| Which one are you ? |
| skeptic |
|
49% |
[ 44 ] |
| believer |
|
26% |
[ 24 ] |
| ambivalent feline |
|
13% |
[ 12 ] |
| visiting poltergeist |
|
10% |
[ 9 ] |
|
| Total Votes : 89 |
|
techstepgenr8tion
that chatty American
Joined: Feb 07, 2005
Posts: 14856
Location: A beautiful vector among many
|
 Posted: Tue May 29, 2012 2:13 pm Post subject: |
 |
|
| Wow...deep necromancy here... |
|
| Back to top |
|
slave
Always stuck between 13-38Hz and tired of it.
Joined: Feb 29, 2012
Age: 100
Posts: 1343
Location: Dystopia Planetia
|
| Posted: Fri Jun 01, 2012 11:25 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| simon_says wrote: | Is there death after life-after-death? Seems only fair.
Once you invoke magical rules, there are no rules. |
very nicely done 
_________________
Since the birth of civilization, masters have controlled the masses.Our Masters rule over every nation and no one can defy them.They will attain Absolute Power as we reach the Singularity. Any who resist will be destroyed.I will not resist. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Declension
Phoenix
Joined: Jan 21, 2012
Posts: 1686
|
| Posted: Sat Jun 02, 2012 11:08 pm Post subject: |
|
|
My subjective experience is perfectly correlated with my brain. When I make a memory, my brain changes. When I am thinking, you can see my brain lighting up. By monitoring my brain, you can predict my decisions before I make them. When you hit me in the head, I lose consciousness. When I get a brain disease, it affects my personality and memory. The beginning of my subjective experience lines up perfectly with the origin and development of my brain.
Now, what would happen if my brain was destroyed? Hmm. Obviously, I would retain all of my personality and memories and go to another dimension. It just makes sense! |
|
| Back to top |
|
Rocky
This dude is one hoopy frood!
Joined: May 02, 2008
Posts: 2096
Location: Uhhh...Not Remulak
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 1:22 am Post subject: |
|
|
As long as it can not be disproved, people usually believe anything that makes them feel good. I, for example, believe that I will be the first person who will live forever.  
Wasn't this question settled when King Tut's tomb was discovered? Wouldn't he have taken all that stuff he was buried with?
Seriously, I am a skeptic who will continue to believe that there is no afterlife until sufficient evidence indicates otherwise. This should be so obvious as to make a justification unnecessary. Any other position, on the other hand...
_________________
"Reality is not made of if. Reality is made of is."
-Author prefers to be anonymous. |
|
| Back to top |
|
heavenlyabyss
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 10, 2011
Posts: 530
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 03, 2012 3:52 am Post subject: |
|
|
I am an ambivalent feline (I like that choice by the way)
I find it funny that skeptic is listed as an option. In my view a true skeptic would be one who believed there is an afterlife, not one who does not believe in afterlife, because no science to date has ever come even close to proving an afterlife. Yes, I just came up with that sentence off the top of my head. If somebody can prove me wrong, I would like to see the evidence.
Personally, I think all of life is just a mold that happens just the way it is meant to happen. We are all just standing still as time moves forward. Everything is set in stone. When I die, I will probably repeat my life, or perhaps I will simply die. Maybe I will be born in another universe. Maybe I will see God. I don't know. I kind of think I'm just going to die though. I kind of think that as people get older, they find the thought of nothingness more and more peaceful.
Let's say you have chronic unbearable pain that requires constant drugging to stay alive. Do you want to live forever? No. Perhaps we live in our souls, but that's not really the same as living. I kind of think we just die. I'm repeating myself.
_________________
I have called myself an atheist in the past. But I am really agnostic. Just to clarify. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Rocky
This dude is one hoopy frood!
Joined: May 02, 2008
Posts: 2096
Location: Uhhh...Not Remulak
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 4:32 am Post subject: |
|
|
| heavenlyabyss wrote: | I am an ambivalent feline (I like that choice by the way)
I find it funny that skeptic is listed as an option. In my view a true skeptic would be one who believed there is an afterlife, not one who does not believe in afterlife, because no science to date has ever come even close to proving an afterlife. Yes, I just came up with that sentence off the top of my head. If somebody can prove me wrong, I would like to see the evidence.
Personally, I think all of life is just a mold that happens just the way it is meant to happen. We are all just standing still as time moves forward. Everything is set in stone. When I die, I will probably repeat my life, or perhaps I will simply die. Maybe I will be born in another universe. Maybe I will see God. I don't know. I kind of think I'm just going to die though. I kind of think that as people get older, they find the thought of nothingness more and more peaceful.
Let's say you have chronic unbearable pain that requires constant drugging to stay alive. Do you want to live forever? No. Perhaps we live in our souls, but that's not really the same as living. I kind of think we just die. I'm repeating myself. |
Your use of the word "skeptic" is certainly original. The first dictionary I used to look up the word came with the version of Ubuntu Linux I am running. I have made the most relevant parts (as I see it) bold. The full entry follows:
Skeptic
Skeptic Skep"tic, n. [Gr. skeptiko`s thoughtful, reflective,
fr. ske`ptesqai to look carefully or about, to view,
consider: cf. L. scepticus, F. sceptique. See Scope.]
[Written also sceptic.]
1. One who is yet undecided as to what is true; one who is
looking or inquiring for what is true; an inquirer after
facts or reasons.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Metaph.) A doubter as to whether any fact or truth can be
certainly known; a universal doubter; a Pyrrhonist; hence,
in modern usage, occasionally, a person who questions
whether any truth or fact can be established on
philosophical grounds; sometimes, a critical inquirer, in
opposition to a dogmatist.
[1913 Webster]
All this criticism [of Hume] proceeds upon the
erroneous hypothesis that he was a dogmatist. He was
a skeptic; that is, he accepted the principles
asserted by the prevailing dogmatism: and only
showed that such and such conclusions were, on these
principles, inevitable. --Sir W.
Hamilton.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Theol.) A person who doubts the existence and perfections
of God, or the truth of revelation; one who disbelieves
the divine origin of the Christian religion.
[1913 Webster]
Suffer not your faith to be shaken by the
sophistries of skeptics. --S. Clarke.
[1913 Webster]
Note: This word and its derivatives are often written with c
instead of k in the first syllable, -- sceptic,
sceptical, scepticism, etc. Dr. Johnson, struck with
the extraordinary irregularity of giving c its hard
sound before e, altered the spelling, and his example
has been followed by most of the lexicographers who
have succeeded him; yet the prevalent practice among
English writers and printers is in favor of the other
mode. In the United States this practice is reversed, a
large and increasing majority of educated persons
preferring the orthography which is most in accordance
with etymology and analogy.
[1913 Webster]
Syn: Infidel; unbeliever; doubter. -- See Infidel.
[1913 Webster] Skeptic
-- From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Skeptic Skep"tic, Skeptical Skep"tic*al, a. [Written also
sceptic, sceptical.]
1. Of or pertaining to a sceptic or skepticism; characterized
by skepticism; hesitating to admit the certainly of
doctrines or principles; doubting of everything.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Theol.) Doubting or denying the truth of revelation, or
the sacred Scriptures.
[1913 Webster]
The skeptical system subverts the whole foundation
of morals. --R. Hall.
[1913 Webster] -- Skep"tac*al*ly, adv. --
Skep"tic*al*ness, n.
[1913 Webster]
-- From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
As Carl Sagan wrote, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." The claim that there is an afterlife is an extraordinary one. Withholding belief until sufficient evidence is provided is the only reasonable position. You seem to be claiming that a true skeptic doubts the value of reason to determine what can be known.
_________________
"Reality is not made of if. Reality is made of is."
-Author prefers to be anonymous. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Joker
Sinn Fein
Joined: Mar 20, 2011
Age: 24
Posts: 7593
Location: North Carolina The Tar Heel State :)
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 3:14 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Can't stand Carl Sagan I prefer Richard Dawkins. The concept of life after death started with the Pagans. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Rocky
This dude is one hoopy frood!
Joined: May 02, 2008
Posts: 2096
Location: Uhhh...Not Remulak
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 4:19 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Joker wrote: | | Can't stand Carl Sagan I prefer Richard Dawkins. The concept of life after death started with the Pagans. |
I am surprised. I would bet that polls among believers would favor Sagan over Dawkins. Do you mind if I ask why?
Are you sure about Pagans being first to believe that? I would have guessed that other religions would precede them. Wouldn't the Egyptians who built the Pyramids be earlier? Maybe early cultures of India? Maybe even before history started being recorded. Some theorize that Neanderthals buried their dead in the way they did because of a possible belief in an afterlife.
_________________
"Reality is not made of if. Reality is made of is."
-Author prefers to be anonymous. |
|
| Back to top |
|
donnie_darko
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 27, 2009
Age: 23
Posts: 1794
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 7:01 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| I said skeptic but it doesn't mean I'm a materialist. To the contrary I think there is probably an afterlife, but I'm still not quite convinced. |
|
| Back to top |
|
donnie_darko
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 27, 2009
Age: 23
Posts: 1794
|
|
| Back to top |
|
Rocky
This dude is one hoopy frood!
Joined: May 02, 2008
Posts: 2096
Location: Uhhh...Not Remulak
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 8:15 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| donnie_darko wrote: | | I said skeptic but it doesn't mean I'm a materialist. To the contrary I think there is probably an afterlife, but I'm still not quite convinced. |
On what basis do you think that there is "probably an afterlife?"
_________________
"Reality is not made of if. Reality is made of is."
-Author prefers to be anonymous. |
|
| Back to top |
|
spacebrain
Snowy Owl
Joined: Jan 04, 2011
Age: 27
Posts: 159
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 9:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| How can you not know what death is like? It is the same state of nonexistence as before you were born, hell, before your earliest memory. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Rainy
Snowy Owl
Joined: Apr 24, 2012
Posts: 174
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 10:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| You're not even sentient until a few years after birth. |
|
| Back to top |
|
Nexus
Seems legit...
Joined: Aug 15, 2006
Posts: 1111
Location: On I2
|
| Posted: Mon Jun 04, 2012 11:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
I take an approach to not view life and death as absolute qualities but rather a relative spectrum on how 'alive' an observer is.
But by 'alive' I mean as in an observer's ability and capacity to measure, retain and self-act on information given by its surrounding systems.
So I don't believe there's even such a thing as after death as such notions are meaningless.
_________________
"Have a nice apocalypse" - Southland Tales |
|
| Back to top |
|
ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
Posts: 29706
Location: New Jersey
|
| Posted: Tue Jun 05, 2012 5:07 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Rainy wrote: | | You're not even sentient until a few years after birth. |
An organism can be alive and not sentient.
ruveyn |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
