Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Agreed. It would involve a belief system that has zero evidence backing it up. This negates the common atheist demands from theists to prove God exists.
Who gets into heaven
- Thread starter Cypress
- Start date
A belief in eternal souls, spirits, samsara, Qi, or an immaterial life force sounds more like pantheism, panpsychism, Buddhism, or transcendentalism than atheism.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Agreed, which implies atheists are either poorly educated or simply being argumentative. Maybe both.
Winter born is cool. He is just a very unusual atheist who seems to believe in something like souls and an afterlife.
I would say at least 95 percent of atheists believe all existence, thought, and consciousness ends at death, and all that's left is decomposing atomic matter.
NiftyNiblick
1960s Chick Magnet
Not having any memory of the organic primordial swamp,Unlimited knowledge, no pain, seeing everyone who ever lived or will live? Sounds like fun to me.
I find it equally difficult to imagine a spiritual one.
Obviously having no certainty of what exists if anything after physical death,
my intuitive guess tends to be nothing.
Further, if the afterlife isn't exactly what I might like,
including puppies, kittens, golf courses, neon lights, and vintage Cadillacs,
I'm really good with the total absence of consciousness instead.
Crepitus
Verified User
Do you know the story behind Pastafarianism?Why would the FSM need a factory?
Of course. I don't take any religions seriously.
It started right here in KS in 2005 as a protest when the KS BOE decided that creationism should be taught in science class instead of evolution. The premise being that if they teach one creation myth they should teach all of them.
I had children in school at the time and I am one of the original Pastafarian Pirates.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
Maybe that's Hell; soulless, no consciousness, just the trashbin of eternity.
I think the affinity, attraction, and magnetism we feel towards bodies of water (lakes, beaches, rivers) is an echo in our DNA about our biological origins in the aqueous primordial soup.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
About 60% of a human body is water. That might also explain the ancient attraction.
It's also why MAGAts splatter like a watermelon when they "fall" off a 10-story building.
Crepitus
Verified User
I'm gonna take exception to that, as a decently well educated atheist.
I do not believe in souls, spirits, ghosts, angels, devils, demons, chupacabras, bigfoots, (bigfeet?) quetzalcoatls, jedis, allah, jahova, thor, zoroster, aslan, paul atredies, unicron, athena, uhura mazda, or even in the flying spaghetti monster his own bad self.
Why do I not believe these things?
Because I see no evidence to even really hint at their existence.
Water is the source of it all, and both physically and chemically water is pretty unique. Bodies of water seem to exert a kind of magnetism on us.
Dutch Uncle
* Tertia Optio * Defend the Constitution
So you believe we came from nothing and will become nothing when we die? No afterlife. No explanation of the origin of the Big Bang or Multiverses?
No life has been found in the Universe except on Earth. Not a hint of life elsewhere despite over half a century of spaceflight and research such as SETI. By your logic, we're it. There is no other life in the Universe because "I see no evidence to even really hint at their existence."
Crepitus
Verified User
Actually many hints and we've explored absolutely none of the larger universe.
OTOH people have been claiming there is a god of one sort or another since there have been people and we have no evidence at all for any of them.
We came from billions of years of randomly combining amino acids. A combination that could replicate itself eventually happened and evolution started.
Nothing happens when you die. No heaven, no hell, no purgatory, not even limbo.
You've got one shot, make it count.
NiftyNiblick
1960s Chick Magnet
If the universe is infinite, it would be very possible for other life to exist without our having the ability to recognize it.
The question really is,
Who has intellectual curiosity about it and who doesn't?
Perhaps I'm too self-centered to be curious about things that don't impact my life or feelings in any imaginable way.
That doesn't embolden me to absolute deny their existence, however.
Maybe it's more of a "don't know / don't care" paradyme.
What is the nature of an afterlife without a God? Genuinely curious about this idea.
And if one fails to believe in God because of no evidence for God, then why believe in an afterlife since it also has zero evidence for it?
That's really it, ain't it? If there's a Heaven then there's probably a hell and I can't think of one functional human being who wouldn't give up "free will" to ensure they didn't wind up in Hell.
Hell is so "over-the-top" in terms of injustice. Imagine creating a being whom you know is flawed and then punishing them ETERNALLY for mistakes they made during a temporary life.
That's one of the most grotesquely illogical things about the God concept.
Getting from amino acids to complex proteins, DNA, coded genetic information, and the irreducible complexity of cellular machinery is a massive leap of logic we are nowhere close to breaching.
We have tried to replicate cellular biology from inanimate chemicals for 70 years, and we aren't even close to replicating life from inert chemistry. Some scientists think we will never be able to replicate cellular life from inanimate chemicals under natural conditions.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
I'll admit that this is one of my problems with the logic, especially considering that this temporary life is a prison sentence, of banishment to a speck in a random dust cloud among countless such clouds.
IBDaMann
Well-known member
... for you.
Those who are moderately educated can easily grasp the virtual certainty of the generation of life given the necessary conditions. I recommend enrolling in a few chemistry courses at a local JC.
Already breached long since.
What did you try?
We haven't even come close to replicating the Big Bang, so I guess that never actually happened.
Considering the amount of time required to do so, it's a safe bet that none of us will be around when such replication is achieved.
Are there any other kinds of chemicals than inanimate ones?
Crepitus
Verified User
70 years is nothing. it took billions of years to get where we are.
How are we doing on the "prove god exists" thing?