Arguments against the Afterlife

antiskeptic

robindch wrote: »

What you have actually doing is decided that there exists an agent which knows everything and which can do anything,

He can't make square circles.

and to whom you have privileged access of motives and knowledge,

There's nothing stopping you having access. Except you.

and probably selective access to power.

May the Force be with me. (And also with you)

And you've decided that it's acceptable in a debate to declare the greater size of the infinite whenever it suits.

My job is to show the work in getting there. I can't help it if all roads lead to home. If God is the ultimate source of everything (even indirectly, evil) then there isn't a whole lot of point in complaining about it.

In effect, you've decided that dividing by zero is good maths.

God is a bit like the big bang. Normal rules need not apply.

It will almost certainly make your equations line up and it might even make sense to you, but to everybody else, it's an obvious cop-out.

RhetoricalRobinRumblesRearways

robindch

antiskeptic wrote: »

Normal rules need not apply.

And that's kind of the problem, isn't?

In addition to playing sophistic language games like your comment on square circles above, your continual use of the infinite, the omniscient, the omnipotent and the inconceivable to support your argument might make sense to you, but you really should make more of an effort to understand why the logical equivalent of dividing by zero is considered uniformly poor maths.

As Sam Vimes pointed out ages ago, religious thought is simply a framework based upon fallacies and faulty logic, then proceeds by relentlessly pure reason to the insane conclusions that you've reached.

antiskeptic

robindch wrote: »

And that's kind of the problem, isn't?

In addition to playing sophistic language games like your comment on square circles above, your continual use of the infinite, the omniscient, the omnipotent and the inconceivable to support your argument might make sense to you, but you really should make more of an effort to understand why the logical equivalent of dividing by zero is considered uniformly poor maths.

As Sam Vimes pointed out ages ago, religious thought is simply a framework based upon fallacies and faulty logic, then proceeds by relentlessly pure reason to the insane conclusions that you've reached.

Like or not Robin, saying what your saying has no value. The forum is already awash with folk who assert the kind of things you assert (if generally perhaps less eloquently than you) and who, like you, refrain from showing their work.

It's what you can argue towards, not what you can state that matters. An argument is a dynamic thing (even if you feel you already know where it's going to terminate). An assertion a static thing - it just hangs there in the breeze doing ...nothing.

I can understand if you haven't got the legs for the discussion, feeling perhaps that you've done it all before - God only knows how many times I've had to attempt rectify an understanding of Christianity that objects by saying "If you don't behave yourself you're going to go to Hell" or "how can a loving God send people to Hell?"

You really need to sh1t ..or get off the contra-Christian-apologetics pot.

RufustheKing

Dades wrote: »

People have also been getting abducted by aliens for years. Must there be something in that, too?

you believe people get abducted by aliens yet find it hard to believe there might be life after death?

RufustheKing

Penn wrote: »

I worked in a hotel for two years, which was apparently haunted and had all these ghost sightings etc. Funnily enough, I never saw anything. Neither of my two sisters who also worked there saw anything. None of my workmates saw anything. The majority of the guests never saw anything. Yet some guests, who already believed in ghosts (and yes, I did talk to some of them (guests, not ghosts)), seemed pretty convinced they saw ghosts.

Funny how some people who already believed in ghosts thought they saw ghosts in a place which has a reputation for ghost sightings even though they were only there for one night, yet no-one who worked in the place (even those who believed in ghosts) day-in day-out never saw anything.

You're right, there has to be something to it. It's called imagination.

ah yes lets dimiss all other accounts cause you worked in a hotel and saw nothing. i never saw a black hole, does it mean it does not exist. of course it doesn't exist i never say it. :rolleyes: you must find it really easy to amuse yourself when staring in a mirror.

RufustheKing

seamus wrote: »

There have been reports and stories about cooties for years, coming from literally thousands of kids. Why has no government stepped in to address this scourge of STDs which is clearly destroying young lives?

There are times when i get down in the dumps and lose all self-esteem but all i have to do is look at your post and understand there are people out there far worse than I. Thank you

robindch

RufustheKing wrote: »

Dades wrote: »

People have also been getting abducted by aliens for years. Must there be something in that, too?

you believe people get abducted by aliens yet find it hard to believe there might be life after death?

I think Dades might have been joking. A bit of chill on your part would go a long way too.

Dades

RufustheKing, it might be worth getting the lie of the land here, so to speak before getting all defensive when someone doesn't agree with you. Consider this forum as the opposite to, say, Paranormal or Conspiracy Theories. Here if you make an assertion like "there has to be something to it" - you will be called on it, and swiftly.

That is not to say you cannot defend your views vigorously - please do. Just don't expect an easy ride if you are suggestion something like ghosts exist.

Mark Hamill

RufustheKing wrote: »

ah yes lets dimiss all other accounts cause you worked in a hotel and saw nothing. i never saw a black hole, does it mean it does not exist. of course it doesn't exist i never say it. :rolleyes:

Penn said that he (and his coworkers) didn't see any ghosts while working in a supposedly haunted hotel for several years. Unless you never saw any evidence for anything while working with astronomers who were looking at a part of the galaxy that many other astronomers had claimed the presence of a black hole, you analogy isn't really apt.

RufustheKing

Dades wrote: »

RufustheKing, it might be worth getting the lie of the land here, so to speak before getting all defensive when someone doesn't agree with you. Consider this forum as the opposite to, say, Paranormal or Conspiracy Theories. Here if you make an assertion like "there has to be something to it" - you will be called on it, and swiftly.

That is not to say you cannot defend your views vigorously - please do. Just don't expect an easy ride if you are suggestion something like ghosts exist.

all i am saying is that it's possible. take away the most haunted and ghost haunters tv shows which pray on peoples beliefs. there is still a wealth of evidence that people have experienced something. as i say Might is a word i use often when talking about the afterlife and ghosts. i don't know and none do but to simply dismiss it is just as stupid as saying they exists. Agnostic are only right about one thing, we don't f**king have a clue what really is out there.

also sarcasm is often meet with sarcasm on my part.

maximoose

RufustheKing wrote: »

all i am saying is that it's possible. take away the most haunted and ghost haunters tv shows which pray on peoples beliefs. there is still a wealth of evidence that people have experienced something.

I'd love to see that evidence. All I've ever come across is a wealth of anecdotes and mumbo jumbo nonsense.

Penn

RufustheKing wrote: »

ah yes lets dimiss all other accounts cause you worked in a hotel and saw nothing. i never saw a black hole, does it mean it does not exist. of course it doesn't exist i never say it. :rolleyes: you must find it really easy to amuse yourself when staring in a mirror.

My point was that it's always the people who believe in ghosts that have seen ghosts, usually on more than one occasion, whereas people who don't believe in ghosts generally never see them.

Believers will see or hear something, and in the absence of an explanation, will believe they saw a ghost. Non-believers will see or hear something, and in the absence of an explanation, consider what the most logical answer would be and assume that it's most likely true until shown otherwise.

robindch

antiskeptic wrote: »

Like or not Robin, saying what your saying has no value.

You only think it does because you don't understand what I'm saying. I'm talking about the form of an argument, while you think I'm discussing the content. There are other misinterpretations on your part, but that's the most basic.

An old engineering prof told me years ago always to draw a diagram when something wasn't clear. That's good advice, so here's a cartoon which might help you see where you're at fault:

sephir0th

RufustheKing wrote: »

all i am saying is that it's possible.

It's also possible that there's a giant monkey made of yogurt jumping up and down on my keyboard right now. You need to analyse probabilities, not possibilities. In colloquial language when we say something is possible, we are implicitly saying the probability is reasonably high.

Andrewf20

antiskeptic wrote: »

Thanks..

On a macro front (the existence of God-of-the-bible (Old Testament and New), the general nature of the mechanism of salvation, that I'm sure of heaven when I die)?

Not a single iota of doubt.


Have you yourself got anything specific you'd like to ask. Objections-R-Us

Well I was just wondering on this point you make above - what key argument would you use to say that these things (old vs new testament / afterlife) could not be man made?

In general, I havent heard an argument to say any of these things above are impossible to invent / be man made, hence my own personal doubts.

RufustheKing

sephir0th wrote: »

It's also possible that there's a giant monkey made of yogurt jumping up and down on my keyboard right now. You need to analyse probabilities, not possibilities. In colloquial language when we say something is possible, we are implicitly saying the probability is reasonably high.

the question should be, do you believe there is a monkey made of yogurt?

if i believe there is a monkey made of yoghurt then it does exist in my mind. ghosts may not be people that have died, it could be shades of people from another universe, who knows. more money has been spent on research for alternative universes then a Probability that a god or gods exist. yet the evidence is about the same.

also whats a true athiests defintions of God?

sephir0th

RufustheKing wrote: »

the question should be, do you believe there is a monkey made of yogurt?

if i believe there is a monkey made of yoghurt then it does exist in my mind. ghosts may not be people that have died, it could be shades of people from another universe, who knows. more money has been spent on research for alternative universes then a Probability that a god or gods exist. yet the evidence is about the same.

also whats a true athiests defintions of God?

Are you implying that if something exists in my mind (as a conceptual thought) that counts as evidence towards it's objective existence?

And watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T69TOuqaqXI

antiskeptic

robindch wrote: »

You only think it does because you don't understand what I'm saying. I'm talking about the form of an argument, while you think I'm discussing the content. There are other misinterpretations on your part, but that's the most basic.

Whether you're talking of the form of an argument or the content of an argument you still need to argue. You're not arguing, you're asserting such and such is the case ("antiskeptics argument is sophistry") and leaving it at that.

"Oh no it isn't" being sufficient enough a rebuttal to stalemate you might give you a hint as to the weaknesses in your position.

An old engineering prof told me years ago always to draw a diagram when something wasn't clear. That's good advice, so here's a cartoon which might help you see where you're at fault:

Replace the word 'miracle' with the word 'sophistry' and you're looking in the mirror of your own posts in my direction of late. No work shown - just a leap into rhetoric.

Dades

RufustheKing wrote: »

more money has been spent on research for alternative universes then a Probability that a god or gods exist. yet the evidence is about the same.

That's quite the assertion. I don't know how much funding has been given over to the alternative universe question, but the subject of theology has always existed and must cost something. Those big libraries in the Vatican don't come cheap!

That's leaving aside the question that it's impossible to research the existence of a deity that is silent, invisible, intangible and has completely different characteristics depending on who you ask.

There's a reason it's called "faith".

RufustheKing wrote: »

also whats a true athiests defintions of God?

Which one? Gods are just the deities associated with other people's religions. There is no one true definition of God.

Mark Hamill

RufustheKing wrote: »

also whats a true athiests defintions of God?

What's a true atheist?

Mark Hamill

RufustheKing wrote: »

the question should be, do you believe there is a monkey made of yogurt?

The question should be "how likely is it that there is a monkey made of yogurt", followed by "how likely is it that said monkey is dancing on sephir0th's keyboard" followed by "how likely is it that said dancing can result in intelligible posts".
It doesn't matter who or how many believe in something, the reality of an idea isn't determined by the amount or the strength of belief in it.

robindch

antiskeptic wrote: »

you're asserting such and such is the case ("antiskeptics argument is sophistry") and leaving it at that.

If you recall when I accused you of sophistry, I pointed out exactly what sequence of words constitutes sophistry.

So I'll be charitable, and assume that you've simply forgotten

antiskeptic

Andrewf20 wrote: »

Well I was just wondering on this point you make above - what key argument would you use to say that these things (old vs new testament / afterlife) could not be man made?

In general, I haven't heard an argument to say any of these things above are impossible to invent / be man made, hence my own personal doubts.

There is no such argument. At least, not one that could be made by me to you - if that's what you mean.

But if you are asking whether I can be satisfied that the bible couldn't just be the work of men then yes, that is possible. You see, the sequence of events in a person being born again (typically) appears to be as follows:

- the person is saved by God.
- God turns up and makes himself known to the person.

Part of that making himself known involves his coming to dwell within the person through his spirit. The person notices a change in themselves (although at this stage they might not be aware it's God or God of the bible).

And the person has their spiritual eyes opened. And because of that, they can read the bible in a way that they couldn't before. It wouldn't matter if they had been a theologian before they were saved - they still wouldn't have been able to read the actual message of the bible because of spiritual blindness. Someone barely literate/educated .. but born again, would understand very much more of the bibles core messages than the very best lost theologian. It's that stark a difference, spiritual blindness.


Now that they can read it they find described therein the God who they have living inside them. And the two testimonies (God living within and God speaking through his word) come together like two positive waveforms colliding - they join to make an even larger wave form that has the effect of bringing conviction to the person. Conviction that this is true.

And it keeps on going on like that: the more you read of the bible, the more you see how everything you experience of God and everything about the way the world works .. is as described in the bible. And the case it makes for Everything Being The Way It Is is far more elegant and cohesive and harmonious .. than any other explanation you could begin to dream of accessing.

And so, the idea that the bible could have been made up by disparate people over thousands of years - somehow figuring to compile an infinitely complex and harmonious piece of work - becomes an infinitely distant possibility.

Not impossible. But utterly implausible.


The only question is, I suppose, whether you can (begin to) detect the Bible to be something that is infinitely complex and internally /externally harmonious .. and beautiful. If you can't (as I couldn't when I first picked it up on being born again - although I sense I was holding something significant in my hands) then sure, it might well appear like something made up. But if you see it as I now see it?

Not in a month of Sundays..

antiskeptic

robindch wrote: »

If you recall when I accused you of sophistry, I pointed out exactly what sequence of words constitutes sophistry.

So I'll be charitable, and assume that you've simply forgotten

I'm not sure what you mean. Demanding that an omnipotent God should be able to make the equivalent of square circles is an all-to-frequently encountered atheist position.

And so, when you cited my holding God to be able to do anything I deployed this atheist position by way of :rolleyes: riposte

It's not like you were engaged in argument in the post concerned such that my response might be considered part of a counter-argument. You were doing then as you've been doing of late.

Soap-boxing.

And won't be getting much other than short shrift from me in return.

robindch

antiskeptic wrote: »

Demanding that an omnipotent God should be able to make the equivalent of square circles is an all-to-frequently encountered atheist position.

Not from me, it's not since I don't recall ever saying it. And I can't recall it appearing here in A+A either, at least from anybody on the A+A side of the debate. Would you care to point out the A+A poster(s) who have produced this old chestnut as a serious argument?

BTW, you might enjoy reading wikipedia's interesting page on the omnipotence paradox, especially the part related to the classification of differing degrees of omnipotence, so that you can explain which classification you're mean when you use the word.

antiskeptic wrote: »

It's not like you were engaged in argument in the post concerned such that my response might be considered part of a counter-argument.

I've already pointed out a few times where you're arguments are going off-track -- your continual invocation of the infinite to handwave away any objection, to take the simplest instance -- and that this means that you're not respecting the form of logical debate, let alone the content.

Neither am I sure why you think that good, clear English constitutes "soap-boxing", since the forum charter specifically defines it as the "constant repetition of a single viewpoint while refusing to entertain discussion on it".

I'm trying to have a reasonable discussion with you and, hell, I'm even trying to find it entertaining! But if you're offended by good English, well, like, I'll like, lower my writing standardz if u like tinks we can has a eazier talkz

RufustheKing

sephir0th wrote: »

Are you implying that if something exists in my mind (as a conceptual thought) that counts as evidence towards it's objective existence?

if you want it to then it does. is it phyiscal evidence? no but it is real to a degree. also i never look at youtube videos that belong to politics or belief.

RufustheKing

Mark Hamill wrote: »

The question should be "how likely is it that there is a monkey made of yogurt", followed by "how likely is it that said monkey is dancing on sephir0th's keyboard" followed by "how likely is it that said dancing can result in intelligible posts".
It doesn't matter who or how many believe in something, the reality of an idea isn't determined by the amount or the strength of belief in it.

it does tho. there are people out there that believe in a god and this god is as real as you or me. I had a dream last night, i can't prove i had a dream but I know i had one and it was very real to me. Athiest believe there is no god yet there is no proof they are right, yet athiests accept it as (pardon the pun) gospel.

we haven't a clue whats out there and athiests are as just as stupid as the religious thinking that what they know is certain. we don't by the way. science is the new religion or system of belief.

RufustheKing

Mark Hamill wrote: »

What's a true atheist?

well i am an AA so i only half athiest. thats why i said true athiest.

oh not this nonsense again

not to mention the internal inconsistency
if i believe something is real it's real
theists are stupid for believing something is real
atheists are stupid for believing something isn't real, even though all your beliefs are true because you believe them

if i believe there is a monkey made of yogurt then it's real and if i believe in god then it's real but im not allowed believe something isn't real because it can't be proven, because i like to completely arbitrarily suddenly apply reasoning and evidence to my beliefs

seriously just stop it

RufustheKing

bluewolf wrote: »

oh not this nonsense again

not to mention the internal inconsistency
if i believe something is real it's real
theists are stupid for believing something is real
atheists are stupid for believing something isn't real, even though all your beliefs are true because you believe them

if i believe there is a monkey made of yogurt then it's real and if i believe in god then it's real but im not allowed believe something isn't real because it can't be proven, because i like to completely arbitrarily suddenly apply reasoning and evidence to my beliefs

seriously just stop it

thank god for posters like you.