After life

[SystonFox]

I’m not sure on my thoughts in life after death as I’ve never really considered it. But, and it’s not been touched on here at all. I do have a fear slightly of dying. How will I go? Will it be painful? Sudden? Long and slow? Will I die tomorrow or will I make it to 100? All questions nobody can really answer and when my time comes my time comes but it’s madness to think about it. I also fear leaving my loved ones behind. I’m fairly fortunate in the sense I am 30 years of age and never lost anyone too close to me as yet. Couple of friends and family have passed which is fairly standard but the closest to me remain here with me.

 

 

[Sampson]

9 minutes ago, Benguin said:

Little reason to think there is one, even less reason to think there isn't one.

Not at all.

 

The laws of physics show the energy cannot be created only transferred. And the energy and molecules from your brain move on to other beings and structures like worms, the soil, the atmosphere etc. when you die - as consciousness is very likely created as part of your brain structure, if so it's against the laws of physics that that consciousness can survive after the energy and formation of your molecules has been transferred onwards.

 

There would have to be some sort of copy created of your brain structure at the exact point of your death (as energy and molecules cannot just be created - and these which make up your body all stay on Earth but are just transferres) in another universe somewhere which then your consciousness transported into really for there to be any chance of that happening. And although molecules can go out of existence, they almost instabtousky always return so that doesn't seem likely to me.

 

So there's much more reason to think there isn't one.

[Benguin]

2 minutes ago, Sampson said:

Not at all.

 

The laws of physics show the energy cannot be created only transferred. And the energy and molecules from your brain move on to other beings and structures like worms, the soil, the atmosphere etc. when you die - as consciousness is very likely created as part of your brain structure, if so it's against the laws of physics that that consciousness can survive after the energy and formation of your molecules has been transferred onwards.

 

There would have to be some sort of copy created of your brain structure at the exact point of your death in another universe somewhere which then your consciousness transported into really for there to be any chance of that happening. And although molecules can go out of existence, they almost instabtousky always return so that doesn't seem likely to me.

 

So there's much more reason to think there isn't one.

The whole premise of an afterlife is something out with the scope of known science. I don't believe in one personally but science does nothing to determine there isn't one. Unless you've died you don't know.

[Webbo]

8 minutes ago, Captain... said:

I don't think Fox92 really expressed a belief, just a feeling that there has got to be more than this. I was genuinely asking him why, but I see it went off on a bit of a rant.

 

People are free to believe what they want, and if you are a Christian you probably aren't going to be swayed by an argument based around evolution.

I wasn't having a go at you, just expressing my opinion.

[Izzy]

14 minutes ago, stripeyfox said:

I was born in 1973 and was brought up as a Christian by my parents and was spoon fed the standard bible stories at school. It sounded great, and why wouldn't I believe it. Was nice to think of my Grandma up in heaven and comforting. Fast forward to about 1985 when I was 12 and beginning to question stuff. The second half of the 1980's was an incomprehensible time by today's standards in terms of regular disasters. Just off the top of my head - Bradford fire, Heysel, multiple plane crashes in Japan, Manchester and off the coast of Ireland, the Herald of Free Enterprise Sinking, Hillsborough, Kings Cross Fire, Kegworth. This was regular - almost monthly on the news. Consider that the recent Grenfell Fire which is estimated to have killed 80 people is the worst UK disaster since Hillsborough shows how times have changed. But these disasters - each one, chipped away at my faith. 

 

But the moment when it suddenly became clear to me was one chilly Spring morning in 1996 when I heard the news that Thomas Hamilton had murdered 16 wee five year old children in the Dunblane massacre.

 

From that moment, I was completely decided that you could shove all your God, Jesus and religious crap. I was out. 

 

 

 

3 minutes ago, stripeyfox said:

Yeah, I guess you could be right. For me they have always been hand in glove with one another though. Probably just the way I was brought up and educated!
 

We were born in the same year and had similar upbringings by the sound of it 

 

I totally understand your point about disasters and it chipping away at your faith. I'm not massively religious but do go to church occasionally. My wife's family are big church goers and her brother is a minister so my kids are surrounded by it.

 

I had a bit of a life changing event in '04 when I had a serious illness and everything shifted for me then. For years I felt it was punishment for all the bad things I'd done in my younger life and I struggled with the whole "Why me?" thing. Then I look at all these massacres and kids dying and I think "Why them?".

 

I mentioned in another thread that my bother in law gave my kids a book called "Why does God allow suffering?" but I haven't read it yet...

 

P.S. to your second post I know some Atheists who also believe there is life after death. Weird ain't it?

[Captain...]

3 minutes ago, SystonFox said:

I’m not sure on my thoughts in life after death as I’ve never really considered it. But, and it’s not been touched on here at all. I do have a fear slightly of dying. How will I go? Will it be painful? Sudden? Long and slow? Will I die tomorrow or will I make it to 100? All questions nobody can really answer and when my time comes my time comes but it’s madness to think about it. I also fear leaving my loved ones behind. I’m fairly fortunate in the sense I am 30 years of age and never lost anyone too close to me as yet. Couple of friends and family have passed which is fairly standard but the closest to me remain here with me.

 

 

I don't fear dying, I more worried about debilitating wasting diseases or a prolonged battle with cancer. The actual being dead part is quite easy. I am quite risk averse and will not put myself in any unnecessary danger, things like cycling through London, cliff jumping, free diving, strangle wanks... I just don't see the need.

[Sampson]

6 minutes ago, Benguin said:

The whole premise of an afterlife is something out with the scope of known science. I don't believe in one personally but science does nothing to determine there isn't one. Unless you've died you don't know.

Of course not - but it definitely doesn't suggest there's "even more reason to think there isn't one".

 

Science is the best model of everything we have and seems to suggest it's unlikely there is one - of course that doesn't mean there isn't one - but it does mean takes much more obscure reasoning to try and reason there is one and there's more concrete reasons to think there isn't one as the matter and energy which make up your consciousness do stay on Earth and are just transferred - definitely not "even less reason" at any rate.

[Izzy]

15 minutes ago, srbfox said:

You can't pick and choice the tasty bits of religion. It's all or nothing.

That's an interesting belief

[stripeyfox]

Just now, Captain... said:

I don't fear dying, I more worried about debilitating wasting diseases or a prolonged battle with cancer. The actual being dead part is quite easy. I am quite risk averse and will not put myself in any unnecessary danger, things like cycling through London, cliff jumping, free diving, strangle wanks... I just don't see the need.

Good advice man....

[Benguin]

Just now, Sampson said:

Of course not - but it definitely doesn't suggest there's "even more reason to think there isn't one".

 

Science is the best model of everything we have and seems to suggest it's unlikely there is one - of course that doesn't mean there isn't one - but it does mean takes much more obscure reasoning to try and reason there is one and there's more concrete reasons to think there isn't one - definitely not "even less reason" at any rate.

As a scientist you don't measure something with the wrong equipment or you get false results. In this instance science is the wrong piece of equipment to measure, so any attempts should be disregarded and not considered persuasive or reason enough to believe in the results.

[leicsmac]

6 minutes ago, Benguin said:

As a scientist you don't measure something with the wrong equipment or you get false results. In this instance science is the wrong piece of equipment to measure, so any attempts should be disregarded and not considered persuasive or reason enough to believe in the results.

In this regard, as flawed as it is I'll still take the scientific deterministic method to find out what might happen over that of any belief system any day of the week.

[Sampson]

14 minutes ago, Benguin said:

As a scientist you don't measure something with the wrong equipment or you get false results. In this instance science is the wrong piece of equipment to measure, so any attempts should be disregarded and not considered persuasive or reason enough to believe in the results.

It shouldn't be disregarded at all. It's much more a valid explanation than any other we have - even if flawed on this topic it's the best we have to go on.

 

There is concrete reasoning that the energy and matter which make up consciousness stay on Earth and are just transferred. And quantum mechanics shows this universe is a bunch of random decision making anyhow.

 

Now of course that doesn't mean a copy of that consciousness can't be created in another universe or an afterlife but like anything - we make the best deduction from what we have and everything we know suggests it's more likely than not there isn't one. That doesn't mean there isn't one - just that it makes sense to think it's more likely that there isn't. I'm not arguing that it means that, i was arguing against you saying there is less reason to believe it when there are clearly more.

 

Why is Science the wrong piece of equipment? The truth is we just don't know enough about consciousness or our brain structure the universe yet, that doesn't mean we won't in the future.

 

Either way, why do you think there's "even less reason to think there isn't one" than there is one?

[Strokes]

57 minutes ago, Webbo said:

Nobody knows what your age is on here unless you tell them.

I’m 21 and incredibly handsome.

[somebum]

There is one and nobody can convince me otherwise. 

[ousefox]

I've never even entertained the thought of an afterlife since I was about 5 

 

You only get one life so have as much fun as you can, do what makes you happy and work as little as possible imo.

[ajthefox]

22 minutes ago, Benguin said:

The whole premise of an afterlife is something out with the scope of known science. I don't believe in one personally but science does nothing to determine there isn't one. Unless you've died you don't know.

People used to think the Earth is flat and there was a sun and that was that.

 

The idea of an afterlife might be alien to us, but it might well be "known science" in years to come. 

I would argue your suggestion that an afterlife is beyond the scope of science shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is. 

 

If you don't know what something is, how can you say it is beyond science?

[Izzy]

I'm no scientist, but I might give this a read.

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Science-Afterlife-Experience-Immortality-Consciousness-ebook/dp/B071GZND9J/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1510010542&sr=8-2&keywords=science+and+the+afterlife+experience

Science and the Afterlife Experience: Evidence for the Immortality of Consciousness Kindle Edition

by Chris Carter (Author)

[Bellend Sebastian]

24 minutes ago, Captain... said:

I don't fear dying, I more worried about debilitating wasting diseases or a prolonged battle with cancer. The actual being dead part is quite easy. I am quite risk averse and will not put myself in any unnecessary danger, things like cycling through London, cliff jumping, free diving, strangle wanks... I just don't see the need.

You get ghosts of people that have had their heads chopped off, or tragic lovers that drown themselves, but you never hear of encounters with a spectre of a strangle w*nker, do you?

 

You'd think they'd be relatively common

[Benguin]

15 minutes ago, ajthefox said:

People used to think the Earth is flat and there was a sun and that was that.

 

The idea of an afterlife might be alien to us, but it might well be "known science" in years to come. 

I would argue your suggestion that an afterlife is beyond the scope of science shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what science is. 

 

If you don't know what something is, how can you say it is beyond science?

We can observe and repeat scientific studies, we can't die repeatedly. 

[Benguin]

21 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

In this regard, as flawed as it is I'll still take the scientific deterministic method to find out what might happen over that of any belief system any day of the week.

There is a third option that you are missing and the one to which I subscribe to. We don't know.

[Benguin]

22 minutes ago, Sampson said:

It shouldn't be disregarded at all. It's much more a valid explanation than any other we have - even if flawed on this topic it's the best we have to go on.

 

There is concrete reasoning that the energy and matter which make up consciousness stay on Earth and are just transferred. And quantum mechanics shows this universe is a bunch of random decision making anyhow.

 

Now of course that doesn't mean a copy of that consciousness can't be created in another universe or an afterlife but like anything - we make the best deduction from what we have and everything we know suggests it's more likely than not there isn't one. That doesn't mean there isn't one - just that it makes sense to think it's more likely that there isn't. I'm not arguing that it means that, i was arguing against you saying there is less reason to believe it when there are clearly more.

 

Why is Science the wrong piece of equipment? The truth is we just don't know enough about consciousness or our brain structure the universe yet, that doesn't mean we won't in the future.

 

Either way, why do you think there's "even less reason to think there isn't one" than there is one?

If you choose to find reason in flawed and tangent science that's fine but I don't so I don't find any reason at all not to believe in an afterlife other than it seems farfetched.

[leicsmac]

9 minutes ago, Benguin said:

There is a third option that you are missing and the one to which I subscribe to. We don't know.

That's fair. We don't know and it may be that we can't know. I'd take that over belief too.

[Sampson]

17 minutes ago, Benguin said:

If you choose to find reason in flawed and tangent science that's fine but I don't so I don't find any reason at all not to believe in an afterlife other than it seems farfetched.

"flawed Science" maybe because we don't know everything *as of yet* but definitely not tangent and definitely not necessarily flawed in the future. It's perfectly logical to think that because we'd have to create entirely new laws on top of the laws of physics for it to happen and we'd have to completely dismiss our current laws of physics and our current understanding of what consciousness is that it's less likely an afterlife exists (again, not impossible, just less likely).

 

It's not tangent at all to suggest that the matter and energy which make up your consciousness stay on Earth after death so how can that consciousness move on to another life or other universe? And if we can create consciousness in computers and robots in the future then that surely shows consciousness comes from our brain pattern in which case why is it at all likely to survive death once this pattern has been destroyed but the molecules which made it and their random spin still remain on Earth just no longer in the form of a neurological clump? Those are perfectly valid question which Science asks. Just because something is unknown does not mean we have to make huge logical leaps for it or that we can't deduce a more likely scenario or that it won't be known in the future.

 

Again, ok ok dismiss Science and all of human knowledge and understanding if you must, but again - why do you think that means there's "even less" reasoning though? Why do you also keep avoiding this question?

[Benguin]

6 minutes ago, Sampson said:

"flawed Science" maybe because we don't know everything *as of yet* but definitely not tangent and definitely not necessarily flawed in the future. It's perfectly logical to think that because we'd have to create entirely new laws on top of the laws of physics for it to happen and we'd have to completely dismiss our current laws of physics and our current understanding of what consciousness is that it's less likely an afterlife exists (again, not impossible, just less likely).

 

It's not tangent at all to suggest that the matter and energy which make up your consciousness stay on Earth after death so how can that consciousness move on to another life or other universe? That's a perfectly valid question which Science asks. Just because something is unknown does not mean we have to make huge logical leaps for it or that we can't deduce a more likely scenario or that it won't be known in the future.

 

Again, ok ok dismiss Science and all of human knowledge and understanding if you must, but again - why do you think that means there's "even less" reasoning though? Why do you also keep avoiding this question?

The only reason I can find to believe in an afterlife is religious teachings. I can't find any reason not believe in an afterlife because I have never died or spoken to someone who has. Therefore it follows that there's little reason to believe and no reason not to believe. Belief and probability are very different things.

[Sampson]

7 minutes ago, Benguin said:

The only reason I can find to believe in an afterlife is religious teachings. I can't find any reason not believe in an afterlife because I have never died or spoken to someone who has. Therefore it follows that there's little reason to believe and no reason not to believe. Belief and probability are very different things.

 

So religious teachings are a reason to believe, but the laws of thermodynamics, energy, quantum mechanics and how consciousness work aren't?

 

Why is religion fair game for exploring whether there's an afterlife but science isn't?

 

I'm sure you can find plenty of books which say there is no afterlife and here's the reasons why quoting the laws of physics, thermodynamics and how consciousness works. Why are they not valid but the teachings of ancient Greek gods of Zeus and the teachings of Ghengis Khan's Mongolian shamanistic Tengrism or Chinese folk religions are?