arthwollipot
Limerick Purist
No, just very, very tired of it.
Split Thread Atheism and lack of belief in the afterlife
- Thread starter psionl0
- Start date
Tassman
Graduate Poster
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There is NO argument about gods when gods don't exist, which is the point.
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
???And to think that I am being accused of solipsism.
Definition of solipsism:-
the view or theory that the self is all that can be known to exist.
You have been accused of solipsism because you practiced it. I have not. I simply pointed out that the definition of death excludes there being life after it, and the definition of supernatural excludes things that exist. That's not solipsism, it's science.
If you have died already then there is no consciousness to transfer.
Unless... we find some way to reconstruct the state of the brain before death. If we can manage that then whatever we do with that 'consciousness' it won't be living in the afterlife. We might even be able to put it in another brain so it can 'live' in a new body. If so it won't be reincarnation.
Arthur C. Clarke once said "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". But it's not actually magic. It might be indistinguishable from it to someone who is ignorant of the technology, but it's not magic - it's technology. The afterlife is magic. IOW, fantasy. Even if we manage to create a technology that mimics it.
That sounds like a challenge.
Atheism
Oops!
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
Oops!
What is your argument/gotcha? If you're so concerned about what atheism is supposed to be, you obviously have a reason.
Any sort of theism is clearly wrong, and agnostics are just theists in disguise -- are they agnostic about fairies? About invisible monsters under the bed? It's nonsense.
Atheism simply rejects those two viewpoints, because they are either fiction or the silly speculation that fiction might be true.
Let me save you a lot of trouble.
I've been asked that for years in every discussion about religion he's in.
You will literally never get an answer.
He doesn't have an argument, he just has a chip on his shoulder about atheism.
wareyin
Penultimate Amazing
Did you fail to understand that "in an even narrower sense" means in a limited application?
Hercules56
Banned
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How much money you willing to bet on that?
Can you explain how stating a view on the existence an afterlife means you can't be an atheist as in this claim:
Google search: define atheist
Result:
atheist
noun
a person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.
"he is a committed atheist"
Dave Rogers
Bandaged ice that stampedes inexpensively through
So if "atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities," then your claim - that it is incompatible with a belief that there is no life after death - is, by the definition that you've just insisted on, incorrect.
Dave
Exactly!!!
There is another ludicrous silliness that is just as irrational as the above... "secular theism"... or as some want to rationalize it, "cultural theism"... e.g. "Secular Jew" or "Cultural Christian/Muslim".
And there is another phenomenon... I call it vestigial visceral theism... this is the kind that makes an atheist revere the Buybull or the New Tall tales or the 1400 years old desert book of derivative fairy tales and feel a gut-wrenching when atheists designate them for the grotesque canker upon humanity that they are.
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I do know. We don't bury nor cremate people who are still alive so I can show you graves and sites that show there is no life after death.
Roger Ramjets
Philosopher
Cherry pick much?
Several posts have been sent to the Scorpion's Spiritualism thread, as they are veering off topic in this thread. Please stay on topic.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic Posted By: Agatha
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
The irony is that I very much doubt you can set down a coherent description of what "after life" is.... nor why a "reconstruction" is needed to achieve it... but above all you will never be able to set down a coherent description of what this "reconstruction" would entail.
HINT: Do you know what "life" is and do you know what happens to cells when they die?
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MRC_Hans
Penultimate Amazing
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- 24,961
Yes, I have read the whole thread, however:
This is a sentiment or claim that we have seen repeatedly over the years, not only from psionl0. It builds on some misconceptions, semantically and logically.
First, semantics:
The term 'believe' has a very wide range of meanings. "I believe in our Lord Jesus" and "I believe it will rain later today" are obviously two very different kinds of belief. Interestingly, people identifying as atheists cover almost as wide a range, from dogmatic atheists who are deeply (and often angrily) convinced that nothing supernatural can exist to those who simply don't assume there is a god.
This puts some restraints to the logic than can be applied:
For the term 'atheist' to be generally applied to that wide range, a definition cannot be much more concise than "lacks belief in deities". This obviously does not preclude that someone identifies as an atheist, but still holds various beliefs.
In specific the notion of an afterlife needs not imply any deity and there are indeed atheists that do believe in some form of afterlife. Buddhists are one prime example, but other ideas of reincarnation and various spirit worlds have also been suggested without involving any actual 'gods'. Belief in the existence of a supernatural realm does not have to imply that it is populated by gods.
Hans
psionl0
Skeptical about skeptics
I don't necessarily disagree with that but it raises another semantic issue - gods.
Obviously, some agency is necessary to set up and maintain the conditions for an afterlife. It may not even be alive. But if the agency is alive and has some expectations of the people who are to be granted an afterlife then "god" is as good a description as any other.