SolidSnickerdoodle wrote:I'm worried that some people here might not take kindly to others' views, and this is particular thread going to turn into the spiral of unproductive arguments that we call the YouTube comments section.
That being said, I am profoundly interested in this sort of thing, so I'll join in.
I myself am agnostic. Basically, I don't think any religion has it right, but I also don't have the celestial confidence to make the definitive claim there is absolutely no higher power. There's so much about the universe that we don't know, and I'm not going to totally rule out the idea that something bigger might be at work.
Maybe as the thread progresses people can add new ideas and discuss further ideas. I think xtc is right. This thread needs a little more direction, or we're all going to be at each others throats.
SolidSnickerdoodle wrote:I'm worried that some people here might not take kindly to others' views, and this is particular thread going to turn into the spiral of unproductive arguments that we call the YouTube comments section.
That being said, I am profoundly interested in this sort of thing, so I'll join in.
I myself am agnostic. Basically, I don't think any religion has it right, but I also don't have the celestial confidence to make the definitive claim there is absolutely no higher power. There's so much about the universe that we don't know, and I'm not going to totally rule out the idea that something bigger might be at work.
Maybe as the thread progresses people can add new ideas and discuss further ideas. I think xtc is right. This thread needs a little more direction, or we're all going to be at each others throats.
Jason Toddman wrote:Driverman said what I believe better than I could have myself. Science only covers what can be observed. By definition God cannot be observed; whether or not God exists, God is outside the purview of science.
Also too, most religion is by definition wrong since different religions teach widely different things as true... and they cannot all be true. As far as science is concerned, likely none of them are true. Science on the other hand gets a lot of things right and is self-correcting; improving all the time. Religion also matures and evolves (at least the Christian religions have) but so slowly now relative to science that it seems static. Anything based on faith and nothing more is, to a scientist, completely unreliable and without merit. By that definition alone, science and religion are separate. not necessarily incompatible; just separate... like apples and oranges.
SolidSnickerdoodle wrote: That's an interesting thought. For me, it's like there's some sort of paradox at work here. I believe that everything can ultimately be explained through science. But being agnostic, I won't rule out a higher power. But isn't the whole point of a higher power that it can't be explained by science? So does one completely contradict the other? Am I supposed to pick a side here? These are the kinds of questions that make people think I'm weird.
SolidSnickerdoodle wrote:Another thing that I've been thinking about lately is the afterlife. Being agnostic, I think there may or may not be a god, but I just hope that if there is, then there's no eternal afterlife to go with it.
31acujoker wrote:Personally I find it terrifying that once I'm dead, I'm just dead and nothing happens after that, THAT would be worse for me than spending eternity in one place.
31acujoker wrote:Personally I find it terrifying that once I'm dead, I'm just dead and nothing happens after that, THAT would be worse for me than spending eternity in one place. But then I'm also not a fan of the whole eternity thing lol.
My dad knows a guy who believes that when we die, our spirit or spectral form or whatever simply hangs around on earth and we can do whatever we like, though I can also find several things wrong with that, if you can't touch anything physical then that would be pretty lame, plus if that happened to every person in history who's ever died the place would be ridiculously overcrowded!
At the end of the day only the dead can tell us, and we can't exactly hear them
SolidSnickerdoodle wrote:I'd argue that it's the most scientific approach, and oddly enough the most comforting for me. Because this way I'm doomed to eternal consciousness, but in a way I still get to be involved in the grand scheme of the universe.
Jason Toddman wrote:You seem to be laboring under a misconception about the law of conservation of matter and energy. Energy can indeed not be created nor destroyed. It can however change form; and continually it does - into waste heat. There is therefore no guarantee that energy that makes up your consciousness retains that consciousness after Death; and in fact as far as science is concerned it probably does not.
Jason Toddman wrote:31acujoker wrote:Personally I find it terrifying that once I'm dead, I'm just dead and nothing happens after that, THAT would be worse for me than spending eternity in one place.
Except that once you're dead you wouldn't know or care. Does it bother you that you missed the first 13.8 billion or so years of the Universe's existence?
Do you recall thinking before you were born, "Gee, I wish I was alive?' Well, after you die you're going to care just as much about things as you did before you were born... that is, not at all. At least you'll never be bored. Assuming of course that dead means oblivion.
drew2099 wrote:I believe there is a heaven, and it depends if you go to heaven or not If you believe Jesus is god's son and be saved by himare saved by Jesus Christ if you go or not. You go to hell if you don't be
ViXen MissElitAs wrote:shit... i prefer passing an enternity in my coffin than in hell...
oh Heaven is just a delight... do you have naughty stuff in Heaven or do they send special kinky demons to do it?... Somone write somthing about that i'm to lame to do it... it would be like:
-No plz! its a mistake i don't desirve hell!
- *Sight... and yet you didn't realise yet you are in Heaven! *takes ropes
-now guess where you will spend eternity...
X3