RE: What happens to you when you die?
June 6, 2010 at 4:55 pm
(This post was last modified: June 6, 2010 at 4:58 pm by Welsh cake.)
(June 6, 2010 at 1:58 pm)rax Wrote: Well, I guess I'm speaking more of something that you could call a soul, essence, spirit, mind, or maybe something else that is there but is undefined by man or maybe is defined, basically 'me', with disregard to my physical body. 'Paul the Human' said that "the mind is a product of the brain". Really? Are we certain of this?Forget certainty, to the best of our knowledge we are physical, biological. To the best of our knowledge the mind is the product of the brain, as opposed to other organs, such as the anus. ^^
rax Wrote:This notion that there's evidence that when we die, "that's it", is false, in my opinion.In your opinion perhaps; only when evidence presents itself or is demonstrably proven to be real through repeatability that the human consciousness, our personal identity and memories, carries on after death, would the notion then be considered false. Currently, if we use Occam's razor it is the most plausible since it’s apparent that when we die, there is nothing to support our consciousnesses anymore.
rax Wrote:There is no evidence either way and it might even be unmeasurable so there is no way to take a position. Now I understand if one doesn't believe in heaven or hell or other blatantly fantastical conjurings, but can you not even entertain the idea of a continuation of 'yourself' after death, somewhere, somehow?An appeal to emotion is not going to get you very far I'm afraid. I refuse to entertain notions of an otherworldly realm I’ll live on in if there is insufficient evidence for it. As explained to you earlier our physical bodies don’t simply cease to exist, the organic matter provides nourishment for other organisms, the atoms themselves carry on existing a lot longer. Geez, if the circumstances are right your skeletal remains may even be fossilized to be admired by evolved prairie dogs millions of years from now.
rax Wrote:I would say that the proposition that there is some sort of soul/spirit/thing that continues on to some other sort of existence, however improbable, is possible within the realm of possibilities, and that to claim with almost certainty that 'nothing happens'/'worm food, that's it', is as much of a claim to knowledge of this event as the religious claims.Except these aren't equal claims even. You have a presupposition that somehow there has to be more to this life because it would 'suck' otherwise, but none of this is proven to be real. Extraordinary claims, such as an afterlife, require extraordinary evidence. Demanding irrefutable proof there's no afterlife is not only shifting the burden of proof its also attempting to argue for a negative.
There is no evidence of an afterlife... but to my knowledge, there's no evidence of a "blinking into nothingness" either...

