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What Happens When You Die?
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[deleted user]
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Apr 26, 2009 08:27PM
Basically the idea is that when someone believes in something it comes into existence if it didn't before, by believing in it you are giving it the power to exist
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Lily DarkWater wrote: "Basically the idea is that when someone believes in something it comes into existence if it didn't before, by believing in it you are giving it the power to exist"OH YAY! BIG SISSY!! *huggle glomp*
I;m sorry but wouldn't it be hilarious if the pagans were right so the three major religions just get blind sided? Well i think it would be funny. Anywyas I believe that the God that actually exists, gave us science to understand what goes on in the world and also with that same knowledge know that something has to be out there running it all, nature is just too perfect for it to have just worked out all on its own.
But this God would have to be merciful, not Christian merciful, who isn't merciful at all but one that understands that so many different religions confused people and that no one really goes to a "Hell".
Does that make any sense? I'm spiritual but not religious if that makes sense. Religion tells you what to believe and I do not do well with being told what to believe, lol.
that made perfect sense to me but then again my brother thinks I need to sleep and that I am WAY too crazy!
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How is the Christian God not merciful?
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Oh, but you did say Kyle: "I do not do well with being told what to believe, lol." So would you rather God forced you to believe in him so that you could go to Heaven, or let him give you the freedom to choose or reject him, go to Heaven or hell?
He gives us chances, choices, and grace. He never had to let us into Heaven at all. Heck, he didn't even have to make Heaven. He could have let us all go to hell, or just rot in the ground and nothing else.
Mod
"Basically the idea is that when someone believes in something it comes into existence if it didn't before, by believing in it you are giving it the power to exist"Ergo
ARGUMENT FROM SHEER WILL
(1) I DO believe in God! I DO believe in God! I do I do I do I DO believe in God!
(2) Therefore, God exists.
"I;m sorry but wouldn't it be hilarious if the pagans were right so the three major religions just get blind sided? Well i think it would be funny."
I wouldn't mind it if the pagans are right, because what they believe is sorta like humanism, but with magic.
"gave us science to understand what goes on in the world and also with that same knowledge know that something has to be out there running it all, nature is just too perfect for it to have just worked out all on its own."
1. Why would he give us something that tells us he doesn't exist.
2. It's not perfect. What is the function of the tailbone? THe appendix? The tonsils? All these vestigial organs, plus things like back pain and nose problems, are all caused by the fact we spent most of our lives on all 4. We aren't really meant to be upright yet. We're still evolving.
"I do not do well with being told what to believe, lol. "
Agreed. :)
"How is the Christian God not merciful? "
Finite sins are given infinite punishment. It's sadistic and cruel.
"God gives people a choice to believe in him. He didn't create us as robots and force us to believe in him or follow his laws. If someone chooses to reject him, that is THEIR choice. Yes, they will go to hell for it, but is that really God's fault?"
Yes it is. He set up a crappy system, with no real choices, so the only reason you believe in him is out of blind fear of Hell.
"r just rot in the ground and nothing else. "
At least you know where you're going, instead of wasting your life worrying about a Hell that doesn't exist.
"I mean, there are never going to be any consequences, so why shouldn't we?"
SO you're saying that if you had no threat of Hell, you would have no morals? BREAKTHROUGH! You can have morals without the threat of Hell. The incentive is simply to be nice. I don't need a Hell to be good.
lol Nathan
NinjaFanpire wrote: "If you mean he's not merciful because he sends people to hell, that's not true. God gives people a choice to believe in him. He didn't create us as robots and force us to believe in him or follow h..."Does she realize that she just insulted EVERYONE that doesn't believe the exact same thing as her! There is no hell to go to so there is no way I'm going to it because it doesn't exist and earlier when I said on a different topic that Christians don't accept that people believe other things you just proved that! And when you said that you believe people should be excepting of other people's religions you LIED! And you know what? People lie but you lie about your own ethics! What do you think that says about yourself?!
And FYI you had better not tell me that you hate being told you are not going to hell because you have some serious issues!
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He did say "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believe." It's in the Bible.
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Tailbone holds many of our ligaments, tendons, and muscles together. It has a purpose.
The appendix "The US scientists found that the appendix acted as a "good safe house" for bacteria essential for healthy digestion, in effect re-booting the digestive system after the host has contracted diseases such as amoebic dysentery or cholera, which kill off helpful germs and purge the gut."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/...
http://soundmedicine.iu.edu/segment.p...
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-sty...
The tonsils help prevent throat infection.
"He did say "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believe." It's in the Bible. "Highly convenient.
"Tailbone holds many of our ligaments, tendons, and muscles together. It has a purpose."
As the tailbones of monkeys have the exact same purpose.
But, we don't need them. You can't take out your liver and live. But you can take out your appendix and live. And the tonsils. They can also kill you if they get infected.
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Um, you can get a cut on your arm and sometimes it does get infected to the point of where you could die, depending on what conditions you are around. Does that mean we don't need an arm? Hey, I can type okay with just one arm, I can still open doors.
They make mechanical legs for people. Does that mean we don't need legs? We could all go around in wheel chairs. Are legs really necessary?
To echo what Nate said, it is easy to find aspects of "design" that serve no purpose, or undermine the idea of perfection that some people think "proves" design. There is the blind spot in your vision; the fact that your eyes produce upside down images and your brain has to flip them over; the circuitous path that your embryo takes as it develops, including things such as a tail and gills, and multiple jaw bones that eventually migrate to the ears; the fact that something like 30% of your taste genes are useless, as are large portions of your genetic code. Any amount of time spent researching biology reveals countless things that seem horribly designed.To answer the original question, what happens when you die: Let's stick to what we know. You decompose. You evacuate your bowels. Your hair grows a little bit more. Let's not bother with speculation that can't be verified or falsified.
Nathan has it. ooo I forgot about the blind spot. *nods*
We are actually very delicate and inefficient. Wisdom teeth have to be pulled cause we have no room. Why design wisdom teeth? Not to be gross, but what is also the point of designing people (especially girls) with underarm and leg hair? Or the point of goosebumps?
It's all stuff that was useful, but evolved down to almost nothing.
What do you think happens when you die and can you prove that what you say is true? I think something happens when we die. I'm not sure what it is and I can't prove it. But here's what I notice, there are atheists in every society. People who say: if you ask me, if you want to know the truth, I think it's all bullshit. But while there are nonbelievers in every society, there is no atheistic societies. In all civilizations, they believe something. Now as to what that is changes from one place to the next and one era to the next.
I personally am not in communion with the dead, so I have nothing to report on what actually happens- but I'm pretty sure something happens.
NinjaFanpire wrote: "So if I believe that Unicorns really exist than they will?"Lily DarkWater wrote: "Basically the idea is that when someone believes in something it comes into existence if it didn't before, by believing in it you are giving it the power to exist"
YES! Maybe not in our dead set reality but yes if we had more open minds we would be able to see the unicorns and if we used our full brain capacity we could probably actually create unicorns that others could see
yep we just had an in-depth conversation on this
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The appendix. It has no functional purpose. It is clearly a remnant from evolution when our ancestors ate plants and not meat."
I just gave you three sources telling what the appendix does!
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That certainly doesn't answer the question I asked. It doesn't even attempt to.
Also, men wrote the Bible so God didn't say anything like that. People did. "
Well, please tell me the question again. There are a lot of comments and different conversations, I don't know which one you mean.
Mod
ooo I forgot about the blind spot. *nods*
We are actually very delicate and inefficient. Wisdom teeth have to be pulled cause we have no room. Why design wisdom teeth? Not to be gross, but what is also the point of designing people (especially girls) with underarm and leg hair? Or the point of goosebumps?
It's all stuff that was useful, but evolved down to almost nothing. "
Well, if it WAS useful, why did we never evolve out of it? We obviously don't need it, as you said, so why didn't we just get rid of it somewhere along the line when we realized we didn't need it? Since we came from monkeys and such, we no longer need tails since we can now walk upright. We don't need them for balance anymore. I mean, it wouldn't really hurt to have them, just like hair isn't really necessary. Why didn't we keep the tails?
Mod
I think something happens when we die. I'm not sure what it is and I can't prove it. But here's what I notice, there are atheists in every society. People who say: if you ask me, if you want to know the truth, I think it's all bullshit. But while there are nonbelievers in every society, there is no atheistic societies. In all civilizations, they believe something. Now as to what that is changes from one place to the next and one era to the next.
I personally am not in communion with the dead, so I have nothing to report on what actually happens- but I'm pretty sure something happens."
Well if you are open to trying to figure out for yourself what happens, I'd suggest reading 23 Minutes in Hell by Bill Weise. Not forcing you too, just a suggestion. I haven't read it myself, but I heard that it was a good read, and has truth in it about death.
Mod
Lily DarkWater wrote: "Basically the idea is that when someone believes in something it comes into existence if it didn't before, by believing in it you are giving it the power to exist"
YES! Maybe not in our dead set reality but yes if we had more open minds we would be able to see the unicorns and if we used our full brain capacity we could probably actually create unicorns that others could see"
Interesting that it doesn't seem that anyone has ever had an open enough mind to create a real unicorn. Shame, I bet they'd be cool.
NinjaFanpire wrote: "GreenDaisy BlackStem wrote: "NinjaFanpire wrote: "So if I believe that Unicorns really exist than they will?"Lily DarkWater wrote: "Basically the idea is that when someone believes in something i..."
I know and I may not have any proof for that but then again I can freely dream until scientists somehow get a human to use all of their brain capacity
Well, if it WAS useful, why did we never evolve out of it? We obviously don't need it, as you said, so why didn't we just get rid of it somewhere along the line when we realized we didn't need it?Because that's not the way evolution works. We don't "realize" we don't need something anymore and then, voila!, it's gone. Evolution is about changes to the process of creating an individual from an embryo. This itself is evidence for evolution: early embryonic stages of very different animals all resemble each other, and as embryonic development progresses, they become more different. Basically, they're all starting with the same road map, and along the way they take different turns. If we were created, not evolved, there would be no reason that all animals would develop from embryos that at some point have gills. Human embryos would be very different from fish embryos from day one. But this isn't the case.
The reason we didn't keep tails is that it's a waste of energy. There's a finite amount of energy that can be put into forming an animal. The energy it takes to make a tail was better put to use somewhere else.
I know and I may not have any proof for that but then again I can freely dream until scientists somehow get a human to use all of their brain capacityHumans do use all, or almost all, of their brain capacity. That we only use 10% or whatever is a popular myth, usually spread by hucksters and "psychics" trying to convince you that it's possible to have amazing powers if you "unlock your brain's potential." Different parts of the brain do different thing, and not all of the brain is neurons, so we don't use every bit of it every second of the day, but we do use it all. To say that you would be better off if you "used all of your brain" is like saying a particular song would be better if it used all the notes on the piano.
"But while there are nonbelievers in every society, there is no atheistic societies. In all civilizations, they believe something. Now as to what that is changes from one place to the next and one era to the next."Wait 50 years. At the rate people are becoming non-theists, the entire US will be atheist. 8% to 15% in like, 2 years.
"I just gave you three sources telling what the appendix does! "
A useless function.
"The reason we didn't keep tails is that it's a waste of energy. There's a finite amount of energy that can be put into forming an animal. The energy it takes to make a tail was better put to use somewhere else."
Like the brain.
"The appendix does little for us. Scientists agree that the small function it might have is vastly outweighed by the fact that it often ruptures and kills the human who has it in his body.
"
It's not what is does, but whether what it does it worth the damage it can cause.
"The reason the appendix has not evolved away to not existing at all is because if the appendix got any smaller, it would actually become clogged more often and kill more people. This is why it has developed to a small essentially useless organ, but not entirely vanished."
Or, because we save people who would normally die from appendicitis are saved, and are passing on their bad genes. It's not going away because we keep the genes around.
Lauren wrote: "He becomes unnecessary then. In philosophy, Occham's Razor tells us we have no reason to believe in something that takes such a huge leap. The simplest idea that assumes the least should be conside..."Or, since the Universe is by definition "everything that exists" and one is asserting God exists, God must be in the set we call the Universe. In order for God to "know" all about that set (omniscience), information theory requires that God cannot be a subset of the Universe -- one cannot "encode" the information content of the whole in a subset of the whole, especially when the whole is self-encoding information (as it appears to be when we look). Therefore, we have proven as a theorem:
If God exists, God is the Universe.
So let's have no more talk about a part of everything creating all of everything as it gives me an oxymoronic headache.
rgb
P.S. Greetings (new to list) and I really liked several of your responses, Lauren.
Thanks. :D"If God exists, God is the Universe."
But, if the definition of God is vague, then it looses all of it's meaning. It's like saying "God is Love" God is Beauty" If you are trying to find God, you can find him everywhere, because if the definition is that vague, then it has no meaning. How would one pray to the universe? And that means, if God is everything, God is Hell. God is Evil. God is Pain.
That rings of pantheism.
It is pantheism. It is a logical proof that pantheism is the only rationally consistent religion. Note well that it is a conditional proof -- If (you wish to assert) God exists, then God must be identical to everything that exists or God must fail to have some property you wish to assign to God, in particular Omniscience and Omnipresence and Omnipotence. If and only if God is everything can God's information content equal the information content of everything, can God be everywhere, can God be said to be responsible for everything that happens and hence be "omnipotent".It leaves as an open question whether or not such a being could properly be said to be self-aware, and of course it places no limits at all on just how "big" (how many dimensions) and "connected" (simply or not) "everything" is. And yes, it does seem as though either way God would not care particularly if a small part of himself prayed to the whole thing. God isn't "hell", however, or "evil" or "pain" either way. Those are all human conceptualizations. Hell doesn't exist and is a silly notion. Evil does exist, but only in human terms -- evil is stuff like death and pain and human suffering, but all of those things are simply natural phenomena, impersonal, as far as God = Nature is concerned. Or an illusion, since God is the inflictor of pain and the inflictee of pain, the eater and the eaten, the living and the dead, the windshield and the bug, and all things are thereby perfectly just when viewed from topside.
Honestly, of all of the religious theistic texts on the planet, the only one I've discovered that is truly worth reading are The Upanishads:
Not that which is known, but that by which we know, that is Brahman. Brahman is not the being that is worshipped of men.
Of course, real Vedic Hinduism is monist pantheism, not a polytheism at all, but few people from the west actually read enough of the Vedas to learn this, and of course as a theism it has plenty of bullshit mixed in with the gems.
rgb
P.S. -- And Lauren, permit me to say that your responses (I've read a number on other threads) are really brilliant, especially for a fifteen year old. I rarely bother to solicit students, but please consider Duke when you decide where to apply to college. You obviously are very well read and a deep thinker, and well on your way to being whatever you want to be one day.
Mod
If God exists, God is the Universe."
What does that last statement mean?
Mod
God IS everywhere. He is outside of time and space.
that means that if god is everything as the bible says then he is pain, and hell, and evil as well as all the good he is all the bad
Mod
Do you know where it says that in the Bible? Or did someone just tell you that?
hmmm I wonder if the Upandishads is on Gutenberg press...going back to a previous post which relates loosely to God and somewhat to death...
"So if I believe that Unicorns really exist than they will?"
Actually, if I believe unicorns exist, they do.
Well they exist to me anyway.
If you believe they don't, that doesn't poof them out of existence in my world.
perception is reality
You can up with a million ga jillion reasons unicorns don't exist. All those reasons are based on what you percieve to be true about the world.
Just because I don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there. I may not smell it, I may not hear it, I may not percieve it with any of the senses I have- that doesn't gaurentee it's nonexistence.
so what happens when we die? well what we have is reports from some people who claim they percieved to have been there and done that.
Jesus Christ comes immediately to mind. Supposedly He went there, hung out for like three days and then came back. His perception is a lot people's reality.
we don't exactly have a lot of scientific data
unfortunately lack of scientific data is not conclusive when it comes to proving something doesn't exist or doesn't happen. I think there's a double negative in there somewhere.
while the United States is secular, separation of church and state and all that, most of it's members claim a belief in something. Atheists while they do exist in the U.S. are a minority. I find this to be true in all the civilizations I know about. I have to qualify that because there a whole lot of civilizations past and present that exist and I hardly know all of them and although I haven't taken count, I probably don't know most of them.
You know, I haven't really taken a poll of the members of the South Pacific islands, the Amazon, the Sahara... I know what the government of Afgahnistan says, but I'm not really sure about it's people. They're not doing a lot of communicating to the U.S. I'd find safe to say they are predominately theists....
so what happens when we die?
What do you percieve?
"It is a logical proof that pantheism is the only rationally consistent religion. Note well that it is a conditional proof -- If (you wish to assert) God exists, then God must be identical to everything that exists or God must fail to have some property you wish to assign to God, in particular Omniscience and Omnipresence and Omnipotence."A being can't really have those 3 properties. Can God make a stone so heavy he cannot lift is type things.
lol bug windshield
"And Lauren, permit me to say that your responses (I've read a number on other threads) are really brilliant, especially for a fifteen year old. I rarely bother to solicit students, but please consider Duke when you decide where to apply to college. You obviously are very well read and a deep thinker, and well on your way to being whatever you want to be one day."
:DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD
DDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD dd d d d d D
"God IS everywhere. He is outside of time and space. "
Then he's not in space and time, now is he? Then he has no say in here.
"Just because I don't see it, doesn't mean it isn't there. I may not smell it, I may not hear it, I may not percieve it with any of the senses I have- that doesn't gaurentee it's nonexistence. "
So the unicorn is real, but invisible?
"while the United States is secular, separation of church and state and all that, most of it's members claim a belief in something. Atheists while they do exist in the U.S. are a minority."
Actually, we're the 3rd largest group in the US.
Oh, that last thought got me on to The Black Parade album, how they think Death comes however you want it to come.
Ninja wrote: God IS everywhere. He is outside of time and space.If God exists, God is everywhere, I agree. In fact, I proved it using reason, right there above. However, there is no empirical evidence that there exists a place that is "outside of time and space". Mind you, I'm perfectly happy to explore the possibility that spacetime is only part of the Universe, although making a statement that the part that isn't spacetime is "outside" of it isn't exactly accurate. "Outsides" in mathematics are generally defined in terms of a space and closed surfaces that partition it into a volume with an inside and an outside in the onespace, and spacetime would be a hypersurface itself in the postulated larger space. It would be a subspace, but the rest of space wouldn't be its "outside".
My point is that if such a larger space exists, God either "is" that entire larger space or God is not God, God is just a bigger version of us, existing subject to natural laws in a bigger nature than "just" spacetime. Otherwise, what is God using to think with? When and where is he when he's thinking? Does he have perfect knowledge of that time and place as well? If so, how could he have anything like "free will", which depends on entropy, that magical lack of knowledge that gives time its arrow and meaning even in this spacetime?
If God is composed of "stuff" in this larger Universe, what are the laws of that stuff?
The point is, these are all questions that -- sans the reference to God -- are legitimate questions in the study of physics and mathematics. Mathematics to the extent that one reasons on the basis of assumptions that cannot be proven and arrive at contingent truths. Physics to the extent that one has physical evidence to support the assertions, signs of agreement between a mathematical model and observation.
So what, exactly, are your assumptions that lead you to conclude that spacetime is necessarily embedded in a space of higher dimensionality, what is your empirical evidence that it is so embedded (so we should take your assumptions seriously) and what (if anything) have you been able to work out as the physics of that larger Universe?
Lauren: A being can't really have those 3 properties. Can God make a stone so heavy he cannot lift is type things.
Well, they can if and only if that being is the entire Universe. Then the statement is that things are as they are, which is manifestly non-contradictory. But I agree that only an idiot would make the word "omnipotent" include "is capable of doing contradictory things". I'm a firm believer in reason, and once you admit a contradiction into a theory, you can prove anything you like with "reason", making it unreason. So let's take it for granted that we can't do that.
So the unicorn is real, but invisible? Worse, according to the Bible, it is real and visible. Go figure.
The problem is that anything could exist and not be observed, if you postulate that it is invisible, right? So one needs a systematic way to separate out that small part of anything that is worthy of belief. Choices:
a) Believe it because it is in a book written by ignorant and superstitious Bronze Age tribespeople who thought that the sky was a solid bowl hung with little bitty lights through which God and Angels periodically poured rain onto a flat earth; or
b) Use our wits and our eyes and ears, and believe that which we can doubt the least, given the information. This means nearly completely doubting any assertion about "the way the world is put together" until one accumulates at least some concrete evidence that it is true, that is to say, empirical evidence, and maintaining at least some doubt even when the evidence appears overwhelming.
One asserts its perfect correctness, that one has to accept in spite of all contradiction with observation and experience, and threatens to burn those (like Galileo) that challenge those contradictions. It literally outlaws uses your common sense and your senses in favor of believing what you are told.
The other is imperfect and approximate, but self-correcting. One gets closer to truth the more one learns. The use of common sense and reason are openly encouraged. Mistakes are expected, but the methodology generally straightens things out eventually.
I know which one I prefer...
rgb
rgb
Lauren wrote: ""It is a logical proof that pantheism is the only rationally consistent religion. Note well that it is a conditional proof -- If (you wish to assert) God exists, then God must be identical to every..."sure why not it's a unicorn if you want it to exist it can exist
Mod
No, I mean outside in that he doesn't have to follow the rules of time. Time doesn't exist for Him. That's how he can be everywhere, with everyone, watching over everything.
How do you visualize that? Experiential change occurs in time, and involves a flow of entropy -- stuff you don't know (which is nearly everything about the rest of the Universe) entering the small part of everything that is "you" and causing changes that ultimately encode that experience as e.g. memory and thoughts and so on. So where, exactly is the source of entropy for God? What is he using in place of time when is isn't "following its rules" (that is, dynamically changing). Or is God stationary, static, unchanging?I rather like the latter as once again we're back to God = Universe (and hence is as unchanging as ALL of spacetime and any other higher dimensions it might be embedded in) but it does make it difficult for God to "act" or for there to be even the pretense of free will in the actions, doesn't it?
rgb
But then, why call the Universe God at all. The word God brings so much baggage from History, it'll get confusing. Like Einstein's "God" confuses people.
Mod
God is unchanging in his nature.
Questioning Society
Books mentioned in this topic
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (other topics)Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife (other topics)
The Lucifer Principle: A Scientific Expedition into the Forces of History (other topics)
The Upanishads (other topics)
