David Silverman, president of American Atheists on CNN with Tesla

[NigelM]

Also: when you die it's over. Finito. Gone for ever.

Well we'll both find out one day....perhaps we'll be able to discuss it then.

 

[Johan]

Well we'll both find out one day....perhaps we'll be able to discuss it then.

To believe that there is something that survives our physical/material person as we die - a soul or a spirit which can then go on living in some other, non-physical form, is to believe in magic. I'm sorry but it truly is. So if you believe in this then you believe in magic.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

To believe that there is something that survives our physical/material person as we die - a soul or a spirit which can then go on living in some other, non-physical form, is to believe in magic. I'm sorry but it truly is. So if you believe in this then you believe in magic.

I'm okay with an afterlife as a free-floating soul as long as I can finally drive my MS in Hovercraft mode at that time

 

[NigelM]

To believe that there is something that survives our physical/material person as we die - a soul or a spirit which can then go on living in some other, non-physical form, is to believe in magic. I'm sorry but it truly is. So if you believe in this then you believe in magic.

Magic:

: a power that allows people (such as witches and wizards) to do impossible things by saying special words or performing special actions
: tricks that seem to be impossible and that are done by a performer to entertain people
: special power, influence, or skill

I'm thinking that's not what you meant.

 

[Johan]

Magic:


I'm thinking that's not what you meant.

I did. Look at the first definition. Replace wizards and witches with gods and priests. Also note the word impossible which means not possible per se.

Philiosopher Daniel Dennet has a good argument. He is an atheist but this argument he uses when talking about philosophy of mind and consciousness. However the issue of consciousness is deeply intertwined with the question of God's existence as well as other important questions such as free will. Anyway, some argue that consciousness has to be something "more" and something "other", some intangible something in addition to the physical brain and the chemical processes in it. In other words some kind of magic. Dennet, naturally, claims it is not so. He quotes a book on Indian street magic in which the author is asked about his book: "Are you writing a book about magic? Is it about real magic?" He replies: "It's about conjuring tricks and clever deceptions, which is the only magic there is". In other words the magic that people imagine could somehow exist doesn't (can't per definition) exist and hence is not real, while the magic that is "not real magic" is in fact the only magic there could ever be and is thus in fact the only "real magic".

I hope you see what I'm getting at?

 

[SR22pilot]

Also: when you die it's over. Finito. Gone for ever. Which is why it's that much more important to live well, do right by others and find a purpose in the short time you do have. No afterlife, no eternal life in neither heaven nor hell means no slacking and no compromises in the actual lifetime you do have.

Some religious people say: "If you don't believe in life after death you have nothing to live for, life has no meaning". I find that extremely vane: just because my life isn't potentially eternal it's without value? On the contrary: Atheist have EVERYTHING to life for while it's the religious people who in a way look forward to dying.

I can't see where the vanity comment comes from but I guess I just miss your point. As for the other, you really have me confused. So you get excited because you have a limited time to do things and you want to do a lot. Ok so far. But all those things vanish in the end so, in the end, you didn't do anything. It all had no meaning. You say you have a lot to look forward to. What? Knowing that no matter what you do it has no meaning in the end? As I said in an earlier post, this is what hangs me up. Clearly it doesn't bother you and I can understand and accept that. Can you accept that it bothers me a lot? Or... do you feel the fervor of a religious zealot and the need to convert the "heathen" to your way of viewing the world?

 

[bonnie]

I didn't. I said it seems to be one position held by some of the "non-atheists" in this thread.

I have read your posts for example and it would seem that you are in a way a spiritual person but not necessarily religious. You stated several times that you "believe in something greater". Well, so do I: I believe for example in a greatness in nature which is grander than the sum of its parts. I believe that humanity as a whole is something greater than just each individual person and mind summed up - a collective intelligence and consciousness if you will.

What I don't believe though, and here lies the actual "line in the sand", is that there is some sort of guiding force in the universe or some sort of preordainement other than what is the natural result of the laws of physics and the physical reality.

Hmmm. So what I'm taking from this is you think that those of us who claim to be spiritual or religious, see God as a single being and not a presence. Like some guy stomping around in his boots and flowing white robe, hair askew. Is that right?

 

[Johan]

I can't see where the vanity comment comes from but I guess I just miss your point. As for the other, you really have me confused. So you get excited because you have a limited time to do things and you want to do a lot. Ok so far. But all those things vanish in the end so, in the end, you didn't do anything. It all had no meaning. You say you have a lot to look forward to. What? Knowing that no matter what you do it has no meaning in the end? As I said in an earlier post, this is what hangs me up. Clearly it doesn't bother you and I can understand and accept that. Can you accept that it bothers me a lot? Or... do you feel the fervor of a religious zealot and the need to convert the "heathen" to your way of viewing the world?

Please explain to be how, for whatever I do in my life to have meaning, my life can't end indefinitely when I die? How are those two concepts dependent on each other. I truly don't understand that.

The vanity is the need for you to feel that your life and existence must be so important that it must go on forever, and that if it doesn't it meaningless.

 

[bonnie]

The vanity is the need for you to feel that your life and existence must be so important that it must go on forever, and that if it doesn't it meaningless.

That's really REALLY extrapolating on what has been said.

 

[Johan]

Hmmm. So what I'm taking from this is you think that those of us who claim to be spiritual or religious, see God as a single being and not a presence. Like some guy stomping around in his boots and flowing white robe, hair askew. Is that right?

No. I'll ask you directly instead: this "greater something" that you believe in is it just the wonderfulness of the world as it stands with all its complexity and possibility or is it something that, by means of magic (non-natural mechanisms) can affect the physical world, the future etc?

 

[NigelM]

I did. Look at the first definition. Replace wizards and witches with gods and priests. Also note the word impossible which means not possible per se.

Philiosopher Daniel Dennet has a good argument. He is an atheist but this argument he uses when talking about philosophy of mind and consciousness. However the issue of consciousness is deeply intertwined with the question of God's existence as well as other important questions such as free will. Anyway, some argue that consciousness has to be something "more" and something "other", some intangible something in addition to the physical brain and the chemical processes in it. In other words some kind of magic. Dennet, naturally, claims it is not so. He quotes a book on Indian street magic in which the author is asked about his book: "Are you writing a book about magic? Is it about real magic?" He replies: "It's about conjuring tricks and clever deceptions, which is the only magic there is". In other words the magic that people imagine could somehow exist doesn't (can't per definition) exist and hence is not real, while the magic that is "not real magic" is in fact the only magic there could ever be and is thus in fact the only "real magic".

I hope you see what I'm getting at?

Replacing witches and wizards in the definition with God and Priests doesn't help; on the one hand Priests don't do impossible things (they're human like you and me, so by definition they can't do the impossible), on the other hand if you say that God is doing impossible things ("magic" in your words) then He implicitly exists.

I think I see what you're getting at but God doesn't do magic, he doesn't play deception and illusion. Dennet was coming at this from the wrong angle; I don't believe in magic, I do believe in God. But Dennet seems to have started with the notion that if you believe in something he doesn't it must be illusory and therefore a deception or trick, hence use of the word magic. Once upon a time there were plenty of people who though that certain medicines were 'real magic', or even that electricity was 'magic'. Philosophers don't have all the answers (neither do I) but they ponder the questions.

As for you and I maybe meeting up in the after-life: I believe in an after-life (humor me and let me call it heaven for a moment) and you don't. We both believe in science and that the universe 'exists'. However, seeing as neither of us can explain where the universe exists there's got to be room for doubt (even if it's only 0.01%) in your mind that that somewhere could mean that God exists and, if He does, then heaven might exist also and therefore the possibility exists that we will meet each other there one day. I'm not suggesting that you should believe in God based on something that science can't prove/disprove; I'm just positing that it's possible I'm right.

 

[SR22pilot]

Please explain to be how, for whatever I do in my life to have meaning, my life can't end indefinitely when I die? How are those two concepts dependent on each other. I truly don't understand that.

First, after you are dead nothing has meaning to you so what ever you did has no meaning you. Eventually the entire human race will die unless there is some reversal of entropy. Once everyone is dead, tell me how it then matters what you did?

 

[ggies07]

Maybe there is no heaven and it's really just a dimension of Time. Time is not linear, so the other side could be accounted for as well and say that those that believe in "spiritual forces" are just feeling whatever is moving in between the dimension......maybe "God" is one of those forces and we have created an image in our tiny human brains because we can't comprehend it all yet.

 

[Johan]

First, after you are dead nothing has meaning to you so what ever you did has no meaning you. Eventually the entire human race will die unless there is some reversal of entropy. Once everyone is dead, tell me how it then matters what you did?

It doesn't, after (if) we're all gone. But it does have meaning while I'm alive and the things I do can have profound meaning for others after I'm gone, for countless generations. None of this depends on an eternal immortal soul though.

 

[Johan]

Maybe there is no heaven and it's really just a dimension of Time. Time is not linear, so the other side could be accounted for as well and say that those that believe in "spiritual forces" are just feeling whatever is moving in between the dimension......maybe "God" is one of those forces and we have created an image in our tiny human brains because we can't comprehend it all yet.

That's kind of a "God of the gaps" argument which is as silly as it gets: just because we don't understand or comprehend some aspect of reality the answer is not to insert God or magical thinking.

 

[Canuck]

What I don't understand is the concept of heaven. It's suppose to be eternal bliss. The Bible tells us it is "Paradise" (Luke 23:43) and:

"The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl, and the street of the city was pure gold, transparent as glass. And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there." Revelation 21:21-25

This is heaven? To me no place is heaven without my wife and children and I don't want to have to wait for them. If I died tomorrow and left them alone, I'd be in hell (I'm suppose to be going there anywhere as an atheist) but even if I got into the Christian's heaven (mistake in the paperwork, let's say), I would be in hell. Sorry, but you can keep your heaven. I'd rather die and it all be over, than live on eternally, in some glorified heaven as described by the Bible. I'm not afraid of death. I was just fine in 1964 (the year before I was born), and if I never woke up after going to sleep tonight, I wouldn't even know the difference. It's the getting old part, and process of dying, that I'm afraid of. Death is hardest on those left behind, not on the person who died.

 

[NigelM]

What I don't understand is the concept of heaven. It's suppose to be eternal bliss.

And IMO no religious person in their right mind would even try to describe the concept; after all, no-one has ever been there and come back. Eternal bliss in the spiritual sense, yup I buy that but pearls and gold are simply mans descriptions of valuable things, heaven isn't material.

To me no place is heaven without my wife and children and I don't want to have to wait for them. If I died tomorrow and left them alone, I'd be in hell (I'm suppose to be going there anywhere as an atheist) but even if I got into the Christian's heaven (mistake in the paperwork, let's say), I would be in hell.

That assumes a concept of time exists in heaven, time implies a physicality rather than a spiritual place. By definition being in paradise won't leave you feeling badly, the argument is that spending eternity with your family will make them worth waiting for, even assuming an earthly concept of time. Plus your first sentence in that quote probably precludes the second one.

 

[SR22pilot]

It doesn't, after (if) we're all gone. But it does have meaning while I'm alive and the things I do can have profound meaning for others after I'm gone, for countless generations. None of this depends on an eternal immortal soul though.

I agree with what you said. If you don't understand what I mean, when I say that in the end it doesn't matter, then I don't know how to make it any clearer. You are comfortable with everything, in the end, meaning nothing. I'm not. We just differ in this area. Perhaps reading Satre or Camu might help.

 

[bonnie]

That's kind of a "God of the gaps" argument which is as silly as it gets: just because we don't understand or comprehend some aspect of reality the answer is not to insert God or magical thinking.

In fairness, Johan, just because you don't fully understand his answer doesn't mean it's silly. It's just different than what you believe.

 

[Laurent]

It seems to me that this horse is dead and has gone to heaven