Some of the population are under mistake or rather uneducated on this matter seem to believe that atheism is not compatible with the afterlife! Not true. What does a religious concept of a God have to do with life after death? :itold: lol I have heard people say you have to believe in a God to believe in an afterlife... why?

The Atheist Afterlife: The odds of an afterlife - Reasonable. The odds of meeting God there - Nil by David Staume just in case any of you atheists on this forum are interested.... seems to be saying after death you live in a dream world.

Theres also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Price#Afterlife

You do not need to believe in God to believe in the afterlife

Technically that's true. But with references to phenomena such as "dream telepathy" I think this thread is about to head in a direction that is barely related to your premise.

Technically that's true. But with references to phenomena such as "dream telepathy" I think this thread is about to head in a direction that is barely related to your premise.

His hypothesis is more believable then meeting some invisible god in the clouds, or angels and harps like orthodox religion says. :thumbsup:

Some of the population are under mistake or rather uneducated on this matter seem to believe that atheism is not compatible with the afterlife! Not true. What does a religious concept of a God have to do with life after death? :itold: lol I have heard people say you have to believe in a God to believe in an afterlife... why?

The Atheist Afterlife: The odds of an afterlife - Reasonable. The odds of meeting God there - Nil by David Staume just in case any of you atheists on this forum are interested.... seems to be saying after death you live in a dream world.

Theres also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Price#Afterlife


LOL!!!

Why go through all this nonsense?
Why not just accept God, get the real info, and move on. :D

jan.

Why not just accept God, get the real info, and move on.

Really?

Did you just have tea with Soren?

Really?

Did you just have tea with Soren?

Yes!

What did I just agree to?


jan.

Just plain old fideism.

Just plain old fideism.

Soren sends her love. :)

jan.

Technically, Soren Kierkegaard was a he.

Technically, Soren Kierkegaard was a he.

Why do you think I may be influenced by him?

jan.

Why do you think I may be influenced by him?


Not influenced by him in particular. Kierkegaard was one of the main proponents of fideism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism).

Not influenced by him in particular. Kierkegaard was one of the main proponents of fideism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fideism).

So from this:



''Why not just accept God, get the real info, and move on.''



You get this:



Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths (see natural theology)..


Do you think there may be a possibility of another explanation? :rolleyes:


:)


jan

So from this:

''Why not just accept God, get the real info, and move on.''

You get this:

Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths (see natural theology)..

Do you think there may be a possibility of another explanation?

In this case: no. That "Why not just accept" is a dead giveaway for fideism.

In this case: no. That "Why not just accept" is a dead giveaway for fideism.

So if I told you my statement had nothing to do with faith or religion, would you believe me?

If not, why not?


jan.

Fresh reasoning is updated by experimental new evidence, trumps all dusty old reasoning and faith that precedes it. New faith must also follow this updating procedure that fresh reasoning presents to it. So the order of significance is:
1-Experiment
2-Reasoning
3-Faith

Faith is a party-favor for the insatiably morale congruent.

The OP (Posted by darryl) has no validity to its details, save the presence of one example of a reality bodes the possibility of alternate realities, none having evidence of a need to be less or more "dream-like", than the one we now inhabit.

Dream arousal is not understood, but that mystery doesn't auto-tie it to other anomalies not understood. Dreams could be lights in the bedroom windows and/or chili-farts from the last-evenings meal.

So if I told you my statement had nothing to do with faith or religion, would you believe me?

If not, why not?

You need to explain this request first.

How does a statement like this -

''Why not just accept God, get the real info, and move on.''

have nothing to do with faith, or religion??

Some of the population are under mistake or rather uneducated on this matter seem to believe that atheism is not compatible with the afterlife! Not true. What does a religious concept of a God have to do with life after death? :itold: lol I have heard people say you have to believe in a God to believe in an afterlife... why?

The Atheist Afterlife: The odds of an afterlife - Reasonable. The odds of meeting God there - Nil by David Staume just in case any of you atheists on this forum are interested.... seems to be saying after death you live in a dream world.

Theres also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Price#Afterlife


Your Highness, I have no need of this hypothesis.

Pierre-Simon de Laplace, reply made to Napoleon when asked why his celestial mechanics had no mention of God afterlife.

Some of the population are under mistake or rather uneducated on this matter seem to believe that atheism is not compatible with the afterlife!Perhaps that's true. But science is incompatible with belief in an afterlife. We've done a pretty good job of studying life in the last century. Of course there are still plenty of details left to be worked out, which will probably happen in this century. Nonetheless, we know the basics of how life works, at least in our carbon-based DNA-structured little corner of the universe. It clearly is all about matter and energy, just like everything else in the universe. When the energy conversion process we call "metabolism" shuts down, that's the end of life. There are no mysterious little trapdoors allowing some strange little bits of tissue that have somehow managed to stay alive, or some strange little electrical signals that have somehow managed to avoid attenuation, to escape into another part of the universe and recombine into a living organism, violating nearly all the laws of nature in the process.

When you're dead, you're just dead. That's it.

To believe otherwise is to believe in the invisible, illogical supernatural universe that defines religion, the one from which fantastic creatures emerge periodically to wreak havoc on us, the one into which our "souls" travel after we die. It's certainly okay to believe this wacky stuff, but it puts you in opposition to science and casts suspicion on everything else you say. Science has been tested exhaustively (and often with great hostility) for 500 years and has never been disproven. So to claim that any major part of it is false invokes the Rule of Laplace, which requires you to provide some really solid evidence before we are obliged to treat you with respect. And the religionists have never come up with one shred of evidence. The best they can do is one tortilla, out of billions, with a scorch mark that is alleged to be the image of a biblical figure of whom no portraits exist against which to compare it.

No evidence, no respect. End of discussion.
The Atheist Afterlife: The odds of an afterlife - Reasonable.No! There is absolutely nothing "reasonable" about a wholesale makeover of the science of biology, which now allows some portion of a live organism to continue living after it satisfies all the conditions of death. Again, this invokes the Rule of Laplace. Before we are obliged to respond to this hypothesis with anything other than laughter and the ritual burning of your lab coat, you must present evidence to support it.
The Rule of Laplace (also called "Sagan's Law"): Extraordinary assertions must be supported by extraordinary evidence before anyone is obliged to treat them with respect.Religion has almost a monopoly on the most extraordinary assertions ever made. And it steadfastly refuses to provide supporting evidence. Therefore, it deserves zero respect.
Why not just accept God, get the real info, and move on.What "info"? You have none. Since the scientific method was developed half a millennium ago, finally giving us a reliable tool for discerning truth from fiction, all religious assertions have fallen--squarely and loudly and with a big splatter--on the side of fiction. You may have some helpful hints about psychology, since the instincts rattling around inside our brains include the urge to believe irrationally in supernatural phenomena. But psychology is one of the "soft" sciences so this isn't much of a victory. It certainly won't get you in the door of the biology department with your assertion that "life after death" is anything more than one of the stupidest oxymorons ever contrived.
Fideism is an epistemological theory which maintains that faith is independent of reason, or that reason and faith are hostile to each other and faith is superior at arriving at particular truths (see natural theology).I'm always amazed (forehead-slapping amazed) that people who present themselves as scholars haven't examined faith in enough detail to discover that there are two kinds. This single, colossal failure to draft their premise accurately is going to render all of their conclusions at least suspicious, and at worst laughable.

Rational faith abounds. My dog has never bitten anyone, even when he had good reason and would have been forgiven for it or even praised. So now that he's halfway through his life I rationally assume that he won't start biting people now. In other words, I have evidence to support my rational faith.

I have a friend who has an unerring ability to pick the losers out of the 3.5 billion men on this planet when looking for guys to date. Every man I've seen her with was at best a basket case and at worst an abuser from whom she needed to be rescued. She freely admits that the men she dated (and in some cases almost married) before I came along were no different. Despite all this she has no intention of examining her habits and preferences and ways of making choices because it's just too much trouble. Yet she is positive that the next man will turn out to be the knight in shining armor who will rescue her from her own life. Now that is a textbook example of irrational faith. All the evidence supports the hypothesis that she shouldn't try to pick her own mate.

God and all the mumbo-jumbo of religion fall in this same category. There is zero evidence to support these beliefs. On the contrary, we've been collecting evidence for half a millennium and all of it supports the fundamental premise that underlies all of science: The natural universe is a closed system whose behavior can be predicted by theories derived logically from empirical observation of its present and past behavior.

Of course we have plenty of instincts and emotions that seem to justify belief in the supernatural; humans have been fantasizing about gods and other fantastic phenomena for tens of thousands of years, way back into the Paleolithic Era. But instincts and emotions are not evidence. If you don't believe me, sit in the back of a few courtrooms and notice whether judges and juries accept them as such.
Do you think there may be a possibility of another explanation?Certainly. Faith and reason are clearly not opposites. The only reason people who claim to be smart say dumb shit like this is that they've never had the balls to examine faith clinically and discover that it comes in more than one variety.

There is rational faith and there is irrational faith. They're not too difficult to tell apart once you know they're there.

People who believe in gods and angels and parting seas and pillars of salt and men coming back from the dead and (my personal favorite) sea level rising to a height that far exceeds the total amount of water on this planet do not want to acknowledge the incontrovertible fact that they are being irrational.

Oh, and I forgot to include the afterlife in that list.

But science is incompatible with belief in an afterlife.

Science is not incompatible with belief in an afterlife, it simply has nothing to say on the matter. Many scientists believe in life after death.

According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of science is "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world."

We can not test the afterlife through empirical objective study, but this does not mean science has disproven the afterlife.

When an animal, plant, insect or human dies its life in the form of a field may go somewhere, this has not been proven yet, but science has not disproven it either.

The conscious electromagnetic field theory by Johnjoe McFadden

Does the cemi field survive after death?


mmm an interesting question. My hypothesis is that conciousness is the experience of information, from the inside. There is a postulate in physics that information is neither created or detroyed - the conservation of information 'law'. It is however just a postulate, nobody has ever proved it. But, if true, it would suggest that awareness (associated with that information) - in some form - might survive death.

Also...

Many scientists have claimed the afterlife is real See the works of Sir Oliver Lodge, professor Charles Richet, Sir William Crookes, professor Henri Bergson, Sir William Barrett, Lord Rayleigh, Henry Sidgwick, Alfred Russel Wallace, professor William Mcdougall, Dr. W. F. Prince, professor Camille Flammarion, Dr. Cesare Lombroso, Dr. Robert Crookall etc.

Heres another list:

http://www.aspsi.org/feat/life_after/_testimonials.htm

Theres also many modern scientists who claim the afterlife is real.

Surveys continue to show that some 97% of the people in the United States, Southern Americas and it is estimated that in the United Kingdom, Australia and in most countries accept the possibility that life continues after physical death.

Also see:

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

Surely there must be something to it, all these scientists research cant be pure bunk.

darryl,

Your rationale, to me, is inverted. While science has no evidence of an afterlife, it does not warrant the conclusion that says: therefore an afterlife is possible.

The only reason the question of afterlife comes up is because it was handed down for centuries (in the Judeo-Christian cultures) probably originating sometime after the conquest of Alexander and before the second razing of the temple in Jerusalem (AD 70).

When a fact is considered scientifically, and that fact gives no evidence of a claim, then it's not logical to assert the claim, based on no evidence to the contrary. It is correct, however, to say "it probably is not true".

A universe that springs from the "ultra-small" environs, would be capable of supplying "existence support" for small energy "packets" that would be indestructible, transferable, and follow quantum characteristics.
They could be created by any female human mother during childbirth, as "packages" of "Signal Objects of Uterine Logistics" (SOUL)*, transferred to the child, and released at death of the human subject.
This much could be said.

*SOUL being packets of low-energy bio-luminescent (phosphene) pre-birth memory modules.


Men are retained in the model for genetic vigor enhancement, for emergency conditions calling for faster environment-change adaptation.

Keith, did you see that post about peyote-taking Indians, and my comments that someone ought to start their own religion? I think you could be the guy!
:worship:

Keith, did you see that post about peyote-taking Indians, and my comments that someone ought to start their own religion? I think you could be the guy!

Thank you, you flatter my need to know,
which matches your own needs exactly.
So let it be said, so let it be heard, so let it be done.
She may wish my further input(s).
I will leave it to her wishes of me, as her time progresses.

Science is not incompatible with belief in an afterlife, it simply has nothing to say on the matter.Then you're not looking in the right places. The very definition of life includes:Homeostasis Organization Metabolism Growth Adaptation Response to stimuli, and Reproduction.Every single one of those processes completely, distinctly, obviously and irreversibly stops within a short time after the death of a human being.

In lower animals, some of those processes can continue for a while and may be restartable under the right conditions, making it difficult to distinguish death from sub-lethal trauma. And of course in the other five kingdoms of simpler organisms--plants, fungi, algae, bacteria and archaea--it's even more difficult.

But we're dealing with mammals here, the most complex of all organisms. When a mammal dies, it ceases living, completely and irreversibly. The consciousness that we associate closely with life and the unconscious brain activity that we associate closely with woo-woo (dreams, trances, the "near-death" experiences that are merely "this is your brain on hypoxia," etc.) are all electrochemical processes that fall into categories 2 and 6 above, Organization and Response to Stimuli.

When a human brain runs out of oxygen (at room temperature with no medical intervention this incontrovertibly happens within less than ten minutes of heart stoppage) the synapses lose their charge, the chemistry breaks down, and the conscious and unconscious thoughts degrade and disappear. Before too long the tissues begin to decay. There is no infrastructure to support the process of thought, so there is no thought. No ideas. No experiences. No journeys. No observations. Nothing. That's why we call it "death."
Many scientists believe in life after death.Many scientists also believe in gods and angels and devils and a man who came back from the dead. Do you also insist that we be sanguine about these other forms of pure bullshit, out of respect for their diplomas and their lab coats? Scientists are no less complicated than the rest of us and have just as many weaknesses, idiosyncrasies and as much cognitive dissonance as we do.
According to Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary, the definition of science is "knowledge attained through study or practice," or "knowledge covering general truths of the operation of general laws, esp. as obtained and tested through scientific method [and] concerned with the physical world."Technical foul declared here. You're using a layman's dictionary to support an argument that is way beyond the layman's level. No layman can list more than two of the defining characteristics of life and no layman understands the scientific method: empirical observation, logical reasoning, peer review, the Rule of Laplace, Occam's Razor, etc. If you want to define science for us--many of whom have scientific backgrounds--then please be recursive and give us a scientific definition of science, not something from the Sunday supplement.
We can not test the afterlife through empirical objective study, but this does not mean science has disproven the afterlife.You're not much of a scientist if you don't know that it is never necessary to prove a negative. The burden of proof is always on the party who makes a positive assertion. If this were not true, then the finite resources of science would be dissipated every day on disproving the the claims of every crackpot, wacko and religious nut who knocks on the door of the academy.

It's a quite sensible rule that the person who makes a claim has to be the one to provide evidence.
When an animal, plant, insect or human dies its life in the form of a field. . . .What woo-woo is this now? Life is not a "field." Life is a collection of processes that function in concert: homeostasis, metabolism, organization, etc.

BTW, you're also not much of a scientist if you don't understand that insects and humans are animals too. You also haven't mentioned the other four kinds of organisms. Do fungi, algae, bacteria and archaea also have this "field"? Or is it limited to the two most advanced taxonomic kingdoms? Inquiring minds want to know.
. . . . may go somewhere, this has not been proven yet, but science has not disproven it either.As you've already been told, science is never required to disprove something for which no evidence has been provided. When I took Logic 101A it was not in a scientific curriculum so this was not in the list of Classic Fallacies (Recursion, Correlation, Authority, etc.). But I think it should be: The Fallacy of Demanding Proof of a Negative.

Bring your evidence, and then we'll talk. Oh, and by the way, it had better be damn good evidence because you're already subject to the Rule of Laplace: Extraordinary assertions must be supported by extraordinary evidence before anyone is obliged to treat them with respect.
Also... Many scientists have claimed the afterlife is realWhat do you mean, "Also"? You just said that in your immediate preceding post.
There's also many modern scientists who claim the afterlife is real.And if you're going to repeat yourself I guess I will have to repeat myself too: Many scientists also believe in gods and resurrections. Belief in the supernatural is clearly an instinct (or an "archetype" as Jung called it in the days before the effect of genetics and evolution on behavior had been identified). The human forebrain is enormously larger in proportion to our animal midbrain and hindbrain compared to all other mammals, even the other apes--three to four times larger than our closest relative, the chimpanzee. This gives us a unique ability to override the instinctive ideas and behaviors with which we were born, with reasoned and learned behaviors. Some of us do that; others don't bother.
Surveys continue to show that some 97% of the people in the United States, Southern Americas and it is estimated that in the United Kingdom, Australia and in most countries accept the possibility that life continues after physical death.I wonder if you're going to make a clean sweep and cite every one of the Classic Fallacies in a single thread? It doesn't matter how many people believe something. That is not evidence. 100 years ago 85% of Americans believed that black people were inferior (the 85% of them who were white and I don't know if I've got that ratio quite right).
Surely there must be something to it, all these scientists research cant be pure bunk.You haven't really described their research. When one is attempting to coax people into into investigating a topic, it is customary to provide an abstract in one's own words. You know, like those "book reports" we all learned to do in the sixth grade? Did you think as an adult you'd never need that skill?

Life is way too short to click on URLs! If you've put so much thought into this stuff, surely you can give us a synopsis that will whet our interest.

As for it being impossible for all of the scientists on your list to be engaged in research that is in fact "bunk," now you're just being naive. Have you not heard of corporate science? These days arguably most graduates with science degrees go to work for corporations because they need the work and that's where the work is. They end up disgracing their principles: the goal of science is to test hypotheses until you find the correct one. The goal of corporate science is to prove a hypothesis is true because it will make money for the company, so you quietly ignore all the competing hypotheses.

This is "bunk." There's lots of bunk in science today. I've never heard of the scientists you're quoting but without seeing their credentials and, preferably reading a peer-review of some of their work from a scientist I know to be trustworthy, I have no way of knowing that their work is not also bunk.

One of the problems the Electronic Revolution has brought us is the ease with which anyone who is merely a good writer can communicate directly with the public.

Hey wait a minute. I'm a good writer! I should start my own blog. I'll convince everybody that HBO should bring back "Fraggle Rock."
The only reason the question of afterlife comes up is because it was handed down for centuries (in the Judeo-Christian cultures) probably originating sometime after the conquest of Alexander and before the second razing of the temple in Jerusalem (AD 70).Various notions of an afterlife come up in other religions too. This is why Jung calls these things "archetypes": legends, images, rituals, etc., that recur in almost all cultures in almost all eras. The Hindus believe in a sort of continuous afterlife. When you die your soul is reborn in another creature. If you've been good it may be a king or a corporate executive; if not it may be a swamp rat or a dung beetle.

Fraggle Rocker there could be an invisible immortal part of the organism on earth which could be a representation of a "spirit" or "soul", yes including all microorganisms, trees, plants etc insects, animals, humans etc. Everything.

In the late 1800s a scientist developed a theory of "odic force" a living energy or "field" inside all organisms. Later research proven thanks to the work of Dr. Burr has shown that these "fields" were electromagnetic fields and everything from a plant, to an ant has these fields which can be mapped with standard voltmeters. Now i dont have the paper on me at the moment but a later researcher has written the electromagnetic hypothesis of the afterlife..


Then you're not looking in the right places. The very definition of life includes:
Homeostasis
Organization
Metabolism
Growth
Adaptation
Response to stimuli, and
Reproduction.

Fair play but do not think science has solved this problem, scientists can not define "life", in fact most tend to dodge the question "what is life", when James lovelock was doing his research he found that no scientist knew what life was, that position has not changed today it is entirely subjective.


Technical foul declared here. You're using a layman's dictionary to support an argument that is way beyond the layman's level. No layman can list more than two of the defining characteristics of life and no layman understands the scientific method: empirical observation, logical reasoning, peer review, the Rule of Laplace, Occam's Razor, etc. If you want to define science for us--many of whom have scientific backgrounds--then please be recursive and give us a scientific definition of science, not something from the Sunday supplement.

Science is systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. The afterlife if it exists is not in this physical world so science can not prove or disprove it.


You haven't really described their research

Ok regarding Sir William Crookes and Alfred Wallace (you must know these scientists) basically they in scientific conditions did experiments into spiritualism, and they observed some kind of spirit coming through. I lost interest in their studies but I will try and locate something if I can. Sir Oliver Lodge also in a seance had his dead son coming through and talking to him etc.


Jung

Just to point out (it probably doesnt make any difference) but Jung believed in the afterlife. ;)

Science is systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. The afterlife if it exists is not in this physical world so science can not prove or disprove it.
If you believe that, why are you bringing it up on a science forum? :bugeye:

If you believe that, why are you bringing it up on a science forum? :bugeye:

I have brought the topic up on many forums and discussed it in detail with many scientists and both with skeptics and believers, however that was not the purpose of this thread.The purpose of this thread was to show it is possible to be an atheist and believe in the afterlife, and I posted this in the religion section.

Three atheists and skeptics - Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer and Robert Todd Carroll have said that the afterlife probably doesn't exist and there is no scientific evidence in their opinion for it but have also stated that science can not disprove the afterlife. Science does not deal with and can not prove or disprove the metaphysical.

I have brought the topic up on many forums and discussed it in detail with many scientists and both with skeptics and believers, however that was not the purpose of this thread.The purpose of this thread was to show it is possible to be an atheist and believe in the afterlife, and I posted this in the religion section.

Three atheists and skeptics - Richard Dawkins, Michael Shermer and Robert Todd Carroll have said that the afterlife probably doesn't exist and there is no scientific evidence in their opinion for it but have also stated that science can not disprove the afterlife. Science does not deal with and can not prove or disprove the metaphysical.
Just trying to understand why people, who believe that science has no say on a subject, want to discuss it on a science forum. :shrug:

Just trying to understand why people, who believe that science has no say on a subject, want to discuss it on a science forum. :shrug:
darryl was cherry-picking scientist sources from Biology, Psychology, and Philosophy. None from quantum physics, which would seem necessary to give further insight into this OP discussion.

Fair play but do not think science has solved this problem, scientists can not define "life" . . . .The list I cribbed from Wikipedia is a rather standard definition of life from biology. Last time I checked biology was a science.
Science is systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation. The afterlife if it exists is not in this physical world so science can not prove or disprove it.And praytell what other world is there besides the physical? You're veering off into Stone Age woo-woo again. Science is the study of the natural universe, including anything that may be part of it, physical or not. If you're referring to the mythical "supernatural" universe, the myths clearly tell us that its creatures and forces make themselves visible (and indeed rather pesky) in the natural universe from time to time, so there should be no problem gathering and examining the evidence that supports the hypothesis that a supernatural universe exists.

Oops, it turns out that there is no evidence. In all these thousands of years since humans learned to write down their experiences, there is no credible evidence of supernatural events. One would certainly expect it from the Romans, who were consummate recordkeepers at the precise time that so many of the founding myths of one branch of Abrahamism are alleged to have taken place.

This is the sum total of your "other-than-physical world."
Just to point out (it probably doesnt make any difference) but Jung believed in the afterlife.Although Jung knew about evolution and probably was aware of the early research into genetics, he died before DNA was understood, even to the limited extent it is today. He was fascinated by what he called "archetypes." Today we understand them to be nothing more than wacky little instincts leftover from genetic drift or bottlenecks, or perhaps relics of survival traits in an era whose dangers we cannot imagine. He did not have this advantage. Furthermore, he was a psychologist and as you've probably already heard me note, psychology is perhaps the softest of all the "soft sciences." We call psychologists "scientists," but when we step behind them we make a little asterisk over their heads with our fingers.

Jung had no idea why archetypes exist. Being only a scientist* ;) he suspected that they might be supernatural. Once you open your mind to the possibility of supernatural phenomena, anything becomes possible, including the forehead-slapping oxymoron of life after death.
Science does not deal with and can not prove or disprove the metaphysical.Metaphysics is called metaphysics for the same reason that metadata is called metadata. It is not physics, it is about physics. It deals with ideas about the universe, not the universe itself.

All metaphysics can prove is that these ideas exist, and that they conform to the academic rules of the discipline. It can judge whether they are consistent, logical, etc. But it cannot judge whether they are true. That is the job of science.

And praytell what other world is there besides the physical? You're veering off into Stone Age woo-woo again. Science is the study of the natural universe, including anything that may be part of it, physical or not. If you're referring to the mythical "supernatural" universe, the myths clearly tell us that its creatures and forces make themselves visible (and indeed rather pesky) in the natural universe from time to time, so there should be no problem gathering and examining the evidence that supports the hypothesis that a supernatural universe exists.

Oops, it turns out that there is no evidence. In all these thousands of years since humans learned to write down their experiences, there is no credible evidence of supernatural events. One would certainly expect it from the Romans, who were consummate recordkeepers at the precise time that so many of the founding myths of one branch of Abrahamism are alleged to have taken place.

This is the sum total of your "other-than-physical world."

The "supernatural realm" might be a mental realm/another dimension and it may well be accessed every night via dreaming, or lucid dreams etc.

Lots of speculation involved here but some scientists are very into different dimensions and multiverses. If the afterlife exists it may be in the fourth dimension see my other thread for that, in that model absolutely everything could survive including all plants, insects, microorganisms etc...

Other research says perhaps there are dimensions in the mind. http://www.anthonypeake.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plane_(esotericism)#The_Planes - Occultists have been talking about these "realms" "dimensions" or "planes" for years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astral_projection

There are millions of so called "mediums" on the planet http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediumship who claim they are talking to "dead" people from the afterlife, now this line of research does not really interest me becuase I am interested in another model but why did Alfred Wallace (one of the most famous and most accomplished scientists claim to believe in it? was he duped?? or perhaps he communicated with this dream world/other dimension some how. We know that lots of mediums have been caught with fraud, and perhaps much of the rest is hallucination and a psychology issue.

Now NDE experience may all be "in the mind" but some of these folk who have been pronounced dead by doctors but they come back 10 minutes later or so and talk about this dream world they were in, how were these folk dreaming if their brain was inactive?

http://www.amazon.com/Evidence-Afterlife-Science-Near-Death-Experiences/dp/0061452556


Evidence of the Afterlife shares the firsthand accounts of people who have died and lived to tell about it. Through their work at the Near Death Experience Research Foundation, radiation oncologist Jeffrey Long and his wife, Jody, have gathered thousands of accounts of near-death experiences (NDEs) from all over the world. In addition to sharing the personal narrative of their experiences, visitors to the website are asked to fill out a one hundred–item questionnaire designed to isolate specific elements of the experience and to flag counterfeit accounts.

The website has become the largest NDE research database in the world, containing over 1,600 NDE accounts. The people whose stories are captured in the database span all age groups, races, and religious affiliations and come from all over the world, yet the similarities in their stories are as awe-inspiring as they are revealing. Using this treasure trove of data, Dr. Long explains how medical evidence fails to explain these reports and why there is only one plausible explanation—that people have survived death and traveled to another dimension.

http://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Beyond-Life-Near-Death-Experience/dp/0061777250/ref=pd_sim_b_4


As a cardiologist, Pim van Lommel was struck by the number of his patients who claimed to have near-death experiences as a result of their heart attacks. As a scientist, this was difficult for him to accept: Wouldn't it be scientifically irresponsible of him to ignore the evidence of these stories? Faced with this dilemma, van Lommel decided to design a research study to investigate the phenomenon under the controlled environment of a cluster of hospitals with a medically trained staff.

For more than twenty years van Lommel systematically studied such near-death experiences in a wide variety of hospital patients who survived a cardiac arrest. In 2001, he and his fellow researchers published his study on near-death experiences in the renowned medical journal The Lancet. The article caused an international sensation as it was the first scientifically rigorous study of this phenomenon. Now available for the first time in English, van Lommel offers an in-depth presentation of his results and theories in this book that has already sold over 125,000 copies in Europe.

Van Lommel provides scientific evidence that the near-death phenomenon is an authentic experience that cannot be attributed to imagination, psychosis, or oxygen deprivation. He further reveals that after such a profound experience, most patients' personalities undergo a permanent change. In van Lommel's opinion, the current views on the relationship between the brain and consciousness held by most physicians, philosophers, and psychologists are too narrow for a proper understanding of the phenomenon. In Consciousness Beyond Life, van Lommel shows that our consciousness does not always coincide with brain functions and that, remarkably and significantly, consciousness can even be experienced separate from the body.

Much of this might be explained by this mans model:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._H._Price#Afterlife

Dream telepathy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dream_telepathy

http://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/dream-telepathy.html

So why might survive death? As I said maybe a field of some kind. The biologist Rupert Sheldrake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Sheldrake has a theory that has claimed that Morphic fields "animate organisms at all levels of complexity, from galaxies to giraffes, and from ants to atoms."

Theres also this:

The conscious electromagnetic field theory

http://www3.surrey.ac.uk/qe/cemi.htm

Does the cemi field survive after death?


mmm an interesting question. My hypothesis is that conciousness is the experience of information, from the inside. There is a postulate in physics that information is neither created or detroyed - the conservation of information 'law'. It is however just a postulate, nobody has ever proved it. But, if true, it would suggest that awareness (associated with that information) - in some form - might survive death.

Also found the paper for electromagnetic theory for an afterlife:

http://www.newdualism.org/nde-papers/Slawinski/Slawinski-Journal%20of%20Near-Death%20Studies_1987-6-79-94.pdf

The question of survival of bodily death is often considered to be
beyond contemporary scientific methods and conceptual categories. However,
recent research into spontaneous radiations from living systems suggests a
scientific foundation for the ancient association between light and life, and a
biophysical hypothesis of the conscious self that could survive death of the
body. All living organisms emit low-intensity light; at the time of death, that
radiation is ten to 1,000 times stronger than that emitted under normal
conditions. This "deathflash" is independent of the cause of death, and reflects in intensity and duration the rate of dying. The vision of intense light reported in near-death experiences may be related to this deathflash, which may hold an immense amount of information. The electromagnetic field produced by necrotic radiation, containing energy, internal structure, and information, may permit continuation of consciousness beyond the death of the body.

The "supernatural realm" might be a mental realm/another dimension and it may well be accessed every night via dreaming, or lucid dreams etc.You're just parroting meaningless combinations of words you read in comic books when you were little.
Lots of speculation involved here but some scientists are very into different dimensions . . . .What the heck is a "different dimension"? Something from that same comic book!
. . . . and multiverses.There's nothing in the multiverse hypothesis as proferred by scientists to suggest that communication is possible between them.
If the afterlife exists it may be in the fourth dimension . . . .More comic book balloon dialog. The fourth dimension is time. An eleven-dimension universe was postulated about 30 years ago. It spoke to the Heisenberg Principle as well as to the wave/particle conundrum. If the quarks and leptons are vibrating in a direction in which we can't see, then each time they pass through the "plane" (as it were) in which we can see they appear to have jumped from one location to another without actually traversing the distance between them. Now this was a scientific hypothesis that merited respectful treatment. It actually made sense and didn't ask us to toss out half of what we know about science. Yet it was found to be flawed and ultimately discarded.
see my other thread for that, in that model absolutely everything could survive including all plants, insects, microorganisms etc...Well I appreciate the fact that you have not fallen into the trap of the anthropocentric universe, in which the laws of nature (and also supernatural laws) have, for some unknown reason, been crafted specifically for the benefit of the dominant lifeform on this one tiny planet. Many of us dismiss one of the most popular religions with great disgust for a single reason: there are no dogs in their Heaven! (Will Rogers said famously, "If dogs don't go to Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.")
Other research says perhaps there are dimensions in the mind.This is both comic-book talk and anthropocentrism. Are there "dimensions" in the mind of a chimpanzee? A dog? A koi? A squid? A bee, whose central nervous system is so much less expansive than that of a chordate that it's a stretch to even postulate a mind there?

And I still have no idea what these men of science masquerading as crackpots mean by "dimensions." Do you? We all understood what the eleven-dimensional hypothesis meant. Huge difference!

In any case, the mind is 100% a phenomenon of the brain, which is complex organic tissue augmented by a very feeble electrical system. It's fragile and delicate and these days we often use the term "brain death" to signify the juncture at which the "person" we once knew no longer exists.

Brain waves do not continue to propagate after the brain is dead. In any dimension.
Occultists have been talking about these "realms" "dimensions" or "planes" for years.You keep coming up with new versions of the Classic Fallacies. Do I actually have to explain to you where the flaw is in an argument based on the ravings of supernaturalists? People who don't even pretend to respect the scientific method?
There are millions of so called "mediums" on the planetYou need to familiarize yourself with the work of James Randi. He has put much time, money and effort into critically examining the performances of mediums, palm readers, faith healers, water diviners, past life regressionists, and all the rest of the lot. He's the perfect man for the job since he was originally a stage magician. He found that every single one of these charlatans uses the tricks of stage magic. We used to belong to the Los Angeles chapter of CSICOP and he frequently spoke at our meetings, occasionally demonstrating how charlatans work.

Now before you scroll up a report on a particularly amazing feat and say, "There's no way a stage magician could have done this," just remember the last time you saw David Copperfield perform.

These tricks include psychology, of course. Many of the palm readers, astrologers, etc., who sit in their little storefronts actually help people solve their problems. They just use techniques that their customers will believe, instead of the standard psychiatric and psychotherapeutic techniques that many people doubt. A friend of mine who actually is a psychotherapist had had a really bad year (many decades earlier), and on a whim he walked into one of these shops. The lady read him in two seconds and said, "You're not here because you want me to cast your horoscope and tell you that as soon as your moon is out of Libra you'll feel better. You just want help. Why don't you sit down and tell me what's wrong." He walked out of there a new man and said, "I've spent my life striving to be as good at this job as that lady was."
. . . . why did Alfred Wallace (one of the most famous and most accomplished scientists claim to believe in it? was he duped??Alfred Wallace has been dead for a century. He had even less understanding of what goes on inside our heads than Carl Jung. People who are amenable to an idea can easily have experiences that seem to prove its truth. This includes hallucinations, although fortunately not for most of us without chemical stimulation.
Now NDE experience may all be "in the mind" but some of these folk who have been pronounced dead by doctors but they come back 10 minutes later or so and talk about this dream world they were in, how were these folk dreaming if their brain was inactive?If they were still alive during all that time, then their brains were not inactive. There are natural, organic poisons that suppress our lifesigns so much that the average M.D. would pronounce us dead. We have much more sensitive instruments for detecting brain waves these days.
a theory that has claimed that Morphic fields "animate organisms at all levels of complexity, from galaxies to giraffes, and from ants to atoms."Do you have any idea how much energy it would take to "animate a galaxy"? Hint: more than there is in the entire universe.

If these guys insist that the Laws of Thermodynamics are wrong and there's no such thing as Conservation of Energy, then they are delivering themselves to Professor LaPlace's office. Show us the extraordinary evidence to support your extraordinary assertion, or we will continue to treat you and your assertion with the utmost disrespect. Hint: Dreams are not even ordinary evidence, much less extraordinary.
The question of survival of bodily death is often considered to be beyond contemporary scientific methods and conceptual categories."Often considered?" By whom??? The same community of crackpots?
. . . . a biophysical hypothesis of the conscious self that could survive death of the body. . . . .Where do you find this crap? More importantly, why do you bother?

Fraggle Rocker going back to the OP, is it possible to be an atheist and believe in the afterlife, yes 100%. The atheist philosopher John Mctaggart http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._M._E._McTaggart believed in the afterlife and even wrote books on the topic, now I am not going to get my head round his arguments, he seems to be saying time is unreal. Perhaps you can ponder on that one on a rainy day.


You're just parroting meaningless combinations of words you read in comic books when you were little.

Lets for just a moment say the afterlife is 100% real - then please explain in acceptable terminology where the afterlife is, all we can say is that it is an alternative dimension. The universe is apparently filled with dark matter yet nobody has ever seen this dark matter, physical dimensions are not disproven by science, perhaps one day one may be discovered, but for now this theme makes good movies and cool ideas about an afterlife for those who are into the topic.


More comic book balloon dialog. The fourth dimension is time. An eleven-dimension universe was postulated about 30 years ago. It spoke to the Heisenberg Principle as well as to the wave/particle conundrum. If the quarks and leptons are vibrating in a direction in which we can't see, then each time they pass through the "plane" (as it were) in which we can see they appear to have jumped from one location to another without actually traversing the distance between them. Now this was a scientific hypothesis that merited respectful treatment. It actually made sense and didn't ask us to toss out half of what we know about science. Yet it was found to be flawed and ultimately discarded.

fair comments but science knows nothing about time, the only guys pondering on time are mainly philosophers, you may be interested in this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_time_dimensions


What the heck is a "different dimension"? Something from that same comic book!

You might want to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fourth_Dimension_(book) "The Fourth Dimension guides you on a mind-expanding journey; the book is designed to alter the reader's perceptions of the universe through the exploration of a fourth dimension (a fourth physical dimension, rather than the simpler notion of time as a fourth dimension)." gives a good introduction to the subject..


Well I appreciate the fact that you have not fallen into the trap of the anthropocentric universe, in which the laws of nature (and also supernatural laws) have, for some unknown reason, been crafted specifically for the benefit of the dominant lifeform on this one tiny planet. Many of us dismiss one of the most popular religions with great disgust for a single reason: there are no dogs in their Heaven! (Will Rogers said famously, "If dogs don't go to Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went.")

having spoken to spiritualists they believe animals have spirits which is good, but it seems most monotheistic religions are sadly anthropocentric.


This is both comic-book talk and anthropocentrism. Are there "dimensions" in the mind of a chimpanzee? A dog? A koi? A squid? A bee, whose central nervous system is so much less expansive than that of a chordate that it's a stretch to even postulate a mind there?

You might not of clicked on his website, but anthony peake is not reffering to the human mind, he seems to be talking about some type of cosmic energy field or a universal mind http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akashic_field called the akashic field with different dimensions which we all live in and are part of, such as model would not be anthropocentrism. This will be typical "woo" for you, so lets not go there!


In any case, the mind is 100% a phenomenon of the brain, which is complex organic tissue augmented by a very feeble electrical system. It's fragile and delicate and these days we often use the term "brain death" to signify the juncture at which the "person" we once knew no longer exists.

Brain waves do not continue to propagate after the brain is dead. In any dimension.

Yes all very true, but theres no arguement here, most believers in the afterlife accept that the brain waves die etc and the physical body does eventually they say some type of immaterial entity/field/soul/spirit/subtle body etc leaves the body at death. As far as I know the only scientific evidence for this was done by some early doctors who weighed some bodies at death and there was a weight loss at the moment of death and they included it was the soul departing... and no some of these doctors were not anthropocentric as they also weighed mouses and sheep and dogs etc and also concluded they had souls.


Do you have any idea how much energy it would take to "animate a galaxy"? Hint: more than there is in the entire universe.

I am looking into this at the moment, I am not sure what properties the fields he refers to have.


Where do you find this crap? More importantly, why do you bother?

becuase i have been a proponent of panpychism for many years i believe that consciousness exists in nature and goes all the way down to atoms and subatomic particles, if this is the case then thats why i believe in life after death, i dont think consciousness relies 100% on the need for a brain. perhaps 1 day there may be 100% scientific proof for life after death but for now it will stay in the realm of metaphysics. science doesnt have all the answers, and dabbling in some philosophy and metaphysics is perfectly healthy.

I totally agree with Darryl. I am athiest and do not believe that there is a hell option after death, this is Hell. I have had reasons to experience the fact that there is something after all this toil of living. A sister of mine had passed info on to me that came from a medium that is impossible not to have come from departed souls. There is no way they could be fabricated or 'guessed'. There were two things that horrified me about death, how I was to die and if there was nothing but 'nothing'. Then I statred thinking about it and began to realise that the so called soul that lives within is actually the mind, and that the mind goes on .................. One regret I will have about dying will be that I had not finished the learning process and that my numerous sites will die.

i dont think consciousness relies 100% on the need for a brain

Isn't it the other way around? The brain doesn't rely on consciousness? (as in sleep or coma)