Dead is the End?

[Nyarlathotep]

Then you agree, it does seem like a big waste (of time) to have it end.

Only if you assume that there is any purpose to living besides just living. I do not make I do not make that assumption. I can only assume that I will be around for an indeterminate length of time until something happens to me and I die. As long as I have made the most of whatever time I have, I have not wasted my life.

And yet there's nothing about the experience of living that doesn't teach us anything, right?

I learn things every day. There is no reason to assume, though, that those lessons have any greater significance beyond what I can accomplish in my lifetime.

 

[Iacchus]

Do you really think your attempts at clever word play are going to convince anyone?

What difference does it make? Where do you expect we should take it, except nowhere?

Proof by assertion. Death is death. You stop. There's nothing more to know. The chemical processes abend and you're gone. No poof, nothing more, you just stop existing.

But where does your consciousness go? Does it just vaporize at the instant of death?

Your claim here is unsupported, and is based on suborned induction, as well as on several fallacies included inyour "because" clause. Please remove the fallacies, use induction properly, and then attempt to discuss this in a rational manner.

Would you have me die and come back and tell you about it? And yet we have numerous "documented" cases of near-death experiences to suggest just this.

The big sky-daddy sends honest, ethical, life-conserving souls to aeternal torture because they didn't believe in him/her/it. Seems like a big waste to me.

Prove it! ...

It's not wise to take other people's words on such matters anyway.

Aside from pointing out your fallacious reasoning via using it on your own superstitions, you're projecting your own (biased by your superstitious background) values on everyone else.

And who doesn't do such things? (project their own bias).

You don't get to do that unless Ashcroft and Cheyney manage to achieve their Krystalnacht against unbelievers in this country, you know, the one that Fox News has been calling for?

Am not familiar with this?

How do you know it is? Occams razor slices your ideas right out, here, unless you can show affirmative evidence, which you haven't.

And where was Occam's razor when people understood the earth was flat? Things aren't always as they appear you see.

For our REAL education, so we can live comfortably and constructively during our limited lifetime. Life, after all, is much more valuable to the atheist who does not believe in the myth of life after death, because THIS LIFE IS ALL THERE IS.

So it does seem like a waste not to have it go on then?

Illicit reasoning.

And so you learn the lessons of life, and then what?

Please show some basis for your anthropmorphic assumptions. Until you can, we must needs assume that we're not in "school" during life, we're just a part of nature, and when we're dead, we're dead. Obviously there are benefits IN LIFE for education in ethics, morals, technology, etc. That's all there is, and that's what education is good for, FOR MAKING THIS SHORT LIFE WORTH SOMETHING MORE THAN A HELP TO THE ENTROPY DEATH OF THE UNIVERSE. There is no other meaning. Give it up.

I understand that "you've" given up.

Death is purely physical. There is no illusion. When you die, you stop working, and you stop thinking, being concious, etc. Until you can show some hard, testable, verifiable evidence otherwise, that's all anyone at all is bound to reasonably accept.

There's nothing wrong with asking questions. It's part of learning you see.

Do you have anything to say, really, or are you just spouting your personal delusions at us again?

The fact that these are personal delusions is your assertion, not mine.

 

[Iacchus]

Only if you assume that there is any purpose to living besides just living. I do not make I do not make that assumption. I can only assume that I will be around for an indeterminate length of time until something happens to me and I die. As long as I have made the most of whatever time I have, I have not wasted my life.

But by implying you haven't wasted your life is, in fact a judgment call, and suggests there is a purpose to life.

I learn things every day. There is no reason to assume, though, that those lessons have any greater significance beyond what I can accomplish in my lifetime.

But that's the whole point. What you learn is what you earn, and therefore granted for you to take with you.

And by all means, how else would "karma" complete itself?

 

[Iacchus]

Gods, I hope there's nothing after death. Can you imagine another ten gazillion boring Sunday afternoons? And that's just for starters.

I did'nt exist for the first 15 billion years of this particular quantum flutter and I won't exist for the rest of it. The 48 I have existed for have been largely fun, but frankly, various bits already hurt in the mornings, while others have dropped clean off. I have reservations about the next couple of decades: I would hate to think there's no "off" switch.

Except the only thing you fail to realize is that our bodies grow old, not our spirits. While from what I understand, heaven is very much like an eternal spring, by which we return to the "spring of our youth."

 

[T'ai Chi]

For me, personally I would not make the analogy of a caterpillar and a butterfly, but rather I believe it is as being in a state where you do not know if you are dreaming or not. Kind of in a confusing state. Kind of like how I am normally.

 

[Iacchus]

It is a thought that has been trod down many a time, nothing new to it. Why worry about life after death, we are alive, when we are dead we will be dead.

If it is a phase transition then there won't be the transmission of information. Does water vapor remember ice?

Being is.

When's the last time you spoke to an icicle?

 

[Upchurch]

And let's just assume for a moment that there were a Creator whom, some of us may address as Father.

You know what they say about "assume"...

Regardless, this is an Ad Populum argument. Just because a lot of people believe something does not make it necessarily true. Further, you can assume anything you want, that also does not make it true.

Don't you think He'd have a similar concern about the welfare of His children as well?

Why? We're concerned about our children because without them our heritage dies. Are you saying that God is mortal and without us, his lineage ends? If God is truly immortal, the furtherment of the human race is irrelevent. Were we to die, he'd just make another batch. ...if he felt like it.

 

[Iacchus]

The knowlege presently availible of the nervous system of a larval insect would compeel me to state that they really don't know about anything in advance to the sort of extent that we do.

That and the analogy is irrelevant.

We know about our deaths well in advance, a grup (grubs turn into flies BTW) has no conception, in all likliness, of it's impending transformation. Furthermore, metamorphosis in necessarily a change that is observable to other grubs, and if they were but bright enough to know what was going on to their comrade they would know the process is of transitory nature, with life thereafter. .

And what do we know about death, except that it's inevitable? And just as with the grub, "most" of us have no inkling about an afterlife.


If you look up both caterpillar and grub in the dictionary by the way, both definitions begin with "worm-like larva."

In death we have no such ability. When I look at a dying creature I just injected piping-hot lead into, I can be quite sure that it is not turning into a bloody moth. Further reassurance of this position comes when I rip out the innards, and see that all processes are ceased, save bleeding all over me.

In fact we have many well documented cases of near-death experiences.

And so what if there is an afterlife. There's no way to test anything about it, or even be sure that it exists. We might as well worship the invisable pink unicorn, being that the evidence for either entity is the same. Focus on worldly problems I say. (see sigline)

Ah, but perhaps this might be the key, for if we understood our problems were of a spiritual nature, then perhaps we could do what's necessary in order to rectify them ... for example not be so materialistic and wasteful.

And if I ever find this "god" guy, then he had better hope that his omnipotence is still working, cause if it isn't he's gonna go back to heavan with an ear in his mouth for all the ◊◊◊◊ he's pulled down here.

Lots of luck!

 

[Iacchus]

Clearly, only some of us are children if what you say is true.

Otherwise he's a very abusive father.

There is only sun in the sky "who," pretty much takes care of eveyone's affair.

And neither am impling the sun is unequivocal to God here either.

 

[Iacchus]

You know what they say about "assume"...

Regardless, this is an Ad Populum argument. Just because a lot of people believe something does not make it necessarily true. Further, you can assume anything you want, that also does not make it true.

I'm not asking anyone to take a poll, if that's what you mean? That's called politics isn't it? If so, you may as well forget about the truth.

Why? We're concerned about our children because without them our heritage dies. Are you saying that God is mortal and without us, his lineage ends? If God is truly immortal, the furtherment of the human race is irrelevent. Were we to die, he'd just make another batch. ...if he felt like it.

If God does exist, how else could we appreciate Him except from the standpoint of our own spirituality? And how would we understand what it means to be immortal, if we didn't first suffer through a period of being mortal?

 

[jj]

But where does your consciousness go? Does it just vaporize at the instant of death?

It is an artifact of the chemical processes that just abended. What's the problem, the hardware stopped working so there is no more conciousness. It doens't "go" anywhere, it's just gone, since it's an artifact of the wetware that just broke down.

Would you have me die and come back and tell you about it? And yet we have numerous "documented" cases of near-death experiences to suggest just this.

You mean "documented" cases of people having a hallucination brought on by anoxia? Ok, that happens. It proves that our brains work along similar principles to other people's brains. This is somehow not surprising, is it?


And where was Occam's razor when people understood the earth was flat? Things aren't always as they appear you see.


Bah. When did people understand the earth was flat? Are you pushing and pulling on that old saw again?


I understand that "you've" given up.


A serious accusation. Have any evidence?

Nope, you don't.

 

[jj]

Except the only thing you fail to realize is that our bodies grow old, not our spirits. While from what I understand, heaven is very much like an eternal spring, by which we return to the "spring of our youth."

Well, since there is no spirit, it's hard for it to grow old. I can agree at least with part of what you say.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Re: Re: Re: Dead is the End?

Sorry, I gotta be skeptical here and demand evidence again.

"Life, after all, is much more valuable to the atheist who does not believe in the myth of life after death, because THIS LIFE IS ALL THERE IS."

Do you have any scientific studies to back up your claims that:

1. "Life ... is much more valuable to the atheist.." and
2. "..this life is all there is."

?

Don't delay- please post your peer-reviewed double-blind scientific studies in your very next reply.

 

[fishbob]

The 48 I have existed for have been largely fun, but frankly, various bits already hurt in the mornings, while others have dropped clean off.

48 huh, that explains some of my achy parts. Now you have me worried, because none of mine have dropped off yet. I can't think of any I don't want any more.

Back on track

But where does your consciousness go? Does it just vaporize at the instant of death?

Seems so doesn't it? For a lot of folks, Alzheimers vaporizes consciousness over a period of months or years. Are you suggesting that the consciousness vapor is accumulated, memory by memory, and stored somewhere until these folks die? Not likely.

 

[Jessica Blue]

Originally posted by lacchus
Don't you people know you're doing it all for nothing, because when you die there's nothing to be realized? Does that make any sense?

Who said all things must make sense? Perhaps life is ultimately futile..."full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Just because we might wish things to be a certain way... it doesn't mean they are.

Boiled down to basics your argument runs something like this:Because we live, that proves that living must have a purpose beyond life.

Well why? How can life be proof of anything other than what it is? What you are suggesting has no basis in anything other than good old fashioned wishful thinking. You want there to be more....this life seems unjust, pointless and too short. I can understand that. As the buddhists say *life is unsatisfactory*. But a wish is not a convincing argument. We already know from this life here on Earth, that things dont always make sense and turn out the way we think they should.

Except the only thing you fail to realize is that our bodies grow old, not our spirits. While from what I understand, heaven is very much like an eternal spring, by which we return to the "spring of our youth."

But what is a spirit? Is it something hidden and magically attached? Is it "what we are", ie; a personality or "essence" experienced through our consciousness? Do you think they are one and the same? If so and consciousness is a function of the brain [which the evidence seems to point to, free will et al]and ceases to exist when the brain dies how will we experience this afterlife? Do we enter the afterlife with the personality we have at death when we may be damaged by disease or the one we had when we were at our best? What if we are born with limited consciousness and a zilch personality? Or is it the magically, hidden spirit which goes? Do all sentient beings get an afterlife...cats, dogs, pigs, gorillas? Life can be pretty unsatisfactory for them too.

 

[Upchurch]

If God does exist, how else could we appreciate Him except from the standpoint of our own spirituality? And how would we understand what it means to be immortal, if we didn't first suffer through a period of being mortal?

What? That's a totally different argument than you were making before! Your school analogy makes no sense now. Are you saying that we go through this life and die so that it means something for God to be immortal?

Please try sticking to one line of thought before spontaniously jumping to another. It'll make your position(s) easier to understand....

 

[Dancing David]

Ever stop to think that the only thing that makes sense out of anything is consciousness? Perhaps our brains and bodies are merely receptacles, linked to this thing called Universal Consciousness?

Think about it. How else could we ever possibly agree that 1 + 1 = 2? If in fact there weren't somehing inherently universal -- i.e., through consciousness -- about it?

That's interesting but an empty path to follow.

1+1=2 because we learn that it is so, that is taught.

I read on this board that it takes 352 pages to prove it mathematicaly.

Remember there is a lot of prefed interpretation into the statement 1+1=2.

Evildave made a major discussion of this, I will see if I can find it.

Math is a language 1+1=2 because it is conventionaly defined that way.

 

[Dancing David]

There are many great explanations that can explain NDEs none of them nesseciatate a spirit.

This is all wishful thing, I prefer the notion of reincarnation myself. I don't like that idea of the soul being sent to school for learning, any imagination and you ealize the prison mentality is implicit in it.

But when it comes to wishful thinking, I wish for owrld peace and an end to hunger.

Have you ver watched a pet die? Or a friend, I have no reason to believe that consiousness survives death.

When I die I will know, and as i said if you are right I will buy you a beer.

 

[Nyarlathotep]

But by implying you haven't wasted your life is, in fact a judgment call, and suggests there is a purpose to life.

No it doesn't. I will repeat it for you: There is no need for a "higher purpose" in order for my life to not be a waste. There is no need for a purpose in life beyond life itself. Further I am the ultimate arbiter of whether my life is a waste or not just as you are yours.

But that's the whole point. What you learn is what you earn, and therefore granted for you to take with you.

And by all means, how else would "karma" complete itself?

You can only take something with you if you have somewhere to go. When it comes to death that is much more of an assumption than I am willing to make.

 

[Iacchus]

Back on track Seems so doesn't it? For a lot of folks, Alzheimers vaporizes consciousness over a period of months or years. Are you suggesting that the consciousness vapor is accumulated, memory by memory, and stored somewhere until these folks die? Not likely.

And what happens to the radio signal when the radio is broken? The signal is still there, as clear as it was before, and the only thing which has changed is the radio, which has now become impaired.