Afterlife?

I have some great photos of avocados. Do you think they might be art? Kind of hard to know without seeing them, I know, but I sure think their art.

N Sperlo wrote: I have some great photos of avocados. Do you think they might be art? Kind of hard to know without seeing them, I know, but I sure think their art.

I have an uncle named Art but he isn't.

I defy anyone to tell me this isn't Dolphin art:

In reply to Giant Purple Snorklewacker:

Tasty art. Thats what that is.

scardeal wrote: I've shown that there are objectively documented occurrences that contradict proven laws of nature. Such instances are called miracles. I'm talking about objective occurrences that can be proven or disproven. How is that circular?

The circular logic earlier was more involved with the animals/human debate.

However, you're taking things that Science can't explain, and attributing it to God or miracles, that's what I disagree with.

100 years ago did we know about the Higgs-Boson? But Science marches on, and continues to discover new things and explain the previously unexplainable.

Man, this discussion is going all over the damn place.

Otto Maddox wrote: Man, this discussion is going all over the damn place.

My sincere answer was on page one and things seemed to be going well there for a wee bit. I can't take credit for this flounderfest but I can take glee in riding it into to the ground.

Maybe we need the ability to set up a poll. You know - check box a for afterlife, b for no afterlife.

But we did have some interesting conversation about non-rotting people meat and the sentience of dolphins.

We laughed, we cried, and then at the end we all stood up and danced.

N Sperlo wrote: We laughed, we cried, and then at the end we all stood up and danced.

We were trained to laugh, cry and dance.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote:

N Sperlo wrote: We laughed, we cried, and then at the end we all stood up and danced.

We were trained to laugh, cry and dance.

LOLZ

My last response was lost in some networking hiccups, but it appears that everyone else has lost interest in the discussion.

I just want to leave some parting thoughts: truth is eternal. It does not change with the whims of popularity or disagreement. Either God exists or He does not. He cannot both exist and not exist. He cannot exist for me but not exist for you or vice versa. If there is an afterlife, it either exists or does not exist. It cannot exist for me but not for you. Our goals in life should be to seek truth and seek love. Love cannot exist without free will. Love is choosing the good for the other. As such, it needs to be free, for there is no choice without free will. It also needs to be in accord with truth, for choosing the good requires knowledge of what is good. Seek truth, seek love, and it will find you, in this life or the next.

... If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice....

WHOOOOO RUUUUUUSHHHH!

I'm a little late to the party, but I'll do my best to stick to the questions.

Do you believe there is an afterlife?

No.

If so, how do you justify/prove/believe in it?

I can't, which is precisely why I do not believe in it.

If not, how do you live day-to-day without completely breaking down?

This is an attitude I've heard before (in addition to the "Why be good?" version) and, frankly, I just don't understand it. What's so wrong with the idea that one short shot is all we get? Why WOULD I completely break down? Life is great, life is amazing, life is wonderful, even if I only get one. What's to break down about? I'm not rich, I'm not strong, I'm not handsome, I'm not a genius - but man, I enjoy the heck out of life. It sucks sometimes, yes. Bad things happen. People and things we love die. I'm probably more than halfway through my own life expectancy already, and anything could happen at any time to make that 100% through. But what's the point of agonizing about the inevitable instead of enjoying the current opportunity? Frankly, given how amazingly fortunate we are to be alive at all, I think that the wish for reincarnation or even just an eternal soul borders on downright greedy. Isn't one human lifetime enough**?

Looking for just a good conversation here, no need to dip into religion or try to convince anybody of one way or the other.

I'll try to be respectful and focus on my own positive feelings towards atheism and avoid commenting negatively about religion. I will just say that all the biblical bickering demonstrated here only convinces me more strongly that there is ZERO evidence in favor of either a supreme being / creator / god or an immortal human soul. Multiply that bickering by virtually every religion ever imagined (if not every individual believer) and the odds of any of it ever being right just get worse and worse. I find it amusing that many people of faith use the conflicting theories within the scientific community to discredit the scientific system. At least scientists can devise experiments to determine who is right! Try that with religion.

Of course, there is no evidence there is NOT a god of some form. There can't be, since it is logically impossible to prove something DOESN'T exist. But if that's your basis for faith, you must then literally believe in an infinite number of gods, because you can't prove any of them don't exist.

I'm done now on that part of the topic. On the positive side of my own personal atheism:

Yes, my life is as truly great to me as I say it is, no matter how flawed I am, no matter what bad or sad things happen to me and those I love. Why would it not be? Many people say they felt joy when they found Christ/God/Allah/etc as the director of their lives, and they seem to be expressing pity or sympathy that I do not share that joy. They seem unable to understand how you can be happy or moral without a god. My joy is all the greater to me, because I have found myself as the director of my own life.

Some people feel lost in the real world, and need the rock of religion to stand upon, to give them firm footing. There are many reasons people feel this way; some stemming from religion itself, some not. There are an infinite number of reasons people feel this way, but ultimately it boils down to their mistrust of their own mind and its ability to understand what their senses show them.

I, however, and others who I am like do not feel lost in the real world. We feel at home, and the world we see is firm enough footing for our minds to operate upon. To us, the 'rock' of religion is not something to stand upon, but an unnecessary burden to bear. It interferes with our perception of reality, and our living within that reality. The joy that they feel as the influence of Christ (or their chosen god) was opened up to me on the night that I realized I didn't need to accept that burden, or any burden, that I didn't choose to accept. I am free to determine what I want, what I will need to do in order to get it, and to act accordingly. If I fail to live up to the obligations I have accepted, then I am failing to be moral, because I am defrauding those I have agreed to be obligated to. This is simple logic and has nothing to do with an outside authority, be it god or law. It derives directly from individual human rights.

They speak of a great transformation - I too felt a great transformation that gave me great peace and joy. It was not the relief of handing over control of my life to someone or something else, but the relief of knowing that I control my own life, myself, and that I possess the tools required to make my own life happy and satisfying.

The more I learn that reality is real, that my existence exists, that I am entitled to that existence and that I am free to make the way I choose through that reality, the happier and more at peace I become. I too have great reserves to draw upon, but those reserves come from within, not from above. I gain strength from the knowledge that I am the final arbiter of what I value, and of what I am willing to trade to gain that value.

I am strong in direct proportion to the extent that I refuse to fake reality. If I steal, I am faking the reality that I have earned that money. If I lie, I am faking the truth. If I live with the final goal of a supernatural 'heaven', I am faking the idea that I do not have to determine my own morality. The more I do these things, the more I fake myself, and the weaker and unhappier I am. The more that I acknowledge reality, and my right to a place within reality, the stronger, happier, and more moral I become.

That is how I can be happy and moral without faith. That is what I want to teach my kids - I certainly don't think they need a faith to get this.

In reply to Duke:

I think one thing you fail to understand is that most people cannot fathom the idea of an endpoint. Its just like trying to fathom no start or end / eternal non-ending indisputable existence.

You, Sir may be one of those that can fathom the existence of an end. Good for you. I sure as hell can't.

A creator as director? I find myself as director. I don't think He steps in, but I believe there are powers at work beyond what is immediately tangible.

N Sperlo wrote: I find myself as director. I don't think He steps in, but I believe there are powers at work beyond what is immediately tangible.

Like Executive Producer, Stunt Coordinator, etc? And what the berkeley is a "Key Grip"?

scardeal wrote: The painting is not spontaneous, but something that a trainer trained them to do. I've heard of similar stories with apes. The dolphins were not spontaneous in their use of symbols, but they were trained to use them by the researchers/trainers.

You were not spontaneous in your use of language or writing. It was taught to you, but you are able to comprehend the use of an abstract symbol (either phonetic or physical) as representing an idea. You can combine these symbols to make new meanings for new things they encounter. The animals people have been most interested in studying language in are able to do the similar things at a cruder level.

Alex the parrot is an interesting example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_(parrot) He understood abstract concepts like, that an object (such as a key) was the same thing regardless of size. He could make comparisons between things, recognizing that two things had the same shape but different colors, for example.

With the painting, I'm sure the elephants were trained to some degree in how to paint. I'm certain they didn't just pick up a brush on their own and start making paintings. I don't know the full details. If they were trained in how to make every single brush stroke and just repeat that the same way every time, it's not impressive. But if they were trained that they could paint, and come up with their own paintings or even make artistic decisions on how to change what they're going to paint (even something as simple as, being trained to paint the shape of an elephant, but deciding to change the angle of the trunk), that's pretty impressive. I suspect it's more of the latter.

Giant Purple Snorklewacker wrote: Like Executive Producer, Stunt Coordinator, etc? And what the berkeley is a "Key Grip"?

He's the head of the crew that deals with lighting and moving cameras around. They do all the scaffolding, erector set type stuff so that the camera operators can achieve the shot the director wants.

Dolly grip?

Duke-

Excellent synopsis. You've had to explain that a time or two, I think.

I'm not going to link to it because it has cuss words in it, but another (way less diplomatic) viewpoint regarding what Duke is talking about is presented in Tim Minchin's poem "Storm". I suggest watching the the animated short movie version of it on YouTube.

N Sperlo wrote: You, Sir may be one of those that can fathom the existence of an end. Good for you. I sure as hell can't.

I'm sincerely curious - why not? If you rememeber what it was like before you were born, that's exactly what it's going to be like after you're dead.

@ Brett: thank you, and yes I have explained it a number of times. It comes out a little different each time, though.

Nobody talks so constantly about God as those who insist that there is no God. - Heywood Broun

Atheists express their rage against God although in their view He does not exist. - C.S. Lewis

“Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man ... living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.” George Carlin

We are all atheists about most of the gods that societies have ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. -Richard Dawkins