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Post by nicolii on Nov 15, 2010 22:36:05 GMT -5
We will not know until our death whether or not there is an afterlife. But does knowledge of it matter? If we really knew, would it still be considered special? Would people just want to die if they knew something better was waiting for them?
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Post by qooqǝɯɐƃ on Nov 15, 2010 22:51:55 GMT -5
It's quite dangerous when people get it into their heads that there is an afterlife. It's important to not live your life expecting to go to an afterlife once you die. That just leads to people doing crazy SHIRT, like hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings.
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Post by newschooled on Nov 16, 2010 0:12:18 GMT -5
It's quite dangerous when people get it into their heads that there is an afterlife. It's important to not live your life expecting to go to an afterlife once you die. That just leads to people doing crazy SHIRT, like hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings. ^^^Seriously, that's quite racist. At any rate, I have it in my head that there is an afterlife, but I'm not hijacking a plane and crashing it into a building.
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Post by Rogers91 on Nov 16, 2010 2:07:58 GMT -5
i like to think there is an after life but only because it brings a bit of hope. now in the end i dont belive in a god and i am not religious in any major respect. however i do like to think about where the energy from my body will go into the universe once i am long gone.
seeing that everything is made up of energy and the universe has a fixed amount of energy and it cant be created nor destroyed. the energy from my body should shift through space and eventualy be part of another liveing being or even many liveing beings or at some point the sun and the inevitable supernova that the sun produces launching my energy to a new location in the universe. however that means that i am nothing more than energy from other people and things and there for it is not all me...
acutaly this sounds kind of like reincranation but more scientific.
now sadly my counciousness will most likely die with my body takeing my personality thoughts and memories with it(that is if i die... if we find a way to transfer the conciousness of a person to a new body then i will never allow myself to die)
the soul as people refer to doesnt seem like something i could belive in however if it is real i would love to think that my "soul" will go to some nice place. maybe florida...
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Post by qooqǝɯɐƃ on Nov 16, 2010 2:44:01 GMT -5
They have a different view on things. The people doing this these suicide bombings live in worse conditions, they live in poverty compared to you and me, so to believe that when they die they will go to paradise leads them to not be afraid of death which is dangerous, and that's the point I'm trying to make. I'm not being racist, just a little stereotypical.
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Post by rialvestro on Nov 16, 2010 7:46:37 GMT -5
It's quite dangerous when people get it into their heads that there is an afterlife. It's important to not live your life expecting to go to an afterlife once you die. That just leads to people doing crazy SHIRT, like hijacking planes and crashing them into buildings. That doesn't lead people to doing crazy SHIRT like that. People who don't believe there is an afterlife have also been known to do crazy SHIRT because if there is no after life then nothing you do in life will ever actually amount to anything and your existence doesn't actually mean anything. That's why I asked before why someone would rather not exist at all than to exist in an afterlife because if there is an afterlife then you might actually have a chance to see how your life has effected the world but if there is no after life then your life really is pointless and will never amount to anything worth while. No one ever really does anything anyone will ever care about till after their dead so the only way you can actually see how you effect the world is to see the effect your death had on it. No after life, then your dead doesn't mean anything either. You'll have a few years of people remembering your existence but eventually they die too and when no one remembers you then your impact on the world is lost and meaningless.
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Post by Joey on Nov 17, 2010 18:13:21 GMT -5
I believe in an after life for a few reasons.
1. I believe there is something more to us that make us human-Have you ever been in a room when someone actually dies, and that person is someone that is close to you? You know when they die, and its not just that they stop breathing, you can feel it. There is something more than just the physical body, when someone dies, something goes away from them, a soul you could call it, the very life which they lived with. The whole point of a soul is that it ISNT something that can be explained by science, its not something we are supposed to get. Its SUPERNATURAL, not physical, it exists beyond the means of science, something greater.
2. My Grandma-My grandma was in a very serious car accident a couple years back(10?) She was 60. She flatlined, but the doctors got her heart started again. When she woke up about 2 hours later, she asked what happened. They told her, and she said that she had felt a calming presence, and that she was happy, then everything went dark. She swears to this day that it happened, and I dont know how you can talk to her about it and not believe her. There was something that happened that day.
3. Why not?-Why not believe in an after life, especially one you have to earn?(by a good life, not specific religion) Does it harm anyone to do so? No. Does it harm yourself? No. Does it give this life less meaning? No. It gives it more. Living your life truly for the afterlife makes this life worth so much more, it gives us a place to prepare, and makes this life all that much more important. And if Im wrong...who cares. Im not gonna know, and I made the world that much better by living my life doing good, even if it was for nothing.
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Post by Ryan on Nov 17, 2010 20:56:20 GMT -5
To paraphrase Aristotle:
If you do good only as a means to an end, then your action is not good.
If we only live a good life because we believe that one day when we die we will be rewarded for it, then is it really doing good? Ultimately, it doesn't matter if an afterlife exists or does not exists. WE exist in THIS life. If there's an afterlife and it has judgement, then great, people will have different lifes after this one. But the one we know exists should come first and we should give it the best chance we can. We shouldn't waste time hoping for something better in the afterlife, or worrying about something in the afterlife. We shouldn't be concerned about loved ones who have past, where they might be. Regardless of the answer of "Is there an afterlife?" our lives should be lived to their fullest, and the answer to the question, isn't going to change that.
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Post by krzych32 on Nov 17, 2010 21:03:14 GMT -5
I believe that Canadians don't have souls
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Post by qooqǝɯɐƃ on Nov 17, 2010 21:12:15 GMT -5
I believe that Americans think they're entitled to the world.
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Post by rialvestro on Nov 17, 2010 21:25:01 GMT -5
If we only live a good life because we believe that one day when we die we will be rewarded for it, then is it really doing good? Technically the reasons why you do good don't make the actions any less good. Maybe you don't really want to but your parents make you help out in a homeless shelter at least once a year. Does the fact that you don't want to be there change the fact that you are helping the homeless? Of course not. Your question should be "If you only do good deeds for selfish reasons then are you really being a good person?" Of course the deed itself is still good but that doesn't mean the person doing the good deed is actually good.
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Post by stephen5000 on Nov 18, 2010 14:27:32 GMT -5
I believe that Canadians don't have souls I agree. But only because no one else has souls either.
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Post by Ryan on Nov 18, 2010 14:28:25 GMT -5
The reasons for your actions affect the total goodness of your actions. A person doing good deeds for bad reasons is not good. So while the deed is good, the action of the person doing that deed is not. I won't argue much more into this, please read platos republic and aristotles nichomachean ethics (I migh have spelled that last one wrong) if you would like to see clearer arguments for this point
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Post by stephen5000 on Nov 18, 2010 14:29:45 GMT -5
Actually, this reminds me of the manga Death Note. It is written that the user of the Death Note can go to neither Heaven nor Hell. The main character Light remarks that this must be because no one does.
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Post by newschooled on Nov 18, 2010 14:45:01 GMT -5
I believe that Canadians don't have souls I'm a dual citizen between Canada and the U.S....How would that work?!?
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Post by krzych32 on Nov 18, 2010 16:29:27 GMT -5
I believe that Canadians don't have souls I'm a dual citizen between Canada and the U.S....How would that work?!? The American in you beats the SHIRT out of the pussy canadian in you. Take that Canada!
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Post by newschooled on Nov 18, 2010 17:37:50 GMT -5
I'm a dual citizen between Canada and the U.S....How would that work?!? The American in you beats the SHIRT out of the pussy canadian in you. Take that Canada! Yeah but it's cold here now. So the American in me just turned into a giant pussy and the Canadian in me is in his element! AAAAAaaaaah SRSLY, let's get this gravy train back on topic.
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Post by hobo8675309 on Nov 19, 2010 23:05:45 GMT -5
Well, since energy cannot be created or destroyed, the electrical pulses emitted from the brain will continue to affect the world long after any given person dies. After death, the mind is simply scattered across the enviroment, allowing for it to change the world forever.
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Post by Lyserg Zeroz on Nov 19, 2010 23:16:31 GMT -5
^But would you call that an afterlife? Or are you suggesting that there is still a consciousness in our minds even after scattered across the environment? Anyways: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed: it can only be transformed. Electrical impulses/nerve impulses will continue to affect our world, but I think that most probably not as electrical impulses (if you were suggesting that)
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Post by Ryan on Nov 20, 2010 11:50:00 GMT -5
For those who keep bringing up electrical impulses in our brains:
Thoughts are the products of chemical reactions in our brains that produce a series of electrical impulses. Once these electrical impulses pass through our neurons the energy they had is used up and converted to a different form of energy, most likely heat, but probably some (very very very little) light as well. The pattern in which they fired between neurons produces a thought. That thought gets sent to a different part of the brain through another series of different electrical impulses, the energy from which is again used up in this process. The thoughts are then stored as memory. So while it is energy that produces thoughts, the energy does not continue after death, nor does it even continue after the thought. The thought and memory are physical components, and once the brain dies, the thoughts and memories of that person do not live on past death, as they are simply products of electrical impulses passing through the parts of the brain, which is now dead. Now, why a person thinks certain thoughts, has yet to be explained scientifically or biologically. There is currently no explanation as to why the chemical reactions in the brain change from person to person and why some people have crazy ideas or can come up with new inventions. This part is usually referred to as consciousness since it changes from person to person, and while its product can be studied (thoughts and memories) we have yet to find a good explanation for it (unless someone can cite a source, I have yet to find anything). If any part of us could live on it would be this part.
BUT - thoughts and memories are physical and biological, once the brain is dead, these die.
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