Afterthought
Offline I have a question and was looking for some clarity on... Often the question about afterlife is posed to the atheist. My answer is there isn't one. I can remember some bits of my childhood but obviously nothing prior, also memory itself is not 100% I have many nights in my 20's I can barely remember for example. So it doesn't seem like a huge leap to recognize our minds not our "spirits" are responcible for memory, so when we die memory ends as it began. My assumption here is that the "Spirit" is the vessel that houses both thought and memory for the theist that believes in a spritual afterlife. If that is a false assumption please clarify.... Do theist that believe in a spiritual afterlife remember being born, their first steps, their first words, via this "spirit" or are their current memories bound by the mind? When does this spirit start to work and house "Memories" and "Thoughts", at time of death? Does the "spirit" exist before death and if so why doesn't it compensate for the inadaquacies of the mind then, and start working?
Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs
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I think generally the spirit only kicks in after death. It doesn't get involved in physical world matters.So you might remember that stuff when you're in heaven.
That's my ex-xtian opinion anyway.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
If the soul/spirit has no memory, thought or sapience what's it's purpose of existing in a material being? If it doesn't do anything until you die what value does it bring?
Your mind will answer most questions if you learn to relax and wait for the answer. - William S. Burroughs
It connects you to god.While you're here it acts a gateway to communicate with and experience him.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
I think it's a much better procedure to first establish the existence of a thing or phenomenon before working out particulars and properties of that thing or phenomenon.
What makes you think there's such a thing as a soul or spirit? That is, where's the evidence?
Everything about the mind is well explained by what we know of the brain and emergent systems. The soul is as important a hypothesys to human intelligence as god is to cosmology.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
Wouldn't be many discussions around here if we couldn't talk about things that don't exist.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
My point being, of course (silleh fellah) that the argument will make more sense comming from the other direction.
"Anyone can repress a woman, but you need 'dictated' scriptures to feel you're really right in repressing her. In the same way, homophobes thrive everywhere. But you must feel you've got scripture on your side to come up with the tedious 'Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve' style arguments instead of just recognising that some people are different." - Douglas Murray
What was Samuel Clemmons quote on this very subject? "I will think of life after death the same way I thought about my life the billions of years that occured before I was born. Nothing."
I am sure the wording is not exact but the sentiment, his and mine are the same.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
I think the wording is more like ' I don't fear death.I was dead for billions of years before I was born and it didn't inconvience me the slightest.' Anyway,great quote.I use it alot.
Another good one:
When you know a man's religious complexion, you know what sort of books he reads when he wants some more light, and what sort of books he avoids, lest by accident he get more light than he wants.
Psalm 14:1 "the fool hath said in his heart there is a God"-From a 1763 misprinted edition of the bible
Argument from Sadism: Theist presents argument in a wall of text with no punctuation and wrong spelling. Atheist cannot read and is forced to concede.
I always think in terms of energy...
Often, those who believe in an afterlife posit that the mind retains coherance after death, floating off to some ill defined nether realm.
I look at a plain old incandescent lightbulb. When I switch it off, it goes off. The energy that excited the carbon molecules to incandescence bleeds off into the room as heat, and disipates. There is not a host of little spectral light bulbs hovering around my ceiling.
In the same way, the physical matrix of the brain contains the biochemical and electrical patterns that are thought, mind, memory and personality. When that matrix is shut off by death, the biochemical processes stop, the electrical impulses stop, and excess energy bleed off into the room as the body comes to thermal equilibrium. There is no reason to assume that the patterns that make up the 'person' retain any type of coherence. No mechanism explains a way it COULD survive physical death.
Wishful thinking, fear of death not withstanding, when we die, we are really and truely dead. Live now, make the most of what you have because this is all you will ever have.
LC >;-}>
Christianity: A disgusting middle eastern blood cult, based in human sacrifice, with sacraments of cannibalism and vampirism, whose highest icon is of a near naked man hanging in torment from a device of torture.
Even better is that you're not actually the same person you were when you were a child. I don't mean personality-wise, I mean replacement parts-wise. You've regenerated enough times so that you're actually an entirely different person, cell-by-cell. So what goes to heaven? A kind of "personal-best soul", as Barbara Ehrenreich put it in Nickel and Dimed, or a kind of whispy somethingness of yourself, devoid of personality?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Conveniently, I've already written an in-depth essay on the subject of life after death and finding meaning in this life:
For New Atheists: Is This Really All There Is?
In it, I deal with the logical argument against life after death and NDEs (Near Death Experiences), also explaining the difference between clinical and brain death.
Towards the end, I discuss what "meaning" in life actually means, and if there is any way to find it.
Enjoy.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Oh, one really important point about interpreting the evidence for consciousness after death. Note that there has never, ever, ever been a single case of a person coming back from brain death. Not one. The only way for you to come "back to life" after dying is if you weren't completely dead. The heart can stop for a long time, particularly if the body is chilled. Warm the stiff back up, put some electricity through him, and with any luck, Lassie's work will not be in vain.
Once electricity stops zipping through the brain, there's no coming back.
The evidence is overwhelming. No display of consciousness has ever been observed unless there was still brain activity. If someone is ever completely brain dead and comes back, we might have to rethink things, but as of right now, billions of dead people can't be wrong. Brain death is the end of consciousness.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I only mention this to throw you into a fit of rage, but there's this guy
But then, I figure he was brain dead before he died. He was doing wheelies on an ATV without a helmet. Maybe that's what the doctor meant.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence