I've never felt that closing a book was a mysterious act, but C Rod seems to be suggesting that it is.

(July 26, 2011 at 9:35 am)Epimethean Wrote: Hope =/= knowing, GC.

Epi, christian hope is knowing, you might think it's wishful thinking, for christians it's truth, the truth of the eternal God.

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(July 26, 2011 at 9:58 am)Rhythm Wrote: GC, looking forward to your death eh? Now I don't feel like such a shitty person.

You realize that you're very vividly describing your social groups divine privilege as opposed to the "others", whose "afterlives" will be inferior by comparison. Your social group is better and more moral by definition, in both life and death, due to an exclusionary principle known as faith. It's pretty uncomfortable when you sit down and think about it.

"Exclusionary" it's there for the taking, all you need to do is get a ticket and get on board.

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(July 26, 2011 at 1:39 pm)Rhythm Wrote: People who have their tongues cut out can't tell you about the experience either, does that make it mysterious? When you turn your TV to a channel it doesn't receive, do you wonder what episode of "I Love Lucy" is playing under the static, or do you say "hmn, nothing on this channel"?

So you really believe a man without a tongue can not communicate, curious, curious says Andy. You are comparing a TV, it's reception and a show to death, curious, curious says Andy.

Rhythm Wrote:There is nothing about you, in part, that survives as a whole after death. What mystery do you find in that? Death is obviously a mystery to you, but it is not a mystery to "us" as a species. We understand why we die, how we die, and what happens to the various bits and pieces after we're dead.

My, my make an assertion with no proof, why you sound like those crazy christians. You mean to say that the entire human race has accepted your version of what death is like, you must have forgotten to interview a Buddhist or a Hindi.

(July 25, 2011 at 8:32 pm)Rhythm Wrote: You're just going to keep stating that death is mysterious? Waste of time.

They have nothing else.

Quote:My, my make an assertion with no proof, why you sound like those crazy christians.

No one sounds as crazy as you.

It doesn't matter what people believe death to be like GC. There is this little thing called reality, where real things happen. We can watch and record death, we can reproduce it. We can measure the composition of a body, the environment around it, and see where things go. We can monitor activity in the brain, how it relates to the environment around it, and how a sense of self is created by the machine. Finally we can monitor the cease of brain function, and subsequent death. If someone has a belief that violates any of the observable, reproducible, falsifiable evidence..no worries, show the evidence in support of your proposition. If it is not sufficient, guess what.....you can believe it if you like, but it aint real. Non-existence is not mysterious.

Is there mystery in the statement?

"All of the humans which were not born."

now try

"All of the humans who no longer exist"

In what way does their current status differ?

Ah, the mystery of memory.

And on the 8th day, gawd created dementia ...

Quote:@ Ace and FNM I'm not afraid of death not because it comes to all, because I'm only going to lose my physical body for a while and my spirit will be with God until the day my spirit and my new body are united.

That's only a belief. In all probability, you're wrong. I'll re-ask the question. Are you afraid of closing your eyes and never waking up again?
Are you afraid of being wrong? It's not like religion hasn't been wrong a hundred times before. Also it's strangely convenient how religion offers more life after you're long dead! Why can't it offer endless life right here? It's because it can't keep it's promises. Religion cannot alter the laws of physics.

Quote: As far as salvation goes FNM there are no works that can get you there, only one's faith in Christ as savior, that's why christians can actually look forward to death when there lives are drawing to an end.

Christians delude themselves with pure wishful thinking. You are right now.

Quote:Christians do not live in a state of delusion they live in a state of hope, the state that is a positive, knowing that God will take care of them.

Delusion and wishful thinking.

Quote:Ace how do you know you will have another day let lone get old, that getting old thing is just a way of distracting yourself from the fear of dying to soon.

I don't, never claimed I did. Getting old and dying is just a part of life. I don't know how long I'll live, but that doesn't mean I'm afraid of being dead. I just won't exist anymore.

Quote:and when those billions of years pass if your unbelief in God is wrong will seem like only a few minutes of an everlasting eternity.

In all likelihood, it is you who is wrong. Pure wishful thinking I've seen from you.

There is no evidence to support any religious claim. Nothing at all.

(July 28, 2011 at 1:33 pm)Ace Otana Wrote:

Quote:@ Ace and FNM I'm not afraid of death not because it comes to all, because I'm only going to lose my physical body for a while and my spirit will be with God until the day my spirit and my new body are united.

Ace Wrote:That's only a belief. In all probability, you're wrong. I'll re-ask the question. Are you afraid of closing your eyes and never waking up again?
Are you afraid of being wrong? It's not like religion hasn't been wrong a hundred times before. Also it's strangely convenient how religion offers more life after you're long dead! Why can't it offer endless life right here? It's because it can't keep it's promises. Religion cannot alter the laws of physics.

Ace why would anyone be afraid of being dead, if you are right then dead is gone and nothing else. However there is a big difference in being dead and dying,this is what I'm talking about the conscious act of dying, this is what people fear. Now if I'm right then you should fear being dead because if you are not saved then hell is the next stop. Just to remind you I do not believe in a firey hell. The hell that I think exist is one in which you make your own suffering and you have no control over stopping it.

Playing with the throttle on your inner sadist there eh? All the tortures you could imagine for me....it's positively erotic. Create my own suffering you say? It's participatory, splendid! Gumdrop Candy Fairyland here I come, replete with women I can never touch, wearing watermelon panties. I'm sure it will be torturous.

Quote:Ace why would anyone be afraid of being dead, if you are right then dead is gone and nothing else. However there is a big difference in being dead and dying,this is what I'm talking about the conscious act of dying, this is what people fear.

Like falling asleep or painful car accident? I'll admit some ways of going out are quite scary but personally I prefer dying in my sleep.

Quote:Now if I'm right then you should fear being dead because if you are not saved then hell is the next stop. Just to remind you I do not believe in a firey hell. The hell that I think exist is one in which you make your own suffering and you have no control over stopping it.

Nice god you have there. A god that makes no sense.

I'm quite comfortable and without any fear of that happening. No concerns at all. Because it is an extremely high improbability. I'm just as likely to end up in Valhalla's Great Hall! or the surface of the sun or inside earth's core as I am to end up in your made up place you call 'hell'. It's just a concept.

The claim has no value or explanatory power. So really, I really have nothing to fear.

Quote:However there is a big difference in being dead and dying,this is what I'm talking about the conscious act of dying, this is what people fear.

Yes, G-C....and we don't need your silly god to tell us that. As with most everything, the Greeks already thought of it.

“Death does not concern us, because as long as we exist, death is not here. And when it does come, we no longer exist.”

Epicurus ( d. 270 BC)