(November 21, 2021 at 7:37 pm)Agnostic1 Wrote: Well, I am one of those far out Atheist Agnostics that believes in life after death. I don't believe in death at all actually. I believe life continues in a different form that we can't see and it is a natural consequence of evolution. I also think savants get their gifts from the universe and I think that is science as well. I'd like to start my own church! lol
Well, this sounds a lot like a personal "religious" belief. You would fit well in a UU church (it is Unitarian Universalist, and I'm a UU).
I do believe in death.
I also believe that the "self" is an emergent construct, and not a fundamental thing. I believe that consciousness (while also an emergent thing) is more fundamental than the self. Self is reliant on memory and persistence to define itself. Lose that memory, and you are literally a different person. For that matter, I am a different person than I was 30 years ago, though I share the same memories. Consciousness to me is the mystical thing of value, and when my "self" dies, consciousness will live on in others.
There - I have a my own mysticism. So does everyone else, including you, and that is why religion will never die.
