Belief in the Afterlife

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

Thanks. Ha ha! What a fantastic series that was!

Still is. They've just finished filming a new series, which will air in September. Set reports state that it's funnier and sharper than it has been in years (by which I really mean series, as it's not been shown for years).

What I read betwen the lines is that if one can live a life and not go nuts without this thing that somebody has made up, it makes one superior.

You can infer that, if you like. It doesn't mean it's implied. We all fool ourselves in many different ways. It's how we're built.

Therefore believing that there is no Afterlife, or saying that you do, has an attraction. It is wishful-thinking.

For some, perhaps. I would only presume to speak for myself, and I find nothing attractive about the idea at all. It's just the conclusion I've drawn from the available data. It's actually an incredibly insignificant part of me in proportion to the rest of my life.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

It's pretty similar to the old Hindu notion of Samsara. However, according to Peake, we do have some control over the situation that doesn't involve meditating under a tree like the Buddha.

Sounds more like the Jehovah's Witnesses - that you get reincarnated in a paradise which is very much like Earth, where everybody will get on famously and lions will wander round peacefully, where everybody will build their own houses and grow their own food, and nobody will be disturbed by loud noises.

Which means that a) you'll have to get up for work in the morning every morning or starve, b) you'll spend most of your time doing hard manual labour, c) you won't be able to play loud music, let alone go to a festival, d) there will be no electricity. For ever. With no days off and no hope of ever doing anything else with your life.

Frankly, I'd rather die. Even the Amish get to go out into the world and have a bit of a laugh when they turn 16.

 

[Squeegee Beckenheim]

I've had a brief look; to be honest it doesn't interest me that much. I'd need to study it more carefully to form an opinion.

Basically, people say all sorts of things about who they were previously, yet if you ever check out any of the information that comes to light, it turns out that no such person ever even existed. So, no, it's not really very good evidence for reincarnation.

 

[jonny3d]

"So one could argue, and I do, that not to believe in Life-After-Death is a form of wishful thinking, for the prestige and exclusivity you get from it. This means that if the Afterlife was ever proved to exist that privileged position would all be gone. I'd be interested to know your thoughts."



I am a complete atheist, through and through and do not believe in any after life. Nor do I feel privileged in any way, thinking so.

I simply will not believe in anything, where there is clearly no concrete or scientific proof. A blind faith in some matter, is simply beyond my comprehension. Why people immerse themselves in one irrational belief or another, without even questioning it in any shape or form, is simply beyond me

 

[Paul2]

"The reason people believe in Life-After-Death is simply because the prospect of ceasing to exist when we die is totally unbearable and so humanity has concocted a mental safety-net to survive psychologically. It's a kind of 'comfort blanket' that means we don't have to live with the knowledge of our finality that has evolved as we became aware of our mortality."

It makes sense superficially, but let's read between the lines here. it means that somebody who does not believe in the Afterlife can say:

BUT… I can face it! I know I’m going to cease to exist when I die and I can face up to it! The 'ordinary inferior people' need this comfort-blanket myth of an Afterlife, but I have the strength, the courage, the manliness and general superiority to get through my day without that crutch!”

So one could argue, and I do, that not to believe in Life-After-Death is a form of wishful thinking, for the prestige and exclusivity you get from it. This means that if the Afterlife was ever proved to exist that privileged position would all be gone. I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

There's no need to hypothesize that atheists are such for the prestige and exclusivity when atheists' self-professed adherence to sufficient evidence is more than enough to explain why atheists are atheists. No doubt a few atheists might also feel exclusivity - I'm not sure where the prestige of being an atheist could possibly come from - but it seems like logic and evidence are more than sufficient to explain the reasons why atheists come to atheism.

On the other hand, given that faith - as distinct from logic and evidence - plays some role in theism, we do have a need to hypothesize psychological explanations for why they believe the bat-**** crazy stuff that they do.

 

[Nonpareil]

It's completely speculative, and I've never suggested otherwise.

Except here:

It makes sense superficially, but let's read between the lines here. it means that somebody who does not believe in the Afterlife can say:

BUT… I can face it! I know I’m going to cease to exist when I die and I can face up to it! The 'ordinary inferior people' need this comfort-blanket myth of an Afterlife, but I have the strength, the courage, the manliness and general superiority to get through my day without that crutch!”

So one could argue, and I do, that not to believe in Life-After-Death is a form of wishful thinking, for the prestige and exclusivity you get from it.

You're not speculating. You're attempting to construct an argument to support your conclusion. They are not the same thing.

Don't build a faulty argument and then hide behind "it's just speculation" when said argument gets rightfully torn to shreds for its complete lack of merit.

 

[dafydd]

Is I think. There are other examples too. I recall a very forthright statement along those lines in the script of one of the episodes of the comedy TV series Red Dwarf. I'm a big fan of the show, but not that big I think it was in Series 3 or 4. Kryton, the robot believes he's going to an electronic afterlife when he gets shut down and... help me out here! Anybody here a Red Dwarf expert?

I have news for you. Red Dwarf is not a documentary. What does Kryten believing in a fictional silicon heaven in a fictional show have to do with anything?

 

[dafydd]

If that were the case I'd say: Me too! But if there is such a thing as the Afterlife it might be very different to that. It might be more like Anthony Peake's model: that the Afterlife is not much different to what we're experiencing now. For all we know we might now already be in an Afterlife from a previous life.

No proof of that. I'm not a hospital porter, did I mention that? Nobody here cares what you do for living.

 

[Pixel42]

Erm... I don't know. I'll have to think about that.

You might find lectures 10 - 13 of this series of lectures helpful in doing so.

 

[Mashuna]

The Open Yale courses are a great resource, aren't they!

 

[beetzart]

I have news for you. Red Dwarf is not a documentary. What does Kryten believing in a fictional silicon heaven in a fictional show have to do with anything?

True, but he uses the same techniques as Icke. Icke likes to quote films and sci-fi books as if in some way it validates his ideas. 1984 must be his favourite, then there is The Matrix, and They Live.

 

[beetzart]

No proof of that. I'm not a hospital porter, did I mention that? Nobody here cares what you do for living.

He is an ex-porter nowadays!

 

[dafydd]

He is an ex-porter nowadays!

And I know what he is exporting.

 

[MRC_Hans]

I know what you mean, and of course ideally most of us would take pride in being rational on this subject, but I suspect that people on both sides of the debate fall short of this ideal. We may well make judgements based on our desires and fool ourselves into incorrect conclusions. My point was that both sides may do this and I've explained that there is an attraction, in social and psychological terms, to both. So when you say here...
...I could easily and with just as much justification invert the statement to: If you do not believe in the afterlife because you would like it to be untrue, then it may give you some peace of mind, but you are really only fooling yourself.

Of course you could, and it would be as valid. And?

The fact is that I personally don't disbelieve in an afterlife (actually, I'm pretty agnostic about it) based on my own preference. And I have reason to thing that this goes for most unbelievers.

Hans

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

Au contraire, I think it's a very mature form of argumentation that can't be undone with perjorative paraphrasing: I've spotted what I see as a double-standard: One side accuses the other of wishful-thinking when there's just as much reason to accuse the side doing the initial accusing of the same thing.

No. Unless you can provide some kind of useful evidence for an afterlife, non-existence of afterlife is the default rational assumption, and it follows that belief in an afterlife, without evidence, is wishful thinking.

If you had provided convincing evidence, and I still rejected it, then you could accuse me of wishful thinking.

Hans

 

[Marduk]

I'd by lying if I said I didn't find the prospect appealing. All I dispute is that we Woo's have a monopoly on wishful-thinking. I think the Materialists have outdone us in that department.

don't you also wish that you could win the lottery ?
wishing doesn't make you rich does it

 

[beetzart]

I frequent Porterboy's forum HPANWO: http://hpanwoforum.freeforums.org/general-discussion-f4.html

He is Hagbard Celine and to be fair he is ok but uses 6th form debating tactics rather then providing real evidence. The arguments I have had with him stretch to pages until I give up due to exasperation.

I used to follow Icke and read many of his books believing I would live for eternity, then I studied science and realised it was all BS. Somehow I stumbled across the HPANWO forum and been there ever since. There is a top skeptic there called Reflex who binds all the woos in knots and I just wade in with anti-Icke rhetoric. It can be a good place to let off steam as Hag is not a compulsive censor yet he does muddle threads about occasionally, but too his credit he does let you know when he does this.

All in all HC has grown on me and I have good Hag weeks and bad Hag weeks but kudos for going to the trouble of sustaining such a forum. Although I hardly agree with anything he says.

 

[ufology]

I'm not a religious person, but I do think that some form of continuity of consciousness may be possible after our mortal bodies have ceased to function. The only issue I have with the idea is that I don't consider a so-called life after death equivalent to immortality. Our bodies are a major part of what we are. It would be bad enough to lose a leg or an eye ... imagine the whole thing! When we lose a piece of our bodies we lose a piece of ourselves. True immortality would mean not losing anything ... and continuing to live in perfect health as long as we want and to have control over how we change our physical nature.

 

[Paul2]

Folo, how would you incorporate Sam Harris' ideas about losing mind function at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6iHe0ra_UM with continuation of consciousness after death? This clip is 2 minutes, 27 seconds.

Summarizing, Harris says it's irrational to believe that our minds survive the destruction of our brain at death when we see that damaging a part of the brain can damage a part of the mind. So how could we think that damaging the entire brain would somehow not mean the damage/loss of the entire mind?

 

[ufology]

Folo, how would you incorporate Sam Harris' ideas about losing mind function at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6iHe0ra_UM with continuation of consciousness after death? This clip is 2 minutes, 27 seconds.

Summarizing, Harris says it's irrational to believe that our minds survive the destruction of our brain at death when we see that damaging a part of the brain can damage a part of the mind. So how could we think that damaging the entire brain would somehow not mean the damage/loss of the entire mind?

I think he makes excellent points and I've been through this issue in my own reflections on the matter. Essentially my present viewpoint is that the brain is the center of our personality, and intellect ... for all intents and purposes ... our consciousness. However the reasons I am inclined to think that some form of continuity of consciousness is possible differs slightly from the viewpoint expressed in the video and can reconcile the apparent conflict. To begin with, we dump the concept of ectoplasm being responsible for manifesting or transporting consciousness, and we modify the idea he expresses as "software being run on the brain". In his version the brain is still some physical thing while consciousness is something else. However if we look at existence itself as some form of generated construct analogous to a VR universe, then that is another story. Almost anything is possible including resurrection. I will pause at this point to give you some time to reflect and respond.