I know what you are getting at, but the analogy fails you. To break it down somewhat: If on a plane for Tahiti, you know the destination. It is why you bought the ticket. To have a good time in a sunny place with scantily clad women and cheap drink. Not a guarantee you'll have fun, but at least you know where you are going and the possibilities. Now, you cannot know the destination, if any, after death. Thus it naturally follows one cannot have any concept of how it will be either. And you certainly cannot claim any afterlife notion with certainty. Isn't it just easier acknowledging that your personality is a function of your brain? When that brain withers and or dies, so do you. Your persona. Take for example alzheimer patients. Are they themselves? Are they even aware of who they are? Where they are? What they are? Sure we all want to live forever, a very understandable position. Not very realistic though.
Zylark nailed it. The fact of the matter is, you do not know what will happen or where you will go upon death, you simply believe that you know. Such is the nature of faith.
im positively 100% confident i know where im going after i die. the map to my destination is freely available to everyone.
100% confident? I cannot even claim that about my own name. Afterall, I was not aware during and right after my birth to be certain of that. How you can be so certain of anything is beyond me. Having been in your position before I am almost certain you are not as certain as you claim. Have you never once had a doubt?
I read recently that, according to quantum physics, the energy sucked in a black-hole has to leak out some way. On-topic: I have no idea yet.
many times i have doubted, my friend. christians are no different than non-believers. we're all on the same page one way or another. without these moments of disbelief and doubt, my undying certainty would have no contrast whatsoever. yes, personally, i am speaking the truth. im not trying to sound like the most righteous man on the face of the earth when i say something like this. i genuinely feel the way i do, and that is that i have all of the confidence in the universe that i know exactly where im going after i die.
don't you guys know you can't win? he's under the perfect delusion and logic can't break him out of it though logic is what is used in every other facet of human experience. if he makes himself think he feels the presence of god, of course he's going to say we're wrong, he won't even feel the need to analyze his thoughts to see how improbable the likelihood that the stories he's been told all his life actually are %100 true. He can't even think for one moment that even if a God exists, it won't be the Christian one. Why would the dreaming reality of Hinduism be any less probable? Looked at rationally, there isn't one. all I'm saying is we don't need another debate trying to break someone's faith here. logic just isn't for all people. technology and science can seem too impersonal to some and so religion is one thing that will always be purely human. We all have our personal mythology system, some believe them as realities more than others. We have to depend on those who do rely on logic and rationalism to make good choices for the entire community. Let him have his faith, it has purpose to our identity as humans, and teach those who want to observe their realities using only physical means. now state what you think will happen and don't fucking debate each others beliefs. me- this is what i conclude after analyzing faith, rejecting it, taking up rational thought, observing the systems and relationships of reality and adding a dash of optimism, creating my beliefs on my own. in all likelihood, i won't even care what death is like because i won't know I'm experiencing it. doesn't mean i like to think that there's an infinitesimal chance that I'll experience a consciousness of some sort again.
Yes, I was a Christian for a very long time. Just because I have allowed myself to see reason in regards of religion, does not mean that I do not understand, or was never a part of, Christianity. Doubt eliminates 100% certainty. Feelings... Some people trust the "feeling" that they themselves are the God of Abraham. These people are often medicated and placed in institutions. Why place so much trust in a feeling that is not backed by reason? Why would I know that? It is not a certainty. I know many people who have been won over by logic and reason, I myself, am one of them. These conversations can be helpful. Perhaps right now that is the case, perhaps in time that will change. The evil trap of dogma! That is exactly what we need. We need as many of them as is possible. We need to encourage people to use reason and logic in all aspects of their life. It is the best hope for the survival of our species, seriously. It most certainly is! It is the only thing we really have, and the only reason it does not seem to be for everyone, is because some people are taught at a young age to ignore it. Either completely, or only in certain aspects of their lives. Everything we have ever come up with is purely human. It is all of us. Even math and science, God did not teach us these things. They may be universal, but until we find E.T. these things are uniquely ours. I certainly wish all people did that because then it would be easier to... I am human whether or not I believe in an invisible man. Religion does make us human, it does not identify us as such. It is simply the Santa Claus story that adults believe in. An ancient reasoning for what we could not explain. It has no basis in modern society, indeed, it is a hindrance, a setback, a continuance of the dark ages. Since that is the topic of the thread, I agree and will shut up now... Unless responded to of course.
how dare you rip my post apart and then agree to not debate anymore. what am I supposed to do, let you're impressions of what i say stand? trying to make me violate my own plea? bastard.
LOL! Well, uh... You can rip my post apart and then I will respond. Or start a new thread to do so. I dunno!
Agreed and no offense zylark but you are debating with him about how he is 100% certain when you seem 100% certain that we don't go anywhere. So tell me how can you be 100% sure, you can't only through faith which you should try. You won't understand until it has hit you.
yeah if your 100% certain we dont go anywhere, well then your a faithist yourself, and a rather morbid one at that. my response to the initial question. we discover the answer to this question. my optimistic hope is that everyone finds what they seek. those who want to cease to exist will, those who want to be somewhere or something else will...
The difference is that I've not claimed being 100% certain. I think I've said more than once around this forum, that nothing is really certain, there are only plausability and probability. I find life after death highly improbable, to the degree that we can disregard the notion. All we know regarding human psyche, personality and identification of self, is that it is a function of the brain. Brain dies, you die. Backed by a massive amounts of evidence. So eventhough life after death may be a possibility, it is not backed by evidence. It is not even probable. It is highly improbable. It is though very much wishful thinking. Understandable wishful thinking, but, as I've said in this thread already, not very realistic. Just like you don't mind not existing before your birth, you won't mind not existing after death.
this is a very interesting topic. where DO we go when we die? the answer is nobody knows. and nobody will ever know until you die. and once you're dead, you're dead and you cant tell anyone "where" you are. do we just stop existing? or go on to some sort of heaven? reincarnate? or move on to some other point in life in some other dimension? we will never know until we die. there are just too many variables in everything for anyone to be 100% certain where we go when we die. its just one of many mysteries of the life/death cycle. i personally would like to believe that our souls continue living somewhere, whether it be heaven, being reincarnated, or whatever. but thats just my belief. i think our souls go somewhere. where that somewhere is, i don't know. all i know is i am gonna have fun in life. life isnt worth living if you cant have fun.