Life after death
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Uchiha Riyo
Active member
Sasukeiscool69
Banned
Cannibal Zetsu
Member
i used to believe there was a heaven and stuff... but now i'm too much of a realist... i see now evidence of the "god" i used to believe in, so.. ye.. i personally think there is no god..
Cannibal Zetsu
Member
dunno.. i just feel that if this "god" exists then he isnt the great all loving and caring deity christianity makes him out to be, i meen look at all the crap people do to each other... that doesnt show any evidence of some almighty all caring god watching over us at all...
Im not religious, but from philosophy ive learnt that we are born with choice and free will (within the laws of the universe) so god lets us choose to do good or bad right? So if we do bad its not gods fault, he doesnt make us do bad, he didnt create sin because he cant create evil as he is good.
So he can be an all loving god, as we choose what to do in this life to be with him in the next?
Cannibal Zetsu
Member
ye.. i know all that stuff, i had it drummed into my head as a kid, i was raised roman catholic, but i still find the bible so full of hypocracy and contradictions it really is hard to believe anyone believes in it.
Most confusing things for me are:
Jesus = god in man form right? So if hes god, though hes god's son, why does he say forgive them father, when hes on the cross? isnt that like talking to himself?
If god is all forgiving, why does hell even exist, if you must feel sorry for what youve done to get into heaven, then hes not ALL forgiving xd
Too many faults in religions xd
I wrote a horrible essay on the topic several years ago for the final chapter of a philosophy book... (its bad, but I got an A) ... I tend to lean the no religion is a good religion route, though I like what the Dalai Llama has to say about it. I have since the time I wrote this, have gotten into arguments where someone would take my perspective and say that science itself has become the new religion; and because I fully believe in science, I do have religion.
Probably not too helpful, but wth.
Well heres my full essay O_O
The title is the essay question:
The title is the essay question:
Critically asses Dawkin's claim that since life is no more than DNA reproducing itself, there can be no life after death?
Richard Dawkin, born in 1941, was famous for his writings such as "The God delusions". Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The selfish gene, which popularised the gene centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982, he introduced into evolutionary biology an influential concept, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that the phenotic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. (1) Richard Dawkin is an athiest, and believes that life if is just DNA reproducing and evolving. He goes against other famous philosophers such as plato.
For Dawkins, the human body is nothing but cells and streems of DNA built up in form and nothing but digital information. Dawkins believed that among evolutionary psychologists, religious faith is nothing but an evolutionary artifact, a predilection that evolved because shared belief increased group solidarity and other traits that contribute to survival and reproduction. (2) Dawkins self identifies himself as an atheist and states in the opening chapter of "The God Delusion". "God is a delusion. ... Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain. An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles - except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand." (3)
His views are supported by the fact that attributes that we associate with the soul, can be explained by neoroscience and can be located in the brain which is physical. (4) The idea that the brains functions can explain everything that we attribute with the soul such as our feelings, when we are sad we feel it, but the brain can induce chemical reactions to make us feel this way inside, so a soul is not neccessary.
Though on the other hand, many argued with dawkins beliefs such as Plato and his dualism theory. Probably the earliest systematic concept of mind and body stems from the philosophy of the Greek philosopher Plato (429-347 BC). Plato, like Descartes, saw the mind as identical with the soul. However, unlike Descartes, Plato argued that the soul both pre-existed and survived the body, going through a continual process of reincarnation. Platos beliefs of the soul revolve around his teachings of the world of forms.
Plato had 4 main arguements for his dualism theory, the first of which was the cyclical argument. This arguement is based on the notion that opposites rely upon one another and in fact lead to one another. In terms of life and death, this leads to the conclusion that, if life leads to death, then death must also lead to life. So, the living come from - or are reincarnations of - the dead, which then die and are born again. The second arguement of platos for dualism is The recollection argument, this second argument is based on the idea that all knowledge is simply a form of recollection. This is proven by showing that a young, untutored boy, with no knowledge of maths or geometry, can be led to display or "arrive at" knowledge which he did not know he possessed. The third arguement for Plato's dualism theory is the affinity argument. The third argument attempts to prove that the soul, although it may arguably predate birth, also survives death. Since the body is mortal, changing and made up of different parts, the soul, which seems not to be composed of many parts, must therefore also be immortal and unchanging. The 4th and final arguement for dualism is the Argument from Opposites. Since death is the opposite of life, and opposites are mutually exclusive, therefore when the body dies, life must go on. (5)
Descartes also believed that we have a soul. He believed in his theory of the divisibility arguement. It says how the body can be divided such as you can lose an arm or a leg, but with the mind, such as willing, of understanding, of sensory perception and so on, cant be divided from the mind, and that the mind is separate from the body as it can't be divided. This one argument would be enough to show me that the mind is completely different from the body, even if I did not already know as much from other considerations. (struggled to understand this)
On the other side of things, we have the religious arguements for life after death. For christians, they believe in heaven and that they will be resurrected based on the belief of Jesus' resurrection. Tradition christian beliefs for christians is that the resurection of the body occurs at the end of time when jesus returns. Though the body dies, the soul is immediately united with God in heaven. Catholics believe that most souls go to purgatory until they have payed for the sins in this life before starting over with God in the next life. Though different parts of christianity have different beliefs on the afterlife.(6) On the other hand we have Muslim believes, that when you die you face 3 questions:
1. Whos your God? Allah
2. Who do you follow? Prophet Muhammed
3. What is your religion? Islam
A true muslim would answer these in an instand without question and gain imediate access to heaven, where as a bad muslim wouldn't and have to go to hell for a period of time. Eventually, every muslim is joined with God in heaven, but they must pay for their sins in hell first. When a Muslim goes to heaven, they start a new life with Allah of which they choose how it is. This is their beliefs in life after death. (7)
Also we have the beliefs of life after death in Hinduism as they believe in reincarnation. This is the believe that when we die our soul lives again in another embodied form. Depending on how you live in this life, like if you are good, you will be born well off in the next life, where as if your bad, you shall be born into poverty or even as an animal, depending on how bad you are.
There are also some radical beliefs out there such as people believe that when they die that they will be born anew, as a chicken, in a new life. (8)
Its difficult for one to judge which arguement is the most supported out of all of the above. Dawkins saying that we are just DNA can be proven with science, though it doesn't disprove the evidence of a soul, just says its not nessessary. Also it does not dismiss any theory of life after death. For example, when we die we decompose, our cells could them become neutrition for plans and we could live on within the plant in that form. As for a spiritual life after death, thats another issue. Plato's dualism arguement is supported by his world of forms but it shows no physical evidence, which is simalar with Descartes divisibility arguement, though the mind cannot be devided it shows no evidence of a soul.
Though the idea that we might even know that whats around is real confuses this even more. Like in the matrix, we could be in a virtual world with the real world awaiting us outside. And so our mind could be a our soul, trapped in an illusion world right now, and being released into our real life like neo was, is dying for us now, where we go to the heaven the real world?
The idea that we have a soul is a hard thing to discuss as we cannot prove weather we do or do not, and as we cant justify this, life after death is an unconcievable issue. Im not really religious, im an Agnostic, but i believe that we all have souls, (apart from gingers (9)), but as for an afterlife i do not believe in a God or that we are reincarnated so the idea of dying is mystery in my mind.
In conclusion, i believe dawkins is wrong to say there is no afterlife, even if we are DNA reproducing, we may still be souls and there may still be a heaven which he cannot disprove, so saying there CAN'T be an afterlife is something he cannon support, where as if he said that he doesn't believe in and afterlife, thats a different story.
Bibliography
(1) -
(2) -
(3) - The God Delusion
(4) - OCR pholosophy and ethics A2 book. (page 105)
(5) -
(6) - Dan's awesome notes
(7) - My Muslim boss Rulu Noor.
(8) -
(9) - Southpark - ginger kids
Richard Dawkin, born in 1941, was famous for his writings such as "The God delusions". Dawkins came to prominence with his 1976 book The selfish gene, which popularised the gene centered view of evolution and introduced the term meme. In 1982, he introduced into evolutionary biology an influential concept, presented in his book The Extended Phenotype, that the phenotic effects of a gene are not necessarily limited to an organism's body, but can stretch far into the environment, including the bodies of other organisms. (1) Richard Dawkin is an athiest, and believes that life if is just DNA reproducing and evolving. He goes against other famous philosophers such as plato.
For Dawkins, the human body is nothing but cells and streems of DNA built up in form and nothing but digital information. Dawkins believed that among evolutionary psychologists, religious faith is nothing but an evolutionary artifact, a predilection that evolved because shared belief increased group solidarity and other traits that contribute to survival and reproduction. (2) Dawkins self identifies himself as an atheist and states in the opening chapter of "The God Delusion". "God is a delusion. ... Human thoughts and emotions emerge from exceedingly complex interconnections of physical entities within the brain. An atheist in this sense of philosophical naturalist is somebody who believes there is nothing beyond the natural, physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence lurking behind the observable universe, no soul that outlasts the body and no miracles - except in the sense of natural phenomena that we don't yet understand." (3)
His views are supported by the fact that attributes that we associate with the soul, can be explained by neoroscience and can be located in the brain which is physical. (4) The idea that the brains functions can explain everything that we attribute with the soul such as our feelings, when we are sad we feel it, but the brain can induce chemical reactions to make us feel this way inside, so a soul is not neccessary.
Though on the other hand, many argued with dawkins beliefs such as Plato and his dualism theory. Probably the earliest systematic concept of mind and body stems from the philosophy of the Greek philosopher Plato (429-347 BC). Plato, like Descartes, saw the mind as identical with the soul. However, unlike Descartes, Plato argued that the soul both pre-existed and survived the body, going through a continual process of reincarnation. Platos beliefs of the soul revolve around his teachings of the world of forms.
Plato had 4 main arguements for his dualism theory, the first of which was the cyclical argument. This arguement is based on the notion that opposites rely upon one another and in fact lead to one another. In terms of life and death, this leads to the conclusion that, if life leads to death, then death must also lead to life. So, the living come from - or are reincarnations of - the dead, which then die and are born again. The second arguement of platos for dualism is The recollection argument, this second argument is based on the idea that all knowledge is simply a form of recollection. This is proven by showing that a young, untutored boy, with no knowledge of maths or geometry, can be led to display or "arrive at" knowledge which he did not know he possessed. The third arguement for Plato's dualism theory is the affinity argument. The third argument attempts to prove that the soul, although it may arguably predate birth, also survives death. Since the body is mortal, changing and made up of different parts, the soul, which seems not to be composed of many parts, must therefore also be immortal and unchanging. The 4th and final arguement for dualism is the Argument from Opposites. Since death is the opposite of life, and opposites are mutually exclusive, therefore when the body dies, life must go on. (5)
Descartes also believed that we have a soul. He believed in his theory of the divisibility arguement. It says how the body can be divided such as you can lose an arm or a leg, but with the mind, such as willing, of understanding, of sensory perception and so on, cant be divided from the mind, and that the mind is separate from the body as it can't be divided. This one argument would be enough to show me that the mind is completely different from the body, even if I did not already know as much from other considerations. (struggled to understand this)
On the other side of things, we have the religious arguements for life after death. For christians, they believe in heaven and that they will be resurrected based on the belief of Jesus' resurrection. Tradition christian beliefs for christians is that the resurection of the body occurs at the end of time when jesus returns. Though the body dies, the soul is immediately united with God in heaven. Catholics believe that most souls go to purgatory until they have payed for the sins in this life before starting over with God in the next life. Though different parts of christianity have different beliefs on the afterlife.(6) On the other hand we have Muslim believes, that when you die you face 3 questions:
1. Whos your God? Allah
2. Who do you follow? Prophet Muhammed
3. What is your religion? Islam
A true muslim would answer these in an instand without question and gain imediate access to heaven, where as a bad muslim wouldn't and have to go to hell for a period of time. Eventually, every muslim is joined with God in heaven, but they must pay for their sins in hell first. When a Muslim goes to heaven, they start a new life with Allah of which they choose how it is. This is their beliefs in life after death. (7)
Also we have the beliefs of life after death in Hinduism as they believe in reincarnation. This is the believe that when we die our soul lives again in another embodied form. Depending on how you live in this life, like if you are good, you will be born well off in the next life, where as if your bad, you shall be born into poverty or even as an animal, depending on how bad you are.
There are also some radical beliefs out there such as people believe that when they die that they will be born anew, as a chicken, in a new life. (8)
Its difficult for one to judge which arguement is the most supported out of all of the above. Dawkins saying that we are just DNA can be proven with science, though it doesn't disprove the evidence of a soul, just says its not nessessary. Also it does not dismiss any theory of life after death. For example, when we die we decompose, our cells could them become neutrition for plans and we could live on within the plant in that form. As for a spiritual life after death, thats another issue. Plato's dualism arguement is supported by his world of forms but it shows no physical evidence, which is simalar with Descartes divisibility arguement, though the mind cannot be devided it shows no evidence of a soul.
Though the idea that we might even know that whats around is real confuses this even more. Like in the matrix, we could be in a virtual world with the real world awaiting us outside. And so our mind could be a our soul, trapped in an illusion world right now, and being released into our real life like neo was, is dying for us now, where we go to the heaven the real world?
The idea that we have a soul is a hard thing to discuss as we cannot prove weather we do or do not, and as we cant justify this, life after death is an unconcievable issue. Im not really religious, im an Agnostic, but i believe that we all have souls, (apart from gingers (9)), but as for an afterlife i do not believe in a God or that we are reincarnated so the idea of dying is mystery in my mind.
In conclusion, i believe dawkins is wrong to say there is no afterlife, even if we are DNA reproducing, we may still be souls and there may still be a heaven which he cannot disprove, so saying there CAN'T be an afterlife is something he cannon support, where as if he said that he doesn't believe in and afterlife, thats a different story.
Bibliography
(1) -
You must be registered for see links
(2) -
You must be registered for see links
(3) - The God Delusion
(4) - OCR pholosophy and ethics A2 book. (page 105)
(5) -
You must be registered for see links
(6) - Dan's awesome notes
(7) - My Muslim boss Rulu Noor.
(8) -
You must be registered for see links
(9) - Southpark - ginger kids
Sasukeiscool69
Banned
God is all forgiving, given one asks for His forgiveness.
Because would there be any advantages for those who have faith and choose a righteous path over those who drink, kill, lie, cheat, and do this under no particular circumstances ?
Live a hard, rigtheous, and above al short life, or take the easy way and do whatever you please. The price God asks in exchange for eternal afterlife resumes to taking the right decision. Which is pretty hard to do, given this world's current state of evolution. At least that's what I make of it, I'm no saint. Life on this earth is the biggest accomplishment most people picture. Which is why every revolted 13 year old low-lifer thinks of himself as atheist, just because he thinks that his ideology is unique, that they have a far superior lucidity then those losers who go to church. Those are the after-effects of puberty, at least for most Naruto wannabees here.
Now, I understand atheism, although I may not fully approve of it, but if it is justified solidly, not just because you are an ugly fat-ass and you blame God for it. (see : Sherlock). Because when your family is Christian, your house is full of religous paintings, you are afraid of the idea of Hell, and you think you have nothing to lose because you have a clean file, it's more like denial, or creating your own religon or beliefs.
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I think its possible for there to be a life or certain form of existence after death. However, most organized religions in the world especially in backward countries exploit and have throughout history exploited people's emotions in the name of religion. I just don't believe a real God who created the brilliance that is this cosmos would be so narrow minded as to impose upon humans some of the restrictions that certain religious zealots parade upon.
Oh, and btw, from what i remember Dawkins said he cannot say with certainty that there is'nt a God, i believe he's a bit of an agnostic.
While i believe in God, what you said does'nt answer the questions and/or doubt atheists have. Its more like the dilemna of the pious man,lol.
@Dark King: The idea is Most forgiving, the reason hell exists? Would you want to put hitler, a serial killer and child molesters in the same place as say, Nelson mandela, mother teresa or the doctors of a charity hospital?
Sasukeiscool69
Banned
Are you talking about the bolded phrase, because that's about the same as what you just told Dark King.
And no, I would rather not interfere with Atheist hyopthesis, nor try to clear their doubts, I was merely stating the difference between atheist and stupid.
Because being atheist is one thing, and unjustifiedly thinking of yourself as one is another.
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yeap i also think there's no life after death.am a buddhist n we have a believe that it depends upon your works that u do in your life.so after death ther's two way u see wen u die , one is the white light n the other is dark black light.so if u have done gud works like helping others,being kind,loving people then u go 2 white light's path which is Heaven it is d place 4 enlightenment n u may have a chance of re birth N the other one will lead u to hell if u have done bad things in your life..............
I was referring to the bolded phrase i meant it did'nt really answer the question he was asking.
Nevertheless, people believe what they will i was merely giving my thoughts... also, i disagree somewhat. Certain people are willing to modify their hypothesis under certain circumstances, i think its alright to give your logic/point of view and let the other person decide for themselves(i'm NOT trying to impose my thoughts/beliefs on anyone else.)
Im personally not an athiest... im agnostic, i wont dismiss the idea of God, but im not really a believer. If there was a God, id like to think there was some sign of him, atleast a sign to me. Then the fact that there are so many religions believing in different Gods, whos right and whos wrong? lol
Though i like the idea of an afterlife, its not going to effect my decisions in this life. If im sorry for something i will be, im not going to be sorry for stuff just to get into heaven or something.
My beliefs are all in balance, everything has its equal and opposite force:
Good and bad
Right and wrong
push and pull
You get the idea, so if there is a god, theres a devil. Though everyones entitled to there own beliefs.
Dont know why i just posted it... or why i quoted what i did xd