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Do you believe Death is the end?

Death ...


  • Total voters
    201

Kenpachii

Member
Your belief is “the fact that we exist must inherently mean we become animals after we die.”

That doesn’t make any sense.

Not really. I assume we could reincarnate as another species if our own species was to die out. Otherwise the idea would be flawed.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Why would you assume that.

Because i exist now. Its logically to assume that i will exist again. If tommorow the entire earth gets nuked and humans are destroyed. Why would i never exist again because i exist now? As population increase and decreases its the only logical explanation that if you will always start to exist again u will not be locked into human species only.

Logical but its something up to debate tho.
 
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DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
Once we die, there is no afterlife because our physical bodies are the literal "soul"... Really... Look up the original meaning of that word.. it's why people say "you're a good soul"... It originally meant "person" ... Meaning YOU are a good person. So the soul isn't separate from your physical body. You don't go to heaven and you don't become a ghost. Even Jesus said "the dead know nothing" ... It's like being in a dreamless sleep... You just cease to exist.

But there is hope in the Resurrection... When Jesus said "I am hope and the life... Those who believe in me, though they have died, will live again"... He was being literal. The book of Revelation says there will be Resurrection of those that have died ... Both the righteous (believers) and the unrighteous (those who didn't know about Jehovah/Yahweh). This includes those in the distant past as well...

So while there is death, there is hope of Resurrection in a perfected world according to God's plan. Not Resurrection in a still crappy world ruled literally by imperfect people as we will be perfected in mind and body.

Anyway, that's what I believe.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
I don't believe there is anything after you die, your brain dies and everything that is 'you' dies with it. I'll be happy if I am wrong though.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
So while there is death, there is hope of Resurrection in a perfected world according to God's plan. Not Resurrection in a still crappy world ruled literally by imperfect people as we will be perfected in mind and body.

Anyway, that's what I believe.
If we are reincarnated perfect though then we aren't us. Take away all my imperfections and you ain't got much left.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
If we are reincarnated perfect though then we aren't us. Take away all my imperfections and you ain't got much left.

Never said we're reincarnated... Resurrected... We become perfected, not resurrected that way. And why would you want imperfections? Being a geek isn't an imperfection. Having your own thoughts isn't an imperfection.

What are imperfections, apart from disease and Illness, in your opinion?
 

Azelover

Titanic was called the Ship of Dreams, and it was. It really was.
It is the end of somethings, but not the end of everything.

Your consciousness will continue, but things you would associate with life will no longer exist. Sorry that I can't be more specific, but I am confident and know for sure the consciousness is eternal. There can be no end to it.

This has nothing to do with any religion what so ever. In the end it will not matter what religion you had, they're only to give people comfort and help to give guidance and sanity.
 

poppabk

Cheeks Spread for Digital Only Future
Never said we're reincarnated... Resurrected... We become perfected, not resurrected that way. And why would you want imperfections? Being a geek isn't an imperfection. Having your own thoughts isn't an imperfection.

What are imperfections, apart from disease and Illness, in your opinion?
The stuff that leads to sin I guess, anger, jealousy, fear, sloth etc etc.
 

Siri

Banned
I believe in reincarnation. There are many examples in which children have talked about their past lives by providing detailed information that they couldn’t possibly have had access to. It seems that after a certain age the memory of the past lifetime is lost.

I don’t believe in gods that were invented by humans (Christianity and Islam are complete bullshit), and I believe that free-will is off the table.

My views are the opposite of most people I know. Most people will say that there is a god, and that god granted us free-will, and that life is sacred. I believe there is no god, that we don’t have free-will, and that life has no meaning.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
The stuff that leads to sin I guess, anger, jealousy, fear, sloth etc etc.

So why would you want those things? If you're perfected, you would be happier. Plus this is also an eternal life. No one would ever die again after the Resurrection (unless they willingly disobey God).
 

MaestroMike

Gold Member
When you reproduce YOU don’t pass on, the offspring just inherits some of your genetic code. YOU still die when your brain completely stops functioning.

And, again, your piece of genetic code will dilute with each generation to the point where eventually it’ll be completely replaced. Even genetically you do not have permanence.

 
I've had toooo many Deja Vus and my mind is already set that time resets after death in thus, having the same experience over and over and over.....
 

Singular7

Member
Once we die, there is no afterlife because our physical bodies are the literal "soul"... Really... Look up the original meaning of that word.. it's why people say "you're a good soul"... It originally meant "person" ... Meaning YOU are a good person. So the soul isn't separate from your physical body. You don't go to heaven and you don't become a ghost. Even Jesus said "the dead know nothing" ... It's like being in a dreamless sleep... You just cease to exist.

But there is hope in the Resurrection... When Jesus said "I am hope and the life... Those who believe in me, though they have died, will live again"... He was being literal. The book of Revelation says there will be Resurrection of those that have died ... Both the righteous (believers) and the unrighteous (those who didn't know about Jehovah/Yahweh). This includes those in the distant past as well...

So while there is death, there is hope of Resurrection in a perfected world according to God's plan. Not Resurrection in a still crappy world ruled literally by imperfect people as we will be perfected in mind and body.

Anyway, that's what I believe.

I'm on the same page, and probably have studied similar material :) Good evidence for this view in history and just pure logic, I think.

Still trying to figure out how to live according to that conclusion ... but it's coming along.
 
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Airola

Member
Damn, the audacity to call it illusion while describing reward driven, selfish kindness as the real reason to be kind. The irony is real.

For some reason I don't need your god/paradise to feel like my actions matter. Me being kind matters to others. Not bullying that one kid matters to him/her. Me being respectful towards my parents matters to them. But here you are telling that nothing matters in godless world. Maybe you should think less about some afterlife and think more about your current life and that your actions matter during this time span.

Ok, first of all, you don't want others to feel awful because you don't want to feel awful about it. Or you don't want others to make you feel awful. It makes you feel good. That's why you do it. That's your reward. If you didn't have that reward for your conscience, you probably would do less nice things. Sometimes you might even be kind just to not get shit from being unkind, like avoiding jail or avoiding getting your mom, your teacher or your boss to be angry with you. Don't act as if whatever you think are your reasons to be kind aren't selfish reward driven actions, even if the reward was just a mental reward.

And I'm not saying it's wrong to be kind for those reasons. I don't think selfishness is wrong in all cases, especially if the act of selfishness helps others too.

Secondly, if Paradise exists, there are several reasons why one would want to be kind and none of those reasons are bad, not even the one you seem to criticize.
Let's go through some of them:
1) You are kind because that's the will of the creator of everything.
That's not because one would get to Paradise, but that's because it naturally comes from God to you and you act the way because you are being close to God and close to the source of kindness. No expectations for a reward, but just natural action in a world where God exists. You are kind because you want and choose to share a sense of mercy and kindness to others in this world, to bring a piece of that Paradise to this arguably relatively harsh world.
2) You are kind because you want to show the fruits of your faith.
By showing the fruits of your faith you try to show others this way of life is recommendable, and the goal is to get others to know this way of life leads them to Paradise too. That can't be bad, right?
3) You are kind because you want to get to Paradise.
Sure, let's go with your kneejerk reaction that this is solely reward driven selfish kindness. What exactly is the thing that is wrong with that, except that it sounds kinda bad when you leave it at that and don't elaborate much further? Let's think this is about some other person, not me or you or anyone else from this forum discussion. Someone else is looking for getting to Paradise and is being kind to get there. Remember that in this hypothetical scenario Paradise really exists. Why would it be bad for that person wanting to be there? Us criticizing him for that and maybe even claiming that he doesn't deserve to be there is actually pretty unkind, isn't it? Now that said, maybe in this hypothetical scenario this person is actually super evil but is just pretending to be nice, like, doing these "chores" of kindness to be in Paradise and maybe he'll stop being nice after getting there. Ok maybe we'd have a point in calling him out. But then again, if Paradise exists, then God exists, and God would know the intention of that person's good works, so he probably wouldn't be in God's favor. But without that kind of a duplicitous intentions, who are we to deny his place in Paradise?

Someone could have only one of those reasons for being kind and someone could have all of those reasons for being kind. None of them are mutually exclusive. Just because someone is kind to get to Paradise doesn't mean that person can't at the same time be kind to make others feel better in this world. To criticize the idea of Paradise and people's reasonings to get there by picking only one of them and not giving much of an extra thought for that is disingenous.

When we look and criticize these issues we have to take on account what any given hypothetical scenario would actually mean. If we want to criticize the idea of Paradise, we have to look at what it would actually mean if Paradise would exist. It would mean God exists, and it would mean there are other endings than a person getting into Paradise. If Paradise exists, we wouldn't want to hope a person didn't get there, especially if we want to be kind.

We as humans tend to not be kind quite a lot of time. Sure, we can give examples of how we don't bully this and that person or how we are respectful to our parents. But what about all the moments we weren't kind but either indifferent or even the opposite of kind? Do you think those moments will end at some point in human existence?

A person absolutely can be kind if he doesn't believe in God or afterlife. I'm not saying they can't.

I'm just saying that if the hypothetical scenario where no god and afterlife would exist is 100% true, then our reasonings for being kind or unkind are meaningless in the long run. Sure, maybe both of them have a short term temporary meaning in a bubble. But they are all about what we happen to decide them to be. There is no actual ground under them whatsoever. One who thinks being unkind is the ideal way to live might one day decide being kind is the ideal way to live, and vice versa.

But then again, I'm not sure if we really can even make those choices of setting up an agreement for good and bad things if there were no god. Not by a conscious choice anyway.

If this universe and this consciousness has been just a freak accident that will eventually fade away forever, all of what we do are just parts of that accident. Our kindness is an accident and will eventually become nonexistent as if it never even happened. We are kind by accident and we are unkind by accident. We are good by accident and we are evil by accident. And by accident we have decided for this brief time we have consciousness that actions even can be labeled as good or evil. If the accident of this universe beginning to exist is ultimately meaningless and without reason, then whatever we do and think about it is ultimately meaningless and without reason too. It's just pieces of matter and chemicals and whatever reacting to one another. If we want to think it's something more than that, we have to take a leap of faith to some direction. For some the leap of faith is to think there is a cosmic supernatural reason for our existence and for some the leap of faith is to think that our emotions mean something more than just chemical reactions that exist by accident.

I think that our ability to have conscious choices in our actions is a proof of this universe being something else than just an accident. If one claims we don't really have a choice but an illusion of choice, then any act of kindness would also be an illusion. If our consciousness is just a matter of naturalistic behavior of accidentally born universe, I don't think there is a possibility to make conscious choices but everything is subject to calculations and everything happens according to the calculations. You would do kind things because that's what was determined to happen from the very beginning. If we do kind things because of chemical reactions making us do so instead of actual conscious choice, then I can't see how it can actually matter. For something to matter, there should be a chance for a different outcome. Without conscious choices there can't be those chances.

In my view an act of kindness can't ever be an illusion and can't ever be meaningless. It's because I believe our consciousness exists for a reason. In a purely naturalistic worldview it can be meaningless. Not necessarily saying it is meaningless, but it can be meaningless. And that's the difference.
 

Prison Mike

Banned
Literally one answer we will never know the sensible part of me wants to say we die that's it but the romantic hopeful side hopes there's something if only that the ppl I've lost already are enjoying this only time will tell
 

PanzerAzel

Member
If we can definitively prove there is no life after death, then all religion goes out the window. With that we might be looking at a more anarchic society. It's one thing to be regulated by society's laws, but what if people didn't care beyond that because you live your life and their is no accountability. Just do what you want because life has no meaning beyond death. Your here because your parents had sex and that's all there is to it folks., Your life is going to end and that's it, there is no grand plan in place. Wrong or right becomes less of an issue. The world will be a much different place once no after life is proven. Perhaps more violent and less moral. I think the fact that we don't know keeps most people in check.

The idea that society would crumble and fall into anarchy if no afterlife were proven is nonsense. The fact that there'd be no grand plan would necessitate that morality become far more a paramount concern for our well being and survival.

IMO, that people believe there's a "savior" who died for their sins and will act as a scapegoat for all their wrongdoings, no matter how horrific or grand in scale, as long as the precondition of belief is met, is what enables horrible acts; the absolvence of personal responsibility licensed by lamb's blood. What have I to lose? I can act as I wish and then have a deathbed conversion to Christ. This is the truly disgusting doctrine; a death cult that marginalizes the value of life, lives it dictated by the expectancy of death, and as such instills in people only a selfish desire to act good so that they can be rewarded on the back end. It's insane, and incredibly depressing.
 
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Catphish

Member
Since I'm currently in the process of writing a book relating to that question, I was curious how the current NeoGAF community feels about this. We've had political leanings polls, but afaik not that question.

So let me ask, and don't be afraid to answer truthfully, no ridiculing each others believes! Respectful debate is ok, ofc: Do you think death is the end to your existence or is there something thereafter?

It'd be great if you could elaborate *why* you think a certain way and *what* exactly your stance entails.
All that is comes from what was. The Legos might disassemble, but they don't cease to exist. The pieces move and change, but still remain, becoming something new, again part of something greater.

I believe death is just another method of change. One way of existence ends, and another begins. I don't know WHAT the next existence is, but I'm very confident THAT it is.
 

Werewolf Jones

Gold Member
We die then there is nothing.

I've come to terms with it nearing 30 years old, sometimes still wake up from my sleep in fear of it hitting me one day I'm not gonna exist anymore but we're all on the same level. Just gotta tell yourself it be like that sometimes.
 

Airola

Member
I am here now. This means i will exist again or else i would have never existed in the first place.

This is proof enough to assume that life continues after death in a new body, if that body is human or not i wouldn't know. It's logical to assume that with species dying out and other species growing in population that u are not locked into just being a human.

Because i exist now. Its logically to assume that i will exist again. If tommorow the entire earth gets nuked and humans are destroyed. Why would i never exist again because i exist now? As population increase and decreases its the only logical explanation that if you will always start to exist again u will not be locked into human species only.

Logical but its something up to debate tho.

Yeah, there's actually a lot more thought and reason and logic going on behind that thought than what people give it credit for.

You experiencing you and me experiencing me is not a simple thing to wonder about. It could be that you wouldn't experience you and I wouldn't experience me, but here we are, experiencing ourselves. If there is no god or no afterlife of any sort, there really isn't no reason for us to have this experience of self either. Our lives could just be automatic processes without these personal experiences of self. But here we are, having that experience. For some reason we happened to appear here to experience this self. Why that couldn't be something that has happened before or what will happen later again?

Now that said, the idea of reincarnation has to face the problem of the universe ending one day. Where do we go when there's no life to inhabit anymore? And another question is where were we when no life yet existed? This is why I can't believe solely in the idea of reincarnation over and over again, but I believe there is another form of existence that's not relative to biological life too. There either is a number of reincarnations plus the other form of existence, or just one single biological life plus the other form of existence.

"I am here now" is such a simple sentence but it actually hold tons of substance, wonder and mystery behind it.

I've had toooo many Deja Vus and my mind is already set that time resets after death in thus, having the same experience over and over and over.....

Yeah, Deja Vus are quite the mystery, aren't they?

No matter what our lives are all about, it's quite fantastic how our lives include having a capability to experience deja vus and actually wonder if they mean we live over and over again. It's probably unique to humans too. To think that once there was nothing and from that nothing became creatures who sometimes feel a situation that is now happening has happened before and are able to let their imaginations go wild with that thought is pretty damn special.
 

Sorcerer

Member
The idea that society would crumble and fall into anarchy if no afterlife were proven is nonsense. The fact that there'd be no grand plan would necessitate that morality become far more a paramount concern for our well being and survival.

IMO, that people believe there's a "savior" who died for their sins and will act as a scapegoat for all their wrongdoings, no matter how horrific or grand in scale, as long as the precondition of belief is met, is what enables horrible acts; the absolvence of personal responsibility licensed by lamb's blood. What have I to lose? I can act as I wish and then have a deathbed conversion to Christ. This is the truly disgusting doctrine; a death cult that marginalizes the value of life, lives it dictated by the expectancy of death, and as such instills in people only a selfish desire to act good so that they can be rewarded on the back end. It's insane, and incredibly depressing.
I'm only theorizing of course. You certainly are giving people the benefit of the doubt here. You are saying that society as a whole would suddenly become a sort of utopia where people would police themselves and take it upon themselves to make a better world if the after life was proven false and in lieu of a savior? That is intriguing!!!. Thank you for your response...Certainly something for me to contemplate!!!
 
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Prison Mike

Banned
I find alot of the Bible to be well..... Far fetched noahs ark for one Adam and eve I mean cmon but I'd never rule out anything I have no knowledge on just this two things seem fucking impossible
 
I've come to terms with it nearing 30 years old, sometimes still wake up from my sleep in fear of it hitting me one day I'm not gonna exist anymore but we're all on the same level. Just gotta tell yourself it be like that sometimes.

How close to 30 are you and how are you dealing with it? Because I turn 30 about 2 weeks from now and I'm NOT dealing well with it lol.
 

Prison Mike

Banned
How close to 30 are you and how are you dealing with it? Because I turn 30 about 2 weeks from now and I'm NOT dealing well with it lol.
Literally nothing you can do about it only thing that's a certain thing to happen just try make mose of what you can..... N I'm 40 in April so could be worse lol
 

SKM1

Member
How does that contradict the point of the post?

You took drugs, saw/felt some shit, and now you’re out here thinking you’ve got the answers to life’s great mysteries.

This is a very reductive and naive form of thinking. Arguably, the only difference between your state of consciousness when off drugs and on drugs is that the later has been stabilized by adaptation, but it is no truer than the former. It follows that taking psychedelics will open your mind to more aspects of the whole of whatever reality is. This has been known for a long time.
 
Literally nothing you can do about it only thing that's a certain thing to happen just try make mose of what you can..... N I'm 40 in April so could be worse lol

Round numbers just suck, it's like 28 it's just another year and yet our brains seem wired to think that 30 is a big event. You're very much right though, we will never beat time and it goes on and on regardless of our opinion. So we might as well remain spirited, let go of nonsensical concerns and just enjoy the ride.
 

Whitesnake

Banned
This is a very reductive and naive form of thinking. Arguably, the only difference between your state of consciousness when off drugs and on drugs is that the later has been stabilized by adaptation, but it is no truer than the former. It follows that taking psychedelics will open your mind to more aspects of the whole of whatever reality is. This has been known for a long time.

It can make you think differently, sure.

But any supposed new insight about reality and humanity are merely delusions. If it were truly a matter of “opening the mind” and drug-induced delusions are as valid as reality, then surely the new worldview should be able to be put into words in such a way that others can understand, yes?

Certainly a better explanation can be given than “I did drugs once and saw god”, right?
 

womfalcs3

Banned
Does your playstation continue to play the game when you turn it off? What makes you so different? Cause you're made of meat?

A PlayStation's materials aren't created. We're merely rearranging existing molecules... not creating them. Comparing a man-made electronic (and rudimentary) device to complex biology is wrong.

Answer this: if conservation of mass is a physical law, how did molecules in existence come to be?

Death is the end. Your consciousness is generated by your brain. No brain, no consciousness . We are not divine. We don't have a soul. We're no different from other animals.
No, i can't prove it. But based on what i know that's what i believe.

Even those who study consciousness don't know what it actually is. Please tell us more.
 
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Prison Mike

Banned
It can make you think differently, sure.

But any supposed new insight about reality and humanity are merely delusions. If it were truly a matter of “opening the mind” and drug-induced delusions are as valid as reality, then surely the new worldview should be able to be put into words in such a way that others can understand, yes?

Certainly a better explanation can be given than “I did drugs once and saw god”, right?
Each to their own I think do you have hands on proof that it's the way you think.... No you can't have so it's an impossible question to answer
 

SKM1

Member
It can make you think differently, sure.

But any supposed new insight about reality and humanity are merely delusions. If it were truly a matter of “opening the mind” and drug-induced delusions are as valid as reality, then surely the new worldview should be able to be put into words in such a way that others can understand, yes?

Certainly a better explanation can be given than “I did drugs once and saw god”, right?

This is the whole point of eastern philosophical currents such as Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, etc. Their teachings are based on deep meditation, which induces a state of consciousness which can be accessed more quickly and easily using psychedelics. Because of this ease it is to be expected that the majority of people who take this substances don't have the experience to understand or communicate what they just saw and felt, but the experience is just as real. Obviously I'm not taking into account sensory hallucinations.

One truth which becomes apparent when you take psychedelics is that all that you see is an illusion constructed by your brain. Another such truth is that the separation between "entities" is also an illusion.

These truths lie deep within us and express themselves recurrently in history. The first one can be seen in the myth of the cave (Plato).

Psychedelics when used responsibly break down all sorts of filters and fillers and make us pay attention to that which was always there.

I could keep going but you get the idea.
 

Airola

Member
The idea that society would crumble and fall into anarchy if no afterlife were proven is nonsense. The fact that there'd be no grand plan would necessitate that morality become far more a paramount concern for our well being and survival.

IMO, that people believe there's a "savior" who died for their sins and will act as a scapegoat for all their wrongdoings, no matter how horrific or grand in scale, as long as the precondition of belief is met, is what enables horrible acts; the absolvence of personal responsibility licensed by lamb's blood. What have I to lose? I can act as I wish and then have a deathbed conversion to Christ. This is the truly disgusting doctrine; a death cult that marginalizes the value of life, lives it dictated by the expectancy of death, and as such instills in people only a selfish desire to act good so that they can be rewarded on the back end. It's insane, and incredibly depressing.

I think this is what MadAnon tried to say, but you said it better and gave a better argument.

I think that you have some wrong assumptions and misunderstandings there though. If someone lives their lives thinking they can do whatever they want and do the most horrible things and in the end bargain with god in their deathbeds, I think there is quite a low chance for the actual conversion happening. Sure we can say the idea is there, that an evil person could have a deathbed conversion, but the reality of that might not be very likely.

There's the joke:
"I prayed for god to give me a bicycle, but didn't get it. I understood God doesn't work that way so I stole the bike and asked for forgiveness."
It's a funny joke and it has some truth to it too. Not in the sense that it tells anything about god's character but it tells a lot about what a lot of people think god's character is.

Calling that religion a death cult is not really honest though. First of all the religion is just honest about the facts of life: We are all going to die. None of us escapes that. This will end for all of us one day. And we have the capability to be awful people. And we don't just have the capability to be awful but we quite often are awful people. And not a single one of us gets a pass on that either. Every single one of us does awful things. We do awful things when we are childred and we do awful things when we are adults. We all do awful things and we all eventually die.

It brings our awfulness into a spotlight. And by god do we do our best to avoid that spotlight.

The point of that religion is to bring some sense to the dissonance between our lives being gifts that we ought to cherish and us being complete asses for a lot of time in spite of having this gift.

The thought of an afterlife doesn't give a pass on any of us in this world. We might be able to have a thought of redemption after our lives but during this life we have to face the consequences. Our possible position in afterlife doesn't give us a pass in this life even though looking at how priests have protected other priests from facing the consequences for raping kids seems to prove otherwise. Some sects of the religion even believe that not only we have to face consequences of our crimes in this world we also have to face the consequences again in afterlife too. That's essentially the idea of a purgatory.

People would still rape kids and people would still protect people who rape kids even if there were no religions around it. I find it a bit more comforting to think that we are not like that purely by our biological nature by accident but that there is an actual set of cosmic standard that is against that and our habit to do shitty things comes from our conscious choice to rebel against that standard. We can't hide behind biology but we have to admit we rebel against the standards of cosmic goodness by choice.

I think it's also important to understand that it's not only about people who do super awful things being able to have a redemption, but it's also about less awful actions having severe consequences too. It's to say that while we can point our fingers at people who do hideous things where we can see their terrible consequences immediately, we might ignore our less awful deeds because they don't seem that bad especially when compared to the clearly evil things someone else did. But in the end whatever we do, the ripples of those actions can be felt long way in the future and they might escalate too.

In my view if there is a god and an afterlife, looking at what we do in between all the nice and neutral things we do, we need some sort of a redeemer. There might still be something bad going on that exists because someone did something bad 1000 years ago, be it an actual action or just a general sense of dread or disarray. And after I'm gone, there might still be something bad going on 1000 years from now because I did something bad or didn't stop something bad from happening. Good and bad things reflect from other people to others all the time. You do something to someone and that person might later do something partly because of what you did to him. It can be good and it can be bad.

I'm not saying that we should be accountable in this world for the sins of the people 1000 years ago did or that I should now be held accountable for things that might happen 1000 years from now, but IF there is a god and IF we are eternal beings with eternal consciousness, then things are different in a cosmic scale and whatever rules use beyond this world should set us straight after all is said and done.

Taking God out of equation doesn't mean we would stop being terrible just because we suddenly don't have a cosmic forgiver. Religion didn't make us do bad things. We were doing bad things long before religion was a thing. I think having laws is a good thing. It's a good thing even if there are officials and politicians who use their position as people dealing with law to do bad things and hide behind their profession. Laws didn't make them do bad things. They chose to do that themselves. Laws and rules haven't stopped us doing bad things either. They at best lessen the amount we do bad things, but we still do it. Some people are more respectful towards law and rules than others. Everyone seems to disrespect them in some senses though. And that wouldn't change if God was taken out of the equation.

Sorry for rambling too much. The point was just to say that I agree with some of your worries and it has a lot to do with hypocrisy. That's the issue and it's an issue that is heavily talked about in the Bible. People being hypocrites doesn't mean the idea they are hypocritical and indirectly disrespectful about isn't valid. If I'm being hypocritical about something it doesn't mean the idea itself is necessarily wrong. It just says I'm wrong with my actions relative to the idea. Hypocrites would still exist even in a world without God and where morality would supposedly be "far more a paramount concern for our well being and survival" as you said. You would still have to deal with people who don't agree with your view of morality or who pretend as if they do but sometimes or even often act against it. And there would even be people who would genuinely believe this certain set of morality codes is good but still go against it sometimes. It's quite an assumption to think people would somehow be less immoral in that world or that the set of moral rules in that world would be easier to follow or even more helpful what comes to our survival. It's more wishful thinking than a statement of truth.
 

Whitesnake

Banned
This is the whole point of eastern philosophical currents such as Hinduism, Taoism, Buddhism, etc. Their teachings are based on deep meditation, which induces a state of consciousness which can be accessed more quickly and easily using psychedelics. Because of this ease it is to be expected that the majority of people who take this substances don't have the experience to understand or communicate what they just saw and felt, but the experience is just as real. Obviously I'm not taking into account sensory hallucinations.

One truth which becomes apparent when you take psychedelics is that all that you see is an illusion constructed by your brain. Another such truth is that the separation between "entities" is also an illusion.

These truths lie deep within us and express themselves recurrently in history. The first one can be seen in the myth of the cave (Plato).

Psychedelics when used responsibly break down all sorts of filters and fillers and make us pay attention to that which was always there.

I could keep going but you get the idea.

That’s flowery nonsense.

The religions you mention have had no more progress in proving ideas of spirituality and the divine than anyone else has. If they are enlightened and can know the true meanings of all things, surely such great wisdom would be world-changing, yes?

Because most teachings I’ve seen, at least from Buddhism in particular, are ideas and pieces of advice that have existed before buddhism and have been organically thought up after buddhism, it’s just that buddhism tries to tell people that they should do/think a laundry list of things in order to release themselves from negativity.

”All you see is an illusion constructed by your brain” yeah you don’t need some faux-spiritual drug to know that your ultimately interprets your senses and can be changed to sense things that your sensory organs don’t perceive. That’s what hallucinations are.

”Seperation between entities is also an illusion” doesn’t mean anything.

Like I said, psychedelics can give you a new perspective, but one that is not actually capable of offering any wisdom. No, those thoughts you had about reality while on a good trip aren’t actually as profound as you think they are.
 

MetalAlien

Banned
A PlayStation's materials aren't created. We're merely rearranging existing molecules... not creating them. Comparing a man-made electronic (and rudimentary) device to complex biology is wrong.

Answer this: if conservation of mass is a physical law, how did molecules in existence come to be?
You are just an arrangement of atoms... you are not a magic meat monkey. Comparing us to a computer system is perfectly valid. What you call "you" is the game running on your brain. When you die the game stops.

You want to question physics, go ask Weilthain Weilthain
 

SKM1

Member
That’s flowery nonsense.
Please don't project your ignorance on my words.

The religions you mention have had no more progress in proving ideas of spirituality and the divine than anyone else has. If they are enlightened and can know the true meanings of all things, surely such great wisdom would be world-changing, yes?

Enlightened people don't want to change the world.

Because most teachings I’ve seen, at least from Buddhism in particular, are ideas and pieces of advice that have existed before buddhism and have been organically thought up after buddhism, it’s just that buddhism tries to tell people that they should do/think a laundry list of things in order to release themselves from negativity.
This is a childish level of understanding of this subject. Buddhism in particular deals with freedom from suffering, not negativity, and prescribes doing away with desire to achieve that goal. Again, enlightened people don't desire, and in particular they don't desire to change the world.

”All you see is an illusion constructed by your brain” yeah you don’t need some faux-spiritual drug to know that your ultimately interprets your senses and can be changed to sense things that your sensory organs don’t perceive. That’s what hallucinations are.

All truths can be understood at different levels. The fact that you can acknowledge that reality is an illusion doesn't mean that you understand what you are talking about. This knowledge has not become wisdom, necessarily.

”Seperation between entities is also an illusion” doesn’t mean anything.

This is a wild statement of ignorance. Separation between entities as a feature of perception is what allows you to make sense of the world. A basic example is universal grammar, which has substantives. The fact that this separation is actually not real is a huge revelation and source of mystery. Why does separation work? Without separation there can't be sets and as such no mathematics, science, technology, etc.

Like I said, psychedelics can give you a new perspective, but one that is not actually capable of offering any wisdom. No, those thoughts you had about reality while on a good trip aren’t actually as profound as you think they are.

You have no idea of who I am nor what I've experienced.
 

Werewolf Jones

Gold Member
How close to 30 are you and how are you dealing with it? Because I turn 30 about 2 weeks from now and I'm NOT dealing well with it lol.
August.

I try to look forward to meaningful events in my life so that as long as it matters to me I can never hold any regrets when the time comes. Going through Europe in three weeks later this year so that's something to hold dear.
 

TindalosPup

Member
I don't worry about it too much, we'll all find out eventually

Another wack at existing would be great, but ceasing to exist would also be great

I heard an interesting theory from a wacko I met doing door to door stuff for work. He said Earth IS Hell and we're all fallen angels born soaked in sin and cast out of heaven until we realize our wrong doings and apologize to God for forsaking him. He kept my coworker and me for this hour long monologue, and the mf didn't even take the free trees we were trying to give him.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
I've been there, dying from liver failure. I've died mulziple times during surgery and I was in coma afterwards and I can say for sure, that basically nothing happens. You just cease to exist. But it's okay, your brain is probrammed for it, dying is fine, you are free of all the stress, anxiety, etc.
 

Yoshi

Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
If Paradise exists, then God exists. And if being nice is a way to get in Paradise, then God thinks it's good to be nice and it's essential to be nice.

Being nice in a godless world would be only an illusion. There is no actual reason to be nice other than our mutual agreement so that maybe it will be nicer for you to exist if others are nice. But then again there are people who don't like to be nice to each other and who don't really care that much if others aren't nice either. So in any case there would always be people who will not be nice, and maybe some day those people get to decide the rules. Then any reason to be nice would be just an illusion. Not even a mutual agreement would make being nice any kind of a virtue. It would be wishful thinking for some and nonsense to others. But if a Paradise exists, then even if someone would be nice to just get into Paradise, there would still be this actual cosmic rule of niceness which wouldn't be an illusion at all.
So instead "because the majority of people says to be nice" you think "one person [that does not exist] says to be nice" is a better / stronger reason? Moreover, if you look at what Yahweh says in the bible you are supposed to do, it clearly is not what most people nowadays would call being nice. In fact, what people believe Yahweh wants of them still is largely the moral consensus of a bunch of church officials who spin a story around the wishes of Yahweh that has little to no basis in the bible. If the ultimate source of our morality was the bible and what is ascribed to Yahweh in there, we would be much closer to Iran than to how we are now.
 

Kenpachii

Member
How?

Take me through that logic step by step.

PS could be full of typo's and hard to read, didn't read it through because i got it busy but decided to post anyway.

Let me bore you to death,. I think about this alot and frankly i tend to talk about it with other people a lot over the years i exist.. I think death is the most interesting concept even while most people don't like thinking about it at all. It's fascinating on what will happen after u die so i will get a bit more into it why i think the way i think.

To make it short for people that don't want to read a lot.

Under here i explain why i think resurrection is a thing and why souls exist and how i come to that conclusion. I also talk about religion how religions conclusions are illogical but understandable.

Long theory now:

Why do i exist now? why did i not exist 100 years before i was born? why did i not exist 200 years before i was born or a 1000 years? What decided that i had to live now and that it's the current times or even a 100 years after now? Only logical conclusion is i either got super amounts of luck with hitting this time period with existing or what's more likely the case that u will exist again. How frequently and as what, that's up to debate because i actually never though about that myself as future and multiple dimensions could also be placed into this concept + religions. It's a lot of information. But its safe to assume i will exist again, because i exist now. It's illogical to assume i will never exist again because i most likely would not exist right now. The fact that i exist is proof that i will exist again.

Now what exactly happens after death or what transpires that's where religions casters towards and creates worlds to cater towards their audiences like waiting rooms ( hell / heaven ), buddhists resurrection, stardust scientology, muslim great resurrection. Which is kinda interesting if you think about it. At the end religions are useful by the fact that a bunch of people really though deep about what happens when u die. However they are just opinions and aren't really something u can base the reality around because u cannot confirm it as it doesn't affect your own experience which is the only experience u can work with outside of unbiased research.

I think it's crucial to base things on facts u can confirm yourself rather then rely on information from outside sources that is out of your control.
For example jesus resurrection is a nice story but total bullshit he never died or he died, because your body degrades ridiculously hard the moment it stops functioning. This is a good example of why religions aren't particularly useful to think about what really is going to happen. Because they are most of all story's or idea's rather then factual material, specially with changing documents over time which we also call open documents.

The thing about jesus or any resurrection is in the same body and character idea, u can confirm this yourself. By simple knowing your past life. While some people tend to know who they where, or at least they say. Humans also have the most irritating feature that is lying. This means u cannot confirm this unless i can confirm it for myself as i can't relay on other people's opinion because of this. And the conclusion i draw out of this is that i sadly don't know nothing or at any stage of my life anything about a past life. So this means i started with a full reset. My brain kinda remembers a lot and tends to keep detailed records of my experiences. Because i still remember things perfectly fine when i was as young as 3 years old. It's weird but that's how my brain functions. And even then i could not recall anything of a earlier past or even bits off it.

The conclusion out of this is, that i cannot relay on outside resources because i cannot confirm if they are true or not. ( however i can use research that is based on factual information and has no bias) i do not know if you function the same way as i function or if you are actually even alive to start with, i assume u are because that's how i am. But i cannot confirm that. This is where theory's come in where people come out and say well there are only a fixed amount of souls in the universe and a whole lot of nobody's that are just people that do the same thing and are programmed to do the same thing but will never be able to critical think as they have no soul or personality but just follows the flow.

Now this could be true even while it sounds ridiculous. But it could also be complete bullshit which is more likely the case. However i cannot confirm or deny it. Because i cannot control you or somebody else. So i only have limited experience in my own body and i reflect on that.

Which brings me to the next part souls.

I do think souls exist and with soul i mean something outside of your flesh and tissue.

Now we all know, that the true end game of you as person is your brain. everything else is replaceable and u will still be fine as person. If your brain gets damaged u are not. The most logical conclusion u can draw at this point is that your brain is you as person and that's it. However there is another thing where souls comes into the mix.

How come if you clone me, i will not be able to control two body's. Because i am the same brain after all. With cloned animals they behave at the end different and have different characters even while they have the same traits. That's the information that these researches come out with ( there is no reason to assume these researches lie as there is no gain by it ). This means that if you get cloned u will lose the control over the other body. Now if your brain was supposed to be really you. and it was only 1 soul connected towards it And with really you i mean being able to control that other person, then u would be able to control multiple body's through cloning or if you basically are a twin. This is not the case. Twins are also 2 individual persons that cannot control both body's. U can test this by simple putting a twin in another room ask him a question to execute something, the other will not execute it.

This basically means that as u cannot control anybody body in your family like brother/sister/mother/dad/child, u can only control your own body and u are stuck in that body and that body alone until your brain dies. So there needs to be something outside of the brain itself. The only logical explanation is there is something more. But at the same time there also isn't anything more because as twins cannot control each other.

However i still exist, and i exist now which gets me back to the start. That there is proof of something outside of a body structure by the simple fact that i exist right now. And i can only sit in this body and nobody else i can control. But why do i sit in this body and am i not my sister or my dad or the neighbor etc.

This means your brain is not the end game after all, u have something else that decides that this is you that gets control over this person. Your whole flesh body is just that a machine. Nothing more. Something connects towards it that results in you controlling it but what? well religions would call it a soul. But if a soul exists what happens with to that soul when u die? Then we get the point again u will resurrect. How long this would take, is unclear. do you keep your personality that's highly unlikely because your personality is linked towards what your brain learns so that doesn't seem likely at all. Which makes heaven and hell idea kinda a high unlikely concept. Which sounds logical as there is a reason why the religion wants u to believe in it for control.

This is why religions don't make a lot of sense even while they are super helpful in providing well though out idea's on what could possibly happen. U need to stimulate your brain in order to come towards to new idea's that so u can base new theory's on. Religions help a lot here.

Now what happens with the soul after u die.

Now that soul could be going to a parking spot until it lashes to a living being again which u could call the after life. But i highly doubt that the afterlife exists because the soul is disconnected from your brain. And your brain decides all those things. Now what decides this soul to link towards you as body is unclear because i would not know.

That's basically the idea that i get out of it.

Now to get back to religion, they don't make a lot of sense in the fact that they keep your personality ( brain ) . No matter which religion u select they all have this idea. Scientology / buddisme / even the oldest zoro religion known to men, christianity and islam, pharoa's , and jewish part etc etc etc.

However that makes zero sense as the brain dies off and with that your personality.
 

Gavin Stevens

Formerly 'o'dium'
I fully believe in reincarnation. I myself have odd memories, that I can’t explain. When I was very little, like, 4-5, I used to tell my parents about hearing sirens, and running into a shop. I can remember the look of the place, it had one of those white and red striped stand up things that spins round. I can also remember holding a very old gun, how cold and heavy it was.

I think when we die, we simply return to the planet, FFVII style. We get absorbed. And sometimes, memories can some how be absorbed to. And that’s what reincarnation is. It’s not Fave the plumber coming back as Jenny the hair dresser, but more so parts of us meld together to make new.
 
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