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| Thread: Life after Death |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 · «PREV / NEXT» |
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SubZero
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 03, 2002 01:51 PM |
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Response to Avallach...
Maybe life is so simple that we don't need to "think" God as God simply exists and by thinking and trying to analyze God we just go away from God than closer. "God is close" means that we are given God a status of person something that is somewhere. It is just making our own rules how God is. Maybe we all are parts of God and there's no meaning saying are we close or far away from God. I'm not holding any ground so in fact I'm saying that everything is possible. I just think that even we imagine God someway doesn't mean that we are holding the truth in our hands. It just is simply in our minds.
Finding spiritual truth and knowledge can be seen in the same category or as the same. Everyone has thirst for SOMETHING. We cannot be sure is it thirst for afterlife or for enlightment during life or for what.
Maybe someone is doing her needlework because that way she believes she is closer to God. Or maybe she doesn't even believe it herself but she still does those things subconsciously.
Who knows?
When I do my martial arts training I have feeling that I'm closer to my truth. And I'm not trying to even say it's very spiritual experience but I have strong feeling of reality inside me during training.
So I'm saying that I'm closer to my truth but I'm not certainly saying that I'm close to somebody elses. Of course I could start to blame it to be the universal truth because I have feeling it fills everything in my own universe.
Many people nowadays try to find truth from inside themselves through intensive training like in gym or mountaineering. Isn't that as precious as trying to find them from religious texts?
And if we look the way what man needs to survive in life. It's water, food, shelter and so on.
But do we NEED the idea of God and eternity? Or does it simply exist in our minds and we are trying to fulfill with ideas of something greater than us? Something to do in our spare time when we have already the necessities for our survival. More spare time, more theories about what God and afterlife is. So are those just "hobbies" after all?
What is logical and illogical is just how we learn to think I think people just learn certain way of thinking and then they are trying to prove everything through that thinking. What SEEMS to be logical IS not true.
It's just rule we have ourselves invented so we can understand each other. I think logical thinking is like language. It's way of understanding each other and trying to say how world works. But in the end it doesn't mean world works logically. It just SEEMS to work that way.
What comes to Descartes...
I think the idea of soul and mind is very problematic. At the sametime we are trying to think us as "souls", we are trying to find something from our "mind" and we are trying to use our "minds".
I wouldn't start arguing whether Descartes meant mind or soul. What I think Descartes tried to say with "Cogito, Ergo Sum" was that he saw everything through his mind. So thinking was what he was. He couldn't prove anything else but that he was thinking so he existed. True egoistic thinking without any "outside truth".
Even if our faith for something is very strong (like what is logical and what is not) there's always the chance we are wrong. So in the end the doubt and holding our stance against the doubt is what makes us walk our way.
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The only Zen you find on the top of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
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Cat
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Gonna Get Dirrty...
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posted June 03, 2002 10:51 PM |
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Reply to Avalanche...
Mind, body and "other" is my idea of things. "Other" does not go skipping around an choir singing, but is more the essence of humanity.
Darwin places man on top of the chain (interestingly, above women). This lead man to believe he was extra special.
As for Descartes... he spent a great deal of his life attempting to disprove classical theological ideas. Descartes incoroprates the classical idea of "soul" ito his idea of the mental, but denys there is a "soul" as a separate entity... he believed it was simply a part of a whole, not a part in itself. Descartes got closer to his God in his way, and his theory of propperty Dualism was actually very unpopular in the church.
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 Diwethaf Gloau Sylw y Gymreag
http://aozos.com/phpBB2/index.php
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted June 04, 2002 07:45 PM |
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The Theory of Evolution doesn't make "greatest organism" decisions in any way beyond survival and it certainly doesn't place man above woman. The only criterion that the Theory of Evolution ranks organisms by is survival. Well, I suppose to be strictly accurate the only thing that it ranks organisms by is the propogation of genes (ie - reproduction). In other words, it pretty much comes down to : are you or your descendants still alive? If the answer is yes, you are a good organism, if the answer is no, you are not. In other words, Man/Woman is no better than a cockroach or bacteria. (some would argue that, since humans haven't been around for very long, we're still, relatively speaking, an unsuccesful organism in the grand scheme of things although past success doesn't really count from the natural selection view of things...)
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted June 04, 2002 07:46 PM |
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The Theory of Evolution doesn't make "greatest organism" decisions in any way beyond survival and it certainly doesn't place man above woman. The only criterion that the Theory of Evolution ranks organisms by is survival. Well, I suppose to be strictly accurate the only thing that it ranks organisms by is the propogation of genes (ie - reproduction). In other words, it pretty much comes down to : are you or your descendants still alive? If the answer is yes, you are a good organism, if the answer is no, you are not. In other words, Man/Woman is no better than a cockroach or bacteria. (some would argue that, since humans haven't been around for very long, we're still, relatively speaking, an unsuccesful organism in the grand scheme of things although past success doesn't really count from the natural selection view of things...)
In fact, if you want to get absolutely technical, the theory of evolution would probably rank women above men since mitochondrial genes are inherited from the mother.
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted June 06, 2002 07:09 AM |
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how'd I miss this thread?
Sub-Zero;
Ying-Yang isn't saying that everything has an opposite, it's saying that everything is involved in the balance of forces between the Ying and the Yang which concepts fulfill a myriad of meanings. There is also a balancing point between the Ying and the Yang... the point where one is neither just Ying nor just Yang, but both at the same time.
bort- good post about evolutionary theory. Really from a propogation viewpoint virus and some bacteria are the most successful organisms. Speaking of animals... ants would rank above humans for propogation. Of course this balance could always change since the final end of success is extinction.
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SubZero
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 06, 2002 08:43 AM |
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Ichon...I'm sorry but I know this stuff...
Quote:
Sub-Zero;
Ying-Yang isn't saying that everything has an opposite, it's saying that everything is involved in the balance of forces between the Ying and the Yang which concepts fulfill a myriad of meanings. There is also a balancing point between the Ying and the Yang... the point where one is neither just Ying nor just Yang, but both at the same time.
I said earlier this:
Quote:
The principle of yin/yang basically says there is always something that is opposite to one. So when there's light there's also darkness. Then there's that "eternal" between them that binds these things together.
Of course problem is finding those counterparts because it's easy to implent to things that aren't really true.
I meant that ying and yang can be seen as opposite to each other but they cannot possible exist without the other one existing at the sametime. Where there is Yang there is also Ying. When you put the lights on to dark room, there's singly moment when neither (light/darkness) or both are truth at the same time.
However manytimes westerners understand it as dualism which however isn't the truth.
What I tried to do was implent ying/yang theory to everything else than just the normal light/darkness -theme.
Did you understood my statement now? 
We are talking about the same thing...I think.
Also I agree with bort about the evolution theory. It's so easy to say from our ivory tower that human beings are superior to all others and we have developed to be best there is. This can be seen easily also in almost all religious believes and also many times in modern science.
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The only Zen you find on the top of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
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malkia
Promising
Famous Hero
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posted June 06, 2002 09:19 AM |
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DEATH TO FALSE LIFE AFTER DEATH!
DEATH TO FALSE LIFE AFTER DEATH!
AFTER ALL ALL WE ARE GOING TO LIVE AFTER DEATH FALSE DEATH LIFE!
WHY FLOODPROTECT?! PROTECT FLOOD PROTECT!
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted June 06, 2002 10:55 AM |
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clarification
SubZero- ok, good enough it seems. Your first post seemed to indicate a view too similiar to good vs evil, or light vs darkness etc which is often the other misunderstanding westerners make about yingyang without seeing them as a duality.
It's more about the geometry of balance- for one thing to exist there has to be opposed forces within it holding the structure together, without an inward force puching outward, and an outward force pushing inward, either dissipation or collapse is inievitable.
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SubZero
Adventuring Hero
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posted June 06, 2002 11:20 AM |
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Exactly...
Quote:
It's more about the geometry of balance- for one thing to exist there has to be opposed forces within it holding the structure together, without an inward force puching outward, and an outward force pushing inward, either dissipation or collapse is inievitable.
That is right...
It's just my english that betrays me sometimes...
In original post I tried to enlarge the theory to other things than just normal force thinking. I think it can be carried away to any field in life.
That way we can understand the structure of reality, the paradox.
However it might be true that we have little bit different perspective to whole theory...I'm not meaning you're wrong and I'm right but we all see things little bit differently.
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The only Zen you find on the top of mountains is the Zen you bring up there.
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CraigHack
Known Hero
Have fantasies, will travel...
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posted June 06, 2002 06:09 PM |
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This is god!!
Alright you creatures.... stop this now!!
Everything you think you know about me is wrong! Stop reading that crap. Those are old wives tales meant to entertain the young.
I did not make you in my image, If I had made you in my image why not make you less stupid & warlike? Why not make fewer child molesters and thieves? Fewer suicide bombers and rapists? Fewer lawyers and politicians? All those things would have been better. Of what use would it be to make you look like me??
I do not need to test you! I know everything that was or will be.
Man is not better than Woman! Neither of you has proven to be worth all the trouble I went to.
There is no meaning to life! It was a whim that I made you at all and if I could destroy you all without harming the cockroaches I would.
Stop averting your eyes!
Stop this mental masturbation and go do what I intended you to do!
(What was that again? Crap, I forgot)
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The Gods have brought us together... I can't imagine why.
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pepeviejo
Adventuring Hero
Protecting sheep + baby ducks
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posted June 07, 2002 07:37 AM |
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I believe there is a heaven and a hell. There is life after death, we live in both a physical and spiritual world full of good and bad people and good and bad spirits which include demons and angels. There has to be life after death or we would just live forever. But I do believe that God created us and a heaven and hell and which we will spend eternity in one or the other pending on ourselves in this life.
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pepeviejo
Adventuring Hero
Protecting sheep + baby ducks
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posted June 07, 2002 07:40 AM |
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Ichon
Responsible
Famous Hero
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posted June 07, 2002 08:36 AM |
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life after death
If there is life after death doesn't that mean we are going to live forever?
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pepeviejo
Adventuring Hero
Protecting sheep + baby ducks
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posted June 07, 2002 08:42 AM |
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Depends on where you go. I have heard stories from people who have had visions in which they were in hell and seen people be set on fire and die but seconds later resurrected to be set on fire again as a consequence for their actions in their physical lives. I believe you either live forever or continue to die forever.
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Avallach
Hired Hero
Disputo ergo sum.
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posted June 07, 2002 03:30 PM |
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SubZero
Quote:
Finding spiritual truth and knowledge can be seen in the same category or as the same.
...
Okay, well I think I'll just leave this here then. My intention wasn't really to argue for what Lewis was saying, just to 'throw it out there'. The presuppositions are based in part on experience, so it's something for an individual to consider for themselves, rather than have somebody telling them it is so.
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Many people nowadays try to find truth from inside themselves through intensive training like in gym or mountaineering. Isn't that as precious as trying to find them from religious texts?
Precious? Perhaps. But what sort of 'truth' can we find that way? Knowledge of oneself perhaps, or better perspective, or whatever. But things such as the question of afterlife can only really be answered through revelation by an external source. Whether such revelation exists or not is the question for which an answer can be sought by considering the various religious texts. Are any of them true? If not, then finding answers in them would be comparable to finding them in mountaineering or whatever. But if one is true, it would put it on something of a different level.
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But do we NEED the idea of God and eternity? Or does it simply exist in our minds and we are trying to fulfill with ideas of something greater than us?
The question could be asked though of why it exists in our minds, and has done so so pervasively throughout human history.
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It's just rule we have ourselves invented so we can understand each other. I think logical thinking is like language. It's way of understanding each other and trying to say how world works. But in the end it doesn't mean world works logically. It just SEEMS to work that way.
Yet for the most part it does. Logic works, science works. Underlying most of what we observe are reasons, causes. Granted, that does not mean that everything must have an explanation that intuitively makes sense. It does seem sensible though to look for explanations.
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He couldn't prove anything else but that he was thinking so he existed.
True, but oh, how he tried .
Cat
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Reply to Avalanche...
*Ahem*  .
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Mind, body and "other" is my idea of things. "Other" does not go skipping around an choir singing, but is more the essence of humanity.
Ah, something... psychological, then? Like an abstract use of 'personality', perhaps.
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Darwin places man on top of the chain (interestingly, above women). This lead man to believe he was extra special.
Hmm, well I don't think you're giving enough credit here to the intelligence of people in general. It is intuitively obvious that we are more advanced, and generally have greater facility, than the animals. We didn't need Darwin to tell us that. Indeed, I think that most Darwinists are capable of concluding, with you, that based on their beliefs they are themselves animals. Some can find a balance, even a harmony, between the greatness of Man and the theory of Evolution... but I don't think that it's the theory that is responsible or necessary for that belief.
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As for Descartes... he spent a great deal of his life attempting to disprove classical theological ideas.
Hehe, when he wasn't busy trying to rework the ontological argument .
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Descartes incoroprates the classical idea of "soul" ito his idea of the mental, but denys there is a "soul" as a separate entity... he believed it was simply a part of a whole, not a part in itself.
Interesting... I don't doubt that you know more of Descartes than I do. I can see then that his view of mind is not directly equivalent to the Christian view of the soul... but still, it would not seem much different from what is generally meant by the word 'soul', when it is not limited to a specific theology.
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his theory of propperty Dualism was actually very unpopular in the church.
Yes, that's true. Funnily enough it's because theologians would say that there is not such a total separation of mind and matter, but that a form of unity exists.
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"Death slew him not, but he made death his ladder to the skies"
- Edmund Spenser, on the death of Philip Sidney
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bort
Honorable
Supreme Hero
Discarded foreskin of morality
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posted June 07, 2002 04:00 PM |
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Well, only 1 way to find out... Send me a postcard from the afterlife. Although I suppose most religions think you get a different afterlife if you off yourself.
I really hope the Ancient Babylonians weren't right - they basically had you sitting in a cave for all eternity or something like that. The one concept of the afterlife that scares the hell (no pun intended) out of me is the idea that your conciousness would continue, but deprived of a body that would allow any sensory stimuli or new experiences or anything. Just an eternity of sensory deprivation combined with intense boredom and the frustration of being alone... To me, being stabbed with pitchforks while drowning in a boiling pool of excrement and being sodomized by the barbed phalli of the pestilent demonic spawn of pure evil itself would be a vacation compared to an eternity alone in nothingness.
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Moose
Tavern Dweller
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posted June 07, 2002 04:16 PM |
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I haven`t read others ppl replies much, but as a christian I do believe life after death. It`s been hard sometimes, but I`ve noticed that when I trust God, and ask questions from Him I get answers. It may sound absurd to your ears.
Some cristians have some abnormal experiences. Like they have seen how some disease have been cured by God. They have been in 'clouds' etc..
I have heard about those, alot actually, but I haven`t ever seen or felt anything too abnormal. But if I compare my life now and before when I didn`t believe (my life was ok, no drugs, no alcohol, no 'problems'). My life is really much better now when I do believe.
For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
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Why worship mortal when you can worship Immortal?
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HelcahisieRo...
Tavern Dweller
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posted January 10, 2004 05:08 PM |
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I believe not in life after death. Though fun the mythology is, one cannot take his/her brain when one dies. I understand those who try to comfort themselves, but comfort is not enough.
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Ai! laurie lantar lassi surinen yeni unotime ve ramar aldaron!
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Greek_god_su...
Famous Hero
Bringer Of Light
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posted January 11, 2004 12:02 AM |
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Dying to live?
This seems to be interesting topic! Hope Iīm not too late to take part on the talk.
By the way, my opinion is that (all) religions are just
a big pile of lies! One evidence against religions is that
there are so many of them; which one is the right??
A: No one, īcause they are all just different peopleīs beliefs.
However, I still believe -or at least, want to believe- in life after death.
I think about death much like Lord Woock does:
Quote:
I also think there's a life after death. do you imagine something like this: you die. everything blank. nothing. zero. null. you just have to have another life to live. but you never know about your previous life(s). you don't remember anything. that's my vision of life after life.
Life is so short, you canīt experience everything in one life, especially if you happen to die young or something.
There just has to be more lifes, maybe unlimited amount.
Otherwise itīs unfair. This is my belief (in other words "the thing Iīd like to happen when I die"), but who cares, īCause I KNOW that itīs not true and will never happen..
Iīve got some additional questions about "afterlife" for
you religious people:
1. Let me see, heaven lies somewhere above sky, am I right? And God is everywhere. Then where is hell and is God there too? Is hell inside the earth? Does space belong also to Gods empire? And other galaxies etc?
2. How do we transfer to the afterlife? Do we continue our
current life from the age we died with, or do we start new
life from the very beginning? If it goes by the first way,
that wouldnīt be funny: Is it worth being a sick and weak 75-90 years old guy with no teeths and live in heaven just
to hang around with others? Better die young...
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Orion
Known Hero
Dark God of Ordered Chaos
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posted January 22, 2004 04:46 AM |
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sorry but why does life have to be fair when your dead that it you no longer exist that my beliefs i want there to be a after life but that doesnt mean i believ in one any way life it self should be enoungh for people it the most precious thing to have so why cant you simply be happy with one just use it well.
a we are not the most evolved animal all creatures are equally evolved just for the circumstances that they live in inteligence is something that made survial easier for us like electricity for electric ells and gills fpr fish that just mean we are all adapted for what we need not better or more evolved
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Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for it bends to my will
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