for God to exist. But as a spiritual being, God is governed by spiritual laws, whatever those are.
My point is not to prove that God exists (although personally I believe he does), my point is to rid the world of this Santa Claus = God nonsense. How has such a flawed argument risen to popularity? Surely you all don't just take someone else's argument and use it, regardless of whether it is fallacious or not?
Anon 2:05, how about we play it like this. Tell me what being on the "spiritual plane" would be like. Tell me what these "spiritual laws" are that govern God (which, by way of a sidenote, if were true, would mean that God is no longer God since something rules over "him").
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that you have one of two ways to go (which is going to land you in a dilemma). First, you could say (as you do) that we do not understand what they are. If that is true, then you should probably stop talking about them because you have no clue what they are. In fact, if you have no clue about them, why even say they are there at all? For if you say that they are there, it means that you have some clue as to what they are to even know that they are in existence.
If you do say that you have "some" clue as to what they are, then this brings us to the second way you could go. Your second way is to go about trying to describe what these spiritual things are (the plane and the laws). However, I urge you to do it in completely non-physical means since your whole bit against the Santa Claus analogy is that Santa is physical and God is not physical. My guess is that you will not be able to find a way because all you know (all anyone knows) are ways to describe things in physical terms. You'll probably talk about a spiritual plane as having some kind of spatial or temporal dimensions (and just saying that it is non-spatial and non-temporal doesn't cut it). And you'll probably talk about spiritual laws as governing a being much like physical and social (which is a derivative of the physical) laws govern us.
So your dilemma is that EITHER you have to give up the notion of talking about spiritual stuff (meaning that one can then make the analogy between Santa and God) OR you must admit that the spiritual stuff is really an analog to the physical (meaning that one can make the analogy between Santa and God).
I say the analogy stands.
Well, I feel like you've missed my point, Anon 9:30. My point was that Santa Claus is easily disprovable by physical means, since he exists physically, and that God is not easily disprovable by physical means, since "he" does not exist physically. I'm not trying to prove that God exists by physical means (that would contradict my argument, and make me a fool); I wasn't really trying to prove God or a spiritual plane at all. What I'm saying is that if a spiritual plane exists, with God on it, it would be impossible to explain. Indeed, the closest we could come to it would be equating God with Santa Claus, which, if you understand me, is quite far off.
ReplyDeleteSo, that was all I was saying. And since it was missed the first time, I'll re-summarize it for all: Santa is physical and God is spiritual, therefore the two cannot be disproved by the exact same logic. Do you not at least agree with that? It's quite fair, in my opinion.
Also, I didn't quite mean to take this thread off the rails. Feel free to revert back to the original topic!
9:40, you missed my point. My point is that you cannot talk about God in spiritual terms because either (1) something "spiritual" is so beyond our thought capacity that it is pointless to even talk about it, or (2) one can only speak of the "spiritual" in terms of physical terms, which means that it is basically physical. My point is that all talk of "spiritual" things is a farce. It's not possible in the way you want to have it. Thus, the only way "spiritual" makes sense at all is to conceive of it as physical, whereby the Santa Claus analogy becomes appropriate (or at least possible).
ReplyDeleteLet me ask you: what do you mean by "God is spiritual?" And no matter what you say, just don't use physical concepts or terms. If you can succeed in such a description without straying off into empty words, I'll concede.
First, I wish to state that I am primarily a non-religious thinker. My basic position is this: "I have no idea." I think for the most part to go too much of a distance beyond that is quite arrogant, regardless of which side you happen to fall.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, let me step in the middle of this argument about the "spiritual" world. I noticed the attempt to drive the opposition into submission by providing only two "possible" scenarios and forcing to choose between them. This is neither scientific nor reasonable. In most natural problems there can be near infinite possibilities, and to attempt to funnel it down to two for the sake of winning an argument is downright foolish.
Consider a black hole, for example. Can anyone describe them accurately, in a physical form or otherwise? Not really. The only thing we really can observe is the way they effect their surroundings. Still, we state their existence. We know there is *something* there causing the disturbance, we're just not 100% sure what.
Some people assert the foolishness of others' belief in a supreme being. It is equally foolish to state the lack of one. I'm not trying to say that there is one, or that there isn't one. What I'm really trying to say is that I don't know, and neither do you. No amount of debate is going to change that.
I think most people equate the afterlife with religion. This is why it is so difficult to talk intelligently about this subject. For me, the afterlife is based on Natural Laws. I think that the time will come when humankind will be move evolved and religion will become something of the past. Only then, when our minds are free from the religion mentality, will we be able to reason more freely and be able to prove scientifically that all life is eternal.
ReplyDeleteWho cares if people have religions? It's their choice to. If you take away their freedom of religion, you take away any freedom of theirs. So let them be religious all they want.
DeleteSome of you fuckers are retarded. Science has not proven there is no life after death. In fact, some scientists have theories that IT DOES exist (Ever watch wormhole?) Anyway, as of now, it's all speculation and that is the only fact in this matter. Stop being dip shits that hate religion and can't fathom it being correct in even the slightest way. You don't know shit about life after death. The religious don't know shit about life after death. And the scientists DON'T KNOW SHIT about life after death. Right fucking now as I type this, NO ONE FUCKING KNOWS SHIT FOR SURE ABOUT IT. So go fuck your arrogant selves.
ReplyDeleteHow ironic it is that you believe in life after death when you're against religion.
ReplyDelete