Whether realigion is right or wrong is not the issue.

What gives me hope is that religion has always been retreating in the mighty face of science and will always continue to do so until there's finaly no trace of the poison left in the human psyche.

take a look at history and the mighty power of the church a few hundered years ago.

Take a look at the misrable ******s now!

The next big problem however is Islam. They're about at the level of christianity during the feudal ages. That religion is showing it's true face now, just like christianity did when they used to burn people at the stake. But that'll pass too. It's just a matter of time.

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Courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent; that is what Wisdom wants us to be. Wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

First of all I see myself as the sum of all the chemical and electrochemical processes in one heap of various cells. Me beeing concious is the continous electochemic fire in my brain. Once this is stopped or severely harmed (such as coma)I can not be the one I was the time before. Once brain activity has stopped, I can't exist. End of story... nothing after life!

For all you religious people out there: THINK! Why would you think someone created a place like Hell or Heaven... or any similar imaginary place?
To me it's just a matter of control! Everyone (who believes) fears a place like hell... on the other hand in most "modern" religions very normal and fun activities are "forbidden" or "sin" ... such as sexuality, noone can say it's not fun. But once you did it, you'll go to hell or live in fear of going there if you can't make up...

FEAR is the best way to control people( as long as it doesn't turn to panic). Watching news and reading stories about america I clearly see, that it's totally conrolled by fear.

btw.: I consider all your religious books and stuff nothing more than some funny written books of history with rich fantasy, possibly containing some simplified rules for the hard life about 2000-3000 years ago. Most of those rules even contradict themselves.

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DISCLAIMER:
The above text is believed to be derived from objective logic. No personal offence, implicit or explicit, is intended. Ambiguous expressions are to be interpreted in the less offensive way.

quote:

Originally posted by Illusion The next big problem however is Islam. They're about at the level of christianity during the feudal ages. That religion is showing it's true face now, just like christianity did when they used to burn people at the stake. But that'll pass too. It's just a matter of time.

only difference is, they got nuclear weapons now

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DISCLAIMER:
The above text is believed to be derived from objective logic. No personal offence, implicit or explicit, is intended. Ambiguous expressions are to be interpreted in the less offensive way.

i think the question in this thread was "What do you think happens when you die"? you guys are only arguing that there is presumably no god or greater being or a heaven or hell (which i think is really sad, but that's just me)... i agree with P'zazz (once again)... i would like to know what all of you nonbelievers think happens after you die since you only consider us a big much of molecules...which is TRUE, but why do we have an ability to feel and have emotions and act on them?? it's our soul that i believe god gave us along w/ the ability to chose right from wrong. if god (or whoever) created man with this ability, then there has to be rules since every soul and being is different...there has to be some sort of order in society or we'd all be living like animals. and that is only in THIS life which is a test to see who gets to live in eternal happiness or go to hell. just because sex feels good, does not mean that we should go screw anything that walks. i dont think jesus had that in mind when he created man and woman with penises and vaginas. he made it so that we can create and enjoy it with our one partner or "soulmate"...but this is all pointless since u don't believe in any of that anyway...

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My soliloquy may be hard for some to swallow, but so is cod liver oil.

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Originally posted by notelfreak man i can't believe i tried to come off as responsible in that other thread, i am so full of shit just don't tell anyone

Now before U post, KNOW your religion... nobody ever said that JESUS created mankind (apart from various differing explanations for human life on this planet) cristian religion said "GOD" created the man and from that derived the woman.

Then READ, as I stated, I dont believe in anything after death. How would that be possible? Thousands of human beings die every second(!) where to find a space lasrge enought to contain them? Let alone the energy needed to keep your "soul" alive for eternity?

I don't see any necessity for something like a SOUL. Feelings and emotions are reactions, our brain induces without direct control of conciousness as an answer to the input it's actively filtering before processing. The decission of right and wrong is not absolute. It totally depends on the history of the being, of what he/she learned all the way to the specific decission.

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DISCLAIMER:
The above text is believed to be derived from objective logic. No personal offence, implicit or explicit, is intended. Ambiguous expressions are to be interpreted in the less offensive way.

hey slylee, that's cool, seems we share some common views about life


Anyhow what I want to say is that I believe in god, and I think that's what keeps me going, it gives meaning to my life having something to believe in. Other people don't believe in god and religion but they believe in oher things, I guess it all comes down to ones character

you become worm food.

"Our conscoiusness is the total sum of our experiences"

People who need to blieve in an aftelife are inscure little pussies who lack belief in themselves.

To undrestand life and more acuratly human consciousness you'd have to have a good knowledge of History, Dialectical Materialism, Works of Sigmund Frued, and Advanced physics. A general knowledge in these areas gives you a rich point of view when it comes to these issues.

The reason most people have a religion is because of their religious families. They pick up their beliefs unconsciously from their environment then when it comes to justifiying them their brains start rationalizing everything.

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Courageous, untroubled, mocking and violent; that is what Wisdom wants us to be. Wisdom is a woman, and loves only a warrior.
--Friedrich Nietzsche

quote:

i would like to know what all of you nonbelievers think happens after you die since you only consider us a big much of molecules...

The same thing that happens when animals, plants or bacteria die.

We die, our vital bodily functions cease, and we disolve back into the Earth from whence we came. I don't understand why so many people who believe in God find this harder to believe than the assumption that we ascend up into heaven to sit next to an omnipresent spirit after we "pass on"?

quote:

but why do we have an ability to feel and have emotions and act on them??

We are not the only animals that have emotions. In fact it is the most primitive, animalistic parts of our brain - namely the hippocampus and the amygdala - that control emotions. Our emotions, in this sense, can be traced back to the days when we were still living in trees: were our ancient ancestors God's chosen children too then? Will we fraternise with neanderthals when we ascend to heaven?

Or could it be that emotions are merely cognitive reactions necessary for us to instincively interact with our environment, once again harking back to the days of our pre-historic relatives?

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it's our soul that i believe god gave us along w/ the ability to chose right from wrong.

The soul is more poetry than reality.

It would be nice to think that there is some spiritual part of ourselves seperate from the physical world, but, frankly, it isn't there.

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and that is only in THIS life which is a test to see who gets to live in eternal happiness or go to hell.

That's a pretty grim view of life isn't it? That this life is nothing more than a precursor to the next one?

Sorry, but I value my life more than that.

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just because sex feels good, does not mean that we should go screw anything that walks.

Why not? If it's safe and consensual then what's the problem?

quote:

First of all I see myself as the sum of all the chemical and electrochemical processes in one heap of various cells. Me beeing concious is the continous electochemic fire in my brain. Once this is stopped or severely harmed (such as coma)I can not be the one I was the time before. Once brain activity has stopped, I can't exist.

Good point.

If who one is is determined by one's "soul", then why do people with degenerative brain diseases (i.e. alzheimers) or brain injuries becomes, quite simply, different people? And if who one is can be shown to be so tightly tied up with one's "neural state" then what room is there left for a soul, or for life after death?

I would like to believe that there is something "beyond" the every day physical world, I really would, but the fact is there just doesn't seem to be any room for it. I wish there were a God who loved me and who guided me through the tough times, but I get more satisfaction from the realisation that my life is my own to define and that it is up to me, entirely, to decide what I do and what I become.

If I die, I die. If I go to hell then I go to hell. Fact is, all I can be certain of is the life that I currently live, and that I'm not going to sacrifice it in favour of the abject worship of some deity who may or may not exist, in the hope that I may spend eternity in heaven whle so many - through no fault of their own - are consigned to an eternity of pain. This life is all I have, and I'm not going to waste it on my knees in front of some alter in the vain hope that it may continue after I die.

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http://eschatonnow.blogspot.com/

quote:

Originally posted by Renegade If I die, I die. If I go to hell then I go to hell. Fact is, all I can be certain of is the life that I currently live, and that I'm not going to sacrifice it in favour of the abject worship of some deity who may or may not exist, in the hope that I may spend eternity in heaven whle so many - through no fault of their own - are consigned to an eternity of pain. This life is all I have, and I'm not going to waste it on my knees in front of some alter in the vain hope that it may continue after I die.

Excellent post there Renegade. I thought your whole post was pretty well thought out, but this last paragraph really resonated with me. Bravo!

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butterfly - what is a wang?
occrider - an object you stick into a poon.

Since I'm not religious in any way, I can't say that I'll be going to heaven or hell or wherever it is people think they will go.

I'd like to think that I'll be reincarnated in some way. I hate to think that a life energy ceases to exist on the planet. Kind of like the physics theory that energy is never created, nor destroyed.

It may be a little out there, and I don't even know if I believe it or not, but that's where I stand.

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And as things fell apart
Nobody paid much attention