Searching for GOD...

[Spud]

I would assume that the soul of the baby will have full awareness of heaven, and a retrospective awareness of its short life on earth.

Some witnesses of near death experiences report meeting the souls of aborted or miscarried babies in heaven.

Alan, as torridon said (not in so many words), the brain is the soul. When a person dies, that soul ceases to exist; there is no consciousness. One way of looking at it is that what you have described as a conscious awareness after death is actually the new soul which we get at the resurrection of the dead. When your soul is resurrected at the end of time, it will seem like no time has passed at all- like when we wake up after being asleep.
However, this doesn't seem to fit with the rich man and Lazarus, who it seems were conscious during the period between death and the resurrection. Unless that was not to be taken literally, what do you think?

[ippy]

Alan, as torridon said (not in so many words), the brain is the soul. When a person dies, that soul ceases to exist; there is no consciousness. One way of looking at it is that what you have described as a conscious awareness after death is actually the new soul which we get at the resurrection of the dead. When your soul is resurrected at the end of time, it will seem like no time has passed at all- like when we wake up after being asleep.
However, this doesn't seem to fit with the rich man and Lazarus, who it seems were conscious during the period between death and the resurrection. Unless that was not to be taken literally, what do you think?

Sad,sad, sad, sad, sad, sad,

ippy

[torridon]

Posters on this thread have implied that in order to satisfy the rules of determinism all our thoughts must be derived in some way from previous events and experiences.  So where does the idea of an afterlife, common throughout humanity, come from?  To wish for an afterlife you first need some insight to know that it exists.

This insight comes to you courtesy of Spud-U-Like.

Maybe, an afterlife idea might be inspired by the observation that we fall asleep every night, and wake up the next morning to find that indeed there is another day.  How many times does consciousness disappear only to reappear yet again the next day ?

If you don't like this one, I have many more to hand....

[torridon]

So in the case of an antelope experiencing conscious awareness via the same sort of neural activity in its identical (to human) reticular activating system, who or what is the recipient of the 'messages' ?

We can't say whether the antelope actually perceives brain activity, or just reacts to it as in a biological robot.

Your short memory is showing again;  I've already given you thought a experiment to help you understand that you don't really believe that.  Do you want me to find it again ?

[Alan Burns]

Alan, as torridon said (not in so many words), the brain is the soul. When a person dies, that soul ceases to exist; there is no consciousness. One way of looking at it is that what you have described as a conscious awareness after death is actually the new soul which we get at the resurrection of the dead. When your soul is resurrected at the end of time, it will seem like no time has passed at all- like when we wake up after being asleep.
However, this doesn't seem to fit with the rich man and Lazarus, who it seems were conscious during the period between death and the resurrection. Unless that was not to be taken literally, what do you think?

Jesus taught many things using parables (ficticious stories used to illustrate a point), such as the good samaritan and the prodigal son, and the one you quoted.

[Alan Burns]

We can't say whether the antelope actually perceives brain activity, or just reacts to it as in a biological robot.


Your short memory is showing again;  I've already given you thought a experiment to help you understand that you don't really believe that.  Do you want me to find it again ?

Sorry but I can't recall anything which would make me not believe in this posting.

[SusanDoris]

Sad,sad, sad, sad, sad, sad,

ippy

Agree - I was thinking, reading the new posts since yesterday, that I've read some bizarre fantasy stuff in my life, but to realise what some, educated, people apparently actually believe is, yes, sad.

[Bubbles]

If they are happy believing stuff that you think is wrong, why is that sad?

Why force your beliefs on them and make them unhappy?

If death is the end, and we all wind up there anyway at some point, why not let them enjoy what life they have?

Why destroy it for them?

If they are not hurting anyone else with it, why do you take it on yourself to spoil their beliefs and make them unhappy?

Isn't it a little bit egotistical to do that?

Alans beliefs are his own, I might not share them, but I don't expect him to change them.🌹

I think what is sad is the intolerance of different people's beliefs, and the attempt to take them away at any cost to the victim.

Discussion as disagreement is fine, but I think you have to respect someone's right to believe as they do.

Alans religion obviously gives him great comfort, not sure I approve of trying to take that away.

🌹

[torridon]

We can't say whether the antelope actually perceives brain activity, or just reacts to it as in a biological robot.

Sorry but I can't recall anything which would make me not believe in this posting.

OK I'll remind you.

Go out this afternoon and find a dead tree stump and a dog.  Give them both a good hefty kick. My prediction would be that you will have no problem kicking a tree stump, but you will be unable to kick the dog. Why would that be ? Your aversion to attacking the dog is born of your belief (which you keep denying here) that the dog is a sentient being that actually experiences pain and pleasure like you do.  Maybe it is trivially true that we cannot prove that other creatures have inner experience, but there again the same goes for other people. 

[Nearly Sane]

If they are happy believing stuff that you think is wrong, why is that sad?

Why force your beliefs on them and make them unhappy?

If death is the end, and we all wind up there anyway at some point, why not let them enjoy what life they have?

Why destroy it for them?

If they are not hurting anyone else with it, why do you take it on yourself to spoil their beliefs and make them unhappy?

Isn't it a little bit egotistical to do that?

Alans beliefs are his own, I might not share them, but I don't expect him to change them.🌹

I think what is sad is the intolerance of different people's beliefs, and the attempt to take them away at any cost to the victim.

Discussion as disagreement is fine, but I think you have to respect someone's right to believe as they do.

Alans religion obviously gives him great comfort, not sure I approve of trying to take that away.

🌹

The thing is people's definition of what is hurting other people is significant here. I may disagree with Outrider's opinion that people like Alan and me old sainted mother provide validity for the acts of the nutters in Mali, or insert latest atrocity here, but it's a rational argument that needs to be addressed.


Alan is here, by his own statemenrs, to spread the word. He actually does want to change my mind. I am only in it for the discussion. So maybe your issue is with him?

[ippy]

If they are happy believing stuff that you think is wrong, why is that sad?

Why force your beliefs on them and make them unhappy?

If death is the end, and we all wind up there anyway at some point, why not let them enjoy what life they have?

Why destroy it for them?

If they are not hurting anyone else with it, why do you take it on yourself to spoil their beliefs and make them unhappy?

Isn't it a little bit egotistical to do that?

Alans beliefs are his own, I might not share them, but I don't expect him to change them.🌹

I think what is sad is the intolerance of different people's beliefs, and the attempt to take them away at any cost to the victim.

Discussion as disagreement is fine, but I think you have to respect someone's right to believe as they do.

Alans religion obviously gives him great comfort, not sure I approve of trying to take that away.

🌹

That would be fine if they kept it to themselves and their own, the sheer determination these people have to drag the rest of us into their fantasy world, starting with things like a daily compulsary act of worship of a christian nature in our schools.

If that was all you could be justified in thinking it's all in my immagination, perhaps it might be a good idea to try to get them to keep this stuff to themselves and feel free to follow their sky fairy beliefs in their own private time.

For my money the sooner they keep their, not needed, nonsense to themselves the better.

ippy

[ippy]

Agree - I was thinking, reading the new posts since yesterday, that I've read some bizarre fantasy stuff in my life, but to realise what some, educated, people apparently actually believe is, yes, sad.

Douglas Addams summed these people with a simple elegence I wish I could equal, I wish.

It makes me wonder, when I read the stuff Alan appears to believe, just how far into this stuff are a lot of the less vosiferous, apparently, moderate believers?

ippy

[Bubbles]

The thing is people's definition of what is hurting other people is significant here. I may disagree with Outrider's opinion that people like Alan and me old sainted mother provide validity for the acts of the nutters in Mali, or insert latest atrocity here, but it's a rational argument that needs to be addressed.


Alan is here, by his own statemenrs, to spread the word. He actually does want to change my mind. I am only in it for the discussion. So maybe your issue is with him?

Alan is one of the nicest posters here IMO.

I can't say I have noticed any obvious evangelism from him, not like some aggressive stuff  I've come across on the Internet in general.

All Christians " spread the word" up to a point, just by being Christians and joining in.

[Nearly Sane]

Alan is one of the nicest posters here IMO.

I can't say I have noticed any obvious evangelism from him, not like some aggressive stuff  I've come across on the Internet in general.

All Christians " spread the word" up to a point, just by being Christians and joining in.

So it's OK for Alan to want to change minds but not Ok for say, Shaker, who is then being egotistical? How does that work?

[Shaker]

Alan is fairly routinely praised even by some atheists here as the nice bloke who keeps coming back to argue his corner calmly and equably, even though this translates to a blind stubbornness to keep repeating his same tropes and his same old groundless claims even when - or especially when - intellectually he's had his posterior handed to him on a salver.

And really, when he comes out with such blithering arse-gravy as his oft-repeated assertion that atheists are atheists because they're blinded and led astray from "the truth" by Satan (last wheeled out just over a week ago), can you really slide a Rizla between him and any morbidly obese, sweating, hypertensive Southern Baptist preacher from Alabama with ring-covered fingers clutching his Bible saying exactly the same about gay people, or youngsters listening to rock music? I can't.

[Outrider]

There is no physical recipient in the brain, because it can't be defined in physical terms.

So far as I can tell, the 'recipient' you're suggesting can't be defined at all. The 'recipient' - us - can quite easily be defined in physical terms: we are the pattern of activity in the brain.

All the brain can do is store and pass information via the cells.

Broadly, yes. Data, actually, but yes.

The recipient of the information is a single entity of awareness which perceives the information in numerous brain cells.

There is no evidence for this independent 'entity', no evidence for any communication coming into the brain from an undetected source, no gap in the information flow through the brain. The recipient of the information is an emergent property of that data flowing.

The pixels on a screen do not perceive themselves - the picture on the screen can only be perceived by an outside observer.  To perceive the binary content of many brain cells, you need something other than another group of brain cells.

The pixels on the screen, though, are not the pattern of understanding, they are hand that waves because of the understanding.

The software in the processor that sends that signal to the screen is the correct analogy - it's highly unlikely that any of those software architectures are sufficiently complex to evince the sort of awareness we have as humans, but given the subjectiveness of self-awareness we have no idea if they are the equivalent of plants, or snails, or fish, or simple mammals.

O.

[Outrider]

And really, when he comes out with such blithering arse-gravy as his oft-repeated assertion that atheists are atheists because they're blinded and led astray from "the truth" by Satan (last wheeled out just over a week ago), can you really slide a Rizla between him and any morbidly obese, sweating, hypertensive Southern Baptist preacher from Alabama with ring-covered fingers clutching his Bible saying exactly the same about gay people, or youngsters listening to rock music? I can't.

Yes, yes you can. You can't slide much between their arguments, but you can make a huge differentiation between the way the treat people, they way they put themselves across, and their willingness to make their case and invite you to accept it rather than attempting to browbeat, legislate or socially oppress you in to compliance.

The intellectual weight of the arguments is important to us in a debate, obviously, but the way we treat people is a far more important point in everyday life.

As an example, people have referred to my point that moderate believers are in part responsible for the social acceptability of unevidenced religious claims; I stand by that intellectual point. I wouldn't go and say it to anyone's church-going grandmother, it's the sort of commentary I reserve for a forum where people are investigating the philosophy and ethics around religion and religious belief. Alan, similarly, even here, makes his case, but doesn't give the impression that he'd attempt to force it upon anyone outside of this voluntary forum.

O.

[Alan Burns]

Agree - I was thinking, reading the new posts since yesterday, that I've read some bizarre fantasy stuff in my life, but to realise what some, educated, people apparently actually believe is, yes, sad.

The sad thing for me is knowing people who can't discover God's love.

[Shaker]

Yes, yes you can. You can't slide much between their arguments

That's what I was referring to.

but you can make a huge differentiation between the way the treat people, they way they put themselves across

No, don't buy it. Horseshit spray-painted gold, covered in glitter and given a squirt of Channel 5 is still horseshit.

[BashfulAnthony]

That's what I was referring to.
No, don't buy it. Horseshit spray-painted gold, covered in glitter and given a squirt of Channel 5 is still horseshit.

Some estimates say there are over 1,000,000 words in the English Language.   A fairly conservative estimate suggests there are over 85,000 adjectives.  And all you can come up with are a few guttersnipe expletives.  Ah, the intellectial  level of your posts...

[Shaker]

Just pitching my replies at the level of the content that they merit, Bashers.

But feel free to kill yet another thread with your bitching and whining about language - why not? It's not as though you're here actually to discuss anything.

[BashfulAnthony]

Just pitching my replies at the level of the content that they merit, Bashers.

But feel free to kill yet another thread with your bitching and whining about language - why not? It's not as though you're here actually to discuss anything.

As usual, you mis-represent:  I do discuss things, in this case your crude language and approach.

[Shaker]

As usual, yu mis-represent:  I do discuss things, in this case your crude language and approach.

That's (1) not the subject of this thread and (2) has been more than capably dealt with, more than once, on a thread in the appropriate place, by a moderator the administrator of this forum - the last time less than a week ago - so really, now's the ideal time just to get the fuck over it or jog on.

[BashfulAnthony]

That's (1) not the subject of this thread and (2) has been more than capably dealt with, more than once, by a moderator - the last time less than a week ago - so really, now's the ideal time just to get the fuck over it or jog on.

Delightful little post!  A ten-year-old could come up with a better answer. 

[Shaker]

Well go and find the nearest available ten year old.