How certain are you of an afterlife?

[El_Machinae]

So i never said (or intended to say) a soul would have to be metaphysical, the neuronal action initself can be seen as the soul of a body.

Oh, absolutely.
Just like a hive can be seen as an organism; something different that a mere representation of the sum of the synergy of the ants.

 

[Perfection]

So i never said (or intended to say) a soul would have to be metaphysical, the neuronal action initself can be seen as the soul of a body.

Cryosurgery patients are momentarily souless?

 

[stratos_v2]

Cryosurgery patients are momentarily souless?

I wouldn't know.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm not too sure what you mean by 'cryosurgery patient', but the chemical processes don't stop under freezing, they just get much slower.

 

[Mark1031]

It is interesting that 88% of people have a view that is within the 95% confidence level generally considered statistically significant for scientific data. Unfortunately they hold with great certainty mutually exclusive views .

 

[Homie]

Perf, I suppose you cannot test God's existence because He will not submit Himself to every whim of a mere human. But you cannot test whether The Senate killed Julius Caesar or whether man evolved from monkeys either. Yet you believe these things. Why do you believe in the stories of Caesar? Because they were written down in old documents? Well, guess what, the stories of Jesus were also written down in old documents, and there are far more old copies of them available than of Caesar.

We believe many things we cannot observe, why would God be any different. And furthermore, God has been observed (or His workings/miracles have been observed) many times, yet they are not believed because many people have NOT observed them.

 

[El_Machinae]

The death of Julius Caeser and the Theory of Evolution don't make any spectacular claims, they don't break the Natural Laws that we're quite confident about. People die when stabbed by their friends, and species adapt and specialise to their enivornments.

There's no really good reason to exclusively reject that Jesus lived (some do, but there are fruitcakes everywhere); there's no good reason to suspect that Jesus or his followers are anything special. Extended claims that the Bible is 100% true only hurt the case.

 

[Homie]

Exactly, my point is that there is no more reason to believe in Darwin and Caesar than to believe in the Bible, the only reason people don't believe in the Bible is because of the spectacular claims it makes. It is not that there is no "evidence", it is just that people will find it hard to believe despite that evidence, because it breaks with their idea of what is within the realm of possibility. If it sounds impossible, people won't believe it, even though what may be impossible to us is a piece of cake to God.

 

[El_Machinae]

Do you believe that the pyramids were constructed by aliens? Because that's just as believable as believing that Moses parted the Red Sea. Both aliens and Moses could have existed.

Do you think that believing that Caeser existed is more reasonable that believing that the pyramids were built by aliens?

There are thousands of preposterous, though internally consistent, statements. That's no reason to give them any credence. This is a very solid argument against believing the Bible to be true, especially when the Bible is taken too literally.

 

[Perfection]

I'm not too sure what you mean by 'cryosurgery patient', but the chemical processes don't stop under freezing, they just get much slower.

Dammit, I can't find information on the procedure. If I find it later I'll post it.

Perf, I suppose you cannot test God's existence because He will not submit Himself to every whim of a mere human. But you cannot test whether The Senate killed Julius Caesar or whether man evolved from monkeys either. Yet you believe these things. Why do you believe in the stories of Caesar? Because they were written down in old documents? Well, guess what, the stories of Jesus were also written down in old documents, and there are far more old copies of them available than of Caesar.

Well, evolution from monkeys is clearly testible. The tests involve studying commonalites among groups. Genetic tests and pysiological tests would be a couple examples.

No as for the reasons behind why I view the senate killed Ceaser to be more valid then the bible is simply because the bible contradicts known scientific evidence and thus becomes unreliable. With Ceaser there is no such contradiction so it becomes resonable to assume that the ideas about his are correct.

 

[Bluemofia]

We believe many things we cannot observe, why would God be any different. And furthermore, God has been observed (or His workings/miracles have been observed) many times, yet they are not believed because many people have NOT observed them.

And yet the Bhuddist Dieties have been observed for their miracles and predictions have been observed many times as well. Does this mean both the Christian God and the Bhuddist gods both exist? Obviously you won't believe the Bhuddist gods to be in existance because you haven't observed their miracles.

So how different is it for me not believing that either exist because I haven't seen their miracles, workings, and predictions?

 

[warpus]

Exactly, my point is that there is no more reason to believe in Darwin and Caesar than to believe in the Bible, the only reason people don't believe in the Bible is because of the spectacular claims it makes. It is not that there is no "evidence", it is just that people will find it hard to believe despite that evidence, because it breaks with their idea of what is within the realm of possibility. If it sounds impossible, people won't believe it, even though what may be impossible to us is a piece of cake to God.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

 

[silver 2039]

I find the entire concept to be totally and utterly ridiculous and unlikley

And yet the Bhuddist Dieties have been observed for their miracles and predictions have been observed many times as well. Does this mean both the Christian God and the Bhuddist gods both exist? Obviously you won't believe the Bhuddist gods to be in existance because you haven't observed their miracles.

Buddhist gods? Buddha was against worship and religon. He didn't want himself to be idolized and worshipped. Buddhisim is philosophical in its purest form.

 

[Bluemofia]

Buddhist gods? Buddha was against worship and religon. He didn't want himself to be idolized and worshipped. Buddhisim is philosophical in its purest form.

Yet they did so anyways. (but they don't quite so worship him, but there are other dieties, or just really powerful ancestor spirits. It's hard to explain in English, but it kind of translates into gods.)

My mom's Bhuddist. I should know.

 

[El_Machinae]

Perfection: are your referring to procedures where the brain is cooled to stop neural activity, so that brain surgery can be done?

Cryosurgery tends to be a technique to destroy cells. We would use cryosurgery to destroy cancers, for example. A similar word would be 'laser surgery' or 'scalpel surgery'. The cryogenic agent is a destructive agent.

There is also cryonics, where life is super-cooled into statis in order to preserve it. We do this with embryoes.

 

[mdwh]

Perf, I suppose you cannot test God's existence because He will not submit Himself to every whim of a mere human. But you cannot test whether The Senate killed Julius Caesar or whether man evolved from monkeys either. Yet you believe these things. Why do you believe in the stories of Caesar? Because they were written down in old documents?

We have evidence of Caesar and evolution.

Well, guess what, the stories of Jesus were also written down in old documents, and there are far more old copies of them available than of Caesar.

What's that got to do with anything? Yes, a guy named Jesus probably existed, many atheists would agree with that.

We believe many things we cannot observe, why would God be any different.

Because there you are believing things without evidence.

Put it this way, if I say there's an alien sitting next to me, you'll believe me, because my post written here is just as valid evidence as anything else?

 

[Chieftess]

99% sure, I've read a lot of books on the subject (where they interviewed people with near death experiences, looking into the history of near death claims and refuted some of the common criticisms of them). The best (most consise and non-partial) was Life After Life by Dr. Raymond Moody

While I'm 100% certain there is an afterlife, even I would be cautious of NDEs. I've taken a look at them myself, and there's one, very major thing that bothers me with it (as well as "psychics") -

95% of NDEs (not an exact number) are "feel good" experiences.

It is possible that many NDEs might not be true NDEs at all. I read one about an agnostic who had an NDE, and his experience was of a Buddhist one since that's the last thing he read about. So, he became a Buddhist. If a NDE has been real (and a few seem to be - atleast arguably), then it would redirect you to a true religion.

There are three possibilities that I can think of -

- Effects of the brain (which is vague in of itself. Either a "dying brain" as some might suggest, or it could even be a surreal dream).
- NDE is real, but is presented by, or influenced by evil pretending to be good. (these would probably fall under the "feel good" category - especially when new-age stuff and "spirit guides" are involved as in the case of Dannon Brinkley).
- NDE is real, and is present by the good side (God, Jesus, an angel, etc.). Several of these (especially the more hellish ones, or Dante's Inferno style) do follow a life review (the general judgement at death).

Is it possible for the soul to just linger in the room? I think so. Some might even call this a purgatory. (at this point, though, I don't think they can interact with the physical world).


It's basically something that can't be proven, or will be nearly impossible to prove until we have the proper hardware (or understanding) to test it.

Again, same with the afterlife. Scientifically, they can't yet. But, there have been eye witness accounts of apparitions and such, including gaining information that no one else knew about yet (or atleast publically)


I have a question for atheists though... What would happen if you died and suddenly found out that "Hey, this stuff was right after all!"? (i.e., you find yourself walking around outside of your body)

 

[Perfection]

I have a question for atheists though... What would happen if you died and suddenly found out that "Hey, this stuff was right after all!"? (i.e., you find yourself walking around outside of your body)

Well at that time provided I was thinking rationally, I'd probobly be thinking, "hey an OBE, cool".

That's what I thought the last time I had an OBE.

 

[Perfection]

Perfection: are your referring to procedures where the brain is cooled to stop neural activity, so that brain surgery can be done?

Yeah, that's the ticket! Activity stops so is the person soulless then!

 

[Millman]

I see everyone voted for one. Now here's the kicker? Who is actually right, I guess there's a 100 percent chance we'll find out after we die.

Why wasn't there one for 61.6 or 66.6 percent? That way you are two thirds the way to hell.