If the human mind survives death, then you will eventually embrace a god

It's been culturally programmed into you that [eternal human existence = the proven existence of God] regardless of how it's been specifically nuanced, and regardless of how diffused the programming has been carried out. The simple presence of so many versions of the exact same core concept - patiently and passively established as central to the ongoing definition of what it means to be human - has succeeded in establishing God (or a central godlike authority presence of some sort) as concretely associated with the survival of the human mind once death has taken the body and brain. The theist-atheist debate notwithstanding, each member of Earth's human race is preprogrammed to ultimately submit to the authority of whatever "god" it is that will be individually presented to him or her upon the inevitable realization that death does not bring with it consciousness annihilation.

Even those who embrace metaphysicism (occultists, transcendentalists, New Agers, and whatever it is that anyone can possibly embrace that's a severe departure from the nonsecular norm) are putty in the hands of a gentle, reassuring presence once the afterlife landscape has proven itself to be anomalous enough for a reasonable explanation to be in order. From there. even the most traditional explanation will seem to be proven beyond the shadow of any doubt, and without much effort, since the principle cultural connection between the human being and post-corporeal existence has been - for every culture that's ever embraced the concept of post-corporeal survival - the existence of the god authority, regardless of how it's been specifically depicted.

Strident atheism is finitely based on and dependent on the materialist claim that there is no conscious survival of corporeal death, so those folks are the easiest to transition once it's become obvious that they still exist after having watched their corpses get loaded into the meat wagon and taken to be examined for cause of death. I would imagine that the shock of it all, followed by the understanding and reassuring transition counselor who arrives to clarify the situation, is pretty persuasive as the once-confident atheist is coming to grips with the fact that oblivion did not erase all doubts as to whether God exists or not.

It goes without saying that agnostics, as well as those folks who simply never bothered to give any of this a second thought, will easily slip into whatever the presented reality narrative happens to suggest, which leaves us with 0% of human beings who will be immune to the overwhelming reeducation process that will be there when we each slip the surly bonds of Earth all alone, put out our hand, and touch the face of whatever it is that sits there awaiting our touch.

The bitch is that what's needed is way to completely disconnect an ethereal authority figure from the inescapable fact that each of us will survive this material phase of our human existence, and while it may be virtually (maybe even literally) impossible to accomplish that for the human beings that presently populate Earth, there are future generations of human beings that can be considered as potentially immune to this cross-cultural pandemic. But not if a cure isn't discovered and aggressively instituted.

Atheism isn't that cure, since atheism is still God-centered. The idea of God (or a god or a central conscious authority of some sort) has to be completely disconnected from the question of life after death, and atheism doesn't do this. It (for the most part) makes the life after death question central to the question of whether an ethereal conscious authority exists or doesn't exist. Sadly, all it takes for conversion in that case is the simple continuation of conscious existence, which won't be debatable at all once the atheist survives the death of the brain.


The theists seem to have the upper hand in our little planet's community of human beings. I sure hope that whomever it is that's established this brilliant marketing process has our best interests at heart.

reply to post by NorEaster


Then there is the possibility that many will be unable to remain aware during the transition phase following corporeal death and will simply be transferred into a new body in the form of a gestating foetus in a mother's womb.

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by NorEaster

 

Then there is the possibility that many will be unable to remain aware during the transition phase following corporeal death and will simply be transferred into a new body in the form of a gestating foetus in a mother's womb.

um...no

That won't happen. The contextual isolation that is achieved by the gestating human being during its corporeal stage of development makes that transition to a new, and contextually prohibitive physical association with a new gestational placenta/brain literally impossible. This is not to suggest that the human mind - upon the death of the brain - can't convince itself that it has made such a transition, but it's illusory, and the ultimate confrontation with the god/authority figure will simply be delayed.

The intellectual work-arounds are plentiful, and yet, it all ends up with that inevitable confrontation. It's unavoidable.

reply to post by NorEaster


So what is the cure?

Originally posted by Covertblack
reply to post by NorEaster

 

So what is the cure?

Education. The actual physics of how and why the human being survives corporeal brain death has to be firmly defined and culturally established. Anything else will be easily countered after the transition by the folks whose business it is to handle the post-transition education process. The unproven negative won't be enough.

Originally posted by NorEaster

Originally posted by Covertblack
reply to post by NorEaster

 

So what is the cure?

Education. The actual physics of how and why the human being survives corporeal brain death has to be firmly defined and culturally established. Anything else will be easily countered after the transition by the folks whose business it is to handle the post-transition education process. The unproven negative won't be enough.

My question is, what is so detrimental to believing an afterlife exists because of God?

reply to post by NorEaster


I am not sure what you mean by contextual isolation, but it would seem that an identity divested of its physical limitation will be attracted inexorably towards its strongest attachments, which in the first instance is the form of the mother person within whose womb it is "born again".

In life, as in death, we go where our attachments lie. This is why there is such an emphasis on detachment in many spiritual and religious disciplines. If the mind has no strong bonds in this world, then it is naturally drawn to a non-physical existence where it may, indeed, have an opportunity to realise the gods of mankind's belief systems.

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by NorEaster

 

I am not sure what you mean by contextual isolation, but it would seem that an identity divested of its physical limitation will be attracted inexorably towards its strongest attachments, which in the first instance is the form of the mother person within whose womb it is "born again".

In life, as in death, we go where our attachments lie. This is why there is such an emphasis on detachment in many spiritual and religious disciplines. If the mind has no strong bonds in this world, then it is naturally drawn to a non-physical existence where it may, indeed, have an opportunity to realise the gods of mankind's belief systems.

edit on 24-4-2013 by mysticnoon because: (no reason given)

I've been told by mystics, not going to state my opinion of them here, that you have a period of reflection and learning after you die. Not just thrown into another body. Who knows?

reply to post by Covertblack


Yes, I have also heard this, but remember that this after-death state is beyond our space/time matrix, so from our Earth's point of view only an instant of time may have passed.

reply to post by NorEaster


I have a feeling you're only teasing us with a mere page of a more comprehensive work. You haven't explained how consciousness survives death, but I know you're not one to assert without having at least reasoned it first, so I'm left only with the surface skin, the tip of an iceberg so to speak and a wanting for more.

Supposing that consciousness (something still as elusive as big foot in the philosophy of mind, a dangerous topic) survives death, it would seem likely that whatever God concept, or whatever theory they had about the afterlife, would persist along with the consciousness.

In bodily death, or the continuation of consciousness after death, would there be any way to change one's mind in regards to his afterlife without the senses to learn from? Or would he be stuck in an infinite loop of sorts?

Very interesting stuff.

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by NorEaster

 

I am not sure what you mean by contextual isolation, but it would seem that an identity divested of its physical limitation will be attracted inexorably towards its strongest attachments, which in the first instance is the form of the mother person within whose womb it is "born again".

Interestingly enough, this often does happen, resulting in what many have decided is groups of "spirit guides".

In life, as in death, we go where our attachments lie. This is why there is such an emphasis on detachment in many spiritual and religious disciplines. If the mind has no strong bonds in this world, then it is naturally drawn to a non-physical existence where it may, indeed, have an opportunity to realise the gods of mankind's belief systems.

This is the plan. And if there are people who have been able to establish themselves as "gods" in the afterlife, then this programmed belief (that such gods exist IF an afterlife exists) makes it easy to gather acolytes as they begin the effort to orient themselves to their new environs. Religion, deism, theism, atheism, mysticism, spiritualism, occultism, and all the many "isms" that are predicated on the idea that human afterlife and an ethereal authority figure "soften the battlefield" (a common marketing term that's used to describe "soft marketing" efforts that are not direct or sales-focused) for the direct "sales" effort that occurs once the mind has realized that it has survived the death transition. And with human devotion the sole assigner of intrinsic value in existence, the reason for such an effort should be fairly obvious.

Currency is that which the users of currency have agreed upon as having intrinsic value. It takes that agreement to create the value that will be universally regarded as intrinsic, and deeply ingrained devotion - as a result of deliberate and relentless programming of the human mind while it's being physically gestated - is the surest way to ensure that what has been established as universally valuable will remain universally agreed upon as intrinsically valuable. In short, it takes cultural conditioning to keep currency stable.

Human beings initiate in the material realm, and they bring their conditioning into the eternal realm with them. There is currency of some sort in the afterlife - some form of granting power and hierarchical importance that a relative few enjoy and that all support. It's programmed into each of us while we're here to support that currency (that unquestioned devotion to the inevitably "revealed divinity" after all "questions have been answered") and the hierarchical structure that exists because of it, and it's this false connection between human death survival and the existence of an ethereal authority's role in that survival that ensures that this hierarchical structure is maintained.

That said, the connection is false, as is the notion that such omnipotent ethereal authorities exist. They are human. Just like the authorities that exist on this side of the divide. People don't change as a result of corporeal death. Only their point of perspective changes, A person stays exactly who they became as a result of the life they lived. Good people. Bad people. And especially ambitious people.

Originally posted by LesMisanthrope
reply to post by NorEaster

 

I have a feeling you're only teasing us with a mere page of a more comprehensive work. You haven't explained how consciousness survives death, but I know you're not one to assert without having at least reasoned it first, so I'm left only with the surface skin, the tip of an iceberg so to speak and a wanting for more.

A new-ish theory concerning sapient consciousness is that it is the emergent system of the confluence that is the human brain's survival ensuring processes, the ongoing event trajectory of the human brain's existence as a whole, and the instant to instant response/reaction stimuli that is introduced to that brain within the material and informational environment. My own progression of this theory is that this emergent system is a hybrid form of information that initiates activity in response to incoming stimuli, and also pitches in (as the action-item information that it is) to better manage the ongoing development of the information whole that continues to gather as the brain continues to exist and serve the survival needs of the human material being throughout its life time.

This ongoing development of the unique hybrid (information and activity) whole is the difference between sentience and sapience, and ultimately is what most modern cultures describe as the human mind. Fully self aware. And as physical information - with no half-life rate of physical decay - when the brain dies, it persists by default. Still self aware, and literally indestructible. A human "spirit".

Supposing that consciousness (something still as elusive as big foot in the philosophy of mind, a dangerous topic) survives death, it would seem likely that whatever God concept, or whatever theory they had about the afterlife, would persist along with the consciousness.

The resulting informational whole - the human being - would be a true composite of what the person believed, disbelieved, accepted, and rejected, and in representative contextual percentages, sort of in the same way that a mixture of different juices into one container would feature contextual percentages of each contributing juice type, even as the whole itself would be a unique concoction in its own right. And just like that juice mixture, the blending would be permanent.

In bodily death, or the continuation of consciousness after death, would there be any way to change one's mind in regards to his afterlife without the senses to learn from? Or would he be stuck in an infinite loop of sorts?

Without the authoring brain (it's now dead, and no other brain can replace it as the author - it's an internal vs relative context issue that can't be resolved) the eternal human being is what it is, but that doesn't have to restrict that human being to an extremely finite response to what it's been presented with once it has transitioned. If the human being has allowed for adjustments, while its brain was building it as the "generated" informational whole that it is, then those adjustments are definitely available. It depends on how strident the human embraced each limitation (faith) it was taught to embrace, and that's the real scary part of all of this. Some people - while certainly aware that others have embraced alternative reality narratives - have never allowed such foolishness to be anything but evidence of the sort of evil that exists to destroy the souls of weak and recalcitrant people. These people wold probably be stranded within the imposed reality paradigm indefinitely - which could be a good thing for them, I suppose.

Very interesting stuff.

It can get pretty amazing. You have no idea what sits beneath this and allows you to factor it all out to a virtual certainty. It can be absolutely breathtaking in its complexity.

Originally posted by NorEaster

Originally posted by mysticnoon
reply to post by NorEaster

 

Then there is the possibility that many will be unable to remain aware during the transition phase following corporeal death and will simply be transferred into a new body in the form of a gestating foetus in a mother's womb.

um...no

That won't happen. The contextual isolation that is achieved by the gestating human being during its corporeal stage of development makes that transition to a new, and contextually prohibitive physical association with a new gestational placenta/brain literally impossible. This is not to suggest that the human mind - upon the death of the brain - can't convince itself that it has made such a transition, but it's illusory, and the ultimate confrontation with the god/authority figure will simply be delayed.

The intellectual work-arounds are plentiful, and yet, it all ends up with that inevitable confrontation. It's unavoidable.

You beguile me with intellectualosity!

I wish I understood 1/10th of what you are saying though ;(

reply to post by NorEaster


Has anyone ever seen a 'human mind'? It's an idea, a concept. No one has ever seen a 'mind'.
Can you see a mind?
What do you experience as 'mind'?

This is not true for all people NorEaster.

Some of us understand God to be omnipresent which means that we will know that if we see "A" God, then it is just a powerful spirit - a deception for authority/control.


An omnipresent God means that "God" is within all.

Originally posted by Itisnowagain
reply to post by NorEaster

 

Has anyone ever seen a 'human mind'? It's an idea, a concept. No one has ever seen a 'mind'.
Can you see a mind?
What do you experience as 'mind'?

Seen a human mind? Have you ever seen a breeze?

No you have never seen a breeze, but you've seen the impact of a breeze upon something that cannot hide from you. You've felt the impact of a breeze on your skin. You can't see electricity either. You can't see gravity. There's a lot that exists that can't be perceived.

Originally posted by NorEaster
The bitch is that what's needed is way to completely disconnect an ethereal authority figure from the inescapable fact that each of us will survive this material phase of our human existence, and while it may be virtually (maybe even literally) impossible to accomplish that for the human beings that presently populate Earth, there are future generations of human beings that can be considered as potentially immune to this cross-cultural pandemic. But not if a cure isn't discovered and aggressively instituted.

What's so impossible about having experiences continue after bodily death while also not having God as part of the equation? The Buddhists haven't had a problem with it for roughly 2500 years. Their cure is that our experiences now, in the past, and in the future, are our creators. Consciousness creates reality, both our present physical reality on Earth and any future realities we might experience after death.
No God needed.

Originally posted by arpgme
This is not true for all people NorEaster.

Some of us understand God to be omnipresent which means that we will know that if we see "A" God, then it is just a powerful spirit - a deception for authority/control.


An omnipresent God means that "God" is within all.

I think you're completely prepped for transition. Here's to hoping that you're happy with what awaits you in the afterlife. Believe me, when you are confronted with whatever overwhelming "truth" awaits you, you'll have been waiting all along for what's presented to you. Your life and your reality view isn't a secret. From what is already common access residual data on you, the perception triggers will be easily configured from a very well-worn and thoroughly established variation of the all-powerful ethereal authority narrative, and it'll go like rote check-in. Like simple filling out the forms for in-processing. For you it'll be like a miracle. Especially with your confidence in how the whole of this is structured. Hell, why have you perceiving anything other than what you absolutely expect? As long as you're checked in and dutifully slipped into the slot that's been prepared for you, why not let you believe you've won the race?

Ever see The Matrix? It's not about human batteries. It's about raw numbers and the power that raw numbers of devoted human beings gives in power to the net object of that devotion. And there are many humans competing with each other for raw totals, and just as many hierarchical structures that exist around these extremely well established "gods". The totals are currency. Simple human devotion, with that devotion represented as permanent residual information sets within this one shared contextual environment, with the largest totals reigning supreme over the lesser totals. Winners over losers.

And it's just that simple.

Hell, what else are permanent human beings going to fight over? Food?

Originally posted by Covertblack
My question is, what is so detrimental to believing an afterlife exists because of God?

There's no evidence. No basis for which an After-life or god could be presumed to exist in the first place beyond what other people have stated or written.

for no reason you're placing your energy into a black hole where it dissolves pointlessly.

reply to post by NorEaster

Excellent.
No way I could know if you're right or wrong...but you put it so well, I don't really care.
Well - I do care. But...as you've probably gathered - I'm marking the thread to come back to, later.
Thanks!