So, tonight I'll be seeing if I can get my friend to have a lucid dream and see what he experiences. He was not raised in any sort of a religious household like I was so he doesn't have those stupid deep seeded superstitions like I do.
Supersitions aren't necessarily stupid, but they are superstitions and we'd be remissed not to treat them as such. In some cases they are works of literature that are valued as a common literary tradition (ie. many people understand biblical allusion, even if they don't adhere to christian doctorine) or places where we find vivid imagery of an old world that we have scant records of. I wouldn't count knowing a lot of the bible, torah, or koran (or vedas, annalects, etc.) as a stupid bit of wasted knowledge, but I wouldn't use them to support a statement of certainty either.
I'll light up our new thread after I give my afternoon lectures.
@Proletaria- Ya, it pretty much was a character attack. I find the natural disposition of a lot of atheists that enjoy voicing their belief(lol I love calling it that)to be rather condescending and intolerant. But, that's probably a topic for another thread.
Well, at least you are honest about it. That is more than I can say for most works of apologetics these days. Voicing their "lack of belief," to be exact. I'd love to have a thread devoted to this topic. Go go go. =P
I don't think it really has anything at all to do with religion. Even for the hellfire fearing people it's still something deeper rooted in human beings that would have lead at least some of them to a similar conclusion with something else that resembled religion.
I think I covered the rationality behind fearing the specific act of dying and that I understand in a "deeper," human condition. What I don't buy is that we're all imbued with this deep concern for our post-physical existence, at least not in a manner that is universal. Many Chinese cultural phenomena that closely resemble religiousness (since I, and many others, don't really regard ancestor typification and confucian morality to be a religion) went on for thousands of years in the total absence of any ontology. They had no concept of immortal consequence except in the practice of celebrating their own family members.
Everyone loves to use religion as a scapegoat for our shitty behaviors.
I don't think we're discussing shitty behavior here, but I do think we spend a lot of time fooling ourselves into thinking our long-practiced doctorine is natural tendency.
Que the no soul, no god, religion is terrible, shut up, when you die you just rot and cease to exist argument.
That's a level of certainty nobody expresses and a character attack against the atheist position. The appropriate sentence is: "No evidence for a soul, no evidence for a god, religion created these two concepts, and when you die there is no reason to assume what will happen except the obvious physical repercussion."
Have you ever seen a zebra or Gazelle fear death? I doubt it has anything to do with afterlife. We instinctively simply want to live. And as far as being dead is concerned, sleep is far different. And we're completely unaware of what existed prior to our physical existence.
What we fear is the unknown. We don't KNOW what will happen. It keeps creatures uneven.
I have seen a zebra fear a lion and I presume it has to do with the process of dying by gnashing teeth and sharp claws. Not the least of the fears a zebra might have, but there's really no telling what a zebra "thinks," if we're using the same operative definition applied to human beings. As far as we can tell, they probably don't comprehend anhillation or the lack of existence since that is a very abstract thought.
Fear of the unknown is a justifiable answer and fair point, but what we DO know about being dead is that our bodies eventually (or quickly, depending on your selected method of funeral) dissipate into baser forms of matter and energy. From that point we are in the same position, as I mentioned, that we had been in prior to being born: dissipated matter and energy.
My point was that, since we understand what forms a human being, what forms our cells, what forms the zygote that grows into a new human being to be the same fundamental bits that we'll return to being after our body ceases to function: it's not so much the unknown we fear, but what we do know. We know that we return to dust. Any other predictions about possible transcendant and non-physical existence that drives that fear are the unknown bits and rightly so. We simply can't know anything about that. However, since we have created that unknown ourselves, it seems a cyclical fear.
One part of me wants to explore my mind and grow spiritually. I personally believe it's important since I feel that physical death does not end us. However, at the same time. It scares the HELL out of me man.
I'd just like to know where that fear of annihilation comes from. It does make sense to fear the process of dying. For most of us, that is going to be painful and we are inherently averse to things that cause us pain. Having said that, being afraid of the state we call "dead," is totally beyond me. Every one of us has been "dead," almost infinitely longer than we have been alive (before we were born, we were essentially dead). If you're willing to put deep non-dreamstate sleep into that catergory (since at that point you are absolutely incogniscent of your existence on the physical level) we spend a large part of our lives "dead," too.
So, other than the process of dying, what is to fear? My supposition would be that all related fears of the death state are tied to belief in eternal punishment. If that is the case, I have no recourse but to assert my disbelief, but if that is not the case I would like to know where the fear comes from.
Supersitions aren't necessarily stupid, but they are superstitions and we'd be remissed not to treat them as such. In some cases they are works of literature that are valued as a common literary tradition (ie. many people understand biblical allusion, even if they don't adhere to christian doctorine) or places where we find vivid imagery of an old world that we have scant records of. I wouldn't count knowing a lot of the bible, torah, or koran (or vedas, annalects, etc.) as a stupid bit of wasted knowledge, but I wouldn't use them to support a statement of certainty either.
I'll light up our new thread after I give my afternoon lectures.
I'll take you up on that tomorrow when I can provide myself as a more active participant in the threadnaught.
Well, at least you are honest about it. That is more than I can say for most works of apologetics these days. Voicing their "lack of belief," to be exact. I'd love to have a thread devoted to this topic. Go go go. =P
I think I covered the rationality behind fearing the specific act of dying and that I understand in a "deeper," human condition. What I don't buy is that we're all imbued with this deep concern for our post-physical existence, at least not in a manner that is universal. Many Chinese cultural phenomena that closely resemble religiousness (since I, and many others, don't really regard ancestor typification and confucian morality to be a religion) went on for thousands of years in the total absence of any ontology. They had no concept of immortal consequence except in the practice of celebrating their own family members.
I don't think we're discussing shitty behavior here, but I do think we spend a lot of time fooling ourselves into thinking our long-practiced doctorine is natural tendency.
Actually, without religion and in the presence of current scientific understanding I don't think anyone in such a world would wax on matters ethereal.
That's a level of certainty nobody expresses and a character attack against the atheist position. The appropriate sentence is: "No evidence for a soul, no evidence for a god, religion created these two concepts, and when you die there is no reason to assume what will happen except the obvious physical repercussion."
Edit: Que Pascal's Wager. =)
That was my point.
I have seen a zebra fear a lion and I presume it has to do with the process of dying by gnashing teeth and sharp claws. Not the least of the fears a zebra might have, but there's really no telling what a zebra "thinks," if we're using the same operative definition applied to human beings. As far as we can tell, they probably don't comprehend anhillation or the lack of existence since that is a very abstract thought.
Fear of the unknown is a justifiable answer and fair point, but what we DO know about being dead is that our bodies eventually (or quickly, depending on your selected method of funeral) dissipate into baser forms of matter and energy. From that point we are in the same position, as I mentioned, that we had been in prior to being born: dissipated matter and energy.
My point was that, since we understand what forms a human being, what forms our cells, what forms the zygote that grows into a new human being to be the same fundamental bits that we'll return to being after our body ceases to function: it's not so much the unknown we fear, but what we do know. We know that we return to dust. Any other predictions about possible transcendant and non-physical existence that drives that fear are the unknown bits and rightly so. We simply can't know anything about that. However, since we have created that unknown ourselves, it seems a cyclical fear.
I'd just like to know where that fear of annihilation comes from. It does make sense to fear the process of dying. For most of us, that is going to be painful and we are inherently averse to things that cause us pain. Having said that, being afraid of the state we call "dead," is totally beyond me. Every one of us has been "dead," almost infinitely longer than we have been alive (before we were born, we were essentially dead). If you're willing to put deep non-dreamstate sleep into that catergory (since at that point you are absolutely incogniscent of your existence on the physical level) we spend a large part of our lives "dead," too.
So, other than the process of dying, what is to fear? My supposition would be that all related fears of the death state are tied to belief in eternal punishment. If that is the case, I have no recourse but to assert my disbelief, but if that is not the case I would like to know where the fear comes from.