Dreams and Heaven

[iNow]

Many very rational people do not dismiss outright the possibility of some other form of existence of "our minds or non-material consciousness" continuing to live on beyond our time moment within the vast moment of time in which the universe exists

Who said anything about dismissing the conjecture outright? With me, for example, I dismiss it as a direct result of my critical, rational, and reasoned exploration of the idea. It's clearly based on wish-thinking and unevidenced belief. This puts its possibility on par with the "possibility" that the farts of pink unicorns cause erections in leprechauns.

[Alan McDougall]

Who said anything about dismissing the conjecture outright? With me, for example, I dismiss it as a direct result of my critical, rational, and reasoned exploration of the idea. It's clearly based on wish-thinking and unevidenced belief. This puts its possibility on par with the "possibility" that the farts of pink unicorns cause erections in leprechauns.

 

Thus; you are the only rational, critical and reasoning person in the forum, who has explored this idea of life beyond death, to its logical conclusion and as a direct result dismissed it, how do you know for sure pink unicorns don't cause erections in leprechauns? Did you also explore this possibility?

 

Don't beat about the bush you rejected the idea of heaven outright without , without a thorough investigation into the possibility, your post clearly indicated that to me.

[Moontanman]

Thus; you are the only rational, critical and reasoning person in the forum, who has explored this idea of life beyond death, to its logical conclusion and as a direct result dismissed it, how do you know for sure pink unicorns don't cause erections in leprechauns? Did you also explore this possibility?

 

Don't beat about the bush you rejected the idea of heaven outright without , without a thorough investigation into the possibility, your post clearly indicated that to me.

I second his findings, the burden of proof lies with the person making the positive claims, the default position is not you can't prove so it might be true but you have no evidence so until you do it's not true...

[iNow]

Don't beat about the bush you rejected the idea of heaven outright without, without a thorough investigation into the possibility,

As I've already explained in the very post to which you were here replying, no. I did not. That's actually the opposite of what I did, but that's really none of your business anyway.

 

I find it curious (and frankly arrogant and insulting) that you believe yourself to be a better arbiter of my cogitations than I am.

Edited December 24, 2013 by iNow

[Alan McDougall]

As I've already explained in the very post to which you were here replying, no. I did not. That's actually the opposite of what I did, but that's really none of your business anyway.

 

I find it curious (and frankly arrogant and insulting) that you believe yourself to be a better arbiter of my cogitations than I am.

 

Well I perceive you in the same way you perceive me. I think a person should examine himself before assuming that anyone who differs from his position on any topic is wrong. Try to admit that you could be fallible at least some of the time. I know nothing about your thinking powers, other than what I read in your posts. I also find it very curious that an obvious atheist haunts a religious forum and wonder what your true agenda might be here.

 

I have no knowledge of your cogitative abilities, but I am really interested if you could reference some of the sources or the investigation you have made on your own, that led to your rejection of the possibility of an afterlife of some sort or the other.

 

Consciousness is not a physical thing and neither is mathematics, yet the exist as a reality of our universe.

[Moontanman]

Well I perceive you in the same way you perceive me. I think a person should examine himself before assuming that anyone who differs from his position on any topic is wrong. Try to admit that you could be fallible at least some of the time. I know nothing about your thinking powers, other than what I read in your posts. I also find it very curious that an obvious atheist haunts a religious forum and wonder what your true agenda might be here.

 

I have no knowledge of your cogitative abilities, but I am really interested if you could reference some of the sources or the investigation you have made on your own, that led to your rejection of the possibility of an afterlife of some sort or the other.

 

Consciousness is not a physical thing and neither is mathematics, yet the exist as a reality of our universe.

Alan, I know you understand this concept, in the face of a lack of any evidence the default position is that what ever is being asserted doesn't exist. Sure there is a possibility, there is a possibility there is a tea pot orbiting Uranus but until evidence of that tea pot is provided the default position is that there is no tea pot..

[iNow]

I also find it very curious that an obvious atheist haunts a religious forum and wonder what your true agenda might be here.

Just a reminder, this is a science forum with a religious section. For that reason, our discussions still follow similar rules and expectations.

 

Further, my "true agenda" (if I even have one to be spoken of... one other than my desire to interact with interesting educated people about interesting educated topics) is basically to root out ignorance in all of its many forms and to educate others while educating myself. It's not my fault that religion in the way we see it so often expressed in the modern world and on internet forums such as these has such tremendous ignorance as part of it.

 

I have no knowledge of your cogitative abilities

Quite right, and yet you speak of them as if you are somehow certain.

 

Consciousness is not a physical thing

Actually, it's almost certainly little more than an emergent property of the chemoelectric activity taking place across our nervous systems, but that's another thread entirely.

[Alan McDougall]

Just a reminder, this is a science forum with a religious section. For that reason, our discussions still follow similar rules and expectations.

 

Further, my "true agenda" (if I even have one to be spoken of... one other than my desire to interact with interesting educated people about interesting educated topics) is basically to root out ignorance in all of its many forms and to educate others while educating myself. It's not my fault that religion in the way we see it so often expressed in the modern world and on internet forums such as these has such tremendous ignorance as part of it.

 

Quite right, and yet you speak of them as if you are somehow certain.

 

Actually, it's almost certainly little more than an emergent property of the chemoelectric activity taking place across our nervous systems, but that's another thread entirely.

 

You state above that "Consciousness is almost certainly chemo-electric and where it is located, that means you dont really know. What that led you to that conclusion?.

 

While consciousness is a topic of another thread, I mentioned consciousness here, because, it just might be non-physical, like God is supposed to be."God is a Spirit" God might be pure "thought"

[iNow]

What that led you to that conclusion?

Education, study, and reason.

[Alan McDougall]

Education, study, and reason.

 

 

There are also other highly studious, educated and reasoning, people, that have come up with a different conclusion to yours, so you might be right and they might be right, but neither of you know for certainty if there is an afterlife, you have to die to find out the truth of the matter.

 

I like the idea of heaven, but don't want to die to get there!

[iNow]

Why not? Death is the only thing all life has in common.

 

It strikes me as so silly that the people who believe most strongly in the afterlife tend to be the ones who fear it the most. Why should one not want to die, especially if you believe in a fancy afterlife with a sweet baby jesus dancing to the sound of singing angels with harps floating on clouds and whatnot?

Edited December 25, 2013 by iNow

[Alan McDougall]

Why not? Death is the only thing all life has in common.

 

It strikes me as so silly that the people who believe most strongly in the afterlife tend to be the ones who fear it the most. Why should one not want to die, especially if you believe in a fancy afterlife with a sweet baby jesus dancing to the sound of singing angels with harps floating on clouds and whatnot?

 

You are wrong those who have a strong belief in an afterlife fear death the least, this can easily be noticed in those who have had a near death experience, most of them claim the event was wonderful and beautiful and they had a profound desire to remain in the afterlife of their perception.

 

Both my late parents had a deep love for God who the believed was benevolent, their deaths were peaceful without fear right up to their last breath .

 

My moms sister who used to say religion and god were just a load of crap, died a slow and painful death, full of fear and self- loathing.What I meant by not liking the idea of death, is the process of death. The atheists in my family that have passed on have always had a much more traumatic process of dying than those who had some believe in a loving higher power.

 

Even if they were wrong and no god or afterlife awaited them after death, why burst the bubble of hope and convince them that the moment you die, you blink out of existence?

[iNow]

Even if they were wrong and no god or afterlife awaited them after death, why burst the bubble of hope and convince them that the moment you die, you blink out of existence?

But you don't just "blink out of existence." You live on in the memories of those who survive you. You live on in the works you performed, and the words you authored, and the loves you shared.

[Alan McDougall]

But you don't just "blink out of existence." You live on in the memories of those who survive you. You live on in the works you performed, and the words you authored, and the loves you shared.

 

You no longer exist in the true sense of the world, most people are forgotten by the time their great grandchildren are born. Of course there are the exception of people who have had a great influence on human history, it is true that these extraordinary people might be remembered in one form or the other long after their demise, but even they, given the vastness of time, will finally fade out of human consciousness and vanish from history.

 

Homo-sapient, only evolved from more primitive forms of primitive man, into modern man, about 150,000 years ago,and at most we have had pockets of civilized humans, for less than 15,000 years. This is like a quantum flash in the unimaginable vastness of the time scale of our planet coming into existence some 4.5 billion years ago.

 

Thus my statement that we blink out and cease to exist still holds in the long term, if no sort of afterlife awaited us after death. We are then just little islands of temporary negative entropy, until total entropy takes hold again and our physical bodies get old, decay and die. It seems cruel to me when one compares the ridiculously short human life span, to that of vast age of the universe. Nature, if you like, has only allowed us to open our eyes, become aware for the briefest moment, and then perish before we could impact anything in cosmic meaningful way. We are children of the universe yet it forbids us to alter it or interfere with its evolution.

 

Energy cannot be created or destroyed, thus the quantum particles of our physical bodies on death are dissipated into the cosmos, it could be possible that some unimaginably powerful supercomputer could reassemble these particles in some far off future, maybe we already exist as some sort of complex computer code. The DNA is very similar to an advanced computer code?

[iNow]

I was with you and in agreement pretty much up until you mentioned the supercomputer thing in that last paragraph. I'm not willing to make such an extraordinary and unfounded assumption like that, myself.

 

Also:

It seems cruel to me when one compares the ridiculously short human life span, to that of vast age of the universe. Nature, if you like, has only allowed us to open our eyes, become aware for the briefest moment, and then perish before we could impact anything in cosmic meaningful way.

Here again I have to differ with you. You find it cruel. I find it awe inspiring to be given such a moment, especially given the improbable likelihood of my even being born.

[StringJunky]

Alan McDougall, on 27 Dec 2013 - 01:44 AM, said:

 

You no longer exist in the true sense of the world, most people are forgotten by the time their great grandchildren are born. Of course there are the exception of people who have had a great influence on human history, it is true that these extraordinary people might be remembered in one form or the other long after their demise, but even they, given the vastness of time, will finally fade out of human consciousness and vanish from history.

 

Being consciously remembered is not as important as your thoughts, words and actions subliminally shaping the actions and beliefs of those you have 'touched'. It gives me a quiet pleasure, for a minor example, to have argued with people on some matter and then sometime later, when our feisty conversation has long been forgotten, they later reiterate my words as though they were their own...you've modified their behaviour which will transfer to those around that person.

 

 

... maybe we already exist as some sort of complex computer code.

Think of your words and actions as code which are passed on into the future by those who are exposed to you. Actually, I don't find an analogy of all humans as being like a single computer all that difficult to comprehend ....7 billion cpu's coupled to the motherboard of Earth.

[Alan McDougall]

I was with you and in agreement pretty much up until you mentioned the supercomputer thing in that last paragraph. I'm not willing to make such an extraordinary and unfounded assumption like that, myself.

 

Also:

Here again I have to differ with you. You find it cruel. I find it awe inspiring to be given such a moment, especially given the improbable likelihood of my even being born.

 

You make a valid point, one should take great joy at the gift of life and the love we experience in the form of our friends and family especially our children. When I look into the eyes of an innocent child, I don't just see a machine perfected by eons of evolution, but the light of a living soul looking back at me

 

I wrote this little essay on how unlikely it was for us to come into existence and it concurs with your statement of how unlikely it was for any of us to come into existence

 

 

re you a fluke"

 

Well lets us consider that, of the possible almost infinite number of worlds in this unimaginably vast universe and how you were lucky enough to be born on planet earth that just might be the only world that can harbor life within all its vastness.

 

Of the seven billion people on earth, you are the offspring of only two people, namely your mom and dad. Of your mom's some twenty thousand eggs you arose from just one of them. Out of your dads half billion or so sperm cells, only one reached that one specific egg to create the absolutely unique human being that you are.

 

No one else has or will ever have your exact DNA code.

 

There has never been someone exactly like you in all creation going back fifteen or so billion years namely; the estimated age of the universe. In all eternities going into the infinite future there will never be another exactly like you.

 

Lastly you were fortunate enough to come into existence in a universe beautifully balanced to harbor human and other life and live as a totally unique sentient being.

Being consciously remembered is not as important as your thoughts, words and actions subliminally shaping the actions and beliefs of those you have 'touched'. It gives me a quiet pleasure, for a minor example, to have argued with people on some matter and then sometime later, when our feisty conversation has long been forgotten, they later reiterate my words as though they were their own...you've modified their behaviour which will transfer to those around that person.

 

Think of your words and actions as code which are passed on into the future by those who are exposed to you. Actually, I don't find an analogy of all humans as being like a single computer all that difficult to comprehend ....7 billion cpu's coupled to the motherboard of Earth.

 

You are right, I did not think of how our words,actions and thoughts never die, even though if they are forgotten or not recorded in the books of human history, we all make a significant impact on the reality we exist in, even in the short space of time we have on planet earth.

[StringJunky]

Alan McDougall, on 27 Dec 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:Alan McDougall, on 27 Dec 2013 - 06:35 AM, said:

You are right, I did not think of how our words,actions and thoughts never die, even though if they are forgotten or not recorded in the books of human history, we all make a significant impact on the reality we exist in, even in the short space of time we have on planet earth.

Yes, Everything that happens in our lives is recorded in the modified behaviour of those people and those things we encounter whether we, or they, acknowledge it or not. One's brief existence does contribute, even if only in a subtle way, to the collective human psyche and body of knowledge. Since the advent of the internet this concept is becoming more true by the day. Look at all of us within SFN exchanging our ideas and knowledge crossing distances far beyond our own localities in periods of only seconds and recorded for perhaps many years. How many more people will read our words long after we have departed and replicate or act on them in some form or other?

 

You don't have to be a Da Vinci, Newton or Einstein to be immortal in the secular sense, they just happen to be noted. Bear in mind they never created or discovered what they did in isolation, their ideas were built on the efforts of those that came before them in which they embody. Newton understood this very well: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants."

 

I hope this and what iNow said goes some way to assuage your pessimism regarding the secular approach ...it's real. What we do now echoes around us energetically into the future.

 

Edited December 27, 2013 by StringJunky

[Dekan]

These subjects always make people claw and spit at each other. Does it show we are big-brained parrots, or drunk?

[Alan McDougall]

These subjects always make people claw and spit at each other. Does it show we are big-brained parrots, or drunk?

 

Just when we have stopped doing what you say we were doing and began to be more tolerant with each other, you come in with an unwelcome comment of yours as reflected, in the quote above! Are you trying hijack the thread, none of us are big brained parrots or drunk, this forum consists mainly of intellectuals and serious seekers of truth. Why not join us in that mission?

 

If you have nothing to say then just follow the topic until you do!

[imatfaal]

!

Moderator Note

Dekan stop derailing threads left, right, and centre by questioning the validity of the discussion and the nature of the debate. Do not respond to this note within the thread.