Secular Elation

Yes or no? For what reasons?

Albert Cipriani

Yes.

Tho we cannot know what the experience of death consists of, even if it were merely annihilation, many experiences (in fact most experiences in this life, for example) are far worse than that.

And being poetic about it, birth was a bitch. So if our expulsion from this world is at all analogous to our induction into this world, it won't be pretty. -- Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Normal

No, death is the cessation of sensation, and as such cannot be known. Even a pain that can be known is greater then that which is necessarily unknown.

As such to choose death over life requires the ultimate sacrifice, and when a life is given for a cause honestly believed in, there is no greater gift that could be given.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Normal,
Pardon me, but your contradiction is showing:
In other words, if death cannot be known, how do you know it is the cessation of sensation?

Besides that, your hidden assumption is that bodies are required to feel. Yet we know people are able to not feel what should be horribly painful and many saints from many traditions have experienced out-of-body sensations.

Hell, even my photography professor (a Vietnam Vet and not at all saintly!) had a near death out of body experience that caused him to stop being an atheist. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Quantum Ninja

Waking up to the realization that none of your senses work. Imagine opening your eyes, only to see a wall of blackness staring back at you. You see no sight, hear no sound, smell no scent, taste no flavor, and feel no touch. All contact with the outside world is lost. You are alone, utterly alone, in the world of your own thoughts. Now imagine staying like that for eternity.

Normal

Sensation is required for knowledge, you disagree?

What gives you the impression you can feel without a body?

I wouldn't argue that the mind is powerful enough to simulate an out of body experience.

I hear shrooms can have the same effect. Either way it is the mind playing tricks on the body.

Secular Elation

Waking up to the realization that none of your senses work. Imagine opening your eyes, only to see a wall of blackness staring back at you. You see no sight, hear no sound, smell no scent, taste no flavor, and feel no touch. All contact with the outside world is lost. You are alone, utterly alone, in the world of your own thoughts. Now imagine staying like that for eternity.

Yes, that is a horrid fate. Thankfully, when we are dead, we won't be conscious to know all that.

Albert Cipriani

Dear Normal,
You assert: Yes. Experience is required for knowledge. Sensation is a subset of experience involving our particular physiology. How egocentric to imagine it is the only method of experiencing reality. Hell, even our tools do a better job than our senses at sensing.

No impression has given it to me, but rather, my imagination presents the plausibility. – Sincerely, Albert the Traditional Catholic

Normal

Sensation is a prerequisite for experience.

And we build and observe these tools with our senses. It would be impossible any other way.

You have pricked my curiousity. How can you imagine experience without sensation?

Quantum Ninja

Well, let's just hope we aren't. None of us have ever experienced death, so we can't really say what it would be like. And if the dead are experiencing such a horrid fate as we speak, they'd have no way of telling us anything about it.