Trekkie With a Phaser

From this link:

"Transhumanism is a radical new approach to future-oriented thinking that is based on the premise that the human species in its current form does not represent the end our development but its beginning."

*snip*

Not only can we use rational means to improve the human condition and the external world; we can also use them to improve ourselves, the human organism. And in doing so, we are not limited to traditional humanistic methods, such as education and cultural development. We can also use technological means that will eventually enable us to move beyond what some would think of as “human”."

emotional

Oh my gosh! I've just read this FAQ, and it reminds me too much of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World". I don't know if I want any part in this.

Trekkie With a Phaser

emotional,

I haven't read every post in this thread, so forgive me if someone's already brought this up, but it appears that your fear of death is over-riding your rational faculties.

I'm just wondering, instead of trying to find a major religion to follow in order to avoid this fear, why not (as your name implies) follow your emotions. Why not simply believe that there is something beyond this life and that the tunnel of light and whatnot that people have described in near death experiences is truly a spiritual experience.

I mean, with that you don't have to have the nastiness of the whole "You're going to hell you evil sinner" thing and you can avoid the god-awful (pun intended ) guilt associated with the Abrahamic religions.

One last thing, if I've upset you by this suggestion (for example, if you think I'm trying to destroy your world-view) please understand that I'm only trying to help. I have no desire to convert you to or from anything.

-Trekkie

emotional

I'm not at all upset by your suggestion. I do have some mental/philosophical objections to it, but I'm glad to hear such a suggestion. Let me now explain the issues involved:



Believing in life after death could be a relief for my fear. What I have to consider is the philosophical price I have to pay for such a belief. A belief such as life after death is not isolated; it is part of a package deal.

Life after death is out of the scope of what can be called natural. If I believe in life after death, I believe in the supernatural. If there is supernatural life after death, then there must be a purpose ordained by a supernatural creator. Conversely, if my worldview is to be consistently naturalist, there can be no life after death.

When I began delving into the literature that deals with life after death, starting from Raymond Moody's classic Life After Life and ending with spiritualist texts such as Spirit Teachings, I was exposed to a view that more closely matches theism than naturalism: there is a creator-God (the Loving Light Being that near-death experiences often report), there are spiritual realms (astral planes) and there is a cosmic purpose. Being the philosophical person that I am, I couldn't just ignore those implications. If I believe in life after death, then it colours my whole worldview in a different colour than if I don't believe. I then must buy into divine creation ex nihilo (15 billion years ago), theistic evolution, the holiness of God, heaven planes, hell planes and such conceptions. The acceptance of life after death does not come as an isolated event.

If naturalism is true, then there is no purpose to life, and consequently no life after death; but if there is life after death, then there is purpose to life, and naturalism is no longer true. I cannot accept life after death lightly. The question whether life after death exists has an immense bearing on my whole worldview.

I never bought into Christianity; I have always maintained that Christianity, with its eternal torture chamber, is a satanic, diabolical religion invented by manipulative priests. When I believed, what I believed was this: there is one personal creator God, who created the universe 15 billion years ago (the Big Bang); He created a fully-gifted creation, meaning that the creation has power to organise itself into entities like us (evolution); the purpose of life is, broadly, to progress and evolve; a kindly, loving, humanistic life towards other people makes one progress, and omission thereof is regression; after bodily death, one stands before God (the Loving Light Being of NDEs) and is shown a review of one's life, and thereafter sends oneself to a higher astal plane ("heaven") or a lower astral plane ("hell") according to one's actions (not one's faith; faith in God and the afterlife counts for nothing, and atheists have as much chance as reaching the heavenly realms as theists); life after death is a continuation of life before death, just with a different awareness of things, and in a spiritual body instead of a material one.

(added: the "hell" state is not eternal; it is a state where one reflects upon one's undoings, repents of them and then gets out)

My beliefs, if I accept life after death, are a bit New-Agey but seem quite reasonable to me; at any rate, you can see how different they are from my beliefs when I don't accept life after death.

Whether there truly is life after death is a disputed case. NDEs, very much like the Big Bang, are open to interpretation: one can give them a supernaturalist interpretation or a naturalistic one. So the choice is wholly mine to accept or reject life after death; but each choice has great philosophical consequences. Each choice has great bearing on my worldview.

I hope this does a little in the way of demonstrating to you the difficulty of my choice.

Gawdawful

Lots of people, probably nearly all, fear death, including many Christians that are very comfortable with believing in an afterlife. The reason I think the fear is there is that there is that little seed of doubt that all that they believe might not be true and that there is either nothing "on the other side of the veil" or that what is there isn't something to look forward to, i.e. constant harp playing and singing hallelujahs to Gawd and Jeebus, which would fit into my definition of Hell. I'm pretty comfortable knowing that all I have to look forward to after this crappy world is Nothing, there is no pain or suffering in Nothing. If I am wrong, I guess I'll just deal with that then, I'm not putting any money down on Pascal's Wager.

"What if this is as good as it gets?"--Jack as Melvin Udall in As Good as It Gets. Yep, this is it.

emotion, I think you might like a liberal Quaker congregation, a lot of them believe as you do, few of them believe in Hell though.


Warren is OK, really.

P.S. Hell for me would be bagpipes playing Amazing Grace 24/7.

emotional

Just so you know: I'm constantly wavering between naturalism and theism. It seems not to depend on anything but, simply, where the wind blows - my current disposition or mood. Each time I'm in a mood, I try to seek evidence for the current worldview.

Theism: Big Bang (creation ex nihilo), NDEs, evolution requires a kick-starter.

Naturalism: Big Bang is naturalistic, problem of evil or indifferent fate, NDEs don't mean a thing, evolution is self-sufficient.

Theism: the constants of the universe need an initial designer to set them in the first place. This initial intelligent designer (God) has always existed.

Naturalism: you can believe that an intelligent designer has always existed, but you can't believe the universe with all its constants has always existed? How inconsistent.

Theism: there is a personal God, only that His existence is hidden during life on the natural plane.

Naturalism: if He cannot be conversed with, as conversation is possible between two human beings, then He is not really personal. If He appears not to exist, maybe it's because He really doesn't exist.

I'm being tossed to and fro by doubts. I'm in a sea of uncertainty. What is true and what is not - that is the real question I'm facing.

Viti

Well emotional, it is okay to say "I don't know the answers". Maybe you should take the agnostic stance that the questions you have cannot be answered. This is the only life you know for a fact you get...there may something after but we cannot really know. I am sorry you cannot find joy in just being...existentialism has worked for me and others.

emotional

Is He hidden or does He just not exist?



I admit it, I don't know the answers. But those metaphysical questions keep me occupied all the time. I have nothing to do all day but brood over those questions.



Where shall I be if I take the agnostic stance towards everything? Maybe the earth isn't round? How can one know? I seek certainty. How can one know if atheistic evolution or theistic evolution is true? How can one know if NDEs are hallucinations of the brain or a preamble to the afterlife? I can't stand this not knowing!



That's exactly what I want to know.

I can't find joy in just being, because I don't have anything worthwhile to do ... it's all those philosophical questions, all those metaphysical questions bugging my head day and night. I don't have any social life to occupy me. I'm already dead.

Goober

Hi emotional,

I know exactly how you feel when you talk about that 'picturing nothing' thing. I know exactly how you feel, and it scares the crap out of me too. I can say that I am in no way looking forward to my own death.

But I accepted it. Believing in god for an afterlife is not going to change the fact that you will face this non-existence if god does not exist, and simply believing because you want it to be true will not make it true as much as you may want it to be otherwise. So don't let your own desires cloud your judgement of what is true or not. Just sit back and enjoy life while you can, and forget about worrying over what will happen when you die because you just can't change it.

And look at it this way. Based on the evidence before us, atheism is the position that best fits the evidence (in my opinion). But in the unlikely event that I discover I am wrong when I die, why would god blame me for making a decision based on the evidence? You can never have all the answers you want, but that is not your fault. Just come to the best conclusions you can, and be ready to change them if new evidence arises.

Finally, don't feel to bad about losing a few debates. At least you are out there debating, questioning and trying to find answers, unlike many people.