Persons who work in the advertising industry would strongly disagree.
Atheist expects death to be oblivion.
- Thread starter Dinosaur
- Start date
No, they know it too. They, of course, try to sell the myth that their car/shirt/fast food/gun will make you sexy, strong and immortal. And I am sure a few fools believe them. But the people themselves? They know exactly how to craft the empty lies that are most advertising.
Nevertheless, spending does not promise to end your fears over death. Every rational person knows that buying a new SUV will not prevent death or even delay it. But almost every religion promises eternal life.
Once again, many persons who work in the advertising industry would strongly disagree that anyone exclusively utilizes "rationality" in the pursuit of their values.
What something can or cannot actually deliver is a separate discussion. What something promises to deliver is something else.
Gawdzilla Sama
Valued Senior Member
Every afterlife I've ever heard of was the result of someone's wishful thinking.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
Among the strange phenomena reported on deathbeds (apparitions, visions, telepathic experiences) is one called terminal lucidity in which a patient with a poorly functioning brain (Alzheimers, schizophrenia, coma) returns one last time in perfect lucidity and even carries on a normal conversation with their loved ones before dying. Doesn't this suggest to you some sort of continuity beyond death or at least some sort of independence of the person from their brain?
https://blogs.scientificamerican.co...oodbye-the-strange-case-of-terminal-lucidity/
Ah, but there is so much material acquisition!
http://www.theincrediblylongjourney.com/2017/04/17/treasures-of-the-vatican/
No; it suggests that the patient has given up the struggle to make sense of an increasingly difficult reality and is free to focus on a single coherent thought for a very short time. And, of course, this applies to a few patients, not the majority.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
No..a patient cannot bypass the brain damage of Alzheimers or schizophrenia or a coma by simply focusing their thoughts. That's ridiculous. There is no evidence for such an ability in any medical journal.
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No one uses rationality exclusively for ANYTHING.
People who are unusually devoid of rationality are easy prey for religious hucksters, who promise them an end to the fear of death.
There is?
It's not even in the same league as the terra-forming habits of production and consumption we are currently killing ourselves with.
You are just harping on about your personal vendetta against religion to avoid looking at the bigger picture here. EEVERYONE (aside perhaps from the insane and diseased) participates wholeheartedly in submission to narratives in pursuit of the promise of continued existence. By intelligence, we can bridge the gap to a scenario where the body perishes, but this does nothing to stave off the inherent, irresistible attraction to the permanent or the fear of the removal of such things.
You can say it's your opinion that religion is for dummies but this does nothing to prevent you from being stacked to the hilt with predictably hopeless contingency plans.
Yet by dint of participating in society as a "means of production", you are offered no reprieve from the onslaughts of submitting to someone else's "wishful thinking".
Death doesn't have equal value to life, in many cases it has greater value. For the young and healthy, this might be a sign of despair, but at the end of a long life, one might anticipate oblivion with good cheer. I find the prospect of an endless life something akin to endless suffering.
You are talking about the onslaught of disease and old age as things that disturb the value of life rather than death having an inherent value.
DaveC426913
Valued Senior Member
Speak for yourself please.
Other than ways to extend my current lifespan, and remain healthy enough to enjoy it, any promises of continued existence on the other side of death hold no truck with me. Nor, I'll wager, a lot of other people.
You asked what it suggests. Perhaps not everything has been written up, as yet.
Certainly, evidence of a soul independent of the physical body is conspicuously absent from medical journals. And is ridiculous. What would the damn thing use for energy?
This is one of those cute distortions of another's post that I find so distasteful in your methodology and, indeed, your ilk.
Spidergoat didn't say "inherent".
All value is subjective.
The relative value of life and death are entirely dependent on an individual's circumstances.
Magical Realist
Valued Senior Member
It's bad science to state theories as explanations that have no evidence yet. Stick to what we know.
The quantum vacuum. What else?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy
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Incorrect.
The so-called value of death only comes to the fore when the value of life, for whatever reason, is not attainable.
This is why all this "I'm okay with death" as some sort of douchey atheist upper handedness reeks of BS.
IOW as one sails into (so-called) oblivion, it is not merry. Palming it off as "inevitable" in no way deconstructs death and dimunition being thrust forcibly into our existence as an unwanted guest.
As already mentioned, individuals who work in the advertising industry would disagree. There is a vast archetype behind notions of "enjoyment and health" that seeks conformity in everyone's behaviour and doesn't rely on anyone's voluntary participation. Before desire, we are powerless.