A Question For Athiests

[Red Dawn]

I have a curiousity question about Athiests. Does life end at the moment of death? Which means there is nothing after death.
What about ghosts, or spirits? Do you believe in them? I'm going at this as a non religion question, and sticking to what you believe in about the questions.

I don't have a freaking clue. I think that the definition of an agnostic or an athiest. I don't know the answer, and I don't think anyone else does either.

As for ghosts, I've never seen one, and never seen anything that could remotely be classified as a ghost. I'd like to see some real, credile evidence of it before I buy into it.

 

[Dr Grump]

I have a curiousity question about Athiests. Does life end at the moment of death? Which means there is nothing after death.
What about ghosts, or spirits? Do you believe in them? I'm going at this as a non religion question, and sticking to what you believe in about the questions.

Yes, life does end at death. No, I do not believe in spirits or ghosts.

 

[LiveUninhibited]

OP: Atheism only means they do not believe in gods. Many atheists do believe the person ceases to exist upon death, but not all atheists are that way. Some Buddhists, for example, are atheistic but believe in an afterlife/reincarnation. Also consider that atheism is a default position that is mutually exclusive and all-inclusive with theism. Babies aren't born believing in God. Strictly speaking, they are atheists even if they don't actively disbelieve a concept they can't yet grasp.

I have a curiousity question about Athiests. Does life end at the moment of death? Which means there is nothing after death.
What about ghosts, or spirits? Do you believe in them? I'm going at this as a non religion question, and sticking to what you believe in about the questions.

I'm an agnostic, but I'll go ahead and answer. I think that conscious existence as we know it ends at death. I don't know if I believe in ghosts/spirits.

Correct me if I am wrong, but agnosticism is basically a belief that something that is impossible to proven or disproven or even test its provability and if the true value/credability/truth is unknown, then its not followed! Basically it the atheists way of staying content neutral, but in the end an agnostic is the PC'ers way being atheist without outright saying they are an atheist

You are correct that this is how the word agnostic is most often used, but this is mostly a reflection of the intolerance of many theists. Agnostic merely means "without knowledge." While it is most often atheistic, it can be theistic if the person vaguely believes there is a higher power but little or nothing can be known about it. Such people do exist, but are not normally an especially vocal group on the subject.

Atheism/theism is all or nothing and pertains to belief in the existence of a supernatural higher power, while agnosticism/gnosticism refers to level of knowledge and should be thought of as more of a scale. Somebody who claims Jesus shared all of the secrets of the universe with him every night in bed would be maximally gnostic, while somebody who says, "it is impossible to even try to guess if there's a higher power" would be agnostic but atheist by default.

From my perspective, when you die, that's it. I did read once that a physicist said something like, "If the universe is eternal, and there is infininite big crunches and big bangs, then all of the atoms and molecules which make, made, and will make you will eventually reconfigure themselves in the exact same way an infinite amount of times even though there might be unimaginably long passages of time and many, many big crunches and big bangs between each occurrence (which is the same idea behind "The Wheel" by the Grateful Dead, "Deja Vu" by CSNY, and many other instances of human art and literature. I don't know if I buy it, but its nice to think. Logically, the implication of this is that there are no ghosts or spirits or supernatural anything.

Sounds as plausible as anything else, but I'm not sure what you find pleasant about it. Infinite regression is not something that my mind can make sense of. I don't know about you. In any case, we clearly do not understand the origins of the universe. No scenario we have come up with makes much sense, and some people think this implies the existence of the supernatural. To me that seems like stuffing gaps of knowledge with bullshit guesses later treated as dogma.

However, have you seen "What the Bleep Do We Know?". There are some wackos who make appearances in the movie, but there are some physicists who make an apparently logical connection that what one thinks exists in the physical world. Almost like telekinesis but not as crystal-ly or new-age-y. The premise is: your brain requires an awful lot of calories to function. If, by thinking, you burn calories and create heat, which is a form of energy, and the brain uses electricity as a control energy, then it isn't that illogical that the energy produced by thinking makes it into the physical world, and therefore thoughts actually, if imperceptibly, exist physically. So, if you've read anything about paranormal activity, many paranormalists believe that some of these occurrences are simply residual energy from previous tenants of the homes or native Americans buried there or some other traumatic or dramatic event which occurred there in the past.

I don't buy it, but its not TOO far-fetched.

The world still has mysteries, but I'm not going to make up imaginary friends to plaster the mysteries over with bullshit.

But, I don't think science can explain everything. I have two friends, who are atheists and skeptics and don't believe in the supernatural at all, who, although they know eachother, didn't know this about eachother: one is an Alaskan bush pilot and while riding the ferry from Juneau to Seatle saw something she couldn't explain. She and a number of other passengers saw three glowing orange globes of light floating along the steep-sided edges of an island the ferry was passing next to. The orange lights were moving at just a little faster than the ferry and when they reached a sharp edge of the island, the three lights floated off into the sky leaving my friend and her fellow passengers very excited and definitely perplexed. Jen, our herione, told me this story right after she got back to Colorado to see what I thought. I had no idea what to think but coming from her, I can't help but believe it.

Well, two years later, another friend who, one night, was driving from Buena Vista to Leadville Colorado on Highway 24 saw three orange glowing floating lights. He said at first he thought it was a reflection on the window but then noticed them coming closer to his car. Confused he rolled his window down and saw that the three orange lights were keeping pace with him about 100 yards away in the treeless fields which comprise the bottom of the Arkansas River Valley. He freaked out and tried to outrun them but they kept pace. After about 5 or 10 minutes they rose up and floated into the sky where he lost sight of them. He immediately called our friend, Kevin, even though it was 11 at night and went to Kevin's house. Kevin told me that Whit (the friend who saw the lights) arrived at his house shaken and visibly upset. Whit told Kevin the story and Kevin told me the story the next morning. Whit is definitely skeptical. He doesn't know what he saw and he doesn't know what to think of it. But I know Whit and he's 100% trustworthy, the same as Jen (the Alaskan bush pilot). And both, not just one, but both, say they saw the same things. I told Whit about what Jen saw and he got the heebie jeebies.

I don't know what they saw. I don't believe in UFOs (the technology for interstellar flight is too unlikely) but then what the hell was that thing that appeared above Phoenix in 1997?, or ghosts or the supernatural. I don't believe in anything that science can't explain, but I now believe that science can't explain everything. I believe Whit and Jen. I know them, they don't have a need to believe in the supernatural, they didn't represent what they saw as anything but something they didn't understand or know or even have an idea about what it was. I haven't yet made up my mind about these things myself.

Being an agnostic I don't have to deny that these things happened, which would be harder to do than to trust my two friends.

I have no idea what basis you use to conclude that interstellar flight is "too unlikely" as if we know everything there is to know about it after never even trying it. Or why you believe science cannot explain anything just because it hasn't yet. There could be an earth-like planet around a "nearby" star and we wouldn't even know it yet. We've detected mostly super-massive gas giants orbitting close to their stars. So what if lightspeed can't be reached? Does that make it actually impossible to travel between stars? No, it'd just take a really long "time," though there's questions on the nature of time under such conditions.

The existence of aliens is certainly more likely than the existence of the supernatural, though being plausible doesn't make something true. Eyewitness accounts might be enough for Christians, but not for those who understand the unreliability of eyewitness accounts.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

Sounds as plausible as anything else, but I'm not sure what you find pleasant about it. Infinite regression is not something that my mind can make sense of. I don't know about you. In any case, we clearly do not understand the origins of the universe. No scenario we have come up with makes much sense, and some people think this implies the existence of the supernatural. To me that seems like stuffing gaps of knowledge with bullshit guesses later treated as dogma.

It sounds nice to me simply because I don't relish the thought of non-existence. From a scientific perspective it seems unlikely that is the case so I don't believe it. I just thought it seemed better than eternal oblivion.

The world still has mysteries, but I'm not going to make up imaginary friends to plaster the mysteries over with bullshit.

I was just saying that science is starting to, with the help of modern quantum mechanics, delve into the realm which previously was the field of psychics, witch doctors, etc. I don't believe it. At least, not until they can provide some compelling evidence.

I have no idea what basis you use to conclude that interstellar flight is "too unlikely" as if we know everything there is to know about it after never even trying it. Or why you believe science cannot explain anything just because it hasn't yet. There could be an earth-like planet around a "nearby" star and we wouldn't even know it yet. We've detected mostly super-massive gas giants orbitting close to their stars. So what if lightspeed can't be reached? Does that make it actually impossible to travel between stars? No, it'd just take a really long "time," though there's questions on the nature of time under such conditions.

We've actually detected some terrestial giants as well - earth-like planets that are jovian in size. For life to exist on such a planet seems unlikely because of the high gravity and atmospheric pressures that the surface would be under.

It isn't just time that I think makes interstellar travel so difficult, and we already have the technology to travel at the half the speed of light (hydrogen bombs and the reflection plate - I think it was called). There is also deep space radiation that without the ability to create a significant magnetic field would pass through every nanometer of the spacecraft and kill all life aboard. There is also the logistical difficulties of traveling in a spacecraft for years or decades such as food, etc. etc. Cryogenic fugue doesn't seem plausible. But I could be wrong. And I can only go by current technologies we have attained. To think or imagine beyond that seems like wishing for it to be, and that seems too much like faith and religion to me.

Also, we've only been broadcasting radio waves at a detectable amount for only, I'm guessing, 75 years? So only systems within half that distance who have the technology to attain the speed of light (which is impossible according to Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity) would have been able to get here. And that's if they were also a spacefaring civilization with a mission ready to depart upon detecting our radio waves. So, realistically, only systems about 15 to 20 light years away would have had the time to travel to the Sol System. There aren't that many stars within a 20 light year radius of Earth. What is the likelihood that any of those stars have a planet with life, and that life has developed into an advanced enough civilization to detect and send a spaceship our way? Highly unlikely, especially considering SETI has already scanned those "nearby" systems and found nothing. That's all I was getting at.

Why I don't think science can explain everything is because, well, how would you conduct a study of these objects in my earlier posts? How would you undertake to define that we have free will or are we predetermined by genetics and environmental factors? How can science explain what happens in a black hole or in a quasar? I think that its likely that there are many such instances, and natural phenomena that we don't yet know about, that we can't get under a microscope, in a lab, or in the view finder of a telescope.

The existence of aliens is certainly more likely than the existence of the supernatural, though being plausible doesn't make something true. Eyewitness accounts might be enough for Christians, but not for those who understand the unreliability of eyewitness accounts.

I agree that alien life is far more likely than the supernatural. And eyewitness accounts are unreliable. But numerous eyewitness accounts of the same thing make it far more plausible. Look up the Phoenix Lights on youtube. I don't know what the fuck that is, and neither does anyone else. Gives me the heebie jeebies and adds to the mysteries of the Universe (which I like).

 

[Godboy]

I agree that alien life is far more likely than the supernatural. And eyewitness accounts are unreliable. But numerous eyewitness accounts of the same thing make it far more plausible. Look up the Phoenix Lights on youtube. I don't know what the fuck that is, and neither does anyone else. Gives me the heebie jeebies and adds to the mysteries of the Universe (which I like).

Yeah, the Pheonix lights are creepy when you assume they must be a UFO carrying aliens, but youll notice this UFO only came out at night when only "lights" can be seen. While i cant prove this was a hoax, i can present evidence that it more likely was a hoax than interstellar traveling aliens.

Something similar was spotted in the sky over New Jersey somewhat recently and the UFO nuts went crazy over it. They were absolutely convinced it was not from earth. There were multiple reports from all sorts of different people, including a career pilot who was convinced it must be alien. He gave multiple interveiws to different news agencies which promted UFO hunters to declare it to be not of this earth.

As it turns out, it was actually some college guys doing a social experiment to prove how quickly people go to far fetched explanations, rather than assuming its just something man made with lights on it. This proved that multiple eye witness accounts of the same event mean absolutely nothing. It also proved that just because someone is an experienced pilot, it doesnt give them any more insight into UFOs than anyone else.

The lights over Pheonix can easily be duplicated with simple things you could buy at a hardware store, and it could probably be done for under $200.


Heres the video...

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDmMfymLEVg]YouTube - Update Morristown, NJ UFO Hoaxers Charged Full Home Video Compilation Part 1 - April 3, 2009[/ame]

 

[Coloradomtnman]

Yeah, the Pheonix lights are creepy when you assume they must be a UFO carrying aliens, but youll notice this UFO only came out at night when only "lights" can be seen. While i cant prove this was a hoax, i can present evidence that it more likely was a hoax than interstellar traveling aliens.

Something similar was spotted in the sky over New Jersey somewhat recently and the UFO nuts went crazy over it. They were absolutely convinced it was not from earth. There were multiple reports from all sorts of different people, including a career pilot who was convinced it must be alien. He gave multiple interveiws to different news agencies which promted UFO hunters to declare it to be not of this earth.

As it turns out, it was actually some college guys doing a social experiment to prove how quickly people go to far fetched explanations, rather than assuming its just something man made with lights on it. This proved that multiple eye witness accounts of the same event mean absolutely nothing. It also proved that just because someone is an experienced pilot, it doesnt give them any more insight into UFOs than anyone else.

Well, in light of that new information, I am less likely to attribute the Phoenix lights to something unknown (that's what agnostics get to do since the only dogma is: I don't know).

What's with your name? Is that irony or sarcasm? It surprised me the first time I saw your name and then read your post (I think it was about Noah's Ark). Now I just think its funny.

 

[Godboy]

Yeah, im an atheist with a twisted sense of humor i guess you could say.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

Yeah, im an atheist with a twisted sense of humor i guess you could say.

Well, us non-believers don't have the comfort of superstition to support us, so all we can do to cope with cold, harsh reality is laugh.

 

[HUGGY]

Sounds as plausible as anything else, but I'm not sure what you find pleasant about it. Infinite regression is not something that my mind can make sense of. I don't know about you. In any case, we clearly do not understand the origins of the universe. No scenario we have come up with makes much sense, and some people think this implies the existence of the supernatural. To me that seems like stuffing gaps of knowledge with bullshit guesses later treated as dogma.

It sounds nice to me simply because I don't relish the thought of non-existence. From a scientific perspective it seems unlikely that is the case so I don't believe it. I just thought it seemed better than eternal oblivion.

The world still has mysteries, but I'm not going to make up imaginary friends to plaster the mysteries over with bullshit.

I was just saying that science is starting to, with the help of modern quantum mechanics, delve into the realm which previously was the field of psychics, witch doctors, etc. I don't believe it. At least, not until they can provide some compelling evidence.

I have no idea what basis you use to conclude that interstellar flight is "too unlikely" as if we know everything there is to know about it after never even trying it. Or why you believe science cannot explain anything just because it hasn't yet. There could be an earth-like planet around a "nearby" star and we wouldn't even know it yet. We've detected mostly super-massive gas giants orbitting close to their stars. So what if lightspeed can't be reached? Does that make it actually impossible to travel between stars? No, it'd just take a really long "time," though there's questions on the nature of time under such conditions.

We've actually detected some terrestial giants as well - earth-like planets that are jovian in size. For life to exist on such a planet seems unlikely because of the high gravity and atmospheric pressures that the surface would be under.

It isn't just time that I think makes interstellar travel so difficult, and we already have the technology to travel at the half the speed of light (hydrogen bombs and the reflection plate - I think it was called). There is also deep space radiation that without the ability to create a significant magnetic field would pass through every nanometer of the spacecraft and kill all life aboard. There is also the logistical difficulties of traveling in a spacecraft for years or decades such as food, etc. etc. Cryogenic fugue doesn't seem plausible. But I could be wrong. And I can only go by current technologies we have attained. To think or imagine beyond that seems like wishing for it to be, and that seems too much like faith and religion to me.

Also, we've only been broadcasting radio waves at a detectable amount for only, I'm guessing, 75 years? So only systems within half that distance who have the technology to attain the speed of light (which is impossible according to Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity) would have been able to get here. And that's if they were also a spacefaring civilization with a mission ready to depart upon detecting our radio waves. So, realistically, only systems about 15 to 20 light years away would have had the time to travel to the Sol System. There aren't that many stars within a 20 light year radius of Earth. What is the likelihood that any of those stars have a planet with life, and that life has developed into an advanced enough civilization to detect and send a spaceship our way? Highly unlikely, especially considering SETI has already scanned those "nearby" systems and found nothing. That's all I was getting at.

Why I don't think science can explain everything is because, well, how would you conduct a study of these objects in my earlier posts? How would you undertake to define that we have free will or are we predetermined by genetics and environmental factors? How can science explain what happens in a black hole or in a quasar? I think that its likely that there are many such instances, and natural phenomena that we don't yet know about, that we can't get under a microscope, in a lab, or in the view finder of a telescope.

The existence of aliens is certainly more likely than the existence of the supernatural, though being plausible doesn't make something true. Eyewitness accounts might be enough for Christians, but not for those who understand the unreliability of eyewitness accounts.

I agree that alien life is far more likely than the supernatural. And eyewitness accounts are unreliable. But numerous eyewitness accounts of the same thing make it far more plausible. Look up the Phoenix Lights on youtube. I don't know what the fuck that is, and neither does anyone else. Gives me the heebie jeebies and adds to the mysteries of the Universe (which I like).

It isn't just time that I think makes interstellar travel so difficult, and we already have the technology to travel at the half the speed of light (hydrogen bombs and the reflection plate - I think it was called). There is also deep space radiation that without the ability to create a significant magnetic field would pass through every nanometer of the spacecraft and kill all life aboard. There is also the logistical difficulties of traveling in a spacecraft for years or decades such as food, etc. etc. Cryogenic fugue doesn't seem plausible. But I could be wrong. And I can only go by current technologies we have attained. To think or imagine beyond that seems like wishing for it to be, and that seems too much like faith and religion to me.

At least science is a tangible foundation.

 

[KittenKoder]

Scientific study is based on the exploration of the intangible just as much as religion is the explanation of the unprovable. Do you think any of our advances can be attributed to "well, since we can't see or understand it then it's just not true"? The greatest inventors explored what other scientists deemed "impossible" at the time, they didn't just work with what everyone agreed on.

 

[Agnapostate]

I think belief in supernatural entities would necessarily require belief in some theistic "force," if not an individual entity. Unless ghosts, ghouls, and the like aren't defined as "supernatural"...

For some reason, roomy found this comment worthy of a negrep. Perhaps he could pop his dinky steroidic ass in here and enlighten us as to why?

 

[Coloradomtnman]

I think you guys are misunderstanding me. What I meant was, it isn't impossible for aliens to have visited Earth, but with our current understanding of physics, and even our most advanced technology we couldn't hope to do travel to another system where intelligent life reside(especially since we haven't detected signs of intelligent life any where else in the Universe) so it seems very inlikely that any alien life has visited or is visiting us. I'm unwilling to put faith into the the possiblity that alien life has visited the planet because it smacks of wacko, new age, religiousness. Until there is compelling evidence.

I didn't mean we shouldn't dream and work toward going to the stars ourselves. To me, that is a very noble cause. All science and technology should strive with the same "faith" in human accomplishment with which that those who achieved before strived.

 

[Godboy]

I think belief in supernatural entities would necessarily require belief in some theistic "force," if not an individual entity. Unless ghosts, ghouls, and the like aren't defined as "supernatural"...

For some reason, roomy found this comment worthy of a negrep. Perhaps he could pop his dinky steroidic ass in here and enlighten us as to why?

Thats a bullshit reason for a neg rep. Here, ill give you a positive one to counter it....

 

[Agnapostate]

Thanks much.

 

[Godboy]

What I meant was, it isn't impossible for aliens to have visited Earth, but with our current understanding of physics, and even our most advanced technology we couldn't hope to do travel to another system where intelligent life reside(especially since we haven't detected signs of intelligent life any where else in the Universe) so it seems very inlikely that any alien life has visited or is visiting us.

I dont see how anyone could argue that point. With our current understanding of technology, it shouldnt really be possible, but what if theres a way to fold space and time and essentially teleport? You wouldnt be limited by the speed of light, because your mode of travel has nothing to do with speed. Some people even think worm holes could be a way to travel vast distances. You never know.

By the way, i think its highly unlikely that weve been visited by aliens, but that doest mean it cant happen in the future, assuming they exist and have the technology to do so.

 

[Coloradomtnman]

I dont see how anyone could argue that point. With our current understanding of technology, it shouldnt really be possible, but what if theres a way to fold space and time and essentially teleport? You wouldnt be limited by the speed of light, because your mode of travel has nothing to do with speed. Some people even think worm holes could be a way to travel vast distances. You never know...

True, but, like I said, I won't believe it without compelling evidence.

 

[Godboy]

I dont see how anyone could argue that point. With our current understanding of technology, it shouldnt really be possible, but what if theres a way to fold space and time and essentially teleport? You wouldnt be limited by the speed of light, because your mode of travel has nothing to do with speed. Some people even think worm holes could be a way to travel vast distances. You never know...

True, but, like I said, I won't believe it without compelling evidence.

Ditto.

 

[Renee]

Life existed before birth and will continue after death. Your confusion arises in assuming that life belongs to anyone (as in "my life"). There is no "my life", so your question is meaningless.[/QUOTE]

[B][/B]No...lilfe did not exist before birth ( or viability) and will not continue after death. When you die,,,,,,,,,,,,you die. Nothing more.

 

[sealybobo]

I have a curiousity question about Athiests. Does life end at the moment of death? Which means there is nothing after death.
What about ghosts, or spirits? Do you believe in them? I'm going at this as a non religion question, and sticking to what you believe in about the questions.

Yes life ends at the moment of death. Why would you think otherwise? Does life end when you kill a chicken? Or does it’s chicken spirit live on?

No ghosts. I had a guy kill himself across the hall. The next door neighbor dies and laid in her place for 3 days.

I sit in the hall and ask them to appear. They never do. That’s all in your mind.

 

[Meister]

I have a curiousity question about Athiests. Does life end at the moment of death? Which means there is nothing after death.
What about ghosts, or spirits? Do you believe in them? I'm going at this as a non religion question, and sticking to what you believe in about the questions.

Yes life ends at the moment of death. Why would you think otherwise? Does life end when you kill a chicken? Or does it’s chicken spirit live on?

No ghosts. I had a guy kill himself across the hall. The next door neighbor dies and laid in her place for 3 days.

I sit in the hall and ask them to appear. They never do. That’s all in your mind.

After 9 years? LOL I do think otherwise, and leave it at that. I won't attack a person because they are atheists, won't try an change them.
Carry on