When I was in 7th grade my religion teacher told the class that it was ok to be gay, but that having gay sex was a sin. Tell any 12 year old kid he can’t have sex (well, the kind he wants to have) and you lose ‘em. And Catholicism lost me. But that didn’t mean there was no God, not for sure anyway. I was content, for many years, to think that the church just gets some things wrong, that of course, an ever loving God would never send me to hell for sucking a dick (especially when he’s the one who made me want to do it…)
So I embraced my agnosticism, which by the time I graduated, had turned more into a quasi-spiritual pick and choose belief system when I got into mysticism and spirit guides and healing (note: not heavily into , I was just… browsing), and now my stance is basically… wait and see. But my intuition is that there is no afterlife.
The more ‘atheist’ I became, the more I began to feel free. There was no God watching and judging everything I do. I am the ultimate judge of myself. I am the only person with that power, truly. I once mentioned I was an atheist to a casual acquaintance and he said “…must be lonely sometimes.” I never looked at it that way. The only thing atheism has given me is less guilt, and a feeling of purpose.
I’ve been digging into Transhumanism for a while now, and I’ve become fairly persuaded by the evidence that we are developing technologies that will radically extend our lives (possibly until the end of the universe[or the beginning of the next one]). But lot’s of people like to say that this is nothing more than technologists wishful thinking, their own scientific version of religion, creating heaven on earth, rapture of the nerds some people have called it. And until I see the actual technologies working, on humans, I can’t have 100% confidence that they aren’t wrong. So what happens if I do die?
Well, I was an atheist (well, let’s say… 96% atheist. There’s always a chance the theists are right) before I stumbled upon transhumanism and my stance on death hasn’t changed much. If death is inevitable, then all that means is that this life is more precious. There is no garuntee, or even reason to think, that there is anything after this life. So make each moment count. And don’t worry about dying, because if you do die, you’ll either be starting on some great adventure, or you’ll be nothing, like before you were born.
No REASON to think, that there is anything after this life?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics
When we die, we stop consuming food, and our body stops producing energy from food. Just like a machine that seizes up, no longer producing energy from the gas in its tank, it stops working. It (we) might still be ‘running hot’, but that heat (energy) is lost to the environment.
What happens to all the years of information and experience neatly stored in our brain?
the same thing that happens to a hard drive that dies, the information is gone (unless we can retrieve it somehow, like we do with a hard drive, but we don’t have that type of interface yet). And unfortunately brains rot a lot faster than hard drives, so the pathways that information is stored on is very fragile.
S’why I think that death is an ultimate tragedy, and we as a species should be focusing our efforts on keeping as many people alive and healthy for as long as possible.
Have you or anyone you know personally who’s experienced near-death?
My grandmother (with alzheimers) once thought my aunt was an angel come to ‘take her away’, but no, I don’t know anyone who’s had a NDE. Though I’m not sure what the experience of anyone I know personally would have to do with whether there’s an afterlife.
Unless they can provide outside observable proof, s’all I ask for… there I go being ‘obsessive’ again. :)
I’m actually kind of glad I don’t know anyone, as people’s personal stories can be powerful, emotionally, especially if that person is close to you, and powerful emotions can lead you to overlook things quite easily, as we see with people who ‘let the holy ghost take them over’ and start speaking in tongues, or believe they have spoken to Angels or God.
The simplest explanation is the most likely one, and the simplest explanation for these types of experiences is brains working overtime… hallucination / vivid dreams. And when the events reported by people who’ve had out of body experiences don’t tend to coincide with the events witnessed by awake and conscious observers, that lends further credibility to the hallucination theory.
You seem simultaneously curious about the subject yet oddly reluctant to consider at the evidence.
∂_∂
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJsWSEKboTk
The video shows sone that these states are likely caused by DMT, which seems to strengthen my hallucination theory. But the video ignores that possibility and asserts that this chemical seems to prove the existence of other realms, without anything to really back up the spiritual side of their assertions.
Shared hallucination is not evidence for other realms. Other realms may exist, but I’ve still never seen any studies that confirm their existence.
Have you travelled much?
I feel like I’m being interviewed rather than having a conversation… no, I’ve been on lots of vacations to florida, nevada, and california when I was a kid, but I wouldn’t consider that travelling (though I did go to amsterdam once… but that was just a bunch of pot smoking fun), in the sense that I think you’re talking about it, experiencing different cultures and all that.
Are you inferring that my lack of travel somehow coincides with our races collective lack of studies that confirm the existence of an afterlife?
Also, you never, ever, comment when I bring up the hallucination hypothesis, one, singular, simple explanation based on the evidence that we have gathered.
The travel question has come up (in my head) from time to time during our conversations… i ask because i’m just trying to get upstream on your thinking processes… gathering information… making observations… yes, interviewing you. Being a scientist. :P
You’re more than welcome… to interview me, btw. Perhaps it may give you more insight into my thought processes.
Anyway…
Ever consider that present-day scientific instruments which are used to try and confirm psychic phenomena + afterlife may be inadequate for the task? What ever did mankind do before the invention of the electron microscope? Because we couldn’t see that small did that make the microscopic world non-existent? What do you think of Traditional Chinese Medicine and its basis of “qi” in the human body which is not measurable by any scientific instrument, and yet the effects are repeatable? Surely, you don’t believe that the Chinese have been fooling themselves for millennia?
My comment about your hallucination hypothesis is: you should examine the research a bit more closely because the “coincidence” of people hallucinating the same thing over time & vast distances of the planet are statistically improbable.
I’d like to leave you with a quote i recently discovered that made me think of our conversations…
“The close minded orthodoxy of religion is equaled or exceeded by the close minded orthodoxy of scientists who, in our society, have become the new high priests. Remember scientists are humans first and scientists later. So they all have the failings and the foibles of human beings. Just because a Harvard professor has a PhD, does not mean he/she does not have the same pitfalls that a priest would have in terms of self-aggrandizment and egotism. They too can become fanatical and dogmatic in the belief system in which they’ve been indoctrinated, in lieu of searching for the truth.” – Steven M. Greer
I’m not gonna bother again providing you with examples of areas where I disagree with the ‘orthodoxy’ of modern science, as I’ve done this numerous times and it doesn’t seem to matter.
And to clarify, I’m not looking for the mechanisms by which psychic phenomena happen (though they would be fascinating if discovered, I’m just saying I don’t even need that much).
Newton demonstrated gravity long before Einstien explained it. Nobody seems to be able to demonstrate psychic ability, so why look for ‘how’ something is happening if you can’t even prove it’s happening at all?
We have the technology to test whether a psychic can read minds. All we need is a two separate rooms with two video cameras. Feed information to one person, and see if the other can read their mind. Every time I bring up a practical test like this, to you (or like when I said ‘if i was a psychic, I’d make it my mission to prove to the scientific community that I’m for real), I’ve never gotten a response.
So I’ll ask directly, why hasn’t any psychic just gone and performed test after test, until there is no shadow of a doubt that they have psycich abilities? Again, if they actually have these abilities, this would be EASY to do. They could demonstrate their ability right in Dawkins face (like the fabled apple falling on newton’s head, demonstrating gravity). Why does no one do this?
Well, whenever I’ve seen a practical test attempted, the psychic fails. Which helps lead me to my conclusions.
On hallucination: it’s not a ‘coincidence’ (this is a misunderstanding parallel to saying that evolution is an ‘accident’), if you take into account how homo sapiens evolved and spread themselves across this planet, and also the common heritage (the stars) of all religion (and science), also the common heritage of all humans, for that matter… the similarities would even be expected.
When you start to understand and take these things into account, you start to see how these hallucinations coincide with the global cultural zeitgeist, which existed even into the past, when tribes had been seperated for some time, because we all share a common heritage and common tendencies.
ok, i’m gonna go off and play with the rest of the dreamers.