Is There Life After Death? A 2018 Discussion

originally posted by: Krazysh0t
a reply to: SaturnFX

Ghost stories are always interesting. While I remain skeptical, they can be among the harder stories to debunk. I do enjoy a good ghost story. It's like a puzzle trying to figure out what it is. Sometimes you can zero in on a rational explanation and other times you are left wondering.

Also, how can you enjoy lucid dreaming? It's like a bad acid trip...

Are you talking about vivid dreams?
I get those a lot..some are great, some are terrifying, and everything in between...those are the ones that are just soo real and clear when you wake up you nearly feel you were literally in a different dimension vs just dreaming...

A lucid dream is the dream when you suddenly realize that you are asleep, that your real body is in your bed, and this is a dreamland you are in...From that point on, you are in (somewhat) control of the dream...although the brain will continue to try and mess with you and make you forget. Nothing acid trippy about that...its like intense daydreaming, or the best VD system in the universe.


Insofar as ghost stories. Most ppl enjoy a good story...but stories are just that, stories. I remain skeptical of anyones story also, and if what happened to me was being told by someone else, I would be skeptical of that person also.
Odd situation to be in really when you have had what can only be described as paranormal events yet remain skeptical as a whole.

The problem with trying to find answers is that there is just soo much crazy out there that me as someone who was trying to find out more, and understand what happened, I was met with just a heaping pile of BS from every level...seems everyone wants to give a answer but its all the same crap...religion...crystal gazing...etc.
Thing is, I sort of reject mystical premises. I stopped asking others what they think because its all guessing anyhow.

originally posted by: angeldoll
It's something the individual has to experience personally. It's difficult to take someone else's word for it.

I have had an experience, three to be exact, that leaves no doubt in my mind. Not huge events, but enough.

I guess everyone has their own levels.

I have had 2 huge experiences and a bunch of tiny things and I am still with doubt, but far gone is dismissal.

a reply to: SaturnFX

Well I've done both things you are explaining. I've been dreaming and realized I was dreaming so I could control, but the freakier one is where you wake up and you are still in REM sleep and can't move your body at all.

The problem with trying to find answers is that there is just soo much crazy out there that me as someone who was trying to find out more, and understand what happened, I was met with just a heaping pile of BS from every level...seems everyone wants to give a answer but its all the same crap...religion...crystal gazing...etc.

Always be leery of someone claiming they can give you ALL the answers. No one has all the answers.

originally posted by: Skorpiogurl

originally posted by: Words
a reply to: Skorpiogurl

There is an afterlife, but only in the sense that you’ll live on in the memories of the people you’ve affected. That is more than enough reason to live morally and justly without the need to evoke magic and superstition.

So what's wrong with magic and superstition?

One is a lie, the 2nd has lead to murder and atrocity.

originally posted by: Words

originally posted by: Skorpiogurl

originally posted by: Words
a reply to: Skorpiogurl

There is an afterlife, but only in the sense that you’ll live on in the memories of the people you’ve affected. That is more than enough reason to live morally and justly without the need to evoke magic and superstition.

So what's wrong with magic and superstition?

One is a lie, the 2nd has lead to murder and atrocity.

Maybe you should just take a deep breath and not take things so seriously.
Sure you could look at it like that - lies and atrocities.
But you could also look at it like magic stimulating imagination, providing wonderment and laughter. Superstitions have provided incredible stories of folklore and in many cases has saved lives.
This isn't what this post is all about so I'll stop here

a reply to: Words

Actually IMO materialism is a lie and atheism has lead to the deaths of millions.

I've read a blog post which seems to debunk a book about the myth of the afterlife. Interesting reading. There's a short version and a large version of the post. Here's the link to the large version:

A Response to The Myth of an Afterlife

Um, yes.

"First law of thermodynamics – Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. It can only change forms."

/Thread

originally posted by: Words
One is a lie, the 2nd has lead to murder and atrocity.

Well, not always. And certainly not more than any "Constitution" you can name.

originally posted by: TheBandit795
a reply to: Words

Actually IMO materialism is a lie and atheism has lead to the deaths of millions.

Atheism is the non belief in deities
materialism is the belief that basically this is all their is.

What if I told you a person could be a spiritualist with a wide variety of suspicions, beliefs, etc and still be an atheist...

I would put religion and deity inspired death vs death specifically for the "cause" of progressing atheism any day of the week.

But both lead to the same...normally its about materialism..be it god requires your land and obedience, or the emperor needs it...either way, its all about taking your crap and making you bend or else.

originally posted by: TheBandit795
a reply to: Words

Actually IMO materialism is a lie and atheism has lead to the deaths of millions.

An anti-religious mind is as poisoned as the religious mind, in my humble opinion.

originally posted by: Skorpiogurl

originally posted by: Words

originally posted by: Skorpiogurl

originally posted by: Words
a reply to: Skorpiogurl

There is an afterlife, but only in the sense that you’ll live on in the memories of the people you’ve affected. That is more than enough reason to live morally and justly without the need to evoke magic and superstition.

So what's wrong with magic and superstition?

One is a lie, the 2nd has lead to murder and atrocity.

Maybe you should just take a deep breath and not take things so seriously.
Sure you could look at it like that - lies and atrocities.
But you could also look at it like magic stimulating imagination, providing wonderment and laughter. Superstitions have provided incredible stories of folklore and in many cases has saved lives.
This isn't what this post is all about so I'll stop here

Sure, I was perhaps overemphasizing the negative affects of holding false beliefs. I do like your take on it. Folklore and myth are meaningful.

a reply to: EternalShadow

"What is real? How do you define 'real'? If you're talking about what you can feel, what you can smell, what you can taste and see, then 'real' is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain." -'Morpheus' from 'The Matrix' film. 

I know it's just a movie, but a good point nevertheless. 

Since the brain ceases to function after death or dramatic injury or illness, when the lights go out, no more electrical signals, hence no more sensory input. 

After that, its anyone's guess.

Electrical signals interpreted to
perceive this world, this existence,
this reality. They have nothing to
with what is next. What is next is
perceived only by spirit. But what
is next is even more real.

a reply to: randyvs

In the words of Edgar Allen Poe:

Yes, organs are contrivances by which the individual is brought into sensible relation with particular classes and forms of matter, to the exclusion of other classes and forms...It is to the absence of idiosyncratic organs, therefore, that we must attribute the nearly unlimited perception of the ultimate life. To rudimental beings, organs are the cages necessary to confine them until fledged.

a reply to: LucidWarrior

I'm jealous cause Edgar says it with way more
big words. And eloquence.

I'm an uneducated Poe?

originally posted by: SaturnFX

originally posted by: TheBandit795
a reply to: Words

Actually IMO materialism is a lie and atheism has lead to the deaths of millions.

Atheism is the non belief in deities

Which usually goes hand in hand with materialism/physicalism.

materialism is the belief that basically this is all their is.

Which is shown to be wrong.

What if I told you a person could be a spiritualist with a wide variety of suspicions, beliefs, etc and still be an atheist...

Yeah that is possible.

I would put religion and deity inspired death vs death specifically for the "cause" of progressing atheism any day of the week.

I hope we reach to a point where hardly any or none of the two will exist.

But both lead to the same...normally its about materialism..be it god requires your land and obedience, or the emperor needs it...either way, its all about taking your crap and making you bend or else.

That's true.

originally posted by: TheBandit795
Which usually goes hand in hand with materialism/physicalism.

A lot of atheists arrived at that point through skepticism of religions to date. This skepticism also tends to carry on into many other areas of life...such as aliens, bigfoot, lochness monster, ghosts, etc...basically, its just a decision not to believe anything without some concrete evidence. for the most part, this is good...its what advanced society out of primitive thinking.

The problem, in my eyes, are gnostic atheists...people who *know* there are no such things as gods...and gnostic skeptics annoy me equally...they *know* there are no aliens, bigfoot, monsters, ghosts, etc. Both are intolerable jackasses...same with gnostic religious folks though who demand they know for fact that their god (Zeus for example) exists (yet can never prove it).

We are all privvy to pretty much the same evidence...and if there is any reasonable doubt, it should be considered as speculation...maybe a hypothesis...personal experience can't even really be considered hard evidence because we as people interpret things based on what is familiar to us.

Is materialism all there is? well, I personally doubt it..but it could be
Are we living in some hologram virtual reality? maybe..but no hard evidence is really convincing me yet.

And thats where we all are in this universe at the moment...all guessing and trying to piece things together. Believing fully in just materialism, or believing 100% in some religion is certainly easier on the brain...but its being intellectually dishonest on both parts.

I had experiences that disallow me to go full on materialism as the answer...however, I never had any encounter that turned me towards any religion (opposite in fact)...and I am full of questions...and oddly comfortable where I am with all that.

a reply to: RP2SticksOfDynamite

I believe there is life after death. Energy never dies, it becomes other things.

Energy and that's what we are only changes.

a reply to: SaturnFX

I think it's odd that an atheist can look at
a ferrari and not argue against it's design
or its designers existence.

Yet they can look at this universe all the
way down to the information stored in
the genome. And deny its design and its
everlasting to everlasting designer.

The evidence that atheism rejects as
evidence fills the universe. Frankly i think
its lunacy.

a reply to: randyvs

Right. The sunset for example, a wondrous thing of beauty, and yet- because of the understanding- some minds dismiss it as nothing more than water vapor collecting the lengthened beams of light... Or we say "I know, using the laws of physics, how the earth was formed, and the sun, and how life developed and is composed" and somehow, for some, that is explanation all by itself.

But in all reality, as you said, it'd be the exact same thing as looking at a Ferrari, and, because one understands the principles by which it was made, declaring it to have no designer.