If you once believed...

[Cris]

Flores,

How come we can't stop or manipulate weather or even forcast deadly tornadoes until they kick us in the butt…..

You’ve missed the point. We no longer tremble in fear and call it the act of an angry god. Progress is the movement away from ignorant superstition.

Yeah, but how about the hundreds of new diseaces that have evolved, AIDS, Parkinsons, Cancers, SARS, West nile virus ect....,

But these have always occurred throughout the history of life. The difference now is that science helps us deal with them, whereas in the past people could only pray, hope and then die.

I don't think it's a matter of science working hard, I think science is the bandage that you place on an oozing bleeding wound that you have no clue why is it bleeding like that.

Then you don’t understand science, since science is primarily about discovering how things work.

MODERN PROGRESS??? That's your tunnel vision view, I think man was much better off in the past living a simple life, conserving it's resources, without a hole in the ozone and green house effects....

** And you would have been unlikely to have lived beyond the age of 20,
** would have died at the first bacterial infection,
** been poisoned by a decaying tooth because you had no dental care,
** died from a simple appendicitis,
** unlikely to have survived birth since there would have been inadequate natal care,
** died from a whole host of diseases because there were no vaccinations,
** suffered constantly from stomach pain because you would not understand simple hygiene,
** died in the first earthquake because you didn’t know you were living on the edge of a tectonic plate and had inadequate housing,
** etc., etc., etc.

So you would really want to live without the benefits of modern science then, right? You would have to be insane, are you?

 

[New Life]

Originally posted by Cris
New Life,

You are joking right?

When you die your body decays irretrievably. There is massive scientific evidence explaining these processes. There is no known record or evidence of any decayed body reconstituting itself and coming back to life.

I agree that hte body decays and such........what I'm talking about is what happens to the 'soul' of a person after they die. There's no evidence to show us whether the soul ceases to exist or if it continues in some other way

 

[Cris]

New Life,

I agree that the body decays and such........what I'm talking about is what happens to the 'soul' of a person after they die. There's no evidence to show us whether the soul ceases to exist or if it continues in some other way.

The soul is a fantasy concept that has countless imaginative variations and none have any basis in reality.

Any debate about souls is no more than an exchange of personal fantasies. Death is real, human flesh is real, people die and never return; this is fact. There is no evidence to indicate that people are anything more.

 

[drnihili]

Originally posted by New Life
I agree that hte body decays and such........what I'm talking about is what happens to the 'soul' of a person after they die. There's no evidence to show us whether the soul ceases to exist or if it continues in some other way

Uh, that would be because there's no evidence that shows there is a soul.

 

[DefSkeptic]

It surprises me to such an extent, the overwhelming number of people that believe in christianity or any other religion.

How can one have such a distorted view of reality. Is the reason why religious thought has stuck around so long because of human weakness, and how that weakness makes many hold on to wishful thinking at the expense of rationality, or is the reason a lack of intelligence. There are smart religious people that contribute to society and I just cant understand how they can hold a view that is so utterly intellectually disabled. So does the weakness explanation win out?

I think religious thought is so prevalent because it fits natural human intuition, but once these natural intuitions are analyzed, they lose all credibilty. But once again, religious people do question their beliefs, at least some of them do. Maybe they are already set on the answer and the search is just a way to convince themselves they did the searching, when in reality, the search was just a ploy to satisfy human curiosity without destroying the comfort that religion brings.

So how, in our society, can so many miss the point so badly? How did this meme last so long........

 

[DefSkeptic]

New life-

what I'm talking about is what happens to the 'soul' of a person after they die.

Why does there need to be some kind of continuation of personal human experience. The brain dies......the "soul" dies. As cris pointed out, the soul is just a fictional concept. It is a primitive explanation for brain processes. Learn to discard such flawed ideas.

There's no evidence to show us whether the soul ceases to exist or if it continues in some other way

Right, there is no evidence to suggest a continuation, or a soul for that matter. The evidence we currently have, obviously points in the direction of a lack of consciousness.

 

[okinrus]

What about astral projects and near death expierences? Science has completely ruled out the presence of the soul.
http://www.crystalinks.com/astral.html
http://www.lordsday.org/death.htm

 

[Jasper]

add-oh-less-sense

I believe that we decide what we believe we we first become fully concious (at or around puberty or adolecence). We then spend the rest of our lives trying to justify that decision. We toy with the other side of issues, we try on other hats, but they never seem to fit. Of course there are exceptions, but I believe that we believe what we believed when we first thought about it deeply (in EARLY adulthood). I have believed this since I was a teenager.

 

[Cris]

Okinrus,

What about astral projects and near death expierences?

NDEs only occur when the brain is suffering from trauma so any claimed remembered experiences under such conditions are consequently of no relevant value. The typical NDE it seems can also be easily drug induced.

Claims of astral projections appear to only have been reported as personal experiences which have no scientific value. I couldn’t find any references to any respectable scientific study of Out-of-body experiences. However, I did find many web sites that offered help with astral projections, for a small fee of course.

It does appear that there is a massive industry being generated that appears very able to milk the gullible of their money. Sounds like a very old story.

 

[Circe]

Claims of astral projections appear to only have been reported as personal experiences which have no scientific value. I couldn’t find any references to any respectable scientific study of Out-of-body experiences

check it out

This is a news story from 2001. And you lived all those months unaware that you had a soul

 

[doom]

I thought my dad should live,god thought otherwise,no amount of praying fixes a body that has damned itself by booze and smoking and bad food habits and is now riddled full of cancer.

I see it everywhere,the whole universe is in one direction:decay

I decided after watching my dad's coffin aproach the furnace that that is all its all leading to,the universe is a damned place,maybe not from our perspective but in time as a whole its only in that direction,the universe was like my father,born into the world healthy but is on a trip into cancer,rotting decay not far off maggots winding there way through a piece of once healthy meat.

Why would such a god create a damned place,so perfect from birth but in the order of rotting,any life in the universe has to witness this disorder as they watch family,friends get old and die and them too shall wither.

Oh yes its convenient to say when things die they go to a better place,but thats all it is,if such a perfect place should exist there would be no need to make life here,why not create life in that perfect place so i dont have to face this shit.

We are just creatures like animals but evolved into more advanced but more deadly species,maybe a specie will evolve and be more deadly than us,the human race is the proof that everything is in the disordered state,things were fine before the human race then we come along and the more we evolve the closer the decay,the closer the destruction and chaos that will take away everything.

Or maybe another meteorite will be thrown at us,oh but hang on the last one was at the dinosaurs,oh i get it now the dinosaurs couldnt really fuck the planet up so god lobbed a huge lump of rock at the earth killed them off and kick started a race that will probably make earth impossible for even bacteria to live.

 

[Cris]

Circe,

So only 12%, I wonder if that means the other 88% didn’t have souls?

But the problem remains of how much one can trust the statements of someone whose brain (including memory) had been traumatized and starved of oxygen. We know that tremendous hallucinations can be created by mind altering drugs, so why would we be surprised at even more hallucinations when the entire brain suffers such a severe shock as is the case at near death.

 

[Cris]

Doom,

You sound very depressed with that post.

Of course there are many of us trying to makes things much less chaotic. http://www.transhumanism.org/

 

[doom]

Originally posted by Cris
Doom,

You sound very depressed with that post.

Of course there are many of us trying to makes things much less chaotic. http://www.transhumanism.org/

Oh yeah when i concentrate on the negative,i keep myself amused long enough to thwart off the idea of activly seeking out the most powerfull shotgun and removing my cerebrum from its cerebelum,if i think about that i wonder what its like,
would you feel the explosion and force of the pellets destroy the roof of your mouth,would you feel the burn and collapse of your skull,would you be conscious enough to feel hot blood and brain tissue fill up your throat mixed with the taste of spent gunpowder and feel the emptyiness of your skull as its removed of its contents in a cataclysmic onslaught of exlosive gunpowder twixed heavy ball bearings making mince meat of once a fine and central component?

But there i go all depressed thought's.

As i say all i need to do is not think about stuff,get on amusing myself and others,keeping myself busy,watching films etc,but i feel its an act we all play the rest is just nature.

 

[Cris]

DoomAndGloom,

Uh huh! It certainly helps to have a purpose in life. Sounds like you haven't found one yet.

 

[doom]

Originally posted by Cris
DoomAndGloom,

Uh huh! It certainly helps to have a purpose in life. Sounds like you haven't found one yet.

Well no,although i was thinking of making my own horror film,ive already wrote a couple of scripts,but visual impact is something that in my head i can do better than to explain it or have in words.

 

[Jenyar]

I see it everywhere,the whole universe is in one direction:decay

Matthew 16
He replied, "When evening comes, you say, 'It will be fair weather, for the sky is red,' and in the morning, 'Today it will be stormy, for the sky is red and overcast.' You know how to interpret the appearance of the sky, but you cannot interpret the signs of the times.

Why would such a god create a damned place,so perfect from birth but in the order of rotting,any life in the universe has to witness this disorder as they watch family,friends get old and die and them too shall wither.

God did not create sin and decay, that was the natural result of rebellion against God, who is the creator and sustainer of life. What you see is the result of our separation from God.

You think God does nothing to rectify the situation, and in the same breath you discount Jesus as the means for that salvation. Why do you think 'life' features so prominently in His teachings? When you accept Him, you take part in His suffering and His death. In stead of just hoping for death, you'll have hope for life. Transhumanism? When death and decay is our reality, do you think we can overcome it by ourselves? That is called escape from reality. God does not propose or enforce this - there is a difference between hoping and escaping

 

[doom]

Originally posted by Jenyar
load of bullshit waffle

Didnt you people learn about the second law of thermodynamics and proton decay,instead of providing me with rubbish how about look up some facts.

 

[SnakeLord]

Well I don't know about sptted purple flying squids.... What about leprechauns, Unicorns, sphinxes, chimera, sea monsters, griffons, pegasi, etc.? In fact people even believe some of these kinds of things are god. Take a look at hindu mythology for starters. Monotheistic religions are not the norm. People believe in all sorts of weird things.

Aliens, Giants, Loch ness monster, ghosts, vampires, werewolves, mothmen, crop circles, beast of bodmin, saying "good morning" to magpies, crossing fingers for luck, throwing horseshoes and salt over our shoulders, goblins- such as Hob, (the original protector of fireplaces which is why, in england, a cooker is called a 'hob'), zombies, witches- i wonder how many of them were drowned in the past, voodoo, bigfoot, fairies, poltergeist, telekinesis, ouija boards, star signs, tarot cards, *yawn* the list is endless

 

[Jenyar]

Originally posted by doom
Didnt you people learn about the second law of thermodynamics and proton decay,instead of providing me with rubbish how about look up some facts.

You mean entropy? How does this explain why life has continued to flourish (and even "evolved") to its present state at all? If all things tend towards destruction and chaos, then it must either have originated out of some kind of order, or the universe is still young enough that we have not yet entered into a state of entropy and what you have witnessed was a fluke of nature.