ILX Religiosity and Spirituality and Agnosticity and Atheicity Poll

whelp, I tried

xxp

it makes a lot of sense to me as a way of the brain creating a story about what is happening to you

Imagination is a very odd but powerful tool for survival that is highly developed in humans. It's one of the hallmarks of our species. It typically happens outside our conscious control, just like most of what happens in our minds. The more I have come to grasp this over time the more I have become inclined to accept that this hidden aspect of my mind is a fundamental part of my humanity and not something to struggle with. Learning the limits of and proper sphere for applying my will has been a never ending lesson, but also a great boon.

what if ppl thought it was really easy to imagine not existing

I wonder if you can

can't hammer my point home any better than I did, which is actually good because ADD is a pain in the ass and I have work to do dammit

all good man i appreciate the sincere effort

If it’s any consolation Evan, I kind of feel the same way you do. When I try to imagine what it will be like to not exist my brain gets caught up in the paradox.

The "it's all darkness" leads me to a little "apres mois, le deluge", but that's the fight, right?

People who can imagine what it will be like to not exist are as baffling to me as people who can entertain the possibility that consciousness isn’t real. But I’ve learned to accept that people have deeply different intuitions about these matters.

back to my personal longing for death that is complete wrt my consciousness (in which i believe personally, because “evidence” offered against that position is rubbish): i should be most surprised to consciously find myself at “oh shit here i am— again”, but I do intend that my efforts theretofore, in the here and now, leave me in a defensible space.

but i still long for that place, to be complete in my labors. and also in my play. all of it.

My 77-yr-old mom spends a whole lot of time thinking and talking about death, and one of the things I've heard from her about 50 times is, "I have no conception or idea that when I die, my sense of self continues. My energy goes somewhere, but it's not as ME." Granted, she has no more insight than anyone else just by virtue of her relative proximity to the event, but fwiw I think Mom is otm.

for one thing, "consciousness" is not a _thing_. it is a series of parallel and overlapping processes--many of which are preconscious. if you begin to remove parts of a person's brain, their consciousness and bodily functioning will begin to change. if you remove enough parts, one can easily imagine that the "self" begins to break apart and eventually disappear.

second, our brain is ever-chaning--cells die, cells are born, synapses emerge and disappear. there is no "one" consciousness that we are granted at birth and that stays with us until death. the idea of an unchanging or at least integral self is one of the products of consciousness. see first note.

there is no such thing as a platonic -- that is, ideal, unperturbed and unchanging -- self or consciousness that will be restored to us when we die.

to imagine the survival of human personality after death in some form is to imagine another plane of existence in which some version of our consciousness (from when? the moment of death? several years before that? at birth?) is recreated in some other plane.

the only way i can even imagine this is if you take an awesome (and rather silly IMO) leap of faith and imagine that existence as we know it--including all of our findings about evolution, the human mind and body etc.--is some kind of fantasy projection, and that our "real selves," which bear some relation to our "selves" as we experience them in this plane of existence, are intact in some other plane. and that upon death we make some sort of quantum leap to this other plane with little interruption.

if you want to believe that, i guess i have little interest in preventing you. but it has no relationship to anything we experience or know in this world and, as evan as pointed out, it's a rather human-centric conception that mostly--to my mind--reveals our own vanity.

― flesh, the devil, and a wolf (wolf) (amateurist), Wednesday, July 11, 2012 9:20 PM

The "it's all darkness" leads me to a little "apres mois, le deluge", but that's the fight, right?

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Wednesday, 14 February 2024 21:42 (twenty-two minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i dont believe that ive said anything that suggests "the world ends after i go" but ive had to clarify it twice now

even if we take the above as nihilism to state "nothing matters after i go" id content that is absolutely not implicit in anything

but it is interesting because - not to misrepresent anyone myself i hope- it suggests that ppl still tend to atheism as suggesting amorality, nihilism, a vacuum of concern, despite many statements itt otherwise?

maybe i am projecting but i guss ill go again

i can believe when i die that i blink out like the last line of light turning to a point then gone on a monitor, no me left and no me left to know it, but nothing in that belief means i feel any less invested in my version of a good world existing and continuing after my existence than if i were the pope himself and had as close to 100% belief as one can that id be skipping the queue and getting slapped on the back through the pearly gates to review how it was going and watch with interest for eternity

my atheism is neither a rejection of any one traditional morality or societal belonging nor is it a subscription to any other.

its just a lack of belief in any gods.

idk am i talking too much here but for as long as the above line seema to mean more to people who respond than that ill keep gently tapping the sign i reckon, seems the right thread for it

I've also needed to keep clarifying myself so understand the struggle, also I agree with everything you're saying. Were we just talking past each other earlier or what? I think we're on the same page here.

Fwiw this is exactly how I feel/what I believe too:

i can believe when i die that i blink out like the last line of light turning to a point then gone on a monitor, no me left and no me left to know it, but nothing in that belief means i feel any less invested in my version of a good world existing and continuing after my existence than if i were the pope himself and had as close to 100% belief as one can that id be skipping the queue and getting slapped on the back through the pearly gates to review how it was going and watch with interest for eternity

my atheism is neither a rejection of any one traditional morality or societal belonging nor is it a subscription to any other.

its just a lack of belief in any gods.

i like the amateurist post you dug up there evan

when I die, I fear I'll still be reading this thread

saying "otm" and "notm" from Hell

at worst purgatory

Found a lot to agree with in your posts above Nabozo.

I didn't sign up for religion for the afterlife stuff, but I've got to say, it is a nice perk

In all seriousness, an afterlife is something I choose to believe in not something I am reasonably convinced about. I do like that Christianity's version gives you a bit of everything. My creedal affirmation is in "the resurrection of the dead." In this, death isn't robbed of its kinda obvious nature. When people die, they're dead. Bodies in the ground, no consciousness, just nothingness. But there is a promise of reembodiment. Whether that reembodiment is with a sense of self as we know it in this life, or whether it contains a unity with the divine so intense that a sense of self is impossible... I'm not sure. My belief in the afterlife is hopeful, it's expectant of a future turn around of the whole order rather than a confident judgement that right now everyone who has ever lived still exists but in a different spiritual form. It might be a small or irrelevant distinction to some, but the respect it pays to the nature of death makes it a pill small enough for me to swallow.

Because life mostly sucks

― Sane clown posse (Ye Mad Puffin)

fwiw this doctrine is against my religion and that’s a big reason I’m religious, as a ward against believing this too much of the time

Ok silby. Me, I find this life sufficiently unpleasant that I can't imagine wanting more of it. Certainly not another one. Definitely not eternal life.

Rest, repose, peace, oblivion? Yes please.

I wanna party with the Valkyries, drinking mead and feasting for all time

I can also see how all that just sounds like bonkers picking and choosing what you want to believe. It's an extrapolation for me of who I think Jesus of Nazareth was, and the Easter story sort of strong arms me into this particular belief: death is shockingly real, but no longer necessarily the final word. If I had no belief in Christ, I would be a "death is final: no consciousness" guy. The afterlife stuff is just a necessary extrapolation of my key religious belief.

Sorry if any of that codes as crypto-evangelising, it's really not to meant to be. Just wanted to respond to the idea that religion is acquiesced to as an anaesthetic to the fear of death. For my case, and 99% of Christian people who I know, it was merely a part of the package deal they now have to play along with.

i want as much life as you got, right now

by the time the knees, sinuses, bladder and other bits are really making each day a grind ill feel very differently i figure

the question of which endlessly generating iterating version of you snaps into focus on the moment of impact (or whether it aint that at all but something very different as hp posits above) is one ive only had cause to consider when i try to think about which of my fuckin windows backups id actually turn to if i had a catastrophe

what religion addresses that metaphor eh

I think it's acquiesced to as an anesthetic to life just as much as it is to death.

ADDENDUM; tipsy's mom otmfm

My 77-yr-old mom spends a whole lot of time thinking and talking about death, and one of the things I've heard from her about 50 times is, "I have no conception or idea that when I die, my sense of self continues. My energy goes somewhere, but it's not as ME

This is right. We are immortal insofar as we are remembered. We patents become immortal through our children. We are immortal if we have friends and family.

I believe my immortality is secured by the memories of the people who will survive me. Plus the work I have done and the things I have made. My body is just a bunch of interestingly assembled groceries, and and I. I would not mind if they just put it out on the curb when 8t stops working.

Xp ENBB. Yeah that's a statement of belief though. Religion does anaesthetise a lot of the pain of this world for the believer, but it's cynical to say that's the reason people believe

Which like, if that's your belief that's fine, I've just never liked it being stated as I think it's bad manners! Why we assume people believe and behave how they do is often a fair cry from the actual reasons.

Posting this while peeing in the shower BTW so this is all coming from an insane person

;)

i want as much life as you got, right now

I'm onboard with this - give me the extra years now, not when I'm 88

patience, young grasshopper

I suppose it is. As I said hundreds of posts ago - I genuinely often wish I believed and I am sure there are many other reasons but as a non-believer it's just sometimes hard to imagine what they might be. (I am too stoned for this so am likely not making sense.)

when ppl tell me about believing in the literal truth of the bible, or the reality of the afterlife, it comes across to me like meeting an unbalanced star trek fan. i begged forgiveness to a really close lib evangelical friend before telling him that opinion, and he has forgiven afaict, and he is not a proselytizer, but he has said it left a mark.

I'm not an atheist but I realize now that I believe in symbols more than the actual deities they're supposed to represent. I saw something where a pagan priest in Iceland (they're now an official religion) said something to the effect of "We don't actually believe in the eight legged horse, we obviously recognize it's a metaphor." Likewise the little blue boy in the yogurt pot. I wish more people got this.

That's all fair ENBB

guess people who have had heavy psychedelic experiences have reported the same thing. the people I know who are least afraid of death are the ones who have taken heroic doses of shrooms and have shook the hand of god or whatever.

Hey there

Why we assume people believe and behave how they do is often a fair cry from the actual reasons.

even (or especially) if the assumer = the behaver

i feel differently about

catholics

vs

people who believe in l ron hubbards mythos

vs

modern practitioners in the church of scientology

so its not like you dont accept context or anything tbf

but i guess i always default assume nobody practicing a religion actually believes believes the really obvious metaphorical parts (nb irish catholic background context here) and yknow ive been a lot wronger than righter so shrug.jpg

Good point, but if we're getting to that level of skepticism its gotta go both ways

xp to PBKR

Forget about metaphor, I like the straight up magic parts of Catholicism. Let's keep that (and the incense) and get rid of the rest. Transubstantiation in, everything else out.

YMP my post is about this life not any postulated afterlife fwiw

I read to us from Diary 4:16

"Cos life has no meaning
We were all born to die
So no screaming"

i get vibing to the ritual vs actual considered belief

the unconsidered belief idk that seems not discussed itt anyway which is fair

If there’s one thing I strongly believe it’s that no one really has a clue about any of this stuff.

My pastor read from John Berryman's "Eleven Addresses to the Lord" during our last Sunday service, including the bit that goes I have no idea whether we live again. It doesn't seem likely. My partner (raised in a church) thought that was an exceptionally brave thing to preach, but I (converted in my 30s, only after it became clear that my human doubts about God are welcome in this church) found it of a piece with the rest.

I wonder if near-death and other paranormal experiences played some historical role in the emergence of beliefs in the soul and afterlife.

I read up on NDEs recently, and while they haven't convincingly been explained in "reductionist" terms, I doubt they're genuinely proof of an afterlife either; there's very little consistency in what people see, even in accounts which supposedly support the same worldview. And the messages given to people who come back seem so familiar: unprovable metaphysical assertions and unfulfilled prophecies. Some of the more elaborate accounts can be fun to read, though.

If the afterlife does exist, I'm not really sure it relieves fear of death - after all, who knows it'll last forever?

I want an afterlife where I can drink Negronis.

more likely to get an afterlife where you become a negroni imo