Theists - How can you believe? Seriously ...

Another important question is whether or not some part of your personality and/or identity and/ or memories existed even before your birth as a human?

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/research01.html
Pre-Existence and the Near-Death Experience

 

Be more specific and define what you mean by empirical? Maybe a time machine to go back then? Short of that, a respected ancient historian is good enough for me.

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I'm not afraid of death, are you?

 

The early part of the Bible wasn't written for us. It was written for a group of semi-nomadic people in the Middle East. Of course it's not literally true, that said, it has a lot of truths. The early part of Genesis helps explain human nature and the fact that all mankind is related. All the part about God destroying people--like the Flood, etc., is to show us what God could do if He wanted. Most of the reason God in those stories destroyed people is for being sinful and bad to one another. That is how the story goes about Noah---the people were wicked and had to be washed away.....

My thing is I've seen the peace of mind of religious people and non-religious people. My dad, when growing up, spent his evenings tortured about things that happened in his past. He is agnostic leaning towards atheism. My mother had much more serenity--she's Catholic. Easy choice fore me--being a tortured agnostic or a serene Catholic. BTW, I'm also a biologist, and a staunch believer that evolution is the best explanation for how the world came about. Science and religion don't conflict. If they do, you're doing something wrong in one or the other or both.

 

False logic. Using that, not defecating where we stand is also the default. We have to teach that as well.

Humans require a lot of teaching by older humans. There is no such thing as a default in humans.

 

I don't. I only know there's no evidence for a claim of eternal life.

 

Apart from instinct humans are pretty much blank canvasses when they're infants. But by heck we learn fast and we learn from those around us first. We learn what to do when we feel like we need to squat. We don't need to be told how to do it but we need to learn where not to do it and where to do it. And that pretty much goes for all of our instinctual behaviour. Social learning helps us to fit into our surroundings. We get our beliefs and our values in the same way, from influential others around us. We learn about our group's religious beliefs and if those religious beliefs are not present we won't learn them.

The point about the tortured non-believer and the serene Catholic is worth examining. I think we learn to fear death as a part of our religious indoctrination. In the Christian religion the idea of an afterlife has always been a recruiting tool, it's also a good frightener too. Want to end up in Hell for eternity? Don't do this, do that. Want to get to Heaven for eternity, don't do this, do that. It kept people pretty much in line (i.e. submitting to the will of the temporal Church and its allies) for quite some time, now not so much, there are other social pressures used by religionists.

It's a very old idea that humans are cursed with the intelligence to understand their own mortality as individuals. Since it can't be evaded (unlike taxes) there have to be reassurances and religion provides that reassurance for those who believe. Good luck to them. One day when humans grow up we'll accept that life and death are processes that humans undergo. There's life and then there's no life. And the fear of Hell or not getting into Heaven will be gone because humans will realise that death is non-existence, not a shift to Heaven or Hell. Then we'll learn how to live a good life and how to leave it with as few regrets as possible. Until we take away religiously-inspired fear we will always be slaves to the next cult leader who claims to be able to give us eternal life.

 

Not really. http://listverse.com/2013/09/15/10-astonishing-near-death-experiences/

 

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-near-death-experience-isnt-proof-heaven/

Do chinese see the same things a christian does?

 

The author's opinion is noted. It can't be proved one way or another, but it is false to say there is no evidence for the afterlife.

 

there is no evidence for the afterlife. period.

if by some chance you have some, you'll shake the very foundations of science, and the world as we know it. the entire planet will change overnight. please let us be the first to hear it.

 

seriously? you think we need to be taught religion in the same way we need to learn not to poo in the kitchen?

please explain all those millions of atheists (raised without religion - like myself) who don't poo in the kitchen. explain how they're able to function just like religionists, and even be better, kinder, and more charitable than religionists, on occasion. go ahead, explain it to me

 

Dreams don't qualify as evidence. But it would be incorrect to state that one knows there is no afterlife. But no evidence for it exists.

 

No, I think these are simply cases which can be used to prove that in certain conditions our minds go haywire. It's not evidence for a claim of eternal life.

 

Not at all. For evidence to be useful it has to explain to the exclusion of any other way of explaining the phenomena. There are far too many possibilities for these phenomena. So this is not useful evidence.

 

And we're pretty sure what dreams are now (although I admit there's plenty of room for further investigation) and we have ruled out previous hypotheses such as they're magic or we're astral travelling or it's someone else in our body while we're sleeping.

On the point of not knowing there's an afterlife, indeed. Someone might believe it but that doesn't amount to knowledge.

 

OK, then I can say there is no evidence that there is no eternal life.

There are things in these visions that are not explainable, like the kid in the movie 'Heaven is for Real' who met his miscarried sister that he had not been told about and described his grandfather who he never met. When the dad later showed him a picture of his father later in life the kid didn't recognize him, but did when shown a photo of the granddad in his '30s. Of course, to the atheists here, all such evidence is a big lying conspiracy, right? How convenient.

 

Yes there is, I just posted some.

How would you propose science decide on that issue? Unless you can send a scientist to the afterlife and come back, it can't. We do have accounts of others who have done that though.

No it wouldn't, many people saw Jesus and His miracles and still rejected Him.

 

The Helen Wambach Ph. D. research is powerful evidence that some part of our human soul - spirit - higher dimensional more fundamental energy hard drive….. existed for at least 4000 years before our birth as humans?!?!

Rabbi Yeshua - Jesus did state that there was some sort of connection between John the Baptist and Elijah?!?!

How exactly is it that three or four year old can sit down to a piano and play like Beethoven or Mozart with relatively little practice?!

 

With all due respect your comparison is worthless. If Instead say around 2000 years ago, you were accosted by a hundred people who said they saw the blind healed, and the crippled walk! They witnessed day turned to night after Christus was crucified and many other miracles! Now that would have been a little closer to what really happened. Yes I would have been more open to that story!

Again that is so garbled up! Again with all due respect I say with sciences history of making mistakes and its method saying its bound to make mistakes as part of its operating procedure, how is it better at explaining origins such as the origin of the universe via logical argument for the existence of God such as the KCA ? As I have said I and a good percentage of Christians don't have a problem with most of evolution. The biggest problem it seems is the lack of knowledge concerning Cristian apologists and how they explaining and interpreting Genesis etc for the lay people.

Yes I feel that religions have a better chance of being wrong* than say the various descriptions of God.
* By wrong I mean that the religions have a better chance of getting some details wrong. Still the core message is intact, at least as far as Christianity is concerned.

Modern humans DO understand what science tells us the sun is etc. However a good number of modern humans disagree with certain claims of modern science! However we religious people that enjoy and even employ science in their beliefs unlike many of hard science types are happy to discuss why we disagree about any issue. Why is that?

Yes, I find science interesting! You wont find disagreement from me there, for example I just tool delivery of my 10" reflector telescope and can not wait to get a clear night for viewing!!!!!! I feel our destiny is waiting for us in the stars. God wants us to explore bis creation IMO. Most Christians that I have met (conservatively thousands) are interested in many aspects of science too.

Not necessarily. First there are fleetingly small cases where a direct comparison can be made....but you are getting negative again so I am out of here,, I may ring your bell and answer your last error filled statements in a few..


byeeee



Reva ~~~~ ~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~~X

 

Proving they weren't miracles or they are stories that someone made up.
And some fell for the story.

 

So why would the apostles die for these 'lies'? You make no sense. People will die for something they believe to be true, but they will never die for something they know to be false.

 

You answered your own question.

One can believe something to be true that is not actually true. I use to believe in the tooth fairy...

The apostles believed that they knew the truth but this does not mean that their truth had any basis in fact/reality... or whatever.

 

No I didn't, can you answer it?

OK, let's get the childish straw-man examples out of the way, let me ask you, as an adult (as the apostles were) would you die for the truth of an idea if you weren't absolutely sure of it's veracity?

OK, so you have to come up with a more convincing logical explanation for their dramatic change in behavior and willingness to die for what they claimed to have seen. I've never seen one.

 

Yes, and I will use your words because you said it perfectly; "People will die for something they believe to be true, but they will never die for something they know to be false."

No, but you are missing the point. The point is that just because one is willing to die for what they believe in, this does not mean that what they believe in is actually correct/true/factual... etc.

Logic has no place in theology as theology is the realm of faith. Faith begins where reason ends. I see the Bible as a work of fiction where imagination is free to run amok.

 

I said, some fell for the stories. Meaning they believed them.
Why do radical muslims blow themselves up?
Why did the Jim jones crew commit suicide?
Why did the hale bopp folks commit suicide?