Is there life after death?

nozzferrahhtoo

I think I will continue to stick to the topic and not be baited by obvious attempts at personal remarks. Only one of us seems to need to resort to them I have noticed. I would prefer to keep it that way.

lukesmom

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

I think I will continue to stick to the topic and not be baited by obvious attempts at personal remarks. Only one of us seems to need to resort to them I have noticed. I would prefer to keep it that way.

You do realise your posting in the after hours section?

FloatingVoter

Yes. I've been dead. Hope to go back some day.

nozzferrahhtoo

lukesmom wrote: »

You do realise your posting in the after hours section?

Oh yes I very much do, which is why as I said I would prefer to stick to the topic, and not be baited into a derail. And as I see it my question as to whether your claim "Yes there is a place we go to when we're finished on this planet." can be substantiated or clarified was on topic and cordial. But alas it was met with nothing but an ad hominem personal attack on my comprehension abilities.

As I see it the question stands. Is there life after death? And, as you demonstrate so willingly, the answer appears to be that no.... we simply have no reasons on offer to think so.

lukesmom

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Oh yes I very much do, which is why as I said I would prefer to stick to the topic, and not be baited into a derail. And as I see it my question as to whether your claim "Yes there is a place we go to when we're finished on this planet." can be substantiated or clarified was on topic and cordial. But alas it was met with nothing but an ad hominem personal attack on my comprehension abilities.

As I see it the question stands. Is there life after death? And, as you demonstrate so willingly, the answer appears to be that no.... we simply have no reasons on offer to think so.

I honestly don't mean to offend. It was said in jest so apologies if you took offence. My opinion and beliefs still stand though there is an afterlife and if I tell you how I know, I will be mocked and taken the p out of. I will be called crazy perhaps even schizophrenic so I won't be offering up the source of my beliefs. And no I don't expect you to just take me at my word without explanation. Hopefully somebody comes along who is braver than I am.

Huntergonzo

If you want to know whether there's life after death or not try asking a dead person, if you get an answer then you should see a psychiatrist, if you don't get an answer then you can either accept that there's almost certainly no afterlife or become a priest or a medium or an imam etc and con loads of innocent people out of their money by claiming you can talk to the dead so there must be an afterlife.

Fcukin' hilarious, tragic and baffling all in one how so many people fall for that sh1t.

Kev W

lukesmom wrote: »

I honestly don't mean to offend. It was said in jest so apologies if you took offence. My opinion and beliefs still stand though there is an afterlife and if I tell you how I know, I will be mocked and taken the p out of. I will be called crazy perhaps even schizophrenic so I won't be offering up the source of my beliefs.

If the basis of your belief is that rational minds will find it crazy, perhaps that's because it's irrational and crazy?

lukesmom wrote: »

And no I don't expect you to just take me at my word without explanation. Hopefully somebody comes along who is braver than I am.

Yet you'll happily denigrate anyone who doesn't.

nozzferrahhtoo

lukesmom wrote: »

I honestly don't mean to offend. It was said in jest so apologies if you took offence. My opinion and beliefs still stand though there is an afterlife and if I tell you how I know, I will be mocked and taken the p out of.

I actually do not take offence to anything. Especially not on forums. And especially not THIS forum. I know what it takes to offend me and you are not capable of it (note this is a comment about me, not you).

But I do tend to highlight when I have been cordial, asked a straight forward question, and I am met with comments about my comprehension abilities or told I need to "get out more". Because I feel person ad hominem to dodge losing face is.... well.... low.

You could have, for example, responded to my original question with "No sorry, it is a personal conviction born solely of personal experiences, and is nothing I can share with you". Would that have been so hard? But no, it is all about my comprehension abilities to understand what you got. The failing for YOU to substantiate YOUR claim is mine, not yours, it seems. Puh-leeese.

As for whether you will be mocked, I honestly do not know. You might be. But certainly not by me. I would consider your evidence and either accept it, and modify my belief level in the concept of an after life.... or I would evaluate it and tell you _Exactly_ why I can not accept it.

All I _can_ tell you is that I know that if _I_ thought I had evidence that there is an after life, I would not actually _care_ if people mocked me or not. I would be very strongly compelled to share it with everyone regardless. Because if I really.... REALLY.... thought it was the truth.... then a little meaningless non-entity like a bit of menial mockery would be the last thing that would stop me bringing it to the world. And if for every 100 or 1000 or 10000 people who laughed at me.... just ONE person was convinced of it... I would feel it was worth it. Even the Nazerene, I note, saw fit to inform his followers that they should not only be ok with being mocked when spreading his word.... but they should positively expect it and even revel in it.

But our commitment to the truth and the dissemination of it may vary I guess. It may help I guess, as I said, that I do not take offence and people on here are not capable of offending or mocking me. So it would be easier for me to bear the brunt of such antics. When people resort to the level of posts you just did, they demean themselves not me. And I am neither insulted nor offended by it. Just disappointed that open, honest, cordial, intellectual discourse has broken down.

colossus-x

Surly life is a term to where we are all now, with bugs trees etc. Is there existence after life ,in some other non-life-like form, is the question. No trees , no bugs. If there was life after life then we'd just end back where were we came from. What would be the point of that if that was the way of it. You'd die again and repeat the process forever.

I often wonder what one would do all day long in this after-life existence. Would we still have emotions and just be happy all the time. I don't know about you but that's sounds really effin boring. Will we be able to see each other and talk. What would we talk about ? How would we deal with people we used to know, say if it was someone who you couldn't stomach. Or if you knew your partner was in hell forever and you knew they'd never join you ever for the rest of eternity. Maybe heaven is like an old folks home and we just sit around playing chess or bridge cause we've nothing better to do.

Actually you know what - I don't I'm too keen on afterlife now that I think about it.

TerrorFirmer

colossus-x wrote: »

Surly life is a term to where where we are all now, with bugs trees etc. Is there existence after life ,in some other non-life-like form, is the question. No trees , no bugs. If there was life after life then we'd just end back where were we came from. What would be the point of that if that was the way of it. You'd die again and repeat the process forever.

I often wonder what one would do all day long in this after-life existence. Would we still have emotions and just be happy all the time. I don't know about you but that's sounds really effin boring. Will we be able to see each other and talk. What would we talk about ?How would we deal with people we used to know, say if it was someone who you couldn't stomach. Or if you knew your partner was in hell forever and you knew they'd never join you ever for the rest of eternity. Maybe heaven is like an old folks home and we just sit around playing chess or bridge cause we've nothing better to do.

Actually you know what; I don't I'm too keen on afterlife now that I think about it.

I live far more in hope of dying at a ripe old age, having achieved a long, happy and productive life, that when the answer to the great mystery comes to pass, I'll be tired and looking forward to the rest.

I don't think there's any point trying to apply logic and understanding as we know it to something like an afterlife, if it did exist. We couldn't comprehend it, no more than an ant understands how our world exists. Not saying I believe, but I don't spend too much time trying to quantify it in my head.

colossus-x

^^ Sure, I was just being silly with my musings of the afterlife. This is AH after all.

But I don't understand why in respect of religion, rather than just a general notion of an afterlife without a god, why we're not told more about what form it takes since the bible claims to tell us how we came about so why can't it equally say where we're going in more detail.

There is no detail imo and to say we're not told because we can't comprehend it is just an easy one sentence fob off.

ScumLord

The problem with the answers most people come up with for questions like "is there life after death" or even "what is the meaning of life" is that we tend to forget about the rest of life and come up with answers that only make sense to humans, it completely ignores every other form of life and treats that life like a backdrop to our existence.

If your answer to the meaning of life can' t be applied to bacteria then it's not the meaning of life. If your idea of life after death doesn't include bats and orange trees then it's not life after death. It's just a human conscious thats stuck in a moment.

TheLastMohican

The Backwards Man wrote: »

There was life for billions of years before we were here, and billions after, but we won't be here. Just the way it is, no point fretting about it

But not much has changed 'round Ballyjamesduff. The OP could have shortcutted to the Garden Of Eden ......... Paddy Reilly did!

whisky_galore

sonny.knowles wrote: »

Hopefully there isn't life after ISIS for ISIS members.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtS9ssgR9C4

ianobrien

Is there life after death? Of course there is for the bugs and maggots that feed on your rotting carcass in the hole. But for you, there's Nada.

dd972

ianobrien wrote: »

Is there life after death? Of course there is for the bugs and maggots that feed on your rotting carcass in the hole. But for you, there's Nada.

So you've died then?, what's it like?....

Dirty Dingus McGee

Very doubtful there is and frankly life is the greatest curse of all and you'd be far better off not having been born in the first place as what is the point when you exist and then it's just gone without any memories and therefore in effect you haven't actually existed in the first place making life completely without a point and completely without any worth.

Hagar7

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

So you got nothing to offer then except ad hominem tripe about what you want to pretend my comprehension abilities are, or are not. That I certainly do comprehend.

While that is certainly true, it does not really grant license to assign credence to whatever anyone makes up. Because while it is true some crazy sounding things turned out to be true.... it would appear to be rare.... and the vast majority of unsubstantiated crazy nonsense in the world has remained unsubstantiated with no reason to think it is true.

I do see anyone on this thread denying the _possibility_ that it could happen. There is just no reason AT ALL at this time to think it DOES happen. And while yes, our knowledge about the functions of consciousness is indeed far from complete.... we can still point out that 100% of that current knowledge points to consciousness being produced solely by the brain and 0% of that knowledge currently suggests any kind of possible disconnect between them.

So like you, I do not think many people here are "ruling it out". But not ruling it out does not mean we should not acknowledge that we have NO reason to think it is true, and quite a few reasons to expect it to be false.

As well it should be, because it is designed to rebut an argument that itself is intellectually bankrupt and lazy. When people espouse nonsense and back it up with nothing but "Well you can not prove it is false" then that is empty white noise. And a lazy presentation only deserves a lazy response. And so the Teapot response is quite apt on every level.

It tends to be a case of "Damned if you do and damned if you do not" I find. People, such as yourself, post these videos knowing that no one will actually bother to watch them. Then they get to claim everyone is just dismissing or ignoring their arguments and evidence.

But then when you DO engage with their videos, like I just did, you yourself get essentially dismissed because people like yourself.... for all your moaning no one engages and just dismisses..... do not actually know how to engage when engagement actually occurs.

So it comes down to a simple question. Do you post videos like that because you actually want to engage with the discussion.... or because you actually want to manufacture a situation where you can just accuse all and sundry or refusing to engage with you, or the evidence?

If you want to engage at any time however, honestly, then my post is there to be replied to. And I am open to anything else you want to paste and me and call "evidence".

Moan,:) you are having a laugh,you seem to be the only person on this thread who's moaning just because you thought that by now you would have chased other posters away with your sanctimonious claptrap.
I posted the videos to engage on a message board,this as you might well know is what they're for,dialogue.
It might be a good idea if you calmed down a wee bit,relax,take a pint of Guinness and think 'maybe others on here have a point.'
We do,is that so annoying?

captbarnacles

Hagar7 wrote: »

Moan,:) you are having a laugh,you seem to be the only person on this thread who's moaning just because you thought that by now you would have chased other posters away with your sanctimonious claptrap.
I posted the videos to engage on a message board,this as you might well know is what they're for,dialogue.
It might be a good idea if you calmed down a wee bit,relax,take a pint of Guinness and think 'maybe others on here have a point.'
We do,is that so annoying?

You have a point? where? must have missed it

Look at what is highlighted above. It's juvenile. Make your point if you have one but the personal attacks are pathetic and imo only to distract that you are losing this debate.

Baggy Trousers

lukesmom wrote: »

Nozzferrahhtoo - if I have learnt anything from this thread it's that you definitely need to get out more my friend.

I actually think you could learn a lot from Nozzferrahhtoo.

I find it interesting how people feel threatened by someone who is obviously extremely intelligent and knowledgeable and try to bully him off the thread (e.g. Hagar7 and "sanctimonious claptrap")

nozzferrahhtoo

Hagar7 wrote: »

I posted the videos to engage on a message board,this as you might well know is what they're for,dialogue.

Then try engaging. I entered into a dialog based on the video. And the sum total of the response you are capable of mustering to my dialog is "moan". Perhaps you need to calm down a little bit and have a pint and realize other people have a point, and you have no rebuttals.

Dirty Dingus McGee

Dirty Dingus McGee wrote: »

Very doubtful there is and frankly life is the greatest curse of all and you'd be far better off not having been born in the first place as what is the point when you exist and then it's just gone without any memories and therefore in effect you haven't actually existed in the first place making life completely without a point and completely without any worth.

U OK hun x

Hagar7

lukesmom wrote: »

I honestly don't mean to offend. It was said in jest so apologies if you took offence. My opinion and beliefs still stand though there is an afterlife and if I tell you how I know, I will be mocked and taken the p out of. I will be called crazy perhaps even schizophrenic so I won't be offering up the source of my beliefs. And no I don't expect you to just take me at my word without explanation. Hopefully somebody comes along who is braver than I am.

Thanks for the pm,it was very courteous of you to reply,no way would anyone on this forum mock you in any way,more so after you explained what happened.

Hagar7

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Then try engaging. I entered into a dialog based on the video. And the sum total of the response you are capable of mustering to my dialog is "moan". Perhaps you need to calm down a little bit and have a pint and realize other people have a point, and you have no rebuttals.

Okay,I'll simplify it by this reply,if it was another person who had posted my original post then my reply would be this......Many people often by sheer chance find themselves in a situation whereby they are in a place that they've 'seen' yet never been there before,I'm sure that many on this board have been in a similar situation and have wondered how on earth it happened,pardon the pun btw,the fact that there's been many cases documented on tv and radio and also many books written on the subject is too strong for folk to say it's nonsense,it's not,it's just that we have yet to understand.

nozzferrahhtoo

Hagar7 wrote: »

Many people often by sheer chance find themselves in a situation whereby they are in a place that they've 'seen' yet never been there before

And yet there is no actual documentation of any such thing. Just a few anecdotes. And there is little we can do with those anecdotes.

I get that there are people who describe experiences they can not explain. In a species of billions I would be surprised if there was not.

But not being able to explain something is not, can not be, evidence for something you simply make up.

And many people do understand that. Take Dr. Sam Parnia for example. A scientist of some repute who actually does believe in things like an After Life. One of the things he understands would be great evidence is to verify OBE.

So he put together a double blind controlled study to test OBE. A very good one too. I have not read the final paper yet, but all the proposals I did read were methodologically sound.

Essentially he placed incongruent and unmissable objects in places only people in traditional OBE positions would see them. In random operating rooms in random hospitals over a large geographic area.

The researchers and the doctors did not know what the objects were, or where they were.

So then when people reported OBE the usual interviews were conducted. And of course they were asked if they saw any strange objects. The interviews were then later compared with data on what objects were where.

How many positive hits do you think he got from this? Of the many OBE patients he interviewed how many do you think saw the objects in question?

None.

Now if there had even been one positive hit this would have been interesting due to the nature of the study. 5 or 10 hits and I think we could safely say OBE as a phenomenon was strongly substantiated here.

None.

Not one single patient came back saying "Yes I was floating over the operating theatre.... I could see all the doctors working.... oh and did you know there was a digital read out in huge flashing red numbers on top of that cupboard there flashing the number 4345?" or "I know this will sound mad but when I was up there I could have sworn I saw a bonsai tree made solely out of pink and yellow dildos!!"

None. Not one.

And studies done that well verify what we suspected already. That patients genuinely do feel like they have left their own body (we can actually artificially stimulate this feeling and think we understand much of how it works) but that there is no reason to think they ACTUALLY left their body.

So yes, to summarize, we of course have many many anecdotes of strange experiences people can not explain. But they are not evidence of an after life and when we DO study them with any reasonable level of control... we get nothing. And that in itself is informative.

Hagar7

captbarnacles wrote: »

You have a point? where? must have missed it

Look at what is highlighted above. It's juvenile. Make your point if you have one but the personal attacks are pathetic and imo only to distract that you are losing this debate.

To be honest,its not like me to be so downright cheeky,I apologise and can only blame my great great great uncle Hagar for being so rude,sorry.

ScumLord

Hagar7 wrote: »

Okay,I'll simplify it by this reply,if it was another person who had posted my original post then my reply would be this......Many people often by sheer chance find themselves in a situation whereby they are in a place that they've 'seen' yet never been there before,I'm sure that many on this board have been in a similar situation and have wondered how on earth it happened,

I haven't. But there are plenty of simple explanations for some places feeling like other places. Number one would be that a lot on councils in europe are probably buying from the same supplier so everything from the footpaths dimensions to the bulb in the lampost could be identical to other places you've been. Human memory is complex and can be recalled because of something you've seen, heard touched or smelt. You can smell something and recall a visual memory. You can just have a memory fart. Sometimes you can make your way through a maze first time, as if you had a map rather than just getting lucky.

The bottom line though is human memory is about as dependable as a broken watch.

I think all the people who have these experiences should go on a course of hallucinogens. That drug highlights just how fragile the concept of reality is. the brain works with surprisingly poor quality information. Our best sense (sight) is actually shyte. Your brain makes up probably the majority of what you think you see, so it's incredibly easy for the brain to make a mistake and insert your dead mother instead of say, the fridge.

Hagar7

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

And yet there is no actual documentation of any such thing. Just a few anecdotes. And there is little we can do with those anecdotes.

I get that there are people who describe experiences they can not explain. In a species of billions I would be surprised if there was not.

But not being able to explain something is not, can not be, evidence for something you simply make up.

And many people do understand that. Take Dr. Sam Parnia for example. A scientist of some repute who actually does believe in things like an After Life. One of the things he understands would be great evidence is to verify OBE.

So he put together a double blind controlled study to test OBE. A very good one too. I have not read the final paper yet, but all the proposals I did read were methodologically sound.

Essentially he placed incongruent and unmissable objects in places only people in traditional OBE positions would see them. In random operating rooms in random hospitals over a large geographic area.

The researchers and the doctors did not know what the objects were, or where they were.

So then when people reported OBE the usual interviews were conducted. And of course they were asked if they saw any strange objects. The interviews were then later compared with data on what objects were where.

How many positive hits do you think he got from this? Of the many OBE patients he interviewed how many do you think saw the objects in question?

None.

Now if there had even been one positive hit this would have been interesting due to the nature of the study. 5 or 10 hits and I think we could safely say OBE as a phenomenon was strongly substantiated here.

None.

Not one single patient came back saying "Yes I was floating over the operating theatre.... I could see all the doctors working.... oh and did you know there was a digital read out in huge flashing red numbers on top of that cupboard there flashing the number 4345?" or "I know this will sound mad but when I was up there I could have sworn I saw a bonsai tree made solely out of pink and yellow dildos!!"

None. Not one.

And studies done that well verify what we suspected already. That patients genuinely do feel like they have left their own body (we can actually artificially stimulate this feeling and think we understand much of how it works) but that there is no reason to think they ACTUALLY left their body.

So yes, to summarize, we of course have many many anecdotes of strange experiences people can not explain. But they are not evidence of an after life and when we DO study them with any reasonable level of control... we get nothing. And that in itself is informative.

You quoted Sam Parnia,may I ask what you think of the skeptic,James Randi if you don't mind.

Hagar7

ScumLord wrote: »

I haven't. But there are plenty of simple explanations for some places feeling like other places. Number one would be that a lot on councils in europe are probably buying from the same supplier so everything from the footpaths dimensions to the bulb in the lampost could be identical to other places you've been. Human memory is complex and can be recalled because of something you've seen, heard touched or smelt. You can smell something and recall a visual memory. You can just have a memory fart. Sometimes you can make your way through a maze first time, as if you had a map rather than just getting lucky.

The bottom line though is human memory is about as dependable as a broken watch.

I think all the people who have these experiences should go on a course of hallucinogens. That drug highlights just how fragile the concept of reality is. the brain works with surprisingly poor quality information. Our best sense (sight) is actually shyte. Your brain makes up probably the majority of what you think you see, so it's incredibly easy for the brain to make a mistake and insert your dead mother instead of say, the fridge.

The brain is actually a very complex piece of tissue for the size of it,it takes in huge amounts of information.
It's amazing how often many of us can remember things which happened 20/30/40 years ago yet can't remember something that happened say 2/3 weeks ago that's the nature of the brain.
Our hippocampus gets smaller as we reach our mid fifties,therefor gradually leading to Alzheimer's in many folk by the time they're mid sixties,even the brainiest of people can't escape it which is heartbreaking to watch.

ScumLord

Hagar7 wrote: »

The brain is actually a very complex piece of tissue for the size of it,it takes in huge amounts of information.

It is complex, and while we probably do take in a lot of information, it's not great. The brain has to do a lot of processing. There's actually something approaching a half second of delay between something happening in the real world and your brain processing it into a reaction. It takes that long for your brain to take in the information, process it and turn it into conscious thought.

The image that comes off the human eye is terrible. Only one tiny spot in the centre is actually in focus, underneath that there's a much larger blind spot, then of course the whole image is upside down. Your brain has to flip the image, remove the blind spot, take the tiny spot of focus and make up a focused image out of that tiny focused data. And then it has to do it all again for the second eye. You're actually living in your brains virtual representation of the outside world. Given all that it's not at all surprising people see weird things from time to time. It's so easy for the brain to make a hash of that process it's actually amazing it doesn't happen more often.


I think it's also likely that people in the past that didn't have a scientific thought basis probably lived in a very different virtual representation of reality. I wouldn't be surprised if they did see supernatural things because their brain would have been much more accepting of that social conditioning.