The Arrogant Atheist Forum

Posted By: thekaseman101I too find the concept of nothingness quite unsettling indeed.

Posted By: thekaseman101By believing in reincarnation to get around that nothingness, you are no better than a theist.

Let me repeat, once again, that my findings have nothing to do with what i feel.
I believed, just as you do, that there was "nothing" after death, and i had absolutely no problems with that.

You are right with "you are no better than a theist", if believing in reincarnation would just be an excuse to run away from the truth, without any other reason.
But, as i said, i have never searched for "something else" because i would feel the nothingness unsettling.

No, i believed that there was nothing and i was 100 % fine with that.
So first of all: talking about the "uneasiness" or "unsettlingness" is totally beside the point here.

I've been digging deeper in the concept of "nothing", and realized that it is the concept of "nothing" that has no evidence, just as God has no evidence.
You should really dig deeper because i think you are missing the main points here.

I'm gonna give you a post of me of another topic because it perfectly fits in here:

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Did you ever see something disappear in the nothingness? I haven't.
The only thing that i DID see, were things reforming.
There are reformations everywhere.

Think with me for a second:
If you take an object at a certain moment, you can give it a name, which represents the object at that given moment. For example: take a Vase.
Name it a Vase.
Take a stone and destroy this vase.
Some say that the Vase is not anymore there, and they are right IF you look at the object that was stored in your mind at a certain moment. This object, as it was at that time, is now gone.
But the reality is, that it's not at all gone, it's still there, but all the pieces have changed so that your mind does not see it anymore as the "Vase". But everything is still there, nevertheless.

So if you say, that there is "nothing" after death, you are actually only talking about: "when a person dies, he can not move and talk anymore".
Ofcourse a person can not move and talk anymore when it's death, just as the Vase can not hold any water and flowers anymore.
But all the parts of the vase are still there...and so will be your body when you die.

"Nothing" does not exist, "nothing" is just a name we give to the transformation of an object. It's an illusion.
I'm not afraid that there is "nothing" after death, because i don't believe in that. ( i once looked at it as you guys did: "nothing after death" and i also wasn't afraid of that by the way )
Everything that makes me me, will still be here when i die: i won't be able to talk, i won't be able to think about it, i won't be able to breath, but i will still be here nevertheless.
Just as all the pieces that make up my body at this moment, made up the pieces of Napoleon or Hitler or, yes, maybe even a T-Rex one day.

And one day, these pieces might make up the body of the children of you, or the children of the ancestor of president Obama.
And these children will think about life again, and about death, and about their girlfriend. But because these pieces, were me 1 day, i will kind of revive again, and will think again, and breath again, and talk again, and love again.

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So again, this has nothing to do with feelings, but this has got everything to do with logical thinking and the problem that your concept of "nothing" is facing.

The difference between you and me thekaseman101,
is that you see the mind as a valid subject.

If you start seeing the mind as a subject (or object, i dont know the right english word for it ), then you start running into trouble.

I don't believe in any souls or minds. I only look at us, humans, as machines.
I am a machine: nothing more than that.
Therefore, i already have no mind to begin with.
And because i do not have a mind, the question of where my mind goes is completely irrelevant.

I just know that i am a machine, and i can feel the "being" of a machine, and this "being" does not belong to the machine, but to the universe.
So as long as there are biological machines like the one i'm typing with right now, this feeling of "being" keeps existing.

If you don't quite clearly understand what i mean, i can try to explain it in another way:
The feeling we are all experiencing of "being", is "an effect" that belongs to the universe.
We as humans however, or born as seperate species and we can "think about" this being through our brain.
Because these brains are all seperated in seperate bodies, the illusion is being created that we are indviduals.

But we are not individuals visiting the universe, no, we are the universe itself.
And when an individual dies, the universe doesn't.
Therefore, we are alive forever (untill the universe "dies" somehow)

"the matter which you are today will be spread apart"

correction:subtract the 'today' from the sentence,matter changes.

Posted By: Seppe CoolsIf you understand what i'm trying to say, i can go one step further because the story is not complete though:
The particles is everything we are. And because the particles move around constantly, we are never just 1 person but we are 6 billion persons at a time, including the trees, the birds and stones.
We are all one in a way. We are all one and the same giant chunk of universe. But because individuals are being formed + the thinking process happens in an individual brain, the illusion is being created that we are an individual at any time. And because this illusion is there, the whole way we see life and universe is totally disfigured. Because the brain only see things from 1 perspective.

Minus their dogma, this is very similar to what nirvana is supposed to be, in buddhism. Being one with the universe, obtaining enlightenment, is being able to overcome the 'self' and accept that there really is no 'self'. I guess, enlightenment, is being able to stretch the experience, where you can be the tree and rock and person, etc. I'd argue that it's also pantheistic without being pandeistic, as well. Universe is all, and the god concept is left behind, because it's not needed.

Posted By: pic81i understand what you are saying,I've thought such things my self many times.I'm saying that this has nothing to do with the religious reincarnation,which implies a soul as a separate entity inside the body.

I wouldn't be so sure:

What Reincarnation is Not

Reincarnation is not a simple physical birth of a person; for instance, John being reborn as a cat in the next life. In this case John possesses an immortal soul which transforms to the form of a cat after his death. This cycle is repeated over and over again. Or if he is lucky, he will be reborn as a human being. This notion of the transmigration of the soul definitely does not exist in Buddhism.

- http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/reincarnation.htm

The Buddhist concept is subtly different from the classical Indian understanding, because it denies the existence of a self. In Buddhism, the idea of self is merely an illusion. Man wrongly identifies perception, consciousness, mind and body with what he calls self. In reality there is no abiding entity that could be identified with a self, because the states of perception, consciousness, and mind constantly change.

The body is mortal and when it dies, consciousness and all mental activities cease. That is why there is no soul. The idea of soul is simply an extension of the self. Soul is the immortal version of the self that supposedly survives physical death. Since we know that consciousness is a function of our nervous system, it seems difficult to believe that the conscious self survives death. Hence, Buddhists deny the reality of both self and soul.

The idea of an abiding self is deceptive, because it is derived from unenlightened reasoning. The word self simply provides a reference frame for the mind-body phenomena of sentient beings. We usually identify it with our body and the stream of consciousness induced by sense perceptions and thoughts. In reality, what we call self is neither abiding nor detached from the rest of the world and other beings. Buddhists call this the "neither self nor non-self".

What is reborn if not the "self"?

If the idea of non-self sounds odd, then it must sound even more curious that non-self can be reborn. There is a seeming contradiction between the canon of rebirth and that of the non-self, which even many dedicated Buddhists find difficult to understand. The contradiction is, however, only on the surface and can be solved if one pictures the self as the result of karmic formation. This can be put into less abstract words:

Ripples on the ocean If we imagine the world as an ocean, we are like the ripples on the ocean. Formations like ripples and waves occur, because of wind, tides, and other kinetic forces. In the Buddhist analogy, the universe is in motion due to karmic forces. A ripple, a wave, or a billow may seem as an individual entity for a moment, creating the illusion that it has a self, but it is gone in the next moment. The truth is that all individuals are one. A ripple is a temporary phenomenon; it is just water in motion. We know that kinetic energy causes wave forms on a body of water and it would be ridiculous to say that a single ripple or wave has a self.

Similarly, in case of beings, the process of coming into life and being conditioned in a particular way is caused by karmic forces. The up and down of the ocean's waves corresponds with the rotation of the wheel of life. The sea that surges, falls, and resurges, is the life that is born, dies, and is reborn again. It is therefore obvious that we should not focus on the temporary phenomenon of the wave, but on the force that causes, forms, and drives it. Nothing else is said, although in more practical terms, in the Eightfold Path.

-http://www.thebigview.com/buddhism/karma.html

I know that there are different schools of thought within Buddhism, and that there are those who are more on the religious side of things (such as the Tibetan buddhists... they have a book of the dead which is supposed to help the spirit of the deceased continue on its path towards rebirth), but buddhism at its heart is a philosophy.

Just a note about the links with religions like buddhism:
i dont know what the links are with other religions and i honoustly don't really care.
I started to build this up from scratch to what it is now.

Just to be clear about that.

This has nothing to do with rituals or meditations or whatever buddhists want to do.
I'm here in this life to create robots instead of wasting my time on "feeling the universe" or whatever

My stance? Of course not. This is not just a result of being an Atheist - rather, it is also the result of my rational mind and the fact that no evidence of such a thing has ever been made or recorded.

Reincarnation would require that some portion of your physical body survive death and then infest the body of another life form. This creates a number of problems for the individual believing in such nonsense. The first is that there is some portion of your that is non-physical or supernatural - that there is a force operating within you that is somehow not connected directly or at least reliant on the flesh of your physical form. Then, there is the problem of the transmission of this non-physical force. This thing must be capable of detaching and maintaining itself outside the fleshy vessel - which highlights an inconsistency in the belief. If the force is not tied to or reliant on the flesh, then why does it remain in the body? The quick response is to presuppose a type of "spiritual anchor" or a force generated from "THE LIVING BODY" that draws and locks the life force in. But this smells of the ad hoc hypothesis fallacy - making up stuff with absolutely zero evidence to back it up, even anecdotal evidence (which is not evidence at all). The last major problem is how this "force" manages to infest a new body, control it and get stuck there. Again, there have been many ad hoc's to waylay this, including the tired canard of the "spirit vacuum" and such. An interesting question erupts here, of course; if the force leaves a body only to get sucked into another, then what exactly is the point of the process?

One of the big problems with this whole thing is that it simply seems to mark a misunderstanding in the believer as to the nature of ENERGY. I believe I have stated this before, but it bears repeating. ENERGY is not some mystical cloud of "stuff" that floats around, maintaining cohesion in some conscious or unconscious manner. Rather, energy is a word used to describe the measurable work potential of some system, act or action. People that believe in reincarnation believe that we have some "energy" in us that survives death, travels around and infests other vessels. Let's call it for what it is - we have a measurable work potential that survives death, floats around and can get into other forms. That makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Energy is not a blob you can manipulate or a force you tap into.

The whole thing is little more than fantasy until you provide the evidence that backs up even a single piece of the whole wingnut hypothesis.

"But, but, but...........past life regression........"

Wow, that is some amazing evidence there. Past the notion that regression therapy is a hotly contested notion and past the fact that it has been used as a means to implant and direct invented memories, this one is just plain batty. Ever notice how often the person that is regressing does so to some "incarnation" that was someone important? Odd that. We never see a shit shoveler or a mindless grunt arrowed down in the first 3 minutes of battle. No 10 year old savaged by local dogs. It is always a king or queen, prince or princess, retainer to someone famous - all of whom died under tragic circumstances. Also odd how two different people can regress to the same person. So, now we have a never power. These "OTHER FORCES" can.......split apart? With no degradation to them? Really? Plus, we have the problem of the number of lifeforms. If limited to humans only (many theists do this) then you have the problem of too few in the past for too many now. If unlimited, then you have to accept that something as stupid as a sea sponge has a life force of this nature, even though it would be less capable of generating it or holding it than we would be preceived to be. Pick and choose? Which ones? How do you determine that? Why not that excluded one?

This is a case of a lack of rationality and a misconception of human nature. It has roots in dualism, the idea that you are "you the meat" but you are also "you the force". People thinking this way often cannot accept that their "mind" is in their "brain" - they cannot seem to accept that the gestalt of all the process there can create a person. They feel the need to hypothesize another "part" to account for consciousness (for example). But these people fail to see the obvious physical connection between the physical condition of the brain and the disposition of the mind. If it were true that there was a second "you" inside your head and that was the "real" you, then it should be "you" no matter what is done to the brain. After all, it does not "need" the brain, to function, correct? So we can test to see if that force exists. How? Brain damage. If you are who you are apart from the brain, nothing we do to the cognitive functions of the brain should change "you" as it is not a part of the flesh. In fact, in many cases, it should be capable of brute forcing its way past temporal damage to show the "real" you. Damage to the frontal lobe should not produce an individual without a temper or someone with a violent disposition if their "real" self is behind their eyes. But that is not the case. Lesions to the brain can cause any of a number of personality and capacity changes, exactly what you would expect from a purely physical organism.

There is not now nor has there ever been evidence that there are souls or life forces or anything of the sort. The whole thing smacks of wishful thinking and irrationality.

I was talking to a past self of mine the other night and, after 3 hours I still hadn't convinced myself to believe in reincarnation.


But seriously though. WHat the fuck would be the point of it anyway.

Wouldn't it do the same as a God would to the meaning of existence.?