1340 replies to this topic

[Tom]

ROFL, yeah because infinity is that "simple." You still relate the "afterlife" by comparing it to how you feel in this life, you are not looking at the full picture. This life could merely be a dream created by your higher self to experience some form of spiritual evolution in "infinity." Yeah again i'm rambling with theories, i'll stop, but you get the picture. Infinity means that it is this world but it also means its more than this world and its not 100% 3rd dimension physical as well.

[Athena]

Yeah but whether there is or is not an afterlife, should we not enjoy this life as well and make the best of it?

[cdmtx(YR)]

Those gases just could've been there always? I can ask you samely, where did God come from? How did 'He' get into existance?

Why would there be hell if you are an atheist? Doesn't God love all 'His' / Its children equally? If that atheist lives by moral principles, lives a good life, helps other people, then why would that person go to, if it would exist, Hell?

Note: I write 'He' because I personally find that, if there was a God, God would be genderless, not male.

Well, my reply for the first part of this paragraph is this. I cant prove there is a God.. but i believe there is.. and theres a lot of sound logic and reason (ie Einstein) to believe there is a God who made everything and is real! Just like you cant prove that there is no God.. you believe there is. And for yourself, you can't prove where the gases and matter came from that made this universe, and on top of it science is perpetually changing... even in the last 50 years.

For your second state this is what I have to say. Christians believe God is a perfect God and the perfect cannot coexist with the imperfect or the perfect would be tainted. So let me ask you guys do you obey the 10 Commandments... just the 10 Commandments all of your life? I don't think so, chances are we even break one of them everyday. So on any given day I think even the holiest person would say they sin, lets give it a modest number, 3 times a day. Say you live for another 50 years and you sin three times a day thats 3 times 356 times 50 which equals 53,400. So at the end of your life you have over 50 THOUSAND reasons why you cant coexist with God.. we needed the perfect to take our imperfections and make us like him. Using our own scale of morality doesnt work.. we have to use God's, pigs sitting in their own slop dont think theyre dirty.. but we as humans do, because we're more mature and sophisticated then them.

Now, try this: Imagine a circle that contained all the knowledge of everything in the entire universe..
and then put a circle inside that circle signifying how much he knows to be fact. Most likely your circle will be extremely small. You will see that you have a very limited sphere of knowledge and a God could exist. I challenge you to realize that atheism is a religion just as christianity or anything else
he believes there to be no God, because you really in the end cant prove it. Do you realize how atheists need about a million times MORE faith then Christians, because to believe that all of this came about by accident is impossible.. its much more logical to believe in a creator like intelligent heavyweights Einstein believed.


PS Blaat I find it very interesting that you have the pitcher of the two crosses on your Blog, and I believe it says "Rock of ages"

[Athena]

Well, my reply for the first part of this paragraph is this. I cant prove there is a God.. but i believe there is.. and theres a lot of sound logic and reason (ie Einstein) to believe there is a God who made everything and is real! Just like you cant prove that there is no God.. you believe there is. And for yourself, you can't prove where the gases and matter came from that made this universe, and on top of it science is perpetually changing... even in the last 50 years.

I can choose to believe those gases came into existance.

For your second state this is what I have to say. Christians believe God is a perfect God and the perfect cannot coexist with the imperfect or the perfect would be tainted. So let me ask you guys do you obey the 10 Commandments... just the 10 Commandments all of your life? I don't think so, chances are we even break one of them everyday. So on any given day I think even the holiest person would say they sin, lets give it a modest number, 3 times a day. Say you live for another 50 years and you sin three times a day thats 3 times 356 times 50 which equals 53,400. So at the end of your life you have over 50 THOUSAND reasons why you cant coexist with God.. we needed the perfect to take our imperfections and make us like him. Using our own scale of morality doesnt work.. we have to use God's, pigs sitting in their own slop dont think theyre dirty.. but we as humans do, because we're more mature and sophisticated then them.

It depends what someone sees as a 'sin'. I personally try to live my life as I see good. And if I make a mistake, I learn from it. If everything was perfect, life would be no fun, would it? I don't see faults as a sin, I see them as things to learn from. I don't mean murder or such here, I mean like lesser faults.

Now, try this: Imagine a circle that contained all the knowledge of everything in the entire universe..
and then put a circle inside that circle signifying how much he knows to be fact. Most likely your circle will be extremely small. You will see that you have a very limited sphere of knowledge and a God could exist. I challenge you to realize that atheism is a religion just as christianity or anything else
he believes there to be no God, because you really in the end cant prove it. Do you realize how atheists need about a million times MORE faith then Christians, because to believe that all of this came about by accident is impossible.. its much more logical to believe in a creator like intelligent heavyweights Einstein believed.

Doesn't seem more logical to me really. Are you calling me unintelligent here?

I'm not saying that God could not exist. I just don't believe in 'Him'. I prefer to be open-minded and I do not mind if others tell me their thoughts. As long as they don't enforce their belief upon me.

PS Blaat I find it very interesting that you have the pitcher of the two crosses on your Blog, and I believe it says "Rock of ages"

What pitcher Rock of Ages thing do you mean?

EDIT Do you mean the cross on the mountain at Bray where there's graffiti saying 'Rock of Ages'?

[MSpencer]

When an organism dies, their heart stops. Shortly after their organs begin to fail. About a minute after your organs begin shutting down and you can no longer control your body, your brain turns off the lights and brain cells begin dying by the billions due to lack of oxygen and a buildup of minor somewhat poisonous compounds created when the body begins breaking down organic macromolecules in a last ditch attempt to produce a little more oxygen gas to keep some brain cells going until you can take a gasp.

Of course, this is in vain, and the brain invariably dies one way or another. In that instant, your life is snuffed out like a burning candle pinched between two wet fingers. Your life, your experiences, your personality, your memories, everything that makes up what people might want to call a "soul", invariably dies much like that of any other organism which has died, a mouse which has been eaten by a cat, a buffalo shot on the plains, a horse put down due to injury, a dog of old age, a bacterium because of UV exposure, a protist due to a certain cleansing agent, or an ant crushed beneath the sole of a shoe.

Invariably, it all goes down the same way. Either you meet a very violent fate, and there is not enough of your brain left to undergo this dreadful process, or you die a more peaceful death, and your brain continues to process for about two minutes after you die, constantly gathering data, subliminally trying to save itself from the inevitable when the heart stops.

It is unfortunate, because there is no transfer of soul. When you turn off, your mind turns off. When your mind turns off, your entire life is snuffed out leaving only a corpse which will soon grow quite cold, enter rigor mortis, and finally result in the complete decomposition of the original corpse, returning its stored energy into the environment and providing a food source for the organisms occupying the decomposer and scavenger trophic levels. Your brain doesn't go anywhere, it's not magically teleported to "God" 's desk to await judgement like some contorted form of mail in an inbox.

If anything, the most probable explanation for something "godlike" would be an advanced extraterrestrial race which has completely ascended out of their original form and has entered a higher plane of existence, one which we cannot comprehend. Already we know our vision is limited. We see in three dimensions, not eight. We see a defined amount of things, we do not possess the ability to see tangible energy although it is believed such things would be possible with different sensory organs.

We do not hear ultrasonic whistles because our ears are not properly adapted (Although if it were a significant factor in the reproductive success of our species, it would probably find its way in there, but it didn't because we're long distance running scavengers while cats and dogs are predators). We do not sense mass, we can feel it, but you cannot look at something and say that it is 33.2kg.

There are things out there that may be beyond our level of understanding, but that is no reason to mistake these things for some godlike figure. Three hundred years ago, a lighter would be considered godlike. Today, it's just a lighter.

Give humanity a chance, I can guarantee they won't disappoint, but they will if we all give up our intuition and forget everything we've ever learned when it conflicts with the literal translations of the bible... Sometimes it is better for things to be left to religion, such as funerals, and things to be left to science, such as everything else.

Frankly, If I owed $30,000,000 to a bank, I wouldn't pray for that debt to go away and seriously hope something would happen. Faith is ignorance. Defined facts bring reason into the world, and open the universe up for greater understanding. Too much faith leaves things clouded in an unshakeable veil forever.

(EDIT by Hostile so people can read it)

[Drewry]

I agree with AG, that is my biggest problem with atheism. I am a very spiritual person, and there is no reason to living if there is no god. Atheists claim to be the logical thinkers, but if you really think about it the most efficient choice for atheists to make is to kill themselves. Im not saying this in a mean manner Im just being honest. Because if there is no god, then there is no point to living because as soon as you do the universe will end, and even if you are living so you can have a family etc and impact the world eventually they will die, and eventually all humans will die, and by that time you will be long forgotten.

There IS no point to life without a higher being. I think that there is more to life and the universe than it being this random accident.

[Banshee]

Spencer, you could do a scientific site with all these amazing explanations you post, instead of posting the same thing on 10 thousand topics. And, yea, we could host your site .

[MSpencer]

It's simply a nice little wakeup call to those people with delusions of grandeur that their memory will live forever in another realm. I think it's all time that each and every one of you woke up and realized that you're going to live out your life, you're perhaps going to reproduce, and then you're going to die.

They call it the circle of life for a good reason, you start out, reproduce, and drop dead. It's a circle because the only point of an individual organism is to live and reproduce to ensure survival of the species, while the entire purpose of the species is to maintain a steady population, done so by reproducing.

Regardless, we're all going to die some day. Our consciousness will pour out into the atmosphere in the form of released energy, be it through decomposition, or radiation of heat after the body dies. One way or another, you're going to end up in a box, maybe one of you will be lucky enough to end up at the bottom of the ocean with your feet cemented into a plastic bucket bought for $3 at Home Depot by Mario.

The only people who will remember you are those which you, in your short amount of time on the planet, left an impression upon, so live it up. It would be nice if we had that lovely afterlife lounge, really great, we can sip martinis and admire the beautiful ocean view, basking in the frivolous but engaging conversation of the moment.

It's too bad that it is impossible, however I do hope for all our sakes that I am incorrect. Unfortunately, foresaking my own hopes, I can only look at the information, the dead, cold facts which confront me: it's impossible. The idea sounds fantastic to me, I'd love for it to be true, I do hope it is, but every logical fiber in my body is completely opposed to any concrete feeling that such a thing could ever happen when decomposition is really that big unarguable fact right in front of you... well... in you.

(EDIT by Hostile so people can read it)

[Hostile]

Unless you learn how you break up your posts into chunks the human eye can see, I can't read it all. In the future use line breaks and paragraphs and such. To me it all looked like one run on sentence.

I've edited two of your above posts so you know what I mean.

[MSpencer]

No, I do know what you mean, I just never bothered to separate paragraphs. I'm used to writing very long paragraphs with double spacing on, to be honest, so it's not at the forefront of my mind.

[Athena]

I agree with AG, that is my biggest problem with atheism. I am a very spiritual person, and there is no reason to living if there is no god. Atheists claim to be the logical thinkers, but if you really think about it the most efficient choice for atheists to make is to kill themselves. Im not saying this in a mean manner Im just being honest. Because if there is no god, then there is no point to living because as soon as you do the universe will end, and even if you are living so you can have a family etc and impact the world eventually they will die, and eventually all humans will die, and by that time you will be long forgotten.

I do think there is a reason. For one I want to live a happy life. And also bring happiness to others around me. What is this crap about suicide o_O..

So what, you living in heaven suddenly does give a point to you life? What is that point then, if I may ask, and why would it be "better" than my point?

So what if we die? We get born, we die, two sides of the coin named life. You came into existance, from nothing, you go back to nothing. But you had a good time inbetween.

There IS no point to life without a higher being. I think that there is more to life and the universe than it being this random accident.

I agree on the last sentence. But that's about it.

The idea sounds fantastic to me, I'd love for it to be true, I do hope it is

I agree there.

Sometimes when people or pets die, I imagine them to be at a better place. But we can't know for sure.

[Tom]

Spence the brain is a portal. It is what keeps this body alive and functioning. The memory is part of the brain yes, but also your spirit is much larger than your body according to all those whom have had a NDE. In what they state of the dimensions of the body, the 3rd is the body, the 4th is called the astral projection in which emotions have more strength and power, this comes out of the body like an aura, hence why you can actually feel negative/positive due to different emotions. This isn't just the brain you are actually sending out energy with each through and each emotion. Hence why people can "feel" bad vibes from you or why if you go someone that is threateneing you can actually feel the bad vibrations in that area. Science doesn't answer this part of human psychology but there definately is something more than just the body when it comes to energies and emotions. Next the spirit is considered the 5th dimension by some, however only in the terms of self. Still the spirit comes out beyond the astral projection and is much larger made of pure energy.

Tell me spence what keeps the brain alive? Energy. Electrodes running between the cells or however it works keeps the brain and memory. The spirit is the same as it is pure energy. Everything that exists is PURE ENERGY in one way or another. If the spirit is pure energy then it has the ability to also do what the brain could, but because it is larger and more "powerful" it can do this at a better "rate."

Science cannot again argue "truth" or "falseness" because we don't understand these things as humans. Your brain can die but your spirit is a little more than just your brain. Its your consciousness. The brain is merely the link between the spirit and the body.

[MSpencer]

The brain is an organ, not a portal. The brain functions on the most basic of organic laws, we can predict its behavior, figure out how and why it works, we can determine what kind of thoughts you're having judging on which parts are stimulated. It's no more a portal than a heart is a train station. Yes, it pumps and sends other cells on their way, and the brain does act in ways that could deceive and seem to lead to higher brain functions than human beings are capable of doing, but remember, when we can trace where all the energy goes when you die? What happens to the so-called "soul" energy, hmm?
Everything radiates out into the universe. Your thermal energy is gone in minutes, weakly held chemical energy gone in months, and eventually bones will remain which will remain stripped of any purpose and will eventually be claimed by gradual eroding forces.
And if you do have a near death experience, I'm not surprised if you would see the most fantastic of visions. Mostly people who are close to death are suffering from oxygen deprivation on account of their heart stopping or their major blodlines not being able to transport oxygen and vital minerals, making them just a biiiiiiiiiiiiiit loopy.
Well really loopy. Kind of like that bimbo Anna Nicole Smith after banging twelve guys, doing thirty lines of coke, and drinking a full two gallon bottle of cheap, strong vodka which could practically explode. They're fucking nuts.

[cdmtx(YR)]

Faith is ignorance. Defined facts bring reason into the world, and open the universe up for greater understanding. Too much faith leaves things clouded in an unshakeable veil forever.

Only 100% proven factual information, and no faith based belief is how you believe this universe and all of its creations on it, in it, and around it came into being. If the universe on its creations were a giant puzzle there would be so many blank pieces in the puzzle you wouldn't be able to tell what that puzzle looks like without the cover of the box. Where do you believe the matter and the gases that first appeared in the dawn of time came from. You know as well as I know it is a scientific fact, that nothing can not produce something else living or nonliving (matter and or gases). As Blaat85 said "I can choose to believe those gases came into existance." That my friend would be called faith, if you like it or not you guys have faith, and even more than Christians. Let me explain: 1) You have been the faith in the whole matter and gas thing(what I just talked about before). 2) Spencer as a person who is highly interested and knowledgeable with the study of biology. I'm sure you are aware of how complex the human body is. How complex the human eye and ear are, how the ear picks up sound waves the most efficient way through a liquid substance then through small jointed bone where it is tapped against the ear drum, like Morse code. Can you truly say that an accident of random occurrences, that just happened to stay with the whole human race? What about the human eye with its thousands of different color cells, lenses to adjust for distances and close-ups, with all of its complex nerves and muscles working together to keep the eye in focus and not just rolling around in the socket like its drunk, and how it looks at an image upside down then reverses so we can have the clearest image to how we see it as of now. Is this the sign of random occurrences that happen over a vast amount of time, that all these characteristics have just randomly fall together in perfect harmony and work unbelievably well? Oh and yes and what about the complexity of the brain and nervous system and most advanced on this planet. Was that a random occurrences to? What about plant life, all of the animals each individual species, how the solar system works, high tide and low tide, how there's a food chain set up and just random chaos going around. Each species of every animal, planet and bacterium how each individual species is so complex all just randomly happened without a creator? The chances of that happening are 0.1 to 1000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000....................... well you get the point. Atheist need a thousand times more faith then any Christians or any other religious faction on this planet.

[Athena]

But is the chance of the Big Bang really that much lower than the chance of the existance of a God?

[cdmtx(YR)]

But is the chance of the Big Bang really that much lower than the chance of the existance of a God?

Thats not the exact number but the chances are a lot lower for the Big Bang theory.

PS Blaat85 the picture of the cross is maybe five pitchers down from the top of the page on your Blog.

Edited by cdmtx(YR), 08 August 2006 - 04:11 PM.

[Athena]

What makes you say that?

Don't you think that the existance of something as God, including Jesus's life, the writing of the Bible, I think those chances are not higher than the Big Bang.

[MSpencer]

Evolution and natural selection completely explains the development of complex biological systems. We have covered this about thirty thousand times in this very forum.
I recommend you pass basic high school biology, or invest in buying some of these books:
http://www.amazon.co...i...nce&s=books
http://www.amazon.co...i...ce&n=507846
http://www.amazon.co...i...ce&n=507846

Things such as the "arguments" you just presented were thought up of in the 19th century, and disproven by the early 20th century. It has taken one hundred and fifty years for science to come to the inevitable conclusion: organisms evolve.
And I find it difficult to believe that someone who believes in no higher power needs more faith than someone building their beliefs off some 2,000 - 4,000 year old book which has been used as a method of controlling people for as long as it has been in existence.
Either read the threads, or read the books, but don't be spreading your ignorance about the theory of evolution without first investigating your opponent.
And the chances of that happening without a creator are 1 in 1. 100%. Each and every time. Natural selection demands diversification, accumulation of selected traits demands evolution, evolution demands increasing complexity, something provided by the selecting force of natural selection. They go wonderfully hand in hand and are an awesome alternative to a 4000 year old book.

[cdmtx(YR)]

Can you please state the facts of why the argument I brought up before is disproven (like what scientific facts disproven it)

A little unknown facts is by the end of Charles Darwin's life he began to stop supporting his own theory of the origins of life, because there was no factual information to support it.

And where did those gases and matter come from in the very beginning of time? You know as well as I know it is a scientific fact, that nothing can not produce something else living or nonliving (matter and or gases).

Some arguments against the theory of evolution.
One of the first things wrong with the theory of evolution is.
1. No origin of life
- Scientists are not quite sure where the origins of life really came from.
- One of the first principles of biology is that something cannot just appear from nothing. So where did the of origins the universe come from?? The only other answer is a creator that have put them in place.
The timeline of evolution, basically looks like this

2. No fossil record
- Consider this ... if there are billions of species alive today then according to the theory of evolution there was trillions of other species to get to the species we have today.
- So these trillions of the missing links would be found in the fossil record (fossil put together to form a record of time). But there are NO missing links found, so out of the trillions of the missing links not counting the number of individual animals of the missing link scientists can't find one
- The fossil record instead , supports that evolution is wrong.
So basically , the evolutionary timeline looks like this

atoms > ? > ? > Man
No origin of life / No fossil record


In one more thing I noticed how there are only theories on how life came to being. Example: the Big Bang theory / the theory of Evolution. I find that quite interesting.

Edited by cdmtx(YR), 08 August 2006 - 05:08 PM.

[Athena]

The existance of God has not been proven, has it? That would be a 'theory' likewise.

Thing is, we believe what we want to believe. Whether there is proof or not, to us it does not matter as we believe what we believe, for whatever reason, be it proof, faith, or otherwise.