RE: Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), Souls, and Atheism
November 22, 2011 at 9:56 am
(This post was last modified: November 22, 2011 at 10:00 am by The Grand Nudger.)
Another NDE/Afterlife thread. Fine, few questions.
-Where does the notion of an afterlife come from?
-Do we have any evidence that there is an afterlife?
-Is there a simpler, better demonstrated explanation for any of the evidence presented?
-Are we sure that we're not proposing something that does fall under the remit of scientific inquiry that has been ruled out due to incompatibility with the majority of what we call "natural law"?
-How did this afterlife come to be, and what evidence do you have to support whatever explanation you offer?
-If this evidence is compelling, have the major religions reworked their visions of heaven to more accurately match the descriptions? (tunnels of light is a bit different than St. Peter and his gate, for example)
-Where does the notion of a soul come from? What does this soul do?
-Do we have any evidence that there is such a thing as a soul?
-Is there a simpler, better demonstrated explanation for any of the evidence presented?
-Are we sure that we're not proposing something that does fall under the remit of scientific inquiry that has been ruled out due to incompatibility with the majority of what we call "natural law"?
-What gets a soul, and what doesn't, and what parameters are used or defined in order to make this distinction?
-What keeps your soul, memories, etc "intact" after bodily death?
-How does one experience the afterlife without their sensory equipment?
-If we assume spirit eyes and ears then why do we have physical eyes and ears(or spirit memories)? Which of these systems is redundant, and which is actually responsible for our sensory experience(and our memories of that experience and ourselves)?
-Where's the "hook"? What attaches our souls to our bodies to be released, what keeps them from accidentally disengaging?
-Have we ever demonstrated a single disembodied consciousness, anywhere, at any time?
I suppose if I spent more than 5 minutes on this I could drown the original question and claim under a sea of questions and counter-claims. Point is, I think that oftentimes people assume an afterlife as though it were a simple idea, it is not. I also feel that people make claims about the afterlife and souls that are quantifiable, and have somehow managed to elude detection despite repeated attempts at observation by means as broad as the gulf between magic and science. Why is it, that even after trying absolutely everything we could conceive of, we can't even caught the slightest of glimpses? Why not Bifrost to Valhalla? What makes one vision of the afterlife and souls more genuine than the next?
This is my favorite question, it deserves space of its own. What "laws of the supernatural" are at work here that maintain this system, allowing it to interact with our own world with it's natural laws without having profound, inexplicable, and observable effects on one or the other world? What laws could we imagine that would be compatible both with those that we know, and those that would not rule out what we're attempting to hypothesize? This is the "making predictions" portion of earnest inquiry. Let's see if we can get a canary in the mine, eh? It's very easy to be completely wrong about any given thing, little more difficult to be even remotely correct.
In my opinion, the notion that we have "souls" that live on into eternity in some sort of "after-life" is bare anthropomorphism, and wishful thinking. It is intended to be an answer for the question "what happens when/after we die?". In this regard it fails utterly. It explains nothing, has not been demonstrated, and is entirely dependent upon the personal religious preferences of whoever is arguing for improbable, and perhaps even impossible. If this notion were even remotely correct there would be something, somewhere, that was utterly compelling in the hypothetical at least. If the total sum of evidence for such an immensely powerful and pervasive force is "seeing things" while under the stress of dying (stress which we understand very well and can demonstrate repeatedly), then I'm sorry, but this claim isn't worth the time it would take to completely and utterly debunk. As a narrative, it's creative and engaging. As literal truth, well anyone who suggests that I take this particular portion of myth to be factually accurate can stuff this garbage up their ass. You're asking me to be both incredulous and willfully ignorant, I refuse.
-Where does the notion of an afterlife come from?
-Do we have any evidence that there is an afterlife?
-Is there a simpler, better demonstrated explanation for any of the evidence presented?
-Are we sure that we're not proposing something that does fall under the remit of scientific inquiry that has been ruled out due to incompatibility with the majority of what we call "natural law"?
-How did this afterlife come to be, and what evidence do you have to support whatever explanation you offer?
-If this evidence is compelling, have the major religions reworked their visions of heaven to more accurately match the descriptions? (tunnels of light is a bit different than St. Peter and his gate, for example)
-Where does the notion of a soul come from? What does this soul do?
-Do we have any evidence that there is such a thing as a soul?
-Is there a simpler, better demonstrated explanation for any of the evidence presented?
-Are we sure that we're not proposing something that does fall under the remit of scientific inquiry that has been ruled out due to incompatibility with the majority of what we call "natural law"?
-What gets a soul, and what doesn't, and what parameters are used or defined in order to make this distinction?
-What keeps your soul, memories, etc "intact" after bodily death?
-How does one experience the afterlife without their sensory equipment?
-If we assume spirit eyes and ears then why do we have physical eyes and ears(or spirit memories)? Which of these systems is redundant, and which is actually responsible for our sensory experience(and our memories of that experience and ourselves)?
-Where's the "hook"? What attaches our souls to our bodies to be released, what keeps them from accidentally disengaging?
-Have we ever demonstrated a single disembodied consciousness, anywhere, at any time?
I suppose if I spent more than 5 minutes on this I could drown the original question and claim under a sea of questions and counter-claims. Point is, I think that oftentimes people assume an afterlife as though it were a simple idea, it is not. I also feel that people make claims about the afterlife and souls that are quantifiable, and have somehow managed to elude detection despite repeated attempts at observation by means as broad as the gulf between magic and science. Why is it, that even after trying absolutely everything we could conceive of, we can't even caught the slightest of glimpses? Why not Bifrost to Valhalla? What makes one vision of the afterlife and souls more genuine than the next?
This is my favorite question, it deserves space of its own. What "laws of the supernatural" are at work here that maintain this system, allowing it to interact with our own world with it's natural laws without having profound, inexplicable, and observable effects on one or the other world? What laws could we imagine that would be compatible both with those that we know, and those that would not rule out what we're attempting to hypothesize? This is the "making predictions" portion of earnest inquiry. Let's see if we can get a canary in the mine, eh? It's very easy to be completely wrong about any given thing, little more difficult to be even remotely correct.
In my opinion, the notion that we have "souls" that live on into eternity in some sort of "after-life" is bare anthropomorphism, and wishful thinking. It is intended to be an answer for the question "what happens when/after we die?". In this regard it fails utterly. It explains nothing, has not been demonstrated, and is entirely dependent upon the personal religious preferences of whoever is arguing for improbable, and perhaps even impossible. If this notion were even remotely correct there would be something, somewhere, that was utterly compelling in the hypothetical at least. If the total sum of evidence for such an immensely powerful and pervasive force is "seeing things" while under the stress of dying (stress which we understand very well and can demonstrate repeatedly), then I'm sorry, but this claim isn't worth the time it would take to completely and utterly debunk. As a narrative, it's creative and engaging. As literal truth, well anyone who suggests that I take this particular portion of myth to be factually accurate can stuff this garbage up their ass. You're asking me to be both incredulous and willfully ignorant, I refuse.
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