Life after death?

Rayanne2010 wrote: »

Yes when you walk and talk with a deceased loved one.. even dance with them... is this not irrefutable proof?

Certainly is, it's irrefutable proof of either mental illness or excessive hallucinogenic drug intake.:D

You're not that bloke from the morgue are you? What kind of dance was it?:eek:

lukesmom wrote: »

The OP asked us if we believed in life after death. Nobody is asking you to accept their word, I know I'm certainly not and I don't expect anyone to. If I hadn't experienced what I have then I may or may not believe it either.

Fair enough. I had no intention to reply to some wild assertion that someone believes in life after death. The part that caught my attention was the assertion that there is evidence in favour of that conclusion.

If there is evidence fair enough. If not then don't say there is.

lukesmom wrote: »

I didn't as I don't have evidence I can show you. But to answer the op yes I definitely believe in life after death 100%.

Okey dokey

lukesmom wrote: »

I didn't as I don't have evidence I can show you. But to answer the op yes I definitely believe in life after death 100%.

Okey dokey

Rayanne2010 wrote: »

Yes -- of course - however the skeptics always go for the least viable evidence and not the irrefutable/physical tangible evidence..

Some do yes! But not enough for you to throw out a wanton generalization however. And let us be under no illusions that BOTH sides are not guilty of such failings.

But you will note that my post which you just replied to had the sentence "I assume you are discussing something more compelling that photographs of fairies" which I wrote in a very deliberate and contrived fashion. I did so to highlight the fact that WHILE some people on this thread mentioned those things..... I was giving you the benefit of the doubt that you were referring to something more compelling.

And alas while you threw out your generalized cheap shot at skeptics in general.... you made no move to acknowledge my attempt to give you more credit.... or at least a heap load more benefit of doubt..... than anyone else did. I am sorry you felt the need to use my olive branch as a jumping point for a cheap general shot at the perceived general populace.

But moving on from this.... let us consider the actual meat of your response to my post.

Which I am sorry to say.... is non existent. I mean this not as an attack, insult, jibe or troll.... but as a highlight to the fact that all you did was list a long paragraph of words. And were I one of those skeptics that gravitated towards your weakest point I would be making puns about your Psychic Rods and where you can stick them...... or making seriously off kilter jokes on the topic of Rap which you seem to have included.

Rather than take cheap shots myself in lieu of your own, perhaps we can unpack the list you posted and go through them one at a time in a mature and structured fashion. Can you maybe pick one of your list. Rods, Rap, the unstable table, your experiments with parrafin and wax, or something else..... and let me know what the evidence was.

And may I be so bold as to propose a structure to your presentation which is general, lose but directional. I hope it is lose enough to be fair. It is as follows....

1) state exactly what the claim being made is (such as for example, but do not be tied to this example, that people who are dead and buried have communicated with the "living")

2) State exactly which evidence you are offering for the claim made above is, not just the name of it, (For example "wax moulding" and what exactly this is and what it entails).

3) And point three which is the most important for me as a "skeptic"..... explain EXACTLY and in as much detail as possible EXACTLY how what you unpacked in 2..... evidences what you claimed in 1.

As you will note 1 and 2 give you a lot of room for lee way, movement and explanation but point 3 gets down to deep specifics. This is because in my experience 3 is a problem, 1 also a bit, and 2 is where most people live. For me the points usually go.

1) Make a really vague claim.
2) List some stuff (which you did in your paragraph of words)
3) Absent entirely (Which you also did).

folamh wrote: »

Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Who is to say that your energy cannot be "live on" in another form after death?

NO ONE that I have known has ever claimed that. Certainly not skeptics and atheists. But I am not convinced the lay man knows what this means. The question becomes what "energy" you think you are talking about. You _appear_ (underlined because I do not wish to insert words in your mouth) to think that consciousness is an energy unto itself. Or something separate.

The question THEN is.... what energy exactly do you think we are talking about here? And not just where you think it goes AFTER death..... but where exactly you believe it resides before death.

A similar question might be.... when you observe a flame..... where do you think the "energy" there is? And where do you think it "goes" when the flame goes out?

Not to throw disparagement on YOU or anyone on this thread.... but one thing I have found when I randomly talk to people about this..... is that most people have no idea where the flames of a fire "Go" when they go out.

Because they focus on the flame as a tangible "thing" in the process.... the whole focal point and reason FOR the process in fact.... rather than an emergent result of the process which it actually is...... and this gross and predominant misunderstanding of the process of "flame" is actually a great manifestation of the "TYPE" of misunderstanding that leads people to write the type of sentence you just did.

lukesmom wrote: »

Yes I 100% believe in life after death. I don't just think it but I know it in my heart and soul.

And you are not alone. The question is does your "knowledge" have any basis of any sort you can share with anyone else. Or does it all reside in you? Like someone who "knows" that aliens abducted them last night or they "know" that they just saw Elvis alive and well and Busking downtown, or they "know"..... just as in Caprah syndrom which you really have to read about..... that all their close loved ones have JUST been replaced by identical imposters.

Because there are few people I have met who learn how Capgrah works who put any more faith in "I just know".

lukesmom wrote: »

Been told by a loved one who has passed. And that's as clear as I can put it.

Just in case you have ANY doubt and human empathy alive in you still.... please do not operate any heavy machinery or drive any vehicle while you believe you "know" you are hearing voices or presences.

Because for all you think you might "know" this stuff is real..... there is a chance you might be wrong..... and it is not worth putting the well being of people you love in jeopardy while you are "hearing voices" or "having visions" or anything else.

Because while YOU might be convinced of your own certitude..... there has been too many deaths and tragedies in our world at the behest of others who shared your certainty.

And if you are still taking my advice at this point.... then please do seek professional advisement.

lukesmom wrote: »

Been told by a loved one who has passed. And that's as clear as I can put it.

Just in case you have ANY doubt and human empathy alive in you still.... please do not operate any heavy machinery or drive any vehicle while you believe you "know" you are hearing voices or presences.

Because for all you think you might "know" this stuff is real..... there is a chance you might be wrong..... and it is not worth putting the well being of people you love in jeopardy while you are "hearing voices" or "having visions" or anything else.

Because while YOU might be convinced of your own certitude..... there has been too many deaths and tragedies in our world at the behest of others who shared your certainty.

And if you are still taking my advice at this point.... then please do seek professional advisement. Because while it is possible you have a love with your departed brother who has seen fit to connect back to you in this world....... it is also possible.... I am sure you will admit.... and more likely given the current data set....... that you have grief symptoms as shared with many other people of our race.... that might better be served by mild medication and an understanding counsellor.

The other fella wrote: »

Time is a flat circle.

And circles on an effective diet are.....?:o

Since when has uneven body weight loss been an effective diet?

The Diabolical Monocle wrote: »

Theres something in Buddhism relating to this iirc, I think its connected with the concept of anata/non-self and karma/law of consequence, so will probably not so straight forward.

Anyway off to have a ponder.

I love some of the eastern philosophies. Not that I subscribe to many of them or believe them. But I love the imagery some of them produce.

One of my favorites is the comparison of life to...... I can not describe it in words without writing whole books like they did.... but the BASIC idea is to picture the beginning of life..... if I can summarize about 100 books into one crass analogy........ to be like turning on an old lava lamp.

The image they are getting at.... if you ever had a lava lamp.... is that of there always being the same amount of "lava" once you start it up.

Which means when new blobs form it is not "new life" but just a new expression of already existing life. There is never new life. There is only "no life" then "Life" and then all the forms life takes. A new child like my newly born son (who is now 5 months old nearly) is not actually a "new life" but a new lava lamp blob splitting off and it is all still an expression of life just taking a new form or new state.

HE split off and is now doing his own bobbing about in the lava lamp.

Its a wonderful way to view the world. As rewarding as it is challanging to try and think about. Try it some time. Try to view every bit of life around you as not independent, or new, or having a birth day or a death day..... but as just being the various and nuanced expressions of one single blob moving around.

Even WITHOUT being stoned it is a weirdly challenging and informative view of the world. I am YET to try it stoned. But I intend to.

The other fella wrote: »

You've lost me bud! Being honest, i was just quoting a line from the Tv show "True detective" :P

Ah I do not do television so I did not pick up the reference. I have a brother who got stoned one night and decided that the universe is all about circles. He decided that from the orbits of the electron to the orbits of the starrs - it is all about circles from the bottom up.

It somehow did not phase him to learn that..... for example.... electron orbits is not actually a neat picture of circles like we learn about in leaving cert..... but more a fuzz logic of probabilities in a cloud...... he has been clinging on to his cirlces for some time now.......

Which may have moved me to joke about your post more than it deserved. I do apologise

The other fella wrote: »

That said, i think to myself quite a bit about the "how energy cannot be created,lost or destroyed" theroy...And how when you die your body matter decomposes and returns to where it first came from...All signs point to death not being the end for me.

Perhaps you need to read up to my question about candle flames then. Because the "signs" you speak of appear to point in the EXACT opposite direction for me. And I dare warrant that I might be in risk of understanding why more than you might.

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

One of my favorites is the comparison of life to...... to be like turning on an old lava lamp.

A bit like Dawkins (from back in the day before he became Pope of Atheism) idea in River out of Eden - that life is a river of DNA flowing through time, and each of us is just a bucket's worth of genes temporarily scooped together.

lukesmom wrote: »

Yes I 100% believe in life after death. I don't just think it but I know it in my heart and soul.

I used to feel that way about santa clause, I bet you did too. Turns out "knowing" things in your heart and soul has precious little correlation with them being factual or not.

sbsquarepants wrote: »

I used to feel that way about santa clause, I bet you did too. Turns out "knowing" things in your heart and soul has precious little correlation with them being factual or not.

As I previously explained I cannot prove life after death but yet I believe there is.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

What is your moral compass then? It's easy to be smart and just dismiss it but if you want to foist that view on the world then maybe you should also endeavor to explain what moral views people should hold to themselves and the rest of humanity. If you just wilt and die like a plant than why not simply turn on each other and kill each other? No consequence and sure it's darkness in the end.

A lot of clever people like to be clever and tell people there is nothing afterward without thinking what fills the void.

Since when do people of faith have a monopoly on morals?