What happens when we die?

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Pretend for a second nothing on the afterlife was written about in old books. All of humanity was starting fresh on the topic using today's tools, knowledge and methodologies. Nothing whatsoever points to reincarnation, heaven, hell, etc. These are silly fairytales. No reputable person would be able to support these claims. They're truly just made up nothings.

It's crazy seeing some of the things our peers on this site believe. I'm disheartened. You die, decompose and that's it. Just like a tree, a dandelion, a mosquito, a dog. You're no better than any of them. That's a fact. Reincarnation, judgement, heaven...it's childish malarkey. Come on guys.

Well since nobody has come back to say one way or another, everyone's idea is as good as the others.

We see the body dies and deteriorates but than we need to question whether we have a soul or not that survives in some way. I say we do, we are more than flesh and bone but nobody can say what happens to it when death comes.

[monkeyman]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

And if your answer is that time is different there, or doesn't mean anything there, I would reply that you can't tell us what it isn't unless you're prepared to tell us what it is.

But we do know time is just another variable influenced by space and mass and passes differently based on perspective. Perhaps it doesn't even really exist, not in the way we think of it. We could just as easily question what brought us into being(universe). we don't know what that was, but i think it's a pretty safe assumption there was something before that, something that brought about the "big bang" and it's pretty safe to assume that something will exist after the "big freeze". What either of those things are, nobody on the face of the planet could tell you.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

Memory wiped.

then what's the point?

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by stampsx2

Do i understand this correctly? If i dont remember somehing it didn't happen?

No, that's not what I'm saying.

What I mean is, if your conscience doesn't pass from one existence to the next, then it isn't you that existed.

Descartes said: I think therefore I am.

I extrapolated to: if there is no memory of it, if my current conscience has no connection to it (if I can't think it), then it wasn't me.

[PepsiFree]

For the multiple lives / reincarnation crowd:

If reincarnation exists, chances are there are at least some/all of us who are reincarnated beings. Nobody remembers a past life, so (in a similar situation to the tree falling in the forest) if you don't remember your past life, isn't reincarnation basically the same as "nothing"?


For the soul / transcendence / etc crowd:

Isn't the logistics of every soul of every thing still existing on some other level insane? Think about it, every being that ever lived just lives on as a 'soul', that's far too many souls. Doesn't every scientific concept pretty much have to go out the window for it to be possible.

Further, if we do have souls and we do just continue to float on afterwards, what's the point of this life? Isn't some spacial higher existence so much more significant than this that it makes life essentially pointless?

It's similar to why I find heaven so problematic. If it's so great, why are we wasting time here?

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by monkeyman

But we do know time is just another variable influenced by space and mass and passes differently based on perspective. Perhaps it doesn't even really exist, not in the way we think of it. We could just as easily question what brought us into being(universe). we don't know what that was, but i think it's a pretty safe assumption there was something before that, something that brought about the "big bang" and it's pretty safe to assume that something will exist after the "big freeze". What either of those things are, nobody on the face of the planet could tell you.

So your argument is: maybe time is different and it doesn't feel like eternity? Sounds like a moving target to me.

But even so, you haven't really said anything... do we retain our consciousness (i.e. are we aware)? Are we judged? Do we do anything? Are we there forever (but time is different so it isn't really forever?

As for what happened before the big bang and what will happen after the big crunch, I would suggest a perpetual series of universes. It collapses into a single black hole that is so intense that it blows up (another big bang). Then expands until it runs out of steam, starts to collapse, and then another big crunch.

Rinse, repeat

[GGG]

Originally Posted by jayswin

How so?

If your consciousness came from an extra dimension shouldn't you be aware of this if its always existed. Or if your consciousness is eternal then how did it start. If it can change from not existing to existing why isn't the reverse possible.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Pretend for a second nothing on the afterlife was written about in old books. All of humanity was starting fresh on the topic using today's tools, knowledge and methodologies. Nothing whatsoever points to reincarnation, heaven, hell, etc. These are silly fairytales. No reputable person would be able to support these claims. They're truly just made up nothings.

It's crazy seeing some of the things our peers on this site believe. I'm disheartened. You die, decompose and that's it. Just like a tree, a dandelion, a mosquito, a dog. You're no better than any of them. That's a fact. Reincarnation, judgement, heaven...it's childish malarkey. Come on guys.

Your statement requires faith that nothing happens.

Since none of this is actually testable or useful in predicting anything its really outside the realm of science and pure philosophy. Which means it's utility should be measured not in its correctness but in how in changes or informs the current world.

[Sliver]

I didn't say nothing happens. I said you decompose. You are a physical being and nothing more (unless it can be proved otherwise). Decomposition is what happens. All that you are is returned to the earth. That requires no faith to believe. It is literally and objectively what happens.

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

For the multiple lives / reincarnation crowd:

If reincarnation exists, chances are there are at least some/all of us who are reincarnated beings. Nobody remembers a past life, so (in a similar situation to the tree falling in the forest) if you don't remember your past life, isn't reincarnation basically the same as "nothing"?

Ok, if reincarnation happens you are coming back as zooplankton at least a thousand times before you get anything else due to sheer numbers. You will be like "ah, I am a zooplankton" and then WHALE FOOD! And then you will be like "ah, zooplankton again" and then CORAL REEF FOOD! And then you will be like "goddamn it, not again!" and then SEAHORSE FOOD.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Sliver

I didn't say nothing happens. I said you decompose. You are a physical being and nothing more (unless it can be proved otherwise). Decomposition is what happens. All that you are is returned to the earth. That requires no faith to believe. It is literally and objectively what happens.

It requires faith to say you are physical being and nothing more as a lack of evidence is not proof.

[GirlySports]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

For the multiple lives / reincarnation crowd:

If reincarnation exists, chances are there are at least some/all of us who are reincarnated beings. Nobody remembers a past life, so (in a similar situation to the tree falling in the forest) if you don't remember your past life, isn't reincarnation basically the same as "nothing"?

We don't forget 100% there are a few things that can be remembered. Sometimes people believe that a mom owes their children from a previous life, that's why they spend their whole life caring for them. Or those musical prodigies. How can a 3 year old play a Beethoven song on the piano without any lessons? Natural talent = he still remembers something from before. We you have kids and see them at ages 1 2 and 3. They just pick up things amazing well. Too well.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

We don't forget 100% there are a few things that can be remembered. Sometimes people believe that a mom owes their children from a previous life, that's why they spend their whole life caring for them. Or those musical prodigies. How can a 3 year old play a Beethoven song on the piano without any lessons? Natural talent = he still remembers something from before. We you have kids and see them at ages 1 2 and 3. They just pick up things amazing well. Too well.

Mozart himself was a child prodigy, a master at the piano at the age of 4.

The piano was invented in the 1700's, he was born in 1756. You're telling me he knew the piano so well because in less than 56 years, the piano was invented, someone became a master, died, and was reincarnated as Mozart?

There's just not a lot of logic there. The likelihood of coming back as a person again, at all, is infinitely small. Certainly small enough that whatever mother/child thing you were eluding to would be crazy.

Isn't it so much more believable that the human brain is power and fantastic and that we don't quite know the limits of rather than "He's smart because he was a person once already."

[Minnie]

Originally Posted by dissentowner

What happens when we die?

We dead.

[The Fonz]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

Isn't it so much more believable that the human brain is power and fantastic and that we don't quite know the limits of rather than "He's smart because he was a person once already."

It's always been this way, for certain types of people, in regards to things they do not understand. It's creating a solution to the mystery, but not finding the solution. "God did it".

Unfortunately for that way of thinking though, is that we're understanding more and more with each day that passes, and so that God and everything he did, will be ever-diminishing.

Neil Tyson put it best:

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by The Fonz

It's always been this way, for certain types of people, in regards to things they do not understand. It's creating a solution to the mystery, but not finding the solution. "God did it".

Unfortunately for that way of thinking though, is that we're understanding more and more with each day that passes, and so that God and everything he did, will be ever-diminishing.

Neil Tyson put it best:

Yeah that's just another false concept of god.
You make up what god is in your mind and than you prove it wrong. God can't be conceived by the mind.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Yeah that's just another false concept of god.
You make up what god is in your mind and than you prove it wrong. God can't be conceived by the mind.

If it can't possibly be conceived, that should put heaven to bed, since we would lack the ability to understand it in any meaningful way.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

If it can't possibly be conceived, that should put heaven to bed, since we would lack the ability to understand it in any meaningful way.

It can be experienced.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

It can be experienced.

I know, I've had Pizza by the Slice while drunk at 1 AM too.

[Vulcan]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I know, I've had Pizza by the Slice while drunk at 1 AM too.

So before you did this could you describe this experience or would you just be making something up in your mind?