KenStahl wrote:

fishandchips wrote:

KenStahl wrote:

John Baker wrote:

On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 16:09:25 -0500, KenStahl <ktsahl@yoohoo.com>
wrote:

Bill M wrote:

Death is the cure for both atheism, religious belief and disease. When your
dead your gone - you no longer exist.

Who taught you that. I'm certainly not anything close to
being a xtian and I know better then to suggest that there
is nothing that follows this mundane plane of existence.

I'm not aware of any plausible mechanism by which consciousness can
exist without a physical body, and without some sort of evidence that
awareness *does* survive physical death, I see no reason to believe it
can.

That's because you have not been taught well. It has nothing
to do with "belief", but it does come under the general
rubric that goes along the general theme of "Let he who has
eyes, see. Let he who has ears, hear".

Think of it this way. The general laws of thermodynamics is
a good enough model for everyday practical living in the
world of macro physics, but they tend to break down
pitifully at the quantum level. In our daily life we don't
really deal with the quantum level, but it doesn't mean that
that quantum physics are ipso facto incorrect simply because
they cannot be observed at a macro level.

Where the hell does infinity fit in. We are in fact nothing keeping
infinity in the mix. Eight million light years away, even the Beatles
are no longer....is God?

Could you repeat that in English? Somewhere in the jumble of
words must have been a thought, but you weren't quite able
to communicate it. I think the first part was meant to be a
question, although it was certainly lacking a question mark.
The second and third sentences don't quite make sense in any
way.

--
Life is a journey. You don't get to start at the end.

Infinity is a concept I can't explain......probably why I sound like a
fool. But what are we in this never ending void? So sorry about the
missing question mark.

KenStahl wrote:

Neil Kelsey wrote:

KenStahl wrote:

John Baker wrote:

On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 16:09:25 -0500, KenStahl <ktsahl@yoohoo.com>
wrote:

Bill M wrote:

Death is the cure for both atheism, religious belief and disease. When your
dead your gone - you no longer exist.

Who taught you that. I'm certainly not anything close to
being a xtian and I know better then to suggest that there
is nothing that follows this mundane plane of existence.

I'm not aware of any plausible mechanism by which consciousness can
exist without a physical body, and without some sort of evidence that
awareness *does* survive physical death, I see no reason to believe it
can.

That's because you have not been taught well. It has nothing
to do with "belief", but it does come under the general
rubric that goes along the general theme of "Let he who has
eyes, see. Let he who has ears, hear".

I don't see how your homily is a response to there being no evidence
that awareness survives physical death. If you've been taught well then
what special knowledge do you have that atheists don't?

Think of it this way. The general laws of thermodynamics is
a good enough model for everyday practical living in the
world of macro physics, but they tend to break down
pitifully at the quantum level.

Second law of thermodynamics: in a closed system, entropy increases.
The law does not "break down pitifully" at a quantum level, it just
doesn't apply, since the quantum level is not a closed system. The
other half of the 2nd law is that in an open system (e.g. quanta)
entropy does not increase, since there's no closed systems for entropy
to act upon.

In our daily life we don't
really deal with the quantum level, but it doesn't mean that
that quantum physics are ipso facto incorrect simply because
they cannot be observed at a macro level.

What does that have to do with evidence for life after death?

"Evidence" has nothing to do with whether something is true
or false when it comes to matters of what exists outside the
plane of our human understanding. We don't know exactly how
gravity works and yet we foolishly persist in relying on it
even though it is one of the weakest forces in the known
universe.

There is irrefutable evidence that gravity exists. There is only the
sincere testimonials of questionable people that life after death
exists. That's not evidence. If you can cough up irrefutable evidence
that there is life after death then we can proceed to try to understand
how it works, like we are doing with gravity. That is what string
theory is all about, for example.

Incidentally, that is one of the most bizarre sentences I've read, I'm
going to nominate it for TQOTM. How do you suggest we stop relying on
gravity? If we're foolish, why aren't you attempting to defy gravity to
show how smart you are? How do you think we flew to the moon if we
haven't been able to conquer "one of the weakest of the forces in the
known universe?" How many forces do you think there are? It sounds like
you're implying that there are many, the way you're sneering at our
pitiful weakness at being controlled by such a puny thing.

It just isn't particularly wise to depend on our
own observations as a basis for absolute knowledge.

What is absolute knowledge?

Tales of reincarnation have permeated our human experience since the
beginning of recorded history - so while there may not be
sufficient evididence that it is true, we certainly don't
have enough evidence to declare that it is false.

Is this the vaunted knowledge you have when you told John Baker above
that he had "not been taught well?" We are all aware of the tales of
reincarnation. That is on the list of activities that people claim
happens when you die, to be thrown into the mix with Heaven, Hell,
Hades, wandering about as a poltergeist, Valhalla, etc. I disagree with
you, there is enough to conclude that people making these claims are
either guilty of wishful thinking or desparately trying to impress
girls (and/or boys) with their Messianic-like knowledge of esoteric
knowledge. You're falling into that latter category for me.

If, as an existentialist, a person wants to close their minds to the
possibility that there are things that human being don't
know, then no one person can stop any other person from
living in such a fantasy world.

Who's an existentialist? Who's closing their minds to the possiblity
that there are things we don't know? I think your passage above about
gravity ("We don't know exactly how gravity works and yet we foolishly
persist in relying on it...") shows that you're closed minded to what
we don't know, and that the people actually studying the nature of
gravity (and anything else for which their is enough evidence for
existence) is not. Like I said, if you can come up with compelling
evidence for reincarnation, then reincarnation will be studied. After
thousands of years of people making that claim, I'm concluding they're
just crying wolf.

Live in a fantasy world all you want, no one's stopping you, at least
not in the secular society you are privileged to live in. It's just
that if you try to argue that your fantasy is real, and also that your
fantasy applied to everybody else as well, then you're going to get
questioned. And if all you can come up with is lame ad hominems ("you
have not been taught well) and a clear indication that you don't know
what you're talking about when you try to defend your position (gravity
is "one of the weakest forces," the "general laws of
thermodynamics..tend to break down pitifully at the quantum level"),
then I'm concluding that your fantasy is nothing but a fantasy.

I prefer to accept the
possibility that humans are not the smartest thing in the
universe and that there is no harm in living this life as a
prep school for what comes next.

a. Most people accept the possibility that humans are not the smartest
thing in the universe, including atheists. I get the feeling that you
think you're an exception, though.
b. I see lots of harm in living as if there is an afterlife. For
instance, certain Muslims think they're going to be rewarded with a
bunch of virgins to ***** if they perform some suicidal homicidal act on
non-believers. Every religion has a long history of oppressing
outsiders (and insiders) on the basis of their beliefs, which include a
fundamental belief in an afterlife. You are arguing that we should
abandon logic and reason in search of some idea of the afterlife that
defies logic and reason, and I abandoning a secular education in favour
of training in religious fantasies (such as reincarnation) as harmful.