Thread: Do you believe in a 'Afterlife'?

This whole argument is ridiculous as Praise doesn't know what he's talking about, is close minded, and is unfamiliar with logic. No offense. I'm going to have to call you out on this, Praise, but you did not review sources before making your fantastical claims about the afterlife. That's why you avoided giving a source. Instead, when people grew tired of your fact dodging, you googled and copy-pasted two links.
In this we see the critical difference that marks the schism between science and religion, knowledge and ignorance. The former would look at the evidence and for conclusions therein. The later decides (and often invents) conclusions and then scavenges for evidence (or, many times, doesn't, as you did) to support their often erroneous claims. As Mario stated, you have the burden of proof. Your claim has as much credibility as the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Ramen.
Checkmate.

What would we have ever been able to accomplish without the Flying Spaghetti monster? You have to admit it is a pretty useful tool. I almost want to start an R/S thread about whether or not it exists.

I was considering doing that last night, but was to lazy and went to play left 4 dead 2 instead . We should make one, but let's make it VERY official first. You, me, and Mario should all collude and make it good?

Yes. I think we can easily protect the possibility of a flying spaghetti monster using tactics of the ignorant.

Edit: and in case it wasn't obvious, I planned on making the thread satirical.

It is in the nature of His Noodlyness to be satirical.

We have officially trolled this thread into submission, without the trolling.

Applause, gentlemen. It was not we who who trolled but Praise himself for adding words but not substance to this thread.

Originally Posted by Conkt

you googled and copy-pasted two links.

No I studied pages and pages of writing and research from the website that you have not refuted yet.

Originally Posted by Praise

No I studied pages and pages of writing and research from the website that you have not refuted yet.

How is this conclusive proof of an afterlife, though? If you saw the video I posted above (and I'll post it again, just for you), you'll notice that you're trying to explain something which cannot be explained, which is a contradiction. The unexplained is just that: unexplained. When you say, "It is inexplicable how a person can recall a past life, so it must be the work of an afterlife," you are basically saying, "This event is unexplained, therefore, I can explain it," which is a contradiction. Although modern medicine and science may not understand how quite everything works yet, it is no reason to go jumping to illogical conclusions with admittedly shaky evidence.

Evidence and sources would be much appreciated here, seeing as how I have seen absolutely no reliable evidence to support the notion of an afterlife.

Evidence and sources of no after life would be much appreciated here seeing as I have seen absolutely no reliable evicence to support the notion of no afterlife.

You say it is on us to prove that there is an afterlife, there is a God etc but guess what,I don't really care what you believe and I don't think anyone else does either no matter what they say to your face. Anyhow, what I believe is what I believe. I don't really care if you believe it or not. So why don't you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that evolution happened, that somehting blew up in space and formed earth, that there is no God what so ever. Go ahead and prove it....

[QUOTE=davej;1275333]Evidence and sources of no after life would be much appreciated here seeing as I have seen absolutely no reliable evicence to support the notion of no afterlife.
[quote]

I hate to do this because i know it's used in every thread everywhere but

We have no evidence that anything i can come up with in my mind doesn't exist. So if I declare randomly that there are seven violet flowers, on a planet on the other side of the galaxy, singing in unison, you can't disprove it.

Obviously though, this is no reason to believe it.

Maybe I'm mistaken, but are you basing your belief in something on the fact that it isn't proven wrong? Because that seems an awfully negative way of thinking.


Besides, as far as I'm concerned there actually is evidence of no afterlife, at least not in the simple way you and most religions mean it.

We have pretty conclusive evidence of how our personality, memories, basically who we are, corresponds to various parts of the brain. Want evidence, go talk to someone who has brain damage. Their whole personality can change, they can become essentially a different person, just from a knock to the brain.

When we die, our brain, which all evidence suggests is at least an essential part of our person, rots.

So it would seem that as who we are is rooted in our brain, and our brain is rotting, that who we are is not continuing into an afterlife.

Originally Posted by davej

Anyhow, what I believe is what I believe.

And you should constantly be questioning it. Do you?

Carousoul, that still proved nothing. Your thing about your brain rotting has nothing to do with the afterlife. it is your soul that goes. Good try though.

Originally Posted by davej

Carousoul, that still proved nothing. Your thing about your brain rotting has nothing to do with the afterlife. it is your soul that goes. Good try though.

I'm not trying to prove anything. It just seems to me that there is evidence and reason to believe that who we are to all effective purposes dies with the body. I might be wrong, but if I am show me how.


What is a soul, and what has it got to do with you, if it is not what makes you a person?

if you are not trying to prove anything, you sure went to a lot of trouble.

Originally Posted by davej

if you are not trying to prove anything, you sure went to a lot of trouble.

I want us to learn and understand :'(

Don't push me away.

Here's the bottom line. Religion can't be proven, an afterlife can't be proven, God can't be proven, Jesus dieing on a cross and rising 3 days later can't be proven. It is all about faith.

Originally Posted by davej

Here's the bottom line. Religion can't be proven, an afterlife can't be proven, God can't be proven, Jesus dieing on a cross and rising 3 days later can't be proven. It is all about faith.

So I've heard.

I'm just not sure what faith is, and what is beneficial about it.

I've read a great deal on the sources I gave and it's pretty obvious to any discerning unbiased researcher that you have some significant evidence that is likely to point in the general direction that consiousness can exist outside the body and continue on when dead. We are extremely close to proving it for certain. Science is almost there. If I was to give an educated estimate I would say there is an afterlife for sure.

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html

Originally Posted by Praise

I've read a great deal on the sources I gave and it's pretty obvious to any discerning unbiased researcher that you have some significant evidence that is likely to point in the general direction that consiousness can exist outside the body and continue on when dead. We are extremely close to proving it for certain. Science is almost there. If I was to give an educated estimate I would say there is an afterlife for sure.

http://www.near-death.com/evidence.html

The vast majority of those are people's highly personal experiences. Which although evidence of a sort, I don't find as convincing as repeatable or testable evidence.

Maybe I missed something, but if there is something there which is something that maybe we could really look at and test empirically, and not what someone says they experienced, then show me. I don't trust my information sifting skills :3

As a slight side note, after reading all the NDE business, it always strikes me as odd that people report witnessing their body from outside of it or somesuch.

Mainly because they report seeing themselves, and there are various cases of people seeing things they couldnt possibly have known.

Seeing.

Seeing is based on eyes. If you're out of your body, you don't have eyes, but people describe it as if they were a floating pair of eyes.



Personally, I would have thought that the method of the soul would be a totally new kind of sensory experience. But people report hearing and seeing things.


Hearing and seeing things are based entirely on the physical workings of the eye and ear.

You can't "see" in the traditional sense without reflection of light distorted by your retina and so on and so forth.

Likewise the sensory experience we call "hearing" is our nerves encountering various vibrations of liquid or something in our ears.


The point is that these experiences are totally based on the mechanics of the body.



To have an out of body experience, which seems to resemble on the whole exactly the same ways of experiencing the world as the body creates, seems silly.



Why would the soul not experience the world in a totally more profound way? Why see bright lights, or hear things?




What this all suggests to me, sadly is that it is within peoples minds.

The way in which people simulate an out of body or near death experience within their minds, can only work within the constraints of what they have experienced in life, they have nothing else.

So you end up with the logical inconsistancy of souls with eyes and ears.



This has just come to me now, and it seems quite a good idea.

if there is something there which is something that maybe we could really look at and test empirically, and not what someone says they experienced, then show me. I don't trust my information sifting skills :3

Here is one such example.

In 1968, a paper by Dr. Charles Tart was published entitled "Psychophysiological Study of Out of the Body Experiences in a Selected Subject" concerning a woman who successfully read a 5-digit number while having had an out-of-body experience. This is verifiable evidence of out-of-body perception and supports veridical perception in NDEs.

Originally Posted by Praise

Here is one such example.

That does indeed sound interesting.

But i'd like to see something like that redone and really scrutinised. That just sounds like a woman produced a number which was correct once. Maybe they did repeat it, but it doesn't sound like that.


Also I'm not sure how we'd go about verifying that what she had was an OBE rather than some other factor.

Originally Posted by davej

Evidence and sources of no after life would be much appreciated here seeing as I have seen absolutely no reliable evicence to support the notion of no afterlife.

You say it is on us to prove that there is an afterlife, there is a God etc but guess what,I don't really care what you believe and I don't think anyone else does either no matter what they say to your face. Anyhow, what I believe is what I believe. I don't really care if you believe it or not. So why don't you prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that evolution happened, that somehting blew up in space and formed earth, that there is no God what so ever. Go ahead and prove it....

The onus of proof is on the one making the positive claim. How many times must this be stated? It's stupid to believe something without sufficient evidence to back it up. The afterlife, religion, and God are such entities, as are the flying spaghetti monster and unicorns. I happily accept the burden of proving evolution (it has, by the way, been proven as a scientific theory, the single highest status an idea can achieve in the scientific community). The big bang also has great evidence, and while we do not currently know how or why it happened, it is fairly much agreed that it did, indeed, happen. Trying to explain it via a god or gods, however, is close-minded.

Originally Posted by davej

Here's the bottom line. Religion can't be proven, an afterlife can't be proven, God can't be proven, Jesus dieing on a cross and rising 3 days later can't be proven. It is all about faith.

Technically, you can't prove that the hands you used to type that message even exist. You can, however, show which option is vastly more probable than the others, and nullify the probability of other events to virtually nothing at all.

As a side note, why is faith good? It seems to be holding back society in general.

People should take the time to research it's easy to put the burden on someone else who believes something different. A wise person studies rather than asks for proof all the time. A wise person is humble enough to consider all possibilities. You can use the spaghetti monster to make anything non existent that you want. Not just god, the afterlife, or religion. But also evolution, the big bang, and more could be associated to a spaghetti monster.

If evolution is proven where is the sources for that. Saying god is involved is not closed minded. It's introducing faith into the equation and faith is a very good thing to have when answers are not clear. How can faith in something good produce anything bad?