Life After Death [modified]
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John Carson wrote:
we have no idea how
Yes we do :)
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. Me blog, You read
You think you do.
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http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/life-after-death.htm[^] Living to expand your consciousness... Sounds like a plan. I like how he sees the physical as dust animated with consciousness. Also how he states that doubt can never lead to certainty, only more doubt. It amazes me how much bullshit exists in our everyday lives because people do not honestly face our own mortality.
modified on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 8:35 AM
I liked "One perspective I took was the perspective of being already dead.", although he could have explored that further. :suss:
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http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/life-after-death.htm[^] Living to expand your consciousness... Sounds like a plan. I like how he sees the physical as dust animated with consciousness. Also how he states that doubt can never lead to certainty, only more doubt. It amazes me how much bullshit exists in our everyday lives because people do not honestly face our own mortality.
modified on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 8:35 AM
I was right with him up to the point where he wrote "There was no externally right or wrong answer." which of course undermines everything else he says and invalidates his entire argument. He's a post modern relativist, i.e. functionally insane by choice and therefore by his own reasoning everything he says is meaniningless outside the context of himself. Very, very sad. :sigh:
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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I was right with him up to the point where he wrote "There was no externally right or wrong answer." which of course undermines everything else he says and invalidates his entire argument. He's a post modern relativist, i.e. functionally insane by choice and therefore by his own reasoning everything he says is meaniningless outside the context of himself. Very, very sad. :sigh:
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
I'm just trying to expand my mind and help us figure out why people exist and what happens when we die. Everything he says is not meaningless. Pleas don't hijack this thread with your agenda.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
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I liked "One perspective I took was the perspective of being already dead.", although he could have explored that further. :suss:
True. I wonder, if our consciousnesses survive, how will they interact and communicate?
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
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ToddHileHoffer wrote:
Living to expand your consciousness... Sounds like a plan. I like how he sees the physical as dust animated with consciousness. Also how he states that doubt can never lead to certainty, only more doubt.
Personally, I found it embarrassingly lame. My take: in the unlikely event that consciousness survives death, we have no idea how, if at all, our behaviour while alive affects our consciousness after death. Accordingly, we have no rational basis for modifying our behaviour in order to take such effects into account. Thus we should live as if our behaviour while alive has no effect on consciousness after death.
John Carson
Why was it lame? I thought it was deep. It seems to me that you already made up your mind that option 1 (or no existence after death) is the answer and that has biased your view of the author.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
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John Carson wrote:
we have no idea how
Yes we do :)
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. Me blog, You read
You don't really know how your behavior will affect what happens when you die. You might believe in a Christian after life, but you still don't understand what part of you makes up a soul or how it will exist for eternity. Your physical self does not move on when you die, that is for certain. So how is it that you can be in hell or heaven. What form do you believe your soul takes? How does you soul interact with other souls? Do you communicate in English? You won't have a throat to make a sound... I think the point here is to try and develop your consciousness and think about things keeping in mind that all which is physical is ephemeral.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
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Why was it lame? I thought it was deep. It seems to me that you already made up your mind that option 1 (or no existence after death) is the answer and that has biased your view of the author.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
Why was it lame?
One non sequitur after another.
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
I thought it was deep.
I think your education is lacking.
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
It seems to me that you already made up your mind that option 1 (or no existence after death) is the answer and that has biased your view of the author.
You may think that all you want. When you have gained all the insights you can from this particular charlatan, you can move on to his wife, the "psychic medium".
John Carson
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You don't really know how your behavior will affect what happens when you die. You might believe in a Christian after life, but you still don't understand what part of you makes up a soul or how it will exist for eternity. Your physical self does not move on when you die, that is for certain. So how is it that you can be in hell or heaven. What form do you believe your soul takes? How does you soul interact with other souls? Do you communicate in English? You won't have a throat to make a sound... I think the point here is to try and develop your consciousness and think about things keeping in mind that all which is physical is ephemeral.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
I think the point here is to try and develop your consciousness and think about things keeping in mind that all which is physical is ephemeral.
I guess I don't understand how you think it is possible to experience in any manner what there might be on the other side of a possibly imaginary, but definitely unbroachable barrier. There is only one way to experience what comes after the moment of death. And according to usually unreliable sources, those folks who die and stick around to share their afterlife with the rest of us develop an inordinate thirst for blood, and sharp teeth, too.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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I'm just trying to expand my mind and help us figure out why people exist and what happens when we die. Everything he says is not meaningless. Pleas don't hijack this thread with your agenda.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
Everything he says is not meaningless.
No, it's not, but according to his own clearly evidenced belief system he must consider it to be meaningless. He clearly does not believe in a universal objective reality, without which his 'certainty' is nothing but abitrary self delusion and all communication is inherently meaningless because if any other individual can be assumed to have an independent existence it is not even in the same reality so their is no common frame of reference. I'm not hijacking this thread, merely commenting on how sad it is that someone who clearly wants to be 'useful' and is capable of extended logical thinking is utterly undermined by ridiculous false ideas like being able to 'choose your own truth' that he imports from postmodernism without justification or comment. I'm all for being honest about death but it's no good if you wont be honest about reality in the first place. His overall argument by the way is not new and was argued more coherently and concisely by for example C.S. Lewis many years ago.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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ToddHileHoffer wrote:
Living to expand your consciousness... Sounds like a plan. I like how he sees the physical as dust animated with consciousness. Also how he states that doubt can never lead to certainty, only more doubt.
Personally, I found it embarrassingly lame. My take: in the unlikely event that consciousness survives death, we have no idea how, if at all, our behaviour while alive affects our consciousness after death. Accordingly, we have no rational basis for modifying our behaviour in order to take such effects into account. Thus we should live as if our behaviour while alive has no effect on consciousness after death.
John Carson
The best way for a tadpole to prepare itself for life as a frog is to live each moment faithfully as a tadpole. Seems most people worry about life as a frog and get bitten by things that a tadpole would be better suited to deal with.
I've heard more said about less.
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ToddHileHoffer wrote:
Everything he says is not meaningless.
No, it's not, but according to his own clearly evidenced belief system he must consider it to be meaningless. He clearly does not believe in a universal objective reality, without which his 'certainty' is nothing but abitrary self delusion and all communication is inherently meaningless because if any other individual can be assumed to have an independent existence it is not even in the same reality so their is no common frame of reference. I'm not hijacking this thread, merely commenting on how sad it is that someone who clearly wants to be 'useful' and is capable of extended logical thinking is utterly undermined by ridiculous false ideas like being able to 'choose your own truth' that he imports from postmodernism without justification or comment. I'm all for being honest about death but it's no good if you wont be honest about reality in the first place. His overall argument by the way is not new and was argued more coherently and concisely by for example C.S. Lewis many years ago.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
He clearly does not believe in a universal objective reality
At no point can I find him asserting this. He often, however, asserts that you, the living, have no way of being certain about what an objective reality may include, or not, for you after you die. Faith is not an option in his argument, and faith in no way implies any certainty of an objective reality, before, during, or after, death.
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
He clearly does not believe in a universal objective reality
At no point can I find him asserting this. He often, however, asserts that you, the living, have no way of being certain about what an objective reality may include, or not, for you after you die. Faith is not an option in his argument, and faith in no way implies any certainty of an objective reality, before, during, or after, death.
Brady Kelly wrote:
At no point can I find him asserting this.
He asserts this every time he uses relative truth 'your truth', 'my truth', 'choose my truth'. This is the new-speak of those who have chosen to deny the nature of truth as an axiom of their thinking, a dangerous mental disease now affecting >50% of UK residents under 30. Nothing in my comments was in any way related to or predicated on your notion of faith so I think you may have missed my point.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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You don't really know how your behavior will affect what happens when you die. You might believe in a Christian after life, but you still don't understand what part of you makes up a soul or how it will exist for eternity. Your physical self does not move on when you die, that is for certain. So how is it that you can be in hell or heaven. What form do you believe your soul takes? How does you soul interact with other souls? Do you communicate in English? You won't have a throat to make a sound... I think the point here is to try and develop your consciousness and think about things keeping in mind that all which is physical is ephemeral.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
Energy. What animates this dust? How do you explain mind and the art of dreaming? How does the body contain mind? Its separate from brain. How can one perceive oneself in the third person? Where does that separation originate? Is it all contained in the physical? Which network is your hub or switch connected to? On the other front... in evolution, what drives mutation? Or adaptive change? Is it the animal's willpower? "I really need this defense, gee if only I could adapt a chemical reaction that would produce acid when I spit." Viola! Over 100,000 (arbitrary) years acid spitting bug defends itself. Is that directed? Is it accidental? How? My point is that there is so much that we cannot know. There are leaps taken on both sides. I side with evolution personally, but I find that I take quite a bit on faith in that regard. I'm more agnostic than anything. But have studied religions and the history of them from the Sumerian through Egyptian, through Judaism to Christianity, with some Buddhism and Hinduism for good measure. As well I've embraced the scientific. I think there is evidence on both sides to show that there is something there. Not saying the FSM is going to lift me into a elegant afterlife of Pesto Cream Sauce, but energy has to go somewhere. It doesn't die. Consciousness appears to be energy based and not limited to the physical. So I'll take a wait and see approach. Now about our actions here effecting our afterlife? Its a matter of state of mind in my opinion. Our state of mind effects our wellbeing, and I think our mind drives our energy and consciousness. So living a life that is social and positive can only contribute to a mind that has less torment thus freeing it to see the doors that might be open when not inhibited by this animated dust. I think that Heaven and Hell are states of mind regardless of the environment of containment. Physical or metaphysical. So I think its important to find it here and not wait for an afterlife, because you are living it now. The best way for a tadpole to prepare for life as a frog is to live each moment faithfully as a tadpole. I'm not going to worry about life as a frog. What happens after I die I'll find out soon enough, or I won't and it won't matter. And no amount of conjecture on the part of fundamentalists can change that truth. Here's an interesting tangent: God the Father. If God is our Father, then why is my Brother talking for him? My physical brother cannot interject into my relationship with my father or my mother. Its who
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ToddHileHoffer wrote:
Everything he says is not meaningless.
No, it's not, but according to his own clearly evidenced belief system he must consider it to be meaningless. He clearly does not believe in a universal objective reality, without which his 'certainty' is nothing but abitrary self delusion and all communication is inherently meaningless because if any other individual can be assumed to have an independent existence it is not even in the same reality so their is no common frame of reference. I'm not hijacking this thread, merely commenting on how sad it is that someone who clearly wants to be 'useful' and is capable of extended logical thinking is utterly undermined by ridiculous false ideas like being able to 'choose your own truth' that he imports from postmodernism without justification or comment. I'm all for being honest about death but it's no good if you wont be honest about reality in the first place. His overall argument by the way is not new and was argued more coherently and concisely by for example C.S. Lewis many years ago.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
Matthew Faithfull wrote:
I'm not hijacking this thread, merely commenting on how sad it is that someone who clearly wants to be 'useful' and is capable of extended logical thinking is utterly undermined by ridiculous false ideas
Matthew, you sound just like Ilion.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
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Brady Kelly wrote:
At no point can I find him asserting this.
He asserts this every time he uses relative truth 'your truth', 'my truth', 'choose my truth'. This is the new-speak of those who have chosen to deny the nature of truth as an axiom of their thinking, a dangerous mental disease now affecting >50% of UK residents under 30. Nothing in my comments was in any way related to or predicated on your notion of faith so I think you may have missed my point.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
I read his relativistic use of the word truth as being in regard to your experience during or after death. This cannot be anything but a subjective speculation. His use of the word was erroneous if even one reader, i.e. you, failed to understand his point. Even if we all accept, hypothetically, the certainty of not ceasing to exist after our first human death, the nature of out experience of that event and afterwards can never be more than speculation, to the living.
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You don't really know how your behavior will affect what happens when you die. You might believe in a Christian after life, but you still don't understand what part of you makes up a soul or how it will exist for eternity. Your physical self does not move on when you die, that is for certain. So how is it that you can be in hell or heaven. What form do you believe your soul takes? How does you soul interact with other souls? Do you communicate in English? You won't have a throat to make a sound... I think the point here is to try and develop your consciousness and think about things keeping in mind that all which is physical is ephemeral.
I didn't get any requirements for the signature
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
You might believe in a Christian after life, but you still don't understand what part of you makes up a soul or how it will exist for eternity.
I don't need to understand it (anymore than I need to know how a jet engine works before I get on the airplane), God has taken care of all of that.
ToddHileHoffer wrote:
I think the point here is to try and develop your consciousness and think about things keeping in mind that all which is physical is ephemeral.
I actually agree with that, but probably not in the sense you mean it. Children of God are encouraged to focus on the eternal and not the temporal.
Gary Kirkham Forever Forgiven and Alive in the Spirit Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me. Me blog, You read
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Energy. What animates this dust? How do you explain mind and the art of dreaming? How does the body contain mind? Its separate from brain. How can one perceive oneself in the third person? Where does that separation originate? Is it all contained in the physical? Which network is your hub or switch connected to? On the other front... in evolution, what drives mutation? Or adaptive change? Is it the animal's willpower? "I really need this defense, gee if only I could adapt a chemical reaction that would produce acid when I spit." Viola! Over 100,000 (arbitrary) years acid spitting bug defends itself. Is that directed? Is it accidental? How? My point is that there is so much that we cannot know. There are leaps taken on both sides. I side with evolution personally, but I find that I take quite a bit on faith in that regard. I'm more agnostic than anything. But have studied religions and the history of them from the Sumerian through Egyptian, through Judaism to Christianity, with some Buddhism and Hinduism for good measure. As well I've embraced the scientific. I think there is evidence on both sides to show that there is something there. Not saying the FSM is going to lift me into a elegant afterlife of Pesto Cream Sauce, but energy has to go somewhere. It doesn't die. Consciousness appears to be energy based and not limited to the physical. So I'll take a wait and see approach. Now about our actions here effecting our afterlife? Its a matter of state of mind in my opinion. Our state of mind effects our wellbeing, and I think our mind drives our energy and consciousness. So living a life that is social and positive can only contribute to a mind that has less torment thus freeing it to see the doors that might be open when not inhibited by this animated dust. I think that Heaven and Hell are states of mind regardless of the environment of containment. Physical or metaphysical. So I think its important to find it here and not wait for an afterlife, because you are living it now. The best way for a tadpole to prepare for life as a frog is to live each moment faithfully as a tadpole. I'm not going to worry about life as a frog. What happens after I die I'll find out soon enough, or I won't and it won't matter. And no amount of conjecture on the part of fundamentalists can change that truth. Here's an interesting tangent: God the Father. If God is our Father, then why is my Brother talking for him? My physical brother cannot interject into my relationship with my father or my mother. Its who
shiftedbitmonkey wrote:
Over 100,000 (arbitrary) years acid spitting bug defends itself.
Lets be positive here. :cool:
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Matthew Faithfull wrote:
I'm not hijacking this thread, merely commenting on how sad it is that someone who clearly wants to be 'useful' and is capable of extended logical thinking is utterly undermined by ridiculous false ideas
Matthew, you sound just like Ilion.
Jon Smith & Wesson: The original point and click interface
Hardly, I haven't accused anyone of lying yet, or called you an idiot or me a Euroweenie :laugh: If I seem a little excersized about the content that was posted it is mostly out of frustrated disappointment that someone so clearly clever as the author is such a fool and even worse is not recognised as such but has his drivel promoted here. The particular kind of relativist broken thinking represented by the article is not just a matter of theoretical disagreement about a tertiary matter ( like much of the article ). The removal of the concept of objective reality as an axiom of civilized thinking is probably the single most dangerous degradation currently undermining our culture. It is a step beyond even what Orwell imagined; the ultimate pychological tool for diassociation. Those who 'think' this way are as controllable as sheep and as easy to blind side as a one eyed sloth because the moment they come under the slightest phychological pressure they merely 'choose to alter their reality' and thereby don't see what they don't want to and never have to deal with the awkward truth of the one and only reality we all live in. This insidious nonsense has left the majority of UK under 30's functionally insane, unable to accept inconvenient reality and unable to distinguish between truth and lies. Orwell is not just spinning in his grave but simultaneously doesn't have one, never existed, isn't dead, was somebody else etc etc.
"The secret of happiness is freedom, and the secret of freedom, courage." Thucydides (B.C. 460-400)
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http://www.stevepavlina.com/articles/life-after-death.htm[^] Living to expand your consciousness... Sounds like a plan. I like how he sees the physical as dust animated with consciousness. Also how he states that doubt can never lead to certainty, only more doubt. It amazes me how much bullshit exists in our everyday lives because people do not honestly face our own mortality.
modified on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 8:35 AM
I'm not a religious person at all, however I respect other people's choices, so long as they don't preach to me about what is absolutely right and wrong. That pisses me off. I'm not driven to act a certain way because I think it will effect my afterlife. In short, I don't need a religious doctrine to tell me that I shouldn't be a dick or not commit murder.
He who makes a beast out of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man