Thinking about it.. an afterlife doesn't make sense, sadly

[Woosta]

I just came to this conclusion by thinking this over and it makes perfect sense, really.. if I was never aware of anything before my birth, that is before brain cells started developing to form my conscience which I'm thinking through now, how could there be an afterlife if those brain cells and my body will convert into another type of energy, and my brain cells will cease to exist.

And for all those hospital scenarios where people see angels, isn't it basically or most of the time that our brain cells start thinking through every vision we've seen in our life and those are just sorta like hallucinations?

As for believers of the afterlife, assuming this exists and you meet your lineage/family/whatever, do you:

- communicate with them?
- assuming the form in which you die is sent to this supposed afterlife, would you have the ability to touch? assuming you *saw* other *people* in the afterlife what would you do? what would be the point if you couldn't reproduce? if there's technology, is it limited to what is on earth currently?
- if you DO see other humans in the afterlife and they're the stage at which they died, would you see lifeforms such as dead fetuses as well? because they were somewhat "human" for a point, just like us, and then died
- would you be able to eat? if so what?
- do you think other types of animals or life forms, such as single celled organisms also go to heaven? we are all animals on earth, really, its just some of use have more brain capacity than others which allows us to have more thoughts, be able to make smarter decisions, take advantage of technology
- would this be in the same dimension or a 4th dimension?

 

[bignateyk]

Life doesn't make sense either. Think about it. You live in this universe that had to have come from somewhere, but where the hell did it come from? You live on a habitable planet in the middle of that chaotic universe. What are the odds of that? 1 in trillions? even less? On top of that, you are an intelligent being on that planet. How many millions of years of evolution did that take? And why you? Out of all the other intelligent beings, and other life forms, why did you become you?

Until life makes sense, I don't really examine an afterlife making sense.

 

[FDF12389]

Originally posted by: bignateyk
Life doesn't make sense either. Think about it. You live in this universe that had to have come from somewhere, but where the hell did it come from? You live on a habitable planet in the middle of that chaotic universe. What are the odds of that? 1 in trillions? even less? On top of that, you are an intelligent being on that planet. How many millions of years of evolution did that take? And why you? Out of all the other intelligent beings, and other life forms, why did you become you?

Until life makes sense, I don't really examine an afterlife making sense.

What he said

 

[Woosta]

Originally posted by: bignateyk
Life doesn't make sense either. Think about it. You live in this universe that had to have come from somewhere, but where the hell did it come from? You live on a habitable planet in the middle of that chaotic universe. What are the odds of that? 1 in trillions? even less? On top of that, you are an intelligent being on that planet. How many millions of years of evolution did that take? And why you? Out of all the other intelligent beings, and other life forms, why did you become you?

Until life makes sense, I don't really examine an afterlife making sense.

Good observation, I've thought about the creation of the universe as well... how the hell did it come to be, how the hell does the big bang really work? Will it always expand? What if it starts contracting? Is there a limit?

 

[bignateyk]

Originally posted by: Woosta

Originally posted by: bignateyk
Life doesn't make sense either. Think about it. You live in this universe that had to have come from somewhere, but where the hell did it come from? You live on a habitable planet in the middle of that chaotic universe. What are the odds of that? 1 in trillions? even less? On top of that, you are an intelligent being on that planet. How many millions of years of evolution did that take? And why you? Out of all the other intelligent beings, and other life forms, why did you become you?

Until life makes sense, I don't really examine an afterlife making sense.

Good observation, I've thought about the creation of the universe as well... how the hell did it come to be, how the hell does the big bang really work? Will it always expand? What if it starts contracting? Is there a limit?

Even the big bang doesn't make sense. Something can't come from nothing. There had to have been something there before. Even if all the matter in the universe was concentrated to one spot right before the big bang happened, where did that concentrated matter come from?


edit: And think about the incredible number of things that had to happen just right for your existence to happen. The odds are probably so small you couldn't fill thousands of pages with zeros before you got to the fraction that represents your life. It's almost laughable. You had to be in the right universe, the right place (our planet), the right time (evolved). On top of that, how many millions of sperm went into your mom, each one representing a different possibility for life.

 

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: Woosta

Originally posted by: bignateyk
Life doesn't make sense either. Think about it. You live in this universe that had to have come from somewhere, but where the hell did it come from? You live on a habitable planet in the middle of that chaotic universe. What are the odds of that? 1 in trillions? even less? On top of that, you are an intelligent being on that planet. How many millions of years of evolution did that take? And why you? Out of all the other intelligent beings, and other life forms, why did you become you?

Until life makes sense, I don't really examine an afterlife making sense.

Good observation, I've thought about the creation of the universe as well... how the hell did it come to be, how the hell does the big bang really work? Will it always expand? What if it starts contracting? Is there a limit?

wow, you are too external. Can you remember your childhood or babyhood? No right and You are talking about past life? Give me a break.

If you observe more closely, the universe isn't just a random creation of nature, look at the planets rotating around the sun with precision, look at the seasons on earth- they are spread so evenly, nature is so beautiful, so is the wildlife. All this cannot be done without a intelligent process.

 

[bignateyk]

Originally posted by: Aberforth

Originally posted by: Woosta

Originally posted by: bignateyk
Life doesn't make sense either. Think about it. You live in this universe that had to have come from somewhere, but where the hell did it come from? You live on a habitable planet in the middle of that chaotic universe. What are the odds of that? 1 in trillions? even less? On top of that, you are an intelligent being on that planet. How many millions of years of evolution did that take? And why you? Out of all the other intelligent beings, and other life forms, why did you become you?

Until life makes sense, I don't really examine an afterlife making sense.

Good observation, I've thought about the creation of the universe as well... how the hell did it come to be, how the hell does the big bang really work? Will it always expand? What if it starts contracting? Is there a limit?

wow, you are too external. Can you remember your childhood or babyhood? No right and You are talking about past life? Give me a break.

If you observe more closely, the universe isn't just a random creation of nature, look at the planets rotating around the sun with precision, look at the seasons on earth- they are spread so evenly, nature is so beautiful, so is the wildlife. All this cannot be done without a intelligent process.

That's kind of my point. If you look at it as a random process, the odds are so ridiculous it's laughable. Then again, who knows what can happen when infinite odds combine with infinite time. I lean toward intelligent design though.

 

[DrPizza]

Something can't come from nothing.

According to your intuition. However, that statement has been debunked numerous times. See: virtual particle, Hawking radiation

 

[sandorski]

See sig.

 

[nanette1985]

Life doesn't make sense, but at least it's here. I can tell how whimsical it is. Afterlife REALLY doesn't make sense. We deal with this life, but we're also supposed to deal with something that happens "afterwards" that nobody really knows anything about?

Why would I believe somebody who talks about what happens after we die? People don't even know what's going to happen to the stock market next week, or who's going to win the world series, etc. And yet somehow they know ALL ABOUT what happens after death?

The only reason people get away with the after life stories is that there's no way of holding them accountable when they're wrong.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: bignateyk
Life doesn't make sense either. Think about it. You live in this universe that had to have come from somewhere, but where the hell did it come from? You live on a habitable planet in the middle of that chaotic universe. What are the odds of that? 1 in trillions? even less? On top of that, you are an intelligent being on that planet. How many millions of years of evolution did that take? And why you? Out of all the other intelligent beings, and other life forms, why did you become you?

Until life makes sense, I don't really examine an afterlife making sense.

Pretty good actually, 100% if you want to get specific. Life can not exist where conditions are Uninhabitable. All your questions regarding Life, Intelligence, ets come to 100% Probablity that We would have achieved them, because, well, we're here. It's too late to question the Probablity for Ourselves, Fate, Destiny, Evolution have already determined our existance.

 

[Muse]

Afterlife is for softies and suckers, oh and conmen.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: bignateyk
Even the big bang doesn't make sense. Something can't come from nothing. There had to have been something there before. Even if all the matter in the universe was concentrated to one spot right before the big bang happened, where did that concentrated matter come from?

I view causality as a product of our realm of space and time. The Big Bang has been said to be an eruption of both, as well as energy. Describe for me a place where space and time do not exist.
Good luck.

edit: And think about the incredible number of things that had to happen just right for your existence to happen. The odds are probably so small you couldn't fill thousands of pages with zeros before you got to the fraction that represents your life. It's almost laughable. You had to be in the right universe, the right place (our planet), the right time (evolved). On top of that, how many millions of sperm went into your mom, each one representing a different possibility for life.

Not really. Like you said, right universe, right place, and right time - and right sperm.
Look at the Universe. The VAST majority of it is lifeless, just empty space. Seems we've already met the conditions of those small odds.
And if the conditions weren't right for life to develop right here, right now, then there wouldn't be anyone around to complain about it. There's probably no one sitting in Neptune's Great Dark Spot saying, "Life shouldn't be able to exist here, yet here I am. Wow, the odds against life developing are really weird."

You also can't really apply the odds retroactively as you are doing. The event's already happened, thus I would have to say that its chances of happening are 100%. And in a Universe that is many many many billions of cubic light years in volume, there are a lot of chances for things to happen, things like carbon-based life developing on a large chunk of iron, orbiting a hot puff of hydrogen plasma.

Originally posted by: Aberforth
wow, you are too external. Can you remember your childhood or babyhood? No right and You are talking about past life? Give me a break.

If you observe more closely, the universe isn't just a random creation of nature, look at the planets rotating around the sun with precision, look at the seasons on earth- they are spread so evenly, nature is so beautiful, so is the wildlife. All this cannot be done without a intelligent process.

So the intelligent designer must have been more complex than that which it created.
Like always is said then, that higher degree of complexity would therefore require an even more complex creator, ie, who created the creator?
If said creator can be free of the limits of causality, why not the Big Bang as well? Why can this creator simply be called the "first mover" without a second thought?

Second, we look for patterns. We assign the quantity of "order" to things. And it's a matter of perspective. Look at clouds developing in the sky. To some they may appear chaotic and random. To others, it's a pattern. As computers capable of performing advanced particle physics calculations become increasingly powerful, cloud formation may even be predictable through mathematics, within the limits of the uncertainty principle.
The seasons - are they really spread evenly? Some years there's snow later than April. Some years, it can be 60°F in January. The snowfall can vary by several feet. Droughts may come and last for decades, followed by a year of flooding. How even is "even" exactly? Their duration is simply determined by the planet's rotation, a function of how it developed. It could just as easily have had very different seasons, or even days. Look at Venus - its day is longer than its year. Or Uranus, its axis tilted around 98°. Or some large asteroid, tumbling about an oblong orbit. We could live on any one of those places, and surely someone would still call it orderly.

Just as "order" and "random" can be subjective, so can beauty. Is it beautiful to watch a cow give birth? Or see a group of chimps rip apart another animal for food? Or watch a bacterial infection kill a person? Or see the sun setting behind some mountains? Those are all just examples of nature in action. Are any of them any more or less beautiful than the others?



Some other interesting thoughts on the afterlife:
- Are you naked? It's not like clothing dies with you.
- If you're blind, do you spend eternity blind as well?
- As someone else mentioned, what age are you arrive in this afterlife? 20s? 60s? A toddler?
- If you were paralyzed in life, are you still paralyzed?
- If you died because you were born with only a brain stem, are you given a full, normal human brain? Or if you had been mentally retarded, would your brain be restored to normal? This would almost certainly fundamentally alter your personality as well; is this a good thing?
- If you have an eternity in which to exist, are you confined to this limited primate brain, or can you have hope of ever expanding beyond it?
- If you have an eternity in which to exist, what happens when you get bored? After living through the births and deaths of a trillion Universes, and exploring the trillion^trillion other possible ones within the proposed Multiverse, then what? Are you allowed to end your own existence?

 

[Greenman]

Wow, you cracked the code.

 

[Alone]

I don't want an afterlife, anyways. I want peace and quiet, FFS.

 

[BassBomb]

tbh I believe your spirit goes into something else, without knowledge of your previous life

 

[her209]

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What...ee_space_empty_of_mass

We are made up of 99% of empty space.

 

[Udgnim]

Originally posted by: Woosta
I just came to this conclusion by thinking this over and it makes perfect sense, really.. if I was never aware of anything before my birth, that is before brain cells started developing to form my conscience which I'm thinking through now, how could there be an afterlife if those brain cells and my body will convert into another type of energy, and my brain cells will cease to exist.

And for all those hospital scenarios where people see angels, isn't it basically or most of the time that our brain cells start thinking through every vision we've seen in our life and those are just sorta like hallucinations?

As for believers of the afterlife, assuming this exists and you meet your lineage/family/whatever, do you:

- communicate with them?
- assuming the form in which you die is sent to this supposed afterlife, would you have the ability to touch? assuming you *saw* other *people* in the afterlife what would you do? what would be the point if you couldn't reproduce? if there's technology, is it limited to what is on earth currently?
- if you DO see other humans in the afterlife and they're the stage at which they died, would you see lifeforms such as dead fetuses as well? because they were somewhat "human" for a point, just like us, and then died
- would you be able to eat? if so what?
- do you think other types of animals or life forms, such as single celled organisms also go to heaven? we are all animals on earth, really, its just some of use have more brain capacity than others which allows us to have more thoughts, be able to make smarter decisions, take advantage of technology
- would this be in the same dimension or a 4th dimension?

it's called faith

 

[Ctrackstar126]

Originally posted by: Udgnim


it's called faith

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ei_FJWHXys

 

[Farang]

i'm so high

 

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: Jeff7
So the intelligent designer must have been more complex than that which it created.
Like always is said then, that higher degree of complexity would therefore require an even more complex creator, ie, who created the creator?

The sum total of cosmic energy is always the same, there is a wave of intelligence that always existed which ancients called as God, creation and creator are two parallel lines without beginning or end, it's a circle under which we filter out different subjects. Real truth cannot be categorized as scientific, philosophical or spiritual- these are different means of understanding but they are still half-truths. Every subject is incomplete, physics would meet it's goal when it finds one energy out of which all other energies are formed, chemistry- one element out of which all others are formed, so is it with the other subjects.

Let me ask you something? why do we stress on humanity in general? Think about it. Why shouldn't one kill another if he feels good in doing that? why one shouldn't steal? why one shouldn't lie? if they all feel pride in doing that, if that's their purpose of life?. When we were kids we were taught not to lie or steal, but they didn't teach us why we shouldn't do that? because our parents do not know the answer. No scientist or philosopher can give you the right answer for it- they can only give you the superstitious answer or induce fear, but these questions were really put into effect by some intelligence reaction that came from beyond, like pre-programming human beings. All of these questions about morality, humanity, intellect etc cannot be answered because they are beyond the field of reasoning, that which we call afterlife, God or whatever. Human beings cannot be unkind, cruel, untruthful - if they are then they are doing it under pressure of circumstances with sufficient guilt.

 

[Ctrackstar126]

Originally posted by: Farang
i'm so high

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-R0qNU_ZB8

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: Aberforth

Originally posted by: Jeff7
So the intelligent designer must have been more complex than that which it created.
Like always is said then, that higher degree of complexity would therefore require an even more complex creator, ie, who created the creator?

The sum total of cosmic energy is always the same, there is a wave of intelligence that always existed which ancients called as God, creation and creator are two parallel lines without beginning or end, it's a circle under which we filter out different subjects. Real truth cannot be categorized as scientific, philosophical or spiritual- these are different means of understanding but they are still half-truths. Every subject is incomplete, physics would meet it's goal when it finds one energy out of which all other energies are formed, chemistry- one element out of which all others are formed, so is it with the other subjects.

Let me ask you something? why do we stress on humanity in general? Think about it. Why shouldn't one kill another if he feels good in doing that? why one shouldn't steal? why one shouldn't lie? if they all feel pride in doing that, if that's their purpose of life?. When we were kids we were taught not to lie or steal, but they didn't teach us why we shouldn't do that? because our parents do not know the answer. No scientist or philosopher can give you the right answer for it- they can only give you the superstitious answer or induce fear, but these questions were really put into effect by some intelligence reaction that came from beyond, like pre-programming human beings. All of these questions about morality, humanity, intellect etc cannot be answered because they are beyond the field of reasoning, that which we call afterlife, God or whatever. Human beings cannot be unkind, cruel, untruthful - if they are then they are doing it under pressure of circumstances with sufficient guilt.

No.

 

[mundane]

Originally posted by: Aberforth
...

Let me ask you something? why do we stress on humanity in general? Think about it. Why shouldn't one kill another if he feels good in doing that? why one shouldn't steal? why one shouldn't lie? if they all feel pride in doing that, if that's their purpose of life?. When we were kids we were taught not to lie or steal, but they didn't teach us why we shouldn't so that? because our parents do not know the answer. No scientist or philosopher can give you the right answer for it- they can only give you the superstitious answer or induce fear, but these questions were really put into effect by some intelligence reaction that came from beyond, like pre-programming human beings. All of these questions about morality, humanity, intellect etc cannot be answered because they are beyond the field of reasoning, that which we call afterlife, God or whatever. Human beings cannot be unkind, cruel, untruthful - if they are then they are doing it under pressure of circumstances with sufficient guilt.

Or a species that are predisposed to behave in such a way couldn't coalesce into meaningful civilizations.

 

[Aberforth]

Originally posted by: mundane

Originally posted by: Aberforth
...

Let me ask you something? why do we stress on humanity in general? Think about it. Why shouldn't one kill another if he feels good in doing that? why one shouldn't steal? why one shouldn't lie? if they all feel pride in doing that, if that's their purpose of life?. When we were kids we were taught not to lie or steal, but they didn't teach us why we shouldn't so that? because our parents do not know the answer. No scientist or philosopher can give you the right answer for it- they can only give you the superstitious answer or induce fear, but these questions were really put into effect by some intelligence reaction that came from beyond, like pre-programming human beings. All of these questions about morality, humanity, intellect etc cannot be answered because they are beyond the field of reasoning, that which we call afterlife, God or whatever. Human beings cannot be unkind, cruel, untruthful - if they are then they are doing it under pressure of circumstances with sufficient guilt.

Or a species that are predisposed to behave in such a way couldn't coalesce into meaningful civilizations.

That's right, monkeys cannot evolve into intelligent species capable of landing on moon, without a intelligent pattern of evolution.