Is The Afterlife's Rational Conceptualization Impossible?

Discussion in 'Religion' started by psychostasis, Oct 30, 2015.

  1. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    The word death is used to denote an ending of life so if there is life after "death" perhaps there has been no ending of life such that one should not be calling the event death.
    I would submit that a "clinical death" in not, in the case of a successful revival, a "death" because life has not in fact ceased.
    The suggestion that there is an afterlife has no basis other than belief in same and has no basis in fact or evidence in support of such a belielf matching our shared reality.
    The concept may come from observations early in our history, that the Sun moved South as winter approached and "died" for three days before being "reborn" and then moving North.
    That is one idea but beliefs can arise in various ways most probably wishful thinking.

    Alex
     
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  3. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    You'd think. But that's not necessarily the case.
    Death is the termination of all biological functions that sustain an organism. Wiki.
    It means that the life within that structure has come to an end.
    But it doesn't mean the end of life itself.

    A clinical death is where the biological functions that sustain an organism, is so dysfunctional, the person is as good as what is termed death.

    What is the basis of your certainty that the afterlife (not a good term) is nothing more than a belief or wishful thinking?
    Near death experience is the best evidence we have to date. Why isn't that considered the best evidence we have?

    Why would anyone conclude there is an afterlife from that observation.

    Isn't your hypothesis more unlikely than near death experience testimonies?

    Aside from being based on what you do know, I don't see how beliefs can just arise.
    What do you believe, and how did you arrive at that, or those beliefs?

    jan.
     
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  5. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    Since you are a material object . You dont have a relationship with God : theregore you end up into dust, but to those who have a relationship with God the soul goes back to God.
     
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  7. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    What can you offer to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking?

    Please present the best evidence of near death experience.

    Yes why would one draw such a conclusion from such an observation?
    There are many ideas that are unlikely which deserve first prize?


    I dont believe in a God or afterlife and I arrived at those beliefs from going to church for many years.

    Alex
     
  8. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    You disobeyed the church's rules. Sleeping in church is OK, but not thinking.
     
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  9. timojin Valued Senior Member

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    I go to church for long long time I don't agree with all churches rules , I believe in science why should that turn my believing in God , in les I start to think that I know it all.
     
  10. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    Let's say that I can't.
    Why would you default to it being nothing more than wishful thinking?

    You're the one who brought it up. I'm just trying to comprehend why you would use that.

    Isn't it about the best available evidence?

    jan.
     
  11. Xelasnave.1947 Valued Senior Member

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    Why not go for the most plausible option?
    Wishful thinking seems the preferred option rather than evidence.

    Jan it is not my idea I simply refer to what I believe folk came up with, through i gnorance, a view to construct a belief.
    Are you familar with the part astronomy plays in many of the ancient superstitions.

    Jan a near death testimonial establishes what exactly.

    Alex
     
  12. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

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    Jan, it's rather simple. The first principle of research: for any hypothesis, in lieu of evidence, assume the null. Don't believe it unless you see or experience it for yourself.

    As I've said before, I am a devout polytheist. I regularly conduct rituals to honour the gods. I genuinely believe that they are real, and that they play a part in shaping or at least protecting all aspects of the natural world. But I only do that because I have had personal experiences, religious experiences, of the gods. I would not recommend believing in extraordinary things without some rather vivid things to convince you of them. Otherwise it really is just wishful thinking.
     
  13. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    That naturally goes without saying.
    What if millions of people, from all walks of life, beliefs, etc, experience an afterlife .
    I know it's not a good argument for science to accept as evidence. But in a court of law...

    So you are aware of phenomenons that exist, that is not accepted in mainstream science.
    Do you think the scientific method is the best way to determine the existence of god's, or the afterlife?

    How do you determine that the afterlife is an extraordinary claim?

    Jan.
     
  14. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    Afterlife is modeled on nature. The ancients saw that the trees and plants die in the fall, and then reappear in the spring. Human burials are like farming, where the dormant human seeds, are planted in the ground; ready to sprout anew. When they noticed that human seeds; corpses, did not sprout in material form, they may have assumed these must sprout into another dimension; realm of the spirits. People would have a dream and see them again, but unable to touch and hold them.

    Jesus taught about being born again. In this case, he was talking about the outer man dying and the inner man growing. In this case, the death and rebirth was all done in situ, within the human psyche. This is where the ego; center of the conscious mind, is dissolved and then rebooted, closer to the inner self. It becomes natural again.

    The inner self or inner man is the center of the unconscious mind and is connected to our instincts and our DNA. In that respect, it is born again, each generation, through genetic transfer to offspring.

    The ancients observed and theorized without the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. The value of these rebirth ideas is they are command lines to the inner self's operating system. Atheists are too ego-centric and are not aware of the science of the inner self; inner man, who lives forever through human DNA.

    The laws of the inner self are conservative, like our DNA, and are optimized in specific ways like all body systems, and not in relative ways. Relative is for the vanity of the ego, with the ego not conserved at death.

    Both POV are correct. The atheist ego is done at death, while the inner self of the faithful never really dies but lives on, since it is the source of human nature via the DNA. One can infer where religion is targeting by this symbolism and also where atheism targets.
     
    Last edited: May 31, 2016
  15. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

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    Argument from popularity.
    Nothing more.
    That many people interpret an experience the same way does not mean that the experience was what they considered it to be.
    We all watch television and can be scared by something we know to be fake.
    Our interpretation of it is such that we can be convinced, fleetingly or othwise, that the experience is something it is not.
    This is especially true of experiences that we can not readily examine after the event.
    It's not a good argument for a court of law either.
    Unless you simply want them to accept that the millions of people simply believe in the afterlife, that they believe their experiences were of the afterlife?
    If so, we can all accept that they do believe it.
    There is nothing to support it other than personal testimony.
     
  16. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    To some people, from all walks of life, and beliefs, that is remarkable, and worthy of curiosity. We know it's not a modern scientific, but think because of its consistency, there's more to it than wishful thinking, dreams, or delusions.

    How is this relevant?

    Can you give an example of this?

    Millions of people giving the same account, regardless their beliefs, from the time of recorded history, amounts to a little more than belief.

    Jan.
     
  17. Baldeee Valued Senior Member

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    Oh we can be curious indeed.
    And we are.
    But it is insufficient to claim it as interpreted when there is no means of ratification or falsifiability.
    Sure, there are many natural process within the body that are consistent from person to person: we all talk by moving our lips, walk by moving our legs etc.
    We all regulate our breathing in the same way,
    Thus it could be quite simply that when we go into a certain state "near death" our brain behaves in a predictable fashion that gives rise to what we subsequently interpret as an "afterlife".
    However, for every person that has experienced such there are at least a handful or more who haven't.
    Why should we discount their lack of results?
    We all can and do interpret things differently to the reality of the situation.
    We can all get scared of things on the telly that we know to be fake.
    Why should we treat the interpretation of "afterlife" any differently?
    The movie industry in general - makes its money from convincing us of the reality of what they portray.
    Dreams - which many/most people interpret as reality while they are dreaming.
    There is no doubt that there is a consistency of interpretation, albeit an interpretation fuelled by previous images and knowledge, that to me suggests a consistency of biological process.
    We (mostly) all dream.
    Does that mean we all migrate from our beds at night and enter some strange realm?
    Or does it simply mean that we all undergo the same biological process, giving rise to the same/similar interpretations?
    Simply having a million people all claiming the same thing does not make that thing a reality, it merely makes it a shared subjective interpretation.
    Interesting, of course, and worthy of study, which it probably is.
    But please don't confuse the popularity of an interpretation with that interpretation being the actuality.
    That is simply an argument from popularity.
    It might well be correct, but you'll need more to convince, even for a court of law (unless the jurors are already predisposed to that belief and are unable to consider the matter objectively).
     
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  18. Yazata Valued Senior Member

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    I'm convinced that physicists are out of their depth when they play at being philosophers and metaphysicians.

    Sean Carroll has no more authority talking about theology or metaphysics than I have talking about physics.
     
  19. Billy T Use Sugar Cane Alcohol car Fuel Valued Senior Member

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    You must be kidding. Surely the sun does go around the earth!
     
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  20. wellwisher Banned Banned

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    What you say also applies to PC, since this is also collective subjectivity. The question is why do scientists allow this to influence them? Is it out of fear?

    Another possible reason is, an objective education, although useful for developing objectivity, may not be the best approach to develop our subjective sides. One may need a subjective education, to develop their subjective side; birds of a feather. A complete person can do both. Whereas half brainers, can do one or the other, with the other all yucky.

    Maybe as an analogy, Mr Spock is pure logic and reason. Captain Kirk is a blend of logic and human emotion. There are times when logic reaches the end of its usefulness, and one has to fly by the subjective seat of their pants; gut feeling. The faith aspect of religion teach one to be a test pilot, when life loses logic.
     
  21. C C Consular Corps - "the backbone of diplomacy" Valued Senior Member

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    I'm going to primarily address this generally so as to avoid the mire, limitations, and problems of a specific culture's take on _x_. Which is to say, one might first have to spend weeks trying to rescue the latter from itself (fix the belief system, etc) before ever getting back around to the primary focus. Since this is a science board, I'm also taking the route of Dawkin's "natural gods / creators" below [quote at bottom] rather than dealing with a "non-compromised deity that is not subservient to the concept of cause or origin".

    Patience here: I've got to go through the following (concerning the actual title of this thread) to get back to the issue in the body of your post as to why gods / archilects would set up a reality and life for their creations in seemingly irrational, immoral, or over-elaborate ways.

    To declare ANY conceiving of "afterlife" to be an impossible venture in terms of its coherency seems like another dogmatic conclusion itself derived from familiar furniture (especially of the past) rather taking into account exotic mutables and contingencies (especially those of the future).

    For example, if an alternative technological substrate for realizing biological organisms fully emerges in the future -- like simulated people in virtual environments eventually becoming complicated enough to qualify for being "alive" and also receiving the "dead" designation after body functioning ceases... Then preservation of their memories and somatic information becomes a "simple" enough affair in the context of more impressive technological "miracles" having already been instantiated. While _x_ deceased individual is being buried / cremated in its original Level_1 world or whatever, his/her template (data form) is enjoying re-activation in a new body at Level_2 "afterlife world" where resurrections are the normal source for its population.

    Philosophical objections concerning "Why would transcendent creators devise such over-elaborate, dramatic, round-a-bout hoops for the invented counterparts of their ancestors to tediously leap through?" can be dismissed by both empirical circumstances and potential exposure of lazy intellectual capacity in regard to conceiving a wider array of reasons and possibilities. Observation-wise: Humans have been authoring crazy, winding plots for their stories ever since hunter-gatherer days. For the sake of engendering mystery, suspense, adventurous thrills, illustrating principles, etc. Which includes having their characters suffer and travail in the course of some eventual redemption or victory. They continue this with the computer games that would be stepping stones to sophisticated innerspace realities of tomorrow.

    IOW, where did this (absurd?) notion of "gods should be reasonable and kind" ever come from, in light of how most mythological denizens are as emotionally unstable, immoral, or demented as the lesser creatures they lord over? Even when declared "ideal" by this or that cult they're still contended by others to contradict those ascriptions.

    Ironically, a more sensible prediction (in terms of how things actually play out empirically as opposed to abstract expectations) is that "gods" and archilects which evolve and engineer themselves into existence over time are likely to have many characteristics, tendencies, and traditions of their primeval predecessors passed on to them. Again, the very momentum of computer games being designed to be "exciting" rather than boringly utopian -- so as to attract users -- ensures an "unsatisfying to the rational & moral mind" genre of innerspace worlds developing in the future. Borrowing themes and setups from the fictional entities and landscapes of past cultures, religions, and fantasy writers.

    It's irrelevant whether we ourselves are in such a situation. It just takes the concept of "afterlife" being viable in some inter-consistent framework or literally being realized in some where / when location to dispel a dogma about it being impossible (both as a claim of all species of the idea being incoherent within their own internal descriptions, and a claim of none of them ever / anywhere becoming the case ["real"]).

    - - - - - - - - -

    MICHAEL POWELL: After two hours of conversation, Professor [Richard] Dawkins walks far afield. He talks of the possibility that we might co-evolve with computers, a silicon destiny. And he’s intrigued by the playful, even soul-stirring writings of Freeman Dyson, the theoretical physicist. In one essay, Professor Dyson casts millions of speculative years into the future. Our galaxy is dying and humans have evolved into something like bolts of superpowerful intelligent and moral energy.

    Doesn’t that description sound an awful lot like God?

    “Certainly,” Professor Dawkins replies. “It’s highly plausible that in the universe there are God-like creatures.” He raises his hand, just in case a reader thinks he’s gone around a religious bend. “It’s very important to understand that these Gods came into being by an explicable scientific progression of incremental evolution.”

    Could they be immortal? The professor shrugs.

    “Probably not.” He smiles and adds, “But I wouldn’t want to be too dogmatic about that.”
    --A Knack for Bashing Orthodoxy; Profiles in Science, New York Times, Sept 19, 2011

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    - - - - - - - - -

    - - - - - - - - -

    - - - - - - - - -

    NANCEY MURPHY: Well this is a very interesting point of contact between science and Christianity. It may look to the outsider as though Christians have been dualists throughout their history, continue to be dualists…

    ROBERT KUHN: Dualists meaning…

    NANCEY MURPHY: Believing in not just a body, but some other component, generally called the soul, but the concept of soul at certain points in history is equivalent to the concept of mind. So a dualist is a person has been thought to be essential to Christianity. Now it looks as though the neuroscientists are coming along and they’re saying, ah, there is no soul, in fact there is no substantial mind. It’s actually the brain or the nervous system that does all of the things that were once attributed to soul or mind. So it looks like yet another place where science encroaches and religion has to step back. But in the, in the liberal half of Christianity, those who have a higher degree in theology are almost all physicalists.

    MICHAEL SCHERMER: Really?

    ROBERT KUHN: Physicalist meaning that there is no…

    NANCEY MURPHY: We’re just bodies.

    ROBERT KUHN: There is no non-physical element required to make us human beings.

    NANCEY MURPHY: We’re just bodies. That’s right.

    MICHAEL SCHERMER: Now when you’re resurrected, how old will you be?

    NANCEY MURPHY: 30.

    MICHAEL SCHERMER: Really? You have an answer.

    NANCEY MURPHY: Augustine thought about that, that’s when you reach the height of your powers but before you start to disintegrate.
    --Can Web Believe in Both Science and Religion?; "Closer To The Truth" episode

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    As you’ve pointed out, science has made it extremely hard to posit something like the soul that exists independent of the body, or a mind that exists independent of physical processes in the brain. Some would say the dualistic view was never a biblical view to begin with, though it has long been part of Christian tradition. Do you agree?

    NANCEY MURPHY: I follow New Testament scholar James Dunn in holding that the biblical authors were not interested in cataloguing the metaphysical parts of a human being -- body, soul, spirit, mind. Their interest was in relationships. The words that later Christians have translated with Greek philosophical terms and then understood as referring to parts of the self originally were used to designate aspects of human life. For example, spirit refers not to an immaterial something but to our capacity to be in relationship with God, to be moved by God’s Spirit.

    It is widely agreed that the Hebrew Bible presents a holistic account of human nature, somewhat akin to contemporary physicalism. The New Testament authors certainly knew various theories of human nature, including dualism, but it was not their purpose to teach about this issue.
    --Nature’s God: An Interview with Nancey Murphy; The Christian Century, (December 27, 2005, pp. 20-26.)
     
    Last edited: Jun 1, 2016
  22. Hapsburg Hellenistic polytheist Valued Senior Member

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    The plural of anecdote is not statistic. Just because a lot of people think it does not make it absolute fact. Personal experiences cannot be demonstrated beyond the person themselves. That's the pitfall you keep running into: you interpret others' experiences in such a way that is informs your ideas. Rather than seeking these experiences for yourself.

    It's not an immediately apparent phenomenon and involves the supernatural. It is not-ordinary.
     
  23. Jan Ardena OM!!! Valued Senior Member

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    My ideas of the after life does not come from others experiences, but their experiences make sense according to what I think. We are allowed to think about these subjects, aren't we? I don't think we are these bodies that we control, plus I think we need these machines in order to experience this world. It is the controllers (soul/self/...) that I believe does not cease to be (like the machines). I've never had an NDE, but I have had out of body experiences.

    I don't agree. I NDE's, and out of body experiences, are common place, and are not supernatural.
    Just because we come across something that science can't explain we label it supernatural. I don't agree.

    jan.
     

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