The Afterlife... (And a little bit about human nature, too)

[biothlebop]

How I view faith and good and bad:
- We cannot come to any absolute truths, there are no absoute truths, only assumptions of how things are
- Faith is the thing that elevates an assumption to a truth
- Good and bad do not exist as truths or absoutes, we define and create good and bad through faith
- Some assumptions require less faith to become truths (science is a lower-faith assumption, God is a higher-faith assumption)

How do we choose which assumptions to elevate to truth status?
- By amount of faith required
- If the assumption can be used as a mean toward an end (fears/desires/selfishness)

About the nature of man:
-All our actions are deep down motivated by selfish, animalistic and instincual things

About the amount of faith:
- The amount of faith one has dictates how seemingly unselfishly one can act

Now to answer some of your questions:

however it seems like you'd like to believe in god from some of the things you said?

I'd like to have more faith (for example: faith in that the world is worth to save). More faith -> more actions and less obviously selfish actions -> perhaps a better person (in the eyes of others?)

Unacceptable to me. If you believed that then that gets rid of fertility clinics, surrogate mothers, sperm donors, in vitro fertilization and adoption [make a baby, don't claim one already made! SPREAD YOUR DNA!]. Sterilization and hysterectomy are out too, probably.

To further fall into the "It's not natural" mindset there goes plastics, silicone, some vaccinations and geneticall modified foods. Way to ruin it for everyone, the gays!

There exist people that believe that man should live naturally like in the caveman days, and probably a couple individuals on earth do so too. However, the point was that even science can be twisted through faith to serve the same fears and desires. It is indeed harder to use precisely (get rid of the scary gays but give up a bunch of other stuff that is good on the way) than religion.

And in the process of designing your faith based off of fears and desires and selfishness, you've never done anything bad as a result of your faith? Even if you haven't, no one else has in the history of the world?

I do daily bad things due to my faith (and lack thereof). The questions I ask myself are: Would I do less bad if I had more faith, if I was more naive, if I was less egocentrical?
The christians in my surroundings (that seem to have more faith than me) seem to do more good to others than I do (I mostly care about myself and keeping my head above the water). Someone who can devote their time to keep another person afloat in this world must have their own shit sorted out first, and I guess I am jealous of those people, their energy and faith, rather than that I wish to believe in god.

Then your newest question:

So... then faith can motivate people to do negative things?

Yes, without faith we would act only toward instant goals and live in the moment. Faith is the motivator that makes people invest energy in something imaginary/abstract and theoretical and this form of society could not exist without faith (or long term goals).

Lastly, my opinion on religious faith:
Personal faith in god = good (motivates a person to do what they believe is good)
Organised faith in god (example: the bible) = bad (used as a political, social etc. tool, based on outdated concepts, keeps society from redefining good and bad)

[LimpingFish]

Does the concept of an Afterlife have to go hand in hand with religious beliefs?

[evenwolf]

Limping Fish.   If anyone were to get specific into their vision of the afterlife, it would have to tie into something religious wouldn't it?

Afterall, aren't religions formed after too many people start to ask the question "what happens after I die?"   Remember, years and years ago, people were isolated where they had no exact answer.   Religions began to form based on the stories the elders would tell.   I'm mostly using Native Americans as an example here.  Their mythologies are the best.  My favorite was about a sort of heaven built on the back of a floating turtle.  If I can find the myths on google I'll paste them here eventually.  Very insightful on human nature and what happens after people ask "what happens after I die?"

[LimpingFish]

Does an atheist believe in an Afterlife? Does he believe the conciousness goes on after death, regardless of a belief in a divine power?

Discussing the concept of an Afterlife actually becomes interesting if you remove the religious aspect.

[evenwolf]

There's a disambiguation thing on wikipedia about atheists and agnostics.  They have soooo many categories.   I don't even know what kind of agnostic I am based on their categories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheists
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnostics  (I guess I'm a weak agnostic?)

But I've considered myself an "active agnostic" for the past couple years.   Too many people hear the word and associate with "doesn't care".   Someone said that earlier, and it's so true.   But I think I'm more active into research and questioning than most that I qualify for "really really cares but thinks most organized religions are full of shit."  Just turn on the TV late at night and there are preachers selling holy bottled water.   They actually sell the stuff, the sheisters!   Now most communities are filled with priests who have great intentions and care for the congregation.  But the questions we've asked in this thread never come up.  It's just blind dumb faith.

Funny story!   My mom wanted me to join her church so I went to bible study a few times and they held an "interview" for me to join their congregation.    During the interview, I felt my stomach getting shaky so I excused myself and ran down the hall.  I got halfway to the bathroom before I puked all over the floor.    After I got cleaned up I walked outside to see my mom mopping up after me.     They MADE MY MOM clean it up!   And they never asked me to interview after that.  They made it pretty clear.    My mom on the way home said "don't worry about it, Jesse.   You just did me a favor and taught me a lesson about that church."    It's the closest to God I've ever felt.

On a sidenote, it was the Presbyterian church attended by Bush Sr.'s adviser and campaign spokesman Howard Baker.

[DGMacphee]

Limping Fish.   If anyone were to get specific into their vision of the afterlife, it would have to tie into something religious wouldn't it?

I'd say it'd be less to do with religion and more to do with spirituality.

It's a pedantic distinction I'm making, but I feel it's necessary because I think a person can believe in an afterlife without subscribing to a religion.

[evenwolf]

I personally would find it enjoyable if after my avatar died, I could roam freely across the map and go through buildings.

[DGMacphee]

I would pick up pennies with my finger. Make them appear to float to my loved ones. With The Righteous Brothers playing in the background.

[Helm]

So... then faith can motivate people to do negative things?

That's a value judgement, and a pretty ambiguous one at that (negative for whom?) but in the sense you mean it - if I understand you correctly - sure! Just like any other impulse can motivate you to do negative things. I think you're putting undue pressure on faith and religion (and I'm the one whose soul belongs to satan) when the whole of the human condition leads to a lot of hilarious (and sad) stupidity and error constantly.

[Helm]

So... then faith can motivate people to do negative things?

That's a value judgement, and a pretty ambiguous one at that (negative for whom?) but in the sense you mean it - if I understand you correctly - sure! Just like any other impulse can motivate you to do negative things. I think you're putting undue pressure on faith and religion (and I'm the one whose soul belongs to satan) when the whole of the human condition leads to a lot of hilarious (and sad) stupidity and error constantly.

Does an atheist believe in an Afterlife? Does he believe the conciousness goes on after death, regardless of a belief in a divine power?

Discussing the concept of an Afterlife actually becomes interesting if you remove the religious aspect.

Most atheists have no time for concepts of immortal souls. Therefore if some believe in an afterlife, it would at least have to be a finite one.

[evenwolf]

A tangent off Helm's point:

Infinity is the only way some religions can justify an afterlife.   Because what's the point of another life if it ends?    How is life anymore meaningful when its simply going to end... again?  Most spiritual leaders could not answer this question without calling life simply a test (ie. St. Peter & the pearly gates)  As a child I was told that all my dead relatives would be waiting on a cloud when I died.   Their lives are infinite in the afterlife, so they have nothing better to do but watch over me and wait for me to die.   (This sucks in my opinion.)  Also it sucks because I'm uneasy around most people and infinity is a scary ass amount of time.   (I barely know how to spend a good 15 minutes!)   

I understand how infinity can be comforting for children.   But adults expecting infinity... are naive?  Comes right back around to my point that most myths are created for children.  Remember, children ask A LOT of questions.   Parents make up really dumb but comforting things to tell the children.   And I do think that they harm the child by feeding him/her delusions.   My friend Aaron was convinced by his parents that every time he flipped a light switch it cost them 20 cents.   He grew up thinking about that every time he turned on the electricity.  Every time he opened the refrigerator door.   My parents convinced me there was a God.  I thought about him every time I cursed, every time I had lustful thoughts, every time I stole.   God has a list of whose naughty or nice.

Infinity is a hoax designed to comfort children.  A finite afterlife is more realistic.   But it doesn't help solve the meaning of life.  It just solves the meaning of the previous life.   You would have to have infinite lives and after an eternity you still wouldn't know the meaning of a life while you were experiencing it.

[Babar]

It's somewhat depressing that so many people assume that the only reason to believe in God is so that you can get that eternal 1st-class ticket.

Somewhat off-topic(?):

Babar: It says several times in the Catholic bible (I CBA looking for exact quotes) that if you don't accept Jesus as the ONE TRUE son of God (moslems and Jews don't) then you're knocking on the door of damnation. Also, Moslems believe Christians are fundamentally and irrevocably wrong about Jesus being God and think Christians are going to hell for glorifying him. And Jews think everyone after the prophets were sorcerors acting in the name of God.

Also those who don't know the message of God are unjudged and drift in the eternal limbo of death.

As far as I can remember, the Bible quotes Jesus saying that the two main rules, on which EVERYTHING else hangs is: "Love your Lord God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind" and "Love your neighbour like yourself". I don't know what the Catholic(?) bible says, but the Pope (the old one at least) on numerous occasions accepted the Muslims to be believers in God. I've even met Jews who believe that muslims are Jewish. As far as muslims go, while they do think that Christians are fundementally wrong in that Jesus is God, I've seen a passage that (I CBA looking for exact quotes ) says that anyone who believes in God has nothing to fear.

As far as limbo goes, I think that the Catholic church has said now that it doesn't exist.

[Nostradamus]

As far as I can remember, the Bible quotes Jesus saying that the two main rules, on which EVERYTHING else hangs is: "Love your Lord God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind" and "Love your neighbour like yourself".

You're wrong, these are the 2 of the 10 commandments, which Moses came up with on Mount Sinay in the Jewish Bible, hundreds of years before Jesus ever lived.

Now Jews don't belive Muslims are Jews, just realize the fact that Christianity and Islam came out of Judaism, they both recognize parts of the BIble\Old Testament and belive in the same one god.

[quote author: biothlebop] Some assumptions require less faith to become truths (science is a lower-faith assumption, God is a higher-faith assumption)

No, Science is based on facts and proofs. Any ausumptions in it are based on facts. Faith is based on myths and illogical things that can't be proven and are taken for granted because it's written in a holy book.

[evenwolf]

As far as limbo goes, I think that the Catholic church has said now that it doesn't exist.

Dude, don't let your spirituality be controlled by a Microsoft Update Patch.


Limbo and most parts of Hell were not even characterized until fictionalized accounts such as "Dante's Inferno".  The cantos or circles of Hell comes from this book.   What's interesting is that Dante's Inferno was simply a political satire of the author's times in Italy.  There were two feuding parties, the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.    As Dante descends further into Hell he comes across members of those families experiencing worse and worse eternities.   In modern times, the book would be like Jon Stewart writing an account of finding Bill O'Reilly and George Bush drenched in dog poo in Hell.    Dante wrote his political adversaries in Hell!  Most views on Hell come from literature like Inferno and Paradise Lost.  And Inferno was a comedy satire. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante%27s_Inferno

tell me when you download your next update, and in turn, what you believe that day.

[Babar]

Heheh....things would be so much simpler if people tried!

I didn't say Jesus came up with them. I just said that he was quoted saying them. I think in another version of the same story(?) he asks an expert, and those are the replies he gets, so he says "You are correct".

I don't know about whether Jews believe that muslims are Jewish, I said I've met Jews who believe Muslims are Jewish (she explained how muslims keep the covenant and such. I don't remember her whole argument).

Just for the sake of the argument, Nostradamus, Science is based on myths and illogical things that are taken for granted because it's written in a science book.

I really don't understand why there is such a huge God/Science divide. "I don't believe in God, I believe in science" is such a ridiculuous thing to say, that it's become a joke, but people still say it!

EDIT to evenwolf: That's probably why they said now that it doesn't exist. At least they have the courage to say "This is wrong, it shouldn't be here". Is there a jab at me somewhere in there?

[evenwolf]

No it's more likely that other media influenced the catholic people to become less endearing toward the idea of Limbo.   In movies like "What Dreams May Come" limbo is pictured as the worst place to be condemned.   A very depressing and lonely place for innocent people.

Sensing a change of attitude (and number of incoming dollars) the Catholic Church probably decided it would be more beneficial to EDIT what they originally said.    Which was all based on literature anyway.  Which is what I forgot to say.

[Nostradamus]

Science is not a belief.
When I read a science book it shows me facts, it shows me proofs and if I use my mind to analyze it I would reach the same conclusions.
Like for example if you see that the first flying animals on Earth were dinosaurs\reptiliamn and hter'es proof of that (fossizlized life forms with wings, and a bone structure of dinosaurs and dated the same era by a factual way) and then you see that later in time these flying dinosaurs developed feathers and through time you see their bones structure have been changing to be more suited for being in the air and using the air to fly, and the less needed body parts such as legs become smaller and less significant. So you maybe don't have ALL the millions of stages of that evolution but you have all the major waypoints, so you assume the minor stages happened, because it must be in that process and so you have facts and proofs. Or you find different fossilized marine mammals in eras from which there wren't many if at all dry ground mammals. You have one family of mammals that still lives in the sea to this day - the family of whales (includes dolphins). And then you have Australia which has been isolated from the world until a couple of hundresds of years ago and you have amphibian mammals there in a part of the world which didn't evolve as fast as the rest of it. You have many more waypoints in fossilized animals that shows their advanved from marine annimals to amphibieans to ground animals. Such as fins developing to legs, lung changes etc. You have all the waypoints and poroof and facts you need to see that mammals must have started at sea and developed to ground animals.
This is in contrast to blind faith that long ago people could turn sticks into snakes, turn a loaf of bread to many, walk on water, split the sea and so on. Sutff that are unproveable, illogical and mythical. How come all those supposed mircales don't happen today?

So the point si you can't take what I said about religion and say "for the sake of the arguemnt let's the say the same thing about science". Science is differnet. In science if you think something is wrong you can research, prove it wrong and present it and it will change the perception and texts. In religious if you question it you're a sinner, a blasphemer, basically you're not allowed to try to prove anything wrong or change anything even if you have proof.

[biothlebop]

No, Science is based on facts and proofs. Any ausumptions in it are based on facts. Faith is based on myths and illogical things that can't be proven and are taken for granted because it's written in a holy book.

Science is based on axioms. From wikipedia:
An axiom is any sentence, proposition, statement or rule that forms the basis of a formal system. Unlike theorems, axioms are neither derived by principles of deduction, nor are they demonstrable by formal proofs. Instead, an axiom is taken for granted as valid, and serves as a necessary starting point for deducing and inferencing logically consistent propositions. In many usages, "axiom," "postulate," and "assumption" are used interchangeably.

Axioms/assumptions require faith to become truths. Without any axioms, you wouldn't have science (or religion), example: If we question ZFC, math falls apart, if we question god, most religions fall apart. The arguments you present base themselves on axioms (and go off a tangent so sorry for ignoring the lengthy example about evolution), but should one be capable of disproving an axiom it uses, science would come tumbling down. Science however has been able to use less axioms (and more intuitive ones) to explain more and remain consistent, therefore I see it as a better base than religion for explaining the world.
Science has not yet solved everything though, and I don't mind if god exists in the areas that science has not touched (my concept of him, not the one created by men and doucumented in the bible). Luckily I come in contact with those areas seldomly so I don't have to resort to god or back out of arguments and say "I don't know".
If people continue to question the axioms and the deductions made upon those axioms that make up science, I have no problems with it.

In religious if you question it you're a sinner, a blasphemer, basically you're not allowed to try to prove anything wrong or change anything even if you have proof.

Religion has come a long way since the writing of the old testament, look up discordianism for an example. But yes, I see any unquestionable authority as a negative thing (think of how Aristotle's authority held science down). Still, as long as science is not able to explain everything, I believe religion has room to coexist with it, perhaps man will even come up with a religion that can be questioned in it's deductions.

[Helm]

Nostradamous, read bio's post well.

Science is not a belief.
When I read a science book it shows me facts, it shows me proofs and if I use my mind to analyze it I would reach the same conclusions.

Please concern yourself with a primer on the concept of epistemology. Eric should probably do likewise. Just because scientific constructions seem to suggest a theory is dependable (say, gravity) it doesn't mean there isn't an act of faith on your part to hold is dependable as such. Is it a more justified assumption to say gravity will continue to exist next second than to say a God exists? Probably. Is it a far more rigoriously tested premise? Yes. Is it sensible and helpful to every-day life? Absolutely. But is it the result of an action of faith on the part of a human being to believe something to be true, ultimately? Yes.

I see this as knee-jerking. Seculars have become afraid of the word 'faith' because of the stack on negative connotations involved in religious belief. But it requires faith just to get out of bed in the morning. Faith that today will be a better day than the last one, that you are bettering yourself, that you will have reason to smile, that life is good...

We are animals. We need to survive. Faith is necessary.

[Nostradamus]

Yes, science are based on many axioms. Which do not come out of the blue, but are there to fill the gaps between facts and are the result of research.
Moreso, scientiests are trying to do reseatrch to turn many axioms into proven facts.
And as I said earlier anyone can "attack" those axioms and prove them wrong and change them at any given time if capable. Unlike religion.
True, science doesn't has an answer for everything and never will, but it still brings more answers than the "because god wants so\did so\say so" answers.


Helm, the examples you gave of faith were non-religiuous everyday faith and I have no problem with that, you're absoloutely right.