Death Therapy

you answer mine i'll answer yours two times

so you're sure "invulnerable" is relative and not absolute?
i questioned whether its a fact because I know a lot of believers (and so do others here as they stated) who are just as afraid of death as non-believers. so i think it would be a claim not everybody agrees with.
and i just pointed out that they dont necessarily become invulnerable, but may become less scared of death. whats wrong with that ?
you dont agree people can also be less scared by doing other things than believe "its all gonna be fine, god is waiting for me" ?


as a matter of fact, i do remember thinking about what happens when we die when i was a kid (didnt know anything about the heaven-option that time cause nobody told me about religions). it was very tough to imagine (still is) because we have no idea what its like to not exist. i thought and i thought and then Boom, a thought killed me: "when I'm dead and dont exist, I can't think about stuff anymore as I'm doing right now. I can't see anything, can't hear anything, can't taste, ooooh, taste..".
yes, that scared the hell out of me.

and now when i think about it, you're right its still not a pleasant thought. the thing is, just because its unpleasant doesnt mean i should make up stuff to believe in so I'll feel better. why ? because things are the way they are and we'll gonna have to deal with it. ("an unpleasant truth")

like when its 6:58, i wake up and know i have to get out of bed in 2 minutes, then its not a pleasant thought but believing "hey no way i still have an hour to sleep" i only "gain more" in my mind and only for 2 minutes - and then reality kicks in and, well.

but in general, to me, "do you gain more" is not the criteria for believing in something.


but, you know..
what becomes more and more apparent is: you're not advocating that what you believe in is reality - you're advocating that you do it because it makes you happy and its only now that i begin to understand because of the way you talk about death and all - you reaaally really dont like imagining that so you feel way better by believing.


and i respect that, i just dont look at it that way. I dont believe and I'm a happy little bird so i dont feel like I need it (just yet?).

and i dont believe in anything just to make myself happy because i'm a rational person and i need to know that I'm not being fooled and I'm not believing in fairy talesor lies or whatever. i can't help it. I'm sure being this way has disadventages (being a robot is not my goal. I'm human) but as of now I really am happy as a bird.
as we discussed somewhere else, believing like you do is subjectively(to you) reasonable, but imo its not objectively reasonable, as in "using sound judgement, thinking rationally"


but this brings me back to something someone once told me: "some people believe in it because they need it, others do it because they think its reality."
frankly, the latter ones are the ones i would criticize - criticizing those who need it would be cruel. i do have a heart.


i hope "i got it" now. guess we really did have a bunch of misunderstandings unless you Are advocating what you believe in is reality ?

if you belong to those who need it (it sounds weird but you know what i mean) i dont think you should argue with atheists here because they(we)'re here to discuss whethers its reality or not. and since you really dont care about that, i dont see any point.. you dont wanna tell people they need it when they in fact dont, do you?

It seems you have not climbed many mountains. That a possible fact might be true is also a feeble mind's comfort, so there is no need for fables on strength.

To be clear, the problem I mentioned did not have to do with using the term to describe your positions and values. It had to do with the broad usage of the term. If you categorize yourself as an atheist and happen to hold the values that you do (whatever they may be), then those values fall under that label. If it's a problem of ideological classification then it becomes a problem of terminology.

This is the problem I'm talking about. There is no such thing as an Atheist, Christian, Muslim or Hindu child. They're born into their religious/non-religious families, however they only become adherents to their faiths once they grow up and can understand the basic tenets of their faith. Even the most religious parents do not talk about God to their 4 year-old, because their mind is still growing and incapable of forming concepts at such a young age.

False. Proof by too many a counterexample to bother further.

You're right. I should have said "shouldn't" instead of "don't." My mistake. There are plenty of parents that make this error.

So if someone calls themselves a christian and happens to like the taste of snot, then liking the taste of snot falls under the christian label?

The Christian label, no. The atheist label, yes.

You see, the Christian label has other attributes that can be legitimately assigned to it but the atheist label doesn't. So people need to make **** up.

(BTW your question is PERFECT)

Every possible piece of evidence, 100% of it, points to the fact that death is death and nothing happens after.........many of those stories about people seeing a white light that don't lie can easily be explained by science and the **** that goes on in the brain before someone is about to die and while their brain is dying. It's been explained already. Move on.

i can't imagine how you could possibly believe that whether or not i like the idea of my death has any impact on the reality of what happens to me post mortem. i don't really mind the fact that when i die, that is it. it means i should try hard to live the best life i can on earth because this is my only shot.

When we are death we will see, if your (so called) evidences has been a fact.
Before I forget it, can you please name and explain one of those evidences?
How can we prove that consciousness does not exist without a brain? (Example: Someone drives a car, his car crashes in an accident, but the driver could still be alive)

And I don't know about you or anyone else in this forum, but I have yet to hear about a Muslim witnessing Jesus, or a Christian running into Vishnu at the end of that tunnel.

People tend to see what they want, expect, or are conditioned to see.

ok, "its not a fact". ok.
would you please read my post #177 ?

this.
although, he didnt say it changes anything Post mortem. its the time Before he's concerned about.

and, hardball:
well then its indeed a problem of terminology then cause when you say atheist you mean those who believe there is no god.
when we (lot of us non-believers) say atheist we mean anyone who lacks a belief whatsoever.

No, your strawman doesn't work. You should know better than even trying that. Whether or not you enjoy the taste of snot, or whether you prefer coke to pepsi, or whether you like pasta or pizza has nothing to do with these following things (in bold):

I'm glad to see you're excited, but I have to spoil the excitement; it's a bad question.

Err...it is not a strawman at all?

You described this logic in the post I quoted and I post a an application of it and ask if you think this is correct - if you think that is a strawman I sincerely suggest you re-read what a strawman is.

Allow me to requote the key element:

I wanted to address these points, because evidently the above is commonly taken as fact by theists. As understood by atheists themselves, there are two types of atheism; 'Strong Atheism' which says "There is no god or gods", and 'Weak Atheism' which is simply a lack of belief in a god or gods. Strong Atheism (SA) is a doctrine and a way of thinking. Weak Atheism (WA) however is neither a doctrine nor a way of thinking, it is simply a lack of belief (for whatever reason or reasons.) The problem lies in the fact that most Theists think of atheists as SA types, when in fact the overwhelming majority of atheists are WA.

SA does, WA does not. I, for example do not accept the supernatural on faith, however I don't categorically deny it. There are some things that may look supernatural at our current level of understanding that may become explainable at a higher level of understanding. Or not. I don't accept things without evidence, but I don't reject them, I put them in the 'highly unlikely' or 'inconclusive' box.

To be taken as fact yes. This doesn't however mean that the supernatural doesn't exist, it simply means it hasn't been proven to exist.

SA is a belief system yes. WA, however isn't, as it has no core beliefs. I disagree that religions aren't belief systems, but whatever.

It should be clear now that you are mistaken on that point. I know of no 'atheist indoctrination process.' One may exist somewhere, but it isn't very widespread or prominent among actual atheists.

The above is simply not true as it is entirely possible for organized Atheism to lack any articles of faith. It could be simply a group of organized WA types who share certain characteristics that aren't faith-based.

I can't even fathom what Hardball is thinking. Atheism doesn't speak to ethical or moral values (other then, I suppose, that they don't suscribe their values to being God given.)

Is it really so hard for you to understand that an atheist doesn't have a belief in a personal god. I can be an atheist and be pro-death penalty. Another atheist can be against it. Atheism is not a value system. It says nothing about a person except that they don't have a belief in a supernatural god.

Likewise, a theist doesn't describe one's morality either. If you worshipped Quetzalcoatl (theist) then you may have very different values then a Christian or one who worshipped Athena.

Sheesh... the number of theists who refuse to believe what atheists are telling them what they believe is astonishing.

Maybe it's because the point you're trying to make has nothing to do with my original statement as to why I'm atheist -- "I see no evidence of god".

You stated that even if there was evidence, our human minds may not be able to process it. You then made a long treatise about what it means to have faith, and how that differs from belief. The point you think you're making is almost a complete non-sequitor.

If you see no evidence but you have faith and choose to believe anyway, that's nice for you. Some of us need a little more than that.

I'm not going to sift through a few thousand of my posts to find the post that you're talking about (which might not even exist). If I said anything remotely like you claim I did, I'm sure you're taking the post completely out of context.

Thanks for shedding some light on this in a sensible manner. I don't know why the others didn't bother trying to just say these things.

No problem. Almost every point in my post WAS made in this thread by other posters, although not all in the same place.

Those things aren't values, they're personal preferences (taste). The point I made was that things like values and morals fall under the category of beliefs. You ask that question to make a point that your preferences don't fall under your beliefs. If you're going to use a fallacy and not know that you're doing it, we're going to repeatedly hit a wall and not make progress.

Jackie and I already covered this, and Joel clarified. It becomes a problem of classification and nomenclature. If Atheism is a lack of beliefs, then what are an Atheist's beliefs? If Atheism is not a value system, then what are an Atheist's value systems? You honestly didn't see where this was going earlier?

The approach to believing (God) is not through evidence and logical proof, it's through faith. Empiricism and rationalism should be only be used for our physical world and universe, not anything outside it. It's not the right tools for the approach. Evidence is not a prerequisite for faith, this is the main point. It's meaningless to say, "show me proof of God, then I'll believe you." IMO, God is not personal (there is no "my God" or "your God", there is only God), but you may find God personally through some experience in life or it may simply be through concluding and acknowledging that there must be some higher power. Or whatever.

Ask yourself this. If God is a concept, an idea, an imagination even, is it necessary to require proof to entertain the idea? All that's necessary is to think of ways how this idea could make sense and work. We can go back to baby steps here, if only for the sake of convenience and preventing further misunderstanding. If we assume the universe had a beginning through some causal force or event, it only follows that we ask what could be that cause. The cause has to be A) external and independent, and B) not bounded by any restriction to the effect. But then if you assume that not everything has to have a cause then you can safely discard the God concept and that's when we enter a full-on metaphysical discussion requiring different ideas.

Hence, "sensible manner."

can we just agree, except for OP apparently, scientists and religious-doubters cannot be destroyed by one word?

in fact a ton of sophisticated arguments and the exponentially increasing availability of information has not solved this debate, either

sorry for not meeting your standards. but what you said was "I don't know why the others didn't bother trying to just say these things. "

but imo despite manners-standards you should have got what i said ?
now dont tell me you needed "prove" that there are different kinds of atheists ?
cause you know.. no prove ? just have faith. ^^ jk

whatever an atheist's value systems might be, the thing is that every atheists's individual system has nothing to do with "the philosophy of atheism", especially when talking about weak atheists. every atheists has an individual system because they get their values from somewhere else than anything religious.