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  • Subject: Do you believe in life after death?
Subject: Do you believe in life after death?

I persist too long after my own defeat,
Yet I still press forward, staggering on my feet.
But I know that my resolution will be my end.
And once I fall, I shall ruefully transcend.

I believe in ascendancy.

  • 01.01.2013 3:06 AM PDT


Posted by: HaloGuy1112
Nope. There's no reason to believe in it, and plenty of reasons not to.
This.

Give me proof and then I'll change my mind.

  • 01.01.2013 3:07 AM PDT

Posted by; A random forum poster
Posted by; ghostvirus
This apple is brown, and rotten. This orange on the other hand, is in relatively average shape. So the orange is definitely the preferable option.
----------You can't compare apples and oranges. You're so dumb.

This is what you said that I initially responded to:

Posted by: echo630
This is ridiculous. You calling them idiots for having faith is hypocritical because you're so faithful yourself in the idea that life does not continue after death. To use an analogy, atheism is as much a position of faith as theism.


This is your recent response.

So no, you really didn't combat the argument I as making for the consequences of an "afterlife" if a "soul" exists as much as you just provided evidence against the soul.  

In bold is where you seem to me to be moving the goal post. Either this is a veiled concession, or you are just ignoring the argument at hand. I believe this is a veiled concession, because you are now stressing that you agree that the soul doesn't exist (despite this being immaterial to the argument), and that this argument only applies if you presuppose the soul exists. However, in light of this the original comment I responded to, seems horribly out of place. Unless you believe belief or a lack of a belief in a soul are also both positions of faith. At which case my arguments also equally apply to the soul itself. If you agree with this argument, when applied to the soul, and I think you alluded that you did just now, the comment which I initially took issue with, is logically inconsistent with your own beliefs. If belief in the afterlife presupposes a belief that is itself unjustified and based on faith, but the belief that the afterlife doesn't exist isn't based on such a belief that requires faith, then there is a clear distinction to be made.

Its not at all relevant what you actually believe. I don't care if you are agnostic, would self identify as having faith that the afterlife doesn't exist, or faith that the afterlife exists. I am clearly taking issue with the position that believing the afterlife doesn't exist, requires just as much faith as the position that it does exist. As you have already admitted, one requires that you already believe in souls which we don't have any evidence for either, and therefore by definition is a non-parsimonious belief. I don't assume the existence of souls, or assume the non existence of souls. I evaluate the relative merits and assumptions of the two contradictory positions, and go from there. Before I decide that the afterlife does, or doesn't exist, I am going to address the relative merits of a belief in the soul because it is a prerequisite. If a belief has several prerequisite beliefs that are themselves unjustified, and an alternative belief has no such prerequisites, than the latter belief is the one that is more justified.

A person who believes in the afterlife has an irrational faith, that is founded on the irrational (or as you called it non rational) faith in the soul. A person who doesn't believe in the afterlife doesn't have such baggage.

I don't really know where you're taking issue with what I am saying any more. Have you secretly conceded my main point, or is there actually a epistemological debate to be had?



[Edited on 01.01.2013 3:36 AM PST]

  • 01.01.2013 3:20 AM PDT

If we disagree, it's nothing personal, opinions are opinions.
Antagonizing me to build a false sense of worth is so damn cute.

Brighten your day with science.

Nope, and I feel more grateful for this life because of it.

And lolRose.

  • 01.01.2013 3:21 AM PDT
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That's right. My plumage is brighter than yours.


Posted by: EvilBad6666

Posted by: echo630
EvilBad: I agree that the "function" that is us dies when our body dies, but karma still dictates that we ripple in space-time. Think of the people who remember you at death, who come to your funeral, who keep photos of you and talk about you as if you were alive, who see your face long after death in the face of a child, who rename their own children after you, who aspire to be like you. Think of the children you may have who survive you, and their children, and their children. This doesn't quite get to the Buddhist idea of reincarnation, but it is a part of it; so this is the evidential part of the Buddhist reincarnation argument. Besides that, they believe in reincarnation because of reason and, most importantly, realization. It is a realized thing more than a known thing. Reincarnation is an extension of the ideas of karma, interdependent origination, emptiness, and anatman, all of which are directly realized through Buddhist practice. But ask a Buddhist abut the afterlife, and they will still probably just say, "I don't know." Because they (their "functions", to be specific) have no died yet. And thus they will never "know" so much as they will realize it.


Well I'm talking about the function solely, I don't care if I'm remembered and if I kinda exist that way. So back to my question, are you saying that what the Buddhist have is evidence? I get that you're saying that it's realization but that makes no sense at all. How can you just realize it?

EDIT: Also, if they don't have evidence, then why say that you don't know if there is an after-life or not? Sorry that I'm asking the same questions again but I don't think I'm really getting what I want.

EDIT #2: I'm going to bed now.


"Realization" basically means living an experience. So, for instance, a big part of Buddhism is the belief that attachment, craving, and clinging all lead to dissatisfaction in life. So, it is one thing to have a rote intellectual understanding of that idea, but it is another thing to have realized it by having experienced such attachment, craving, clinging, and the ensuing dissatisfaction directly.

So apply this to reincarnation. You enter into Buddhist studies hearing about rebirth and you tend to have the intellectual understanding that it exists due to the laws of karma, interdependent origination, and so on, but it is another thing to have experiences what those words mean in your daily life. It isn't until you have that realization that you can really understand what the word "reincarnation" in Buddhism means.

So here we have to deal on the intellectual level, which is fine, but it is going to be very difficult and ultimately unfulfilling. You have to realize it.

As I have said, Buddhism does not believe that "you" as a "function" continues to exist after death. In fact, they believe we die and are reborn every second, every millisecond. This makes sense. Our world is constantly in flux; we are faced with new experiences, new thoughts, new actions, new surroundings, and they all change us, consciously or unconsciously. The way someone looks into your eyes can have an unconscious effect on you. So, you are never the same from one moment to the next. Yet, there is a continuity to our lives--it is a conditioned continuity. We are subject to karma, which means we remember the names given to us, we remember how we have been treated by others, we remember our family and their expectations for us, we remember our obligations as citizens or husbands or wives. This is what is meant by a conditioned continuity. Our mistake is clinging to tightly to any of those conditions and saying, "This is me, irreducibly."

So even after death, there is a continuity, in the ways I described in my last post, even though the "function" (that is our personal clinging to such a continuity) ends. Our energy and our effects on the universe linger on and continue to transform the universe far after our bodily, functional deaths.

This is the closest thing Buddhists have to "evidence"--they can point to science with the conservation of mass and energy, or to psychoanalysis with its consciousness and unconsciousness, but ultimately these are just its best ways to paint a picture, so no, I don't think they would call it "hard" evidence. "Fortifying examples" might be a good way to describe it.

When you realize karma interdependent origination and the emptiness of things and the impermanence of everything and the lack of fixed self, then at the same time you realize how such a form of rebirth is possible, but it is a very heady thing to try and convey at the intellectual level. I haven't had that grand realization in my life yet. I've only had, like, a tiny, puny kind of realization. I'm still pursuing that blue bird.

As for why they say, "I don't know," it's because they have no idea what their karmic impulses may compel them to continually become. It may be dirt. It may be grass. Stones. Humans. Deer. So they don't know in that sense. There is also the sense that, frankly, it is still an act of faith. Realization of karma and emptiness and anatman fortify that faith, but it does not give them the power to foresee the future. They just can't know. It's not within our powers, you know? We just cannot know. Show me anyone man who knows for sure about his life after death, and I will show you a dead man.

As for not getting what you want from these answers: rebirth is by far one of the most abstruse ideas in Buddhism to comprehend, and I myself have just barely been able to comprehend it, so it would make sense if I am not conveying it well enough for your own comprehension. It's heady stuff, indeed.

  • 01.01.2013 3:37 AM PDT

Who am I?

mah twitter

Life after death is not possible, so no.

  • 01.01.2013 3:47 AM PDT

No. It doesn't really make any sense considering what we know about life, consciousness, thermodynamics, and the brain.

[Edited on 01.01.2013 3:51 AM PST]

  • 01.01.2013 3:50 AM PDT

Posted by: echo630
China called...


[Edited on 01.01.2013 3:52 AM PST]

  • 01.01.2013 3:51 AM PDT
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That's right. My plumage is brighter than yours.


Posted by: ghostvirus
This is what you said that I initially responded to:

Posted by: echo630
This is ridiculous. You calling them idiots for having faith is hypocritical because you're so faithful yourself in the idea that life does not continue after death. To use an analogy, atheism is as much a position of faith as theism.


This is your recent response.

So no, you really didn't combat the argument I as making for the consequences of an "afterlife" if a "soul" exists as much as you just provided evidence against the soul.  

In bold is where you seem to me to be moving the goal post. Either this is a veiled concession, or you are just ignoring the argument at hand. I believe this is a veiled concession, because you are now stressing that you agree that the soul doesn't exist (despite this being immaterial to the argument), and that this argument only applies if you presuppose the soul exists. However, in light of this the original comment I responded to, seems horribly out of place. Unless you believe belief or a lack of a belief in a soul are also both positions of faith. At which case my arguments also equally apply to the soul itself. If you agree with this argument, when applied to the soul, and I think you alluded that you did just now, the comment which I initially took issue with, is logically inconsistent with your own beliefs. If belief in the afterlife presupposes a belief that is itself unjustified and based on faith, but the belief that the afterlife doesn't exist isn't based on such a belief that requires faith, then there is a clear distinction to be made.

Its not at all relevant what you actually believe. I don't care if you are agnostic, would self identify as having faith that the afterlife doesn't exist, or faith that the afterlife exists. I am clearly taking issue with the position that believing the afterlife doesn't exist, requires just as much faith as the position that it does exist. As you have already admitted, one requires that you already believe in souls which we don't have any evidence for either, and therefore by definition is a non-parsimonious belief. I don't assume the existence of souls, or assume the non existence of souls. I evaluate the relative merits and assumptions of the two contradictory positions, and go from there. Before I decide that the afterlife does, or doesn't exist, I am going to address the relative merits of a belief in the soul because it is a prerequisite. If a belief has several prerequisite beliefs that are themselves unjustified, and an alternative belief has no such prerequisites, than the latter belief is the one that is more justified.

A person who believes in the afterlife has an irrational faith, that is founded on the irrational (or as you called it non rational) faith in the soul. A person who doesn't believe in the afterlife doesn't have such baggage.

I don't really know where you're taking issue with what I am saying any more. Have you secretly conceded my main point, or is there actually a epistemological debate to be had?



Now, I never moved my goal posts, they've been in the same spot the whole time. If you quoted that top bit where I ended with the atheism/theism analogy (which was just a touch-and-go comparison), I have to assume you read the rest of the post that you excerpted that from. I began talking about in that post about the possibility of the soul and the consequences of it if it exists, and I would go on in my next billion posts to elucidate that same thing, expanding as more people asked questions or took beef. My goal posts have remained in the same location.

Veiled concession? Please, I stated at the very beginning (if you read) that I don't believe in the existence of a soul. Go check. It goes against all that I've seen and known and realized. Check for yourself. However, that doesn't mean I wouldn't play devil's advocate for the existence of the soul and its possible consequences anyway. I still believed there was an argument to be made that shouldn't be overlooked. I never said that the soul existed, and then flip-flopped or conceded. I said that I don't believe it exists, but if it does, then this is what that means. So yes, my personal beliefs are pertinent when you're calling my consistency into question. I have remained consistent in my beliefs and what I have been saying, but I can see where it can be confusing to follow since I have been going down one of two tracks (atman or anatman, or both) throughout the process of responding to others.

I am actually explicitly not stating that the atman argument is the only one in which an afterlife comes into question; I also give consideration to anatman in the context of Buddhism. But they are inherently different ideas of rebirth.

I believe that the belief in a soul would is unnecessary and without reason as I believe that the invisible creature argument is without reason. There is nothing in the first place to tell us that the soul exists. Look deep inside you; look at the scientific literature; put your reasons through the crucible; the soul has no place but in self-deceit. We can't point to anything in the world that should give us reason to believe in the soul, except for the fact that people desperately want to believe in one. However, as I have said, if you assume that the soul exists, which we have stated that many people do (out of delusion, I believe), then it is therefore an act of faith to decide either that it does or does not persist after death. Again, that is on the ACP that it DOES in irrefutable FACT exist. I never ever did claim that the soul exists or that it is even reasonable that it exists; I've only said that it is a theory on the table and that it has consequences to be elaborated upon.

So no, I don't believe that the non-belief in a soul is much of a position of faith. It is more a position of common sense, critical inquiry, and scientific method (seeing as how it is partially based on scientific findings). All I believe in is a karmic continuity. This is nothing new to Western science and philosophy--except for the word "karma", but that is only a problem of xenophobia, really.

So I don't see whatever inconsistency you may be talking about. I have tried time and time again to be very clear in my beliefs and my intentions. I haven't contradicted myself, and if I have, I ask that you show me right where. Those two excerpts you have posted hold no contradictions in them.

What I think you might be getting to is something about my statement that the belief in the non-existence of the afterlife is one of faith. So it is. Afterlife, when we look at the many different ways it is meant, is somewhat elastic. There are Christian ideas of the afterlife, Hindu ideas, Buddhist ideas, and so on. For the majority of my posts I have been talking about something akin to a Christian or Hindu afterlife--but when talking about "rebirth" or "reincarnation" in general (as the conversation eventually turned to), it is necessary to also talk about the other possible meanings of the word "afterlife". So even if you don't believe in the soul, there is still discussion to be had on the possibility of "rebirth" in certain religious contexts, e.g. Buddhism.

But to be honest, I have had a difficult time trying to figure out what your argument could have been to begin with. Remember, you called me out and I have been trying my damndest to navigate my way through what you are trying to call me out on in order to form a cogent response. I haven't made any concessions at all. My beliefs have remained the same--and they are based on reason and parsimony and all these great things, but I don't feel that I need to take the time out of my night to explicitly state the fact that I am trying to be reasonable and parsimonious. I too feel these are wonderful tools.

To sum it up (because I have had a hard time getting to the heart of whatever you may be trying to say from the beginning): my belief in the non-existence of the soul hasn't changed; it is possible still to have an afterlife discussion even if you don't believe in the soul (it just takes on a headier meaning); and my discussion of the atman afterlife has been entirely hypothetical, as I stated at the beginning.

  • 01.01.2013 4:10 AM PDT
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That's right. My plumage is brighter than yours.


Posted by: jakster11
Posted by: echo630
China called...


Yo, I told your mama not to be calling so late.


OOOOOOOOO.

Because China is big.

Hehehe.

  • 01.01.2013 4:10 AM PDT

This could be considered as a religious thread.. But I do.

  • 01.01.2013 4:11 AM PDT
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Yes.

  • 01.01.2013 4:13 AM PDT

A competitive players main goal is to win.
A casuals main goal is to have fun regardless of whether that results in a win or loss.
It has nothing to do with individual skill or knowledge, it has to do with the reason you play.

Nope, but I still hope there will be some.

  • 01.01.2013 4:13 AM PDT
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75 idiots on this forum.

  • 01.01.2013 4:18 AM PDT
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13.72 billion years in the making.

On December 1st, 2012, I met Neil deGrasse Tyson. I shook the man's hand, and even made him laugh. Not much else to do with my life now.

Posted by: CultMiester4000
we don't know what happens after a person dies, except what happens to their body. i don't think many people who believe in the afterlife would say that a person's physical body survives. since science can only deal in the physical world i find it rather unqualified to be used to answer things such as the existence of an afterlife, or that of a god(s) etc, since (at least in my opinion) these questions are not concerning the physical world.

And what makes you so sure that they don't concern themselves with the physical world? The concept on an afterlife was brought about by the simple human desire to continue living, which has since been absorbed into various belief systems. Instead of postulating the existence of some grand, transcendant reality that exists beyond the physical world (Which is an enormously unsubstantiated assertion), why don't people just look at the present evidence? Someone dies. They don't respond to stimuli, and they begin to decompose. They're dead.

Occam's Razor.

  • 01.01.2013 10:15 AM PDT

Yes, I do.

  • 01.01.2013 10:23 AM PDT

I like shorts. They're comfy and easy to wear.

Posted by: Final Rose
Yes, because I'm not a pessimist idiot.

It seems rather pessimistic to think that it's pessimistic not to believe in an afterlife.

  • 01.01.2013 10:24 AM PDT

Nope, mostly because I have no reason to think otherwise. Logic and reason dictates that this is all we have.

  • 01.01.2013 10:26 AM PDT
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No, and that's not because I have any reason to believe that I'm right, it's because if I believe there's no afterlife, then whether or not I'm wrong, I'll still have lived my life to the fullest rather than waiting in anticipation to ride ponies with Jesus.

  • 01.01.2013 10:28 AM PDT
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Well, here we are. I guess that it was destined to come to this.

I have no personal experience in the matter, I have no evidence or studies by others that I consider conclusive, so all that I would have would be speculation, hopes, and even dreams about the subject.

None of which make any difference at all in the world that exists outside of my skull. People are welcome to have their own ideas within the limits of their skulls as they see fit. I can imagine that interesting conversations will continue to be had on the subject, and in the end, the matter will still be something for the individual to consider and contemplate for themself as it relates to them.

I figure that I will either be pleasantly (or even unpleasantly) surprised, or that any of my previous notions on the matter will be moot.

In other words? People are welcome to talk about it, but to get ugly over it? Somewhere else, please.

  • 01.01.2013 10:30 AM PDT

I r guy who gun to teach u lesson

Meh.

Its not possible in a science perspective to have an "after-life" (as far as I know) but it kind of sucks to think once you die, you are gone. You won't know that you are gone, you just cease to exist.

Imagining no longer moving, breathing, seeing, heck even thinking is just crazy. A never ending sleep without dreams is as close as you could get to imagining not existing I suppose.

[Edited on 01.01.2013 10:34 AM PST]

  • 01.01.2013 10:34 AM PDT
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He who wishes for peace must first prepare for war.

I do.

I have never met an atheist who has read a religious book, or the Bible, completely through for themselves. From what I've seen, they only know what they hear from others about particulars religions, or Christianity.

  • 01.01.2013 10:35 AM PDT
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13.72 billion years in the making.

On December 1st, 2012, I met Neil deGrasse Tyson. I shook the man's hand, and even made him laugh. Not much else to do with my life now.

Posted by: Statefarm98
Imagining no longer moving, breathing, seeing, heck even thinking is just crazy. A never ending sleep without dreams is as close as you could get to imagining not existing I suppose.

Well, your brain might start hurting a little because it's completely impossible to perceive "nothing."

  • 01.01.2013 10:35 AM PDT


Posted by: Statefarm98
Meh.

Its not possible in a science perspective to have an "after-life" (as far as I know) but it kind of sucks to think once you die, you are gone. You won't know that you are gone, you just cease to exist.

Imagining no longer moving, breathing, seeing, heck even thinking is just crazy. A never ending sleep without dreams is as close as you could get to imagining not existing I suppose.
Nope, you really can't imagine non-existence, and oddly enough it's something every single person on the planet experienced at one point. Every one of us has at one point not existed, yet we don't know what that's like.

  • 01.01.2013 10:37 AM PDT