If you are a scientist who believes in life after death

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are all forgetting about string theory and the idea of parallel dimensions and even the fact of black holes. Some of the most interesting research on these issues and the concept of heaven is actually done by scientist theologians.

We are not forgetting String Theory or Black Holes. It is merely that nothing about them gives any evidence whatsoever of an afterlife.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are all forgetting about string theory and the idea of parallel dimensions and even the fact of black holes. Some of the most interesting research on these issues and the concept of heaven is actually done by scientist theologians.

We are not forgetting String Theory or Black Holes. It is merely that nothing about them gives any evidence whatsoever of an afterlife.

Science proves that an afterlife is simply impossible.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-the-ldquo-you-rdquo-in-an-afterlife-wouldnt-really-be-you/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm waiting for scientists to prove how 2 rocks banged together to start a life. Sugar and spice and all things nice, stirred in a pot? Lol! There is no scientist who can take rocks, sticks, dirt and start a life.

You are wrong!

Not life per se, but the building blocks of it. Not only was it done, it was done nearly 60 years ago, proving you are either dishonest or uninformed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller%E2%80%93Urey_experiment

Someday we will fully solve the abiogenesis mystery, the way we solve all of them. Just because we haven't yet doesn't mean anything, just like before we knew what caused lightning some people thought it was Zeus' weapon.

Do you think lightning is Zeus' weapon?

"Not life"

"Not life"

No. Not life.

Liquid Braggs has amino acids in it. But not a life, sorry.

You are not reading. Or just being dishonest.

We haven't created lightning, either. But it's not Zeus, no matter how much you believe it is. And apparently you do.

[Anonymous]

I believe in reincarnation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“Science requires faith too before it can have reasons.” —- Richard Dawkins

??? Dawkins is a notorious atheist, so ths is likely taken out of context. Don't pretend that he's espousing revealed wisdom like from the Bible.

Physicist from page 1 here. I don't know the context of the Dawkins quote, and it's doubtful that me and PP you are responding to interpret it similarly. But IMHO the scientific method requires faith that it's a useful framework for better understanding ground truths about the world around us. We know that what we observe/measure loses some information, but we have faith that the scientific method allows us to put limits on that uncertainty and improve our understanding.

Religion requires faith that foundational texts and teaching provide a framework for understanding a deeper truth about life. Unlike the scientific method, there isn't a shared and accountable objectivity...so it's necessarily more personal/individual.

But which texts? The Bible (which Christians, other than the Jews for Jesus, do not follow), the Koran? The Vedantic Scriptures?

The point of saying it's personal/individual is that religion isn't accountable and objectively verifiable by others...so this question is somewhat meaningless. That's why religion is limited as a framework for civic discourse in a secular society. And, frankly, it's limited even in a society that shares a religion unless there is some kind of recognized authority for interpreting the religion. In many non-Abrahamic religions, this isn't really part of religious traditions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

“Science requires faith too before it can have reasons.” —- Richard Dawkins

??? Dawkins is a notorious atheist, so ths is likely taken out of context. Don't pretend that he's espousing revealed wisdom like from the Bible.

Physicist from page 1 here. I don't know the context of the Dawkins quote, and it's doubtful that me and PP you are responding to interpret it similarly. But IMHO the scientific method requires faith that it's a useful framework for better understanding ground truths about the world around us. We know that what we observe/measure loses some information, but we have faith that the scientific method allows us to put limits on that uncertainty and improve our understanding.

Religion requires faith that foundational texts and teaching provide a framework for understanding a deeper truth about life. Unlike the scientific method, there isn't a shared and accountable objectivity...so it's necessarily more personal/individual.

But which texts? The Bible (which Christians, other than the Jews for Jesus, do not follow), the Koran? The Vedantic Scriptures?

The point of saying it's personal/individual is that religion isn't accountable and objectively verifiable by others...so this question is somewhat meaningless. That's why religion is limited as a framework for civic discourse in a secular society. And, frankly, it's limited even in a society that shares a religion unless there is some kind of recognized authority for interpreting the religion. In many non-Abrahamic religions, this isn't really part of religious traditions.

Jihads. Crusades. The Inquisition. Torture. Forced conversions. Witch trials. Holocausts. Religion has caused more evil than anything else ever has. In John Lennon’s “Imagine,” the world had no religion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are all forgetting about string theory and the idea of parallel dimensions and even the fact of black holes. Some of the most interesting research on these issues and the concept of heaven is actually done by scientist theologians.

Are you a scientist? Do you have any info about where we can read the bolded? I'd love to read it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You are all forgetting about string theory and the idea of parallel dimensions and even the fact of black holes. Some of the most interesting research on these issues and the concept of heaven is actually done by scientist theologians.

Are you a scientist? Do you have any info about where we can read the bolded? I'd love to read it.

Physics disproves an afterlife.

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833122-200-physics-might-create-a-backdoor-to-an-afterlife-but-dont-bank-on-it/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not a scientist, but I consider myself agnostic or atheist. Really probably the latter. I do take solace in what someone else wrote above, and I have thought myself, that energy never dies. It is a constant. In that way, if a person has a "soul" it has touched many other people and things in this world. That vibration continues. The world is forever different because they lived. Now that they are dead, their soul does not exist, but its impact remains and reverberates forever -- more so if they really did a lot when they were alive, good or bad. One thing that living has taught me -- heaven and hell are on Earth, and it's pretty random which one you get to experience. Enjoy life and try to make things better for people stuck in hell. Also, luck changes and is random, so carpe diem.

Allegedly, my grandfather was trying to solve some equation or variable maybe for "life" leading up to his death, and I don't have his papers. Does that mean anything to you?

^^ oops I meant this for the math or scientist poster

Do you mean he was trying to model his life to try to predict his death?

[Anonymous]

Full disclosure: I am a quantitative biologist, not a physicist. As a biologist, I am certain beyond doubt that what we experience as consciousness is an emergent property of the biochemical and electrical processes that happen in our brain and body. The "pilot" or "watcher" we experience--and with which our ancestors have posited the "soul" for millennia--is an illusion. I don't have time to get into the reasons why this must be true, but here is a question for you: when you go under general anesthesia, and you are put on a breathing machine because your brain is shut down, is your soul still around, observing and watching? For those who point to near death experiences, this is not what I'm talking about. In those cases, the brain is dying due to oxygen deprivation. The whole light thing is nice and all, but it's almost certainly just the experience of death. I'm talking about medically induced coma. There isn't anything there--literally, because it is shut down. It's pretty remarkable that we can now shut "consciousness" down and then restart it, by the way.

As far as life "after" death, my attitude sounds like a cheat, but it really isn't. We experience time linearly, but time isn't linear. It's a fourth dimension. Physics tells us that there's no reason it has to go in one direction. Our life is experienced this way by us, but the five-year-old you is no less real now than the you of today or the you the day you die. Nothing can take that away. In that sense, we are immortal--we just only get to experience life once... but it's always there. Well, not "always" because that implies time, but you get my drift. Dead you is the same as pre-birth you; it's just the universe where the cells that make up you aren't arranged in a way that decreases rather than increases entropy. Those blow flies that a previous poster talked about seem gross, but they're just little algorithms that are seeking to reuse the chemical energy in your cells to make other anti-entropy machines. That's what life is. Life is great. It's definitely a miracle. I just think eternal life is kind of silly. If there is a God, he almost certainly doesn't experience or care about human-experienced linear time.

When I think about my grandparents or others I have known that are gone, I know that the sunny days they spent in the park in their 20s, or the nights they spent loving their spouses in their 30s, or the laughter I shared with them when they were in their 60s, are all "still there." The bummer is we can't relive them. It's sad, but in a way, it's nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe in reincarnation

Why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Full disclosure: I am a quantitative biologist, not a physicist. As a biologist, I am certain beyond doubt that what we experience as consciousness is an emergent property of the biochemical and electrical processes that happen in our brain and body. The "pilot" or "watcher" we experience--and with which our ancestors have posited the "soul" for millennia--is an illusion. I don't have time to get into the reasons why this must be true, but here is a question for you: when you go under general anesthesia, and you are put on a breathing machine because your brain is shut down, is your soul still around, observing and watching? For those who point to near death experiences, this is not what I'm talking about. In those cases, the brain is dying due to oxygen deprivation. The whole light thing is nice and all, but it's almost certainly just the experience of death. I'm talking about medically induced coma. There isn't anything there--literally, because it is shut down. It's pretty remarkable that we can now shut "consciousness" down and then restart it, by the way.

As far as life "after" death, my attitude sounds like a cheat, but it really isn't. We experience time linearly, but time isn't linear. It's a fourth dimension. Physics tells us that there's no reason it has to go in one direction. Our life is experienced this way by us, but the five-year-old you is no less real now than the you of today or the you the day you die. Nothing can take that away. In that sense, we are immortal--we just only get to experience life once... but it's always there. Well, not "always" because that implies time, but you get my drift. Dead you is the same as pre-birth you; it's just the universe where the cells that make up you aren't arranged in a way that decreases rather than increases entropy. Those blow flies that a previous poster talked about seem gross, but they're just little algorithms that are seeking to reuse the chemical energy in your cells to make other anti-entropy machines. That's what life is. Life is great. It's definitely a miracle. I just think eternal life is kind of silly. If there is a God, he almost certainly doesn't experience or care about human-experienced linear time.

When I think about my grandparents or others I have known that are gone, I know that the sunny days they spent in the park in their 20s, or the nights they spent loving their spouses in their 30s, or the laughter I shared with them when they were in their 60s, are all "still there." The bummer is we can't relive them. It's sad, but in a way, it's nice.

Lovely -- thanks. I don't believe in life after death - too fantastical and so obviously man-made. the above makes me feel better about it. I appreciate life and don't like the idea of it ending and disappearing, even if there are others still living to remember. They will die too. That's the way it is. Making up a story about everlasting life doesn't change it.

[Anonymous]

You do you. If you believe you have an afterlife and it turns out to be true, that is awesome. If it turns out that the lights go off and then you rot in the ground, that’s okay too. You won’t know about it anyway. If you don’t believe in an afterlife, you’ve probably already come to terms with the finality of your life, and if it turns out you were wrong, then wow! Who cares, really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You do you. If you believe you have an afterlife and it turns out to be true, that is awesome. If it turns out that the lights go off and then you rot in the ground, that’s okay too. You won’t know about it anyway. If you don’t believe in an afterlife, you’ve probably already come to terms with the finality of your life, and if it turns out you were wrong, then wow! Who cares, really?

IF the Christian version is correct, then you care a lot, because you end up in Hell for eternity because you didn't believe that Jesus Christ was Lord!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You do you. If you believe you have an afterlife and it turns out to be true, that is awesome. If it turns out that the lights go off and then you rot in the ground, that’s okay too. You won’t know about it anyway. If you don’t believe in an afterlife, you’ve probably already come to terms with the finality of your life, and if it turns out you were wrong, then wow! Who cares, really?

IF the Christian version is correct, then you care a lot, because you end up in Hell for eternity because you didn't believe that Jesus Christ was Lord!

Think about this though- if Christianity dictates that even people who never got the chance to be educated about Jesus or the Bible ends up in hell (ie definitely not their own shortcomings), do you want to spend eternity with such a virulent psycho in the first place?