patrick.net

Alright, I was too busy over the past two weeks to address the bullshit from the pro-religion crowd, but now that I've got some time...

Let's start by recapping the arguments.

A 12-year-old girl kills herself in order to see her dead father again. I make the following arguments.

D1. The lie of the afterlife has tragically caused the death of a girl. We should no longer tell this lie because it does motivate people to make bad decisions.

D2. The death of the girl is tragic if and only if the afterlife is a lie. The death of the girl is joyful if and only if the afterlife is not a lie.

D3. By D2, anyone who considers the death of this girl to be a tragedy is tacitly admitting that he does not really believe in the afterlife.

These are Marcus's counterarguments and how I responded to them.

M1. Maybe the girl was lying about her motives to spare her mother's feelings.

D4. The news about this girl does not support such speculation.

D5. This counter-argument is a dodge. Even if this were a hypothetical situation, the arguments D2 and D3 would still stand. Even D1 would still stand because the lie of the afterlife does make irrational decisions perfectly rational including killing oneself.

M2. Maybe the girl was an avid atheist who killed herself so that other atheists can use her death as propaganda.

D6. M2 is a ridiculous argument. There is no reason to believe that a 12-year-old girl would give up her entire life simply to make a political point she would never see. This is a ludicrous stretch of the imagination not based on any facts, human nature, or common sense. It is speculation as crazy as saying the entire news industry made up the story and the girl never existed. Marcus is grasping at straws.

M3. I hate Dan. I think he's arrogant. Therefore, we should ignore this story and its implications since Dan brought it up.

D7. Poisoning the Well

M4. The girl's death is irrelevant because a person who kills herself, by definition, "has a very sick state of mind".

D8. Suicide is not evidence of any psychological problem. Suicide is the last act of a free man. -Seneca

Each human being has the inherent right to decide whether or not to keep living. Every person owns his or her own life, and your opinion on whether or not someone else should keep living doesn't amount to jack shit. When it comes to one's own life, every person is the sole owner and decision maker of whether or not to keep living and does not have to justify his or her decision to you or anyone else. To argue otherwise is selfish and arrogant.

That said, to make such an important decision based on a falsehood is a terrible thing. And that is the point of D1.

D9. The only psychological problem inflicted on this girl was the belief in the afterlife. A delusion, no matter how socially accepted, is still a delusion, and delusion is, by definition, mental illness.

D10. Even if the girl were retarded as Marcus implies, this tragic death would still affirm D1 as there are mentally ill people in the world who could be persuaded by the lie of the afterlife to take their lives. Furthermore, young children, who are well-known to be less than optimal thinkers, can be persuaded by false myths and lies of paradise to either take their lives or to be careless causing their deaths. After all, death has no sting if there is an afterlife, the very point of D1, D2, and D3.

M5. Various personal attacks against me, and again that for some reason Marcus thinks invalidates my arguments.

Repeat D7, Poisoning the Well. The messenger is irrelevant. Whether Marcus is right or wrong about me, it does not change the validity of arguments D1, D2, and D3 as well as the fact that every argument Marcus has made has been shown to be weak, flawed, and unfounded.

M6. OK. The girl's death is tragic, but only because suicide is a mortal sin and she's being tortured in hell for all eternality now.

D8. For any god to let this girl be tortured in hell in the worse possible way for all eternally, would make that god more evil than all the pedophiles in all of history put together. After all, hell would mean this girl getting raped and worse for all eternity, and that's way worse than the few times a mortal man could rape a child. And how much worse would the rape by with demon dicks?

It is an inescapable logical conclusion that any god putting this girl in hell to be raped and tortured by demons would be more evil than all pedophiles in history. Therefore, either god is evil and all bets on the afterlife are off, or this girl is not in hell and did not "sin" when she took her own life to see her dad.

Thus there is no contradiction. If the afterlife is real and god is anything less than pure fucking evil, the girl is in paradise and we should all be happy she killed herself. It was a good decision. However, if the afterlife is a lie, then the girl's death is tragic and such tragedies should be avoided in the future by ending the lie of the afterlife.

M6 is nothing more than another dodge attempt. Marcus can't deal with the heart of the issue and therefore looks for any loopholes to avoid the entire subject matter.

M7. All your supposed logic impresses nobody.

D9. Logic is not owned by any person. Logic is universal and absolute. As an alleged math teacher, you should understand this. I guess it's true that those who can't, teach.

The only valid response to a logical argument, regardless of how much you hate the person making it, is another logical argument based on facts and reason. Saying how much you dislike the other person isn't a response to his arguments.

I say the square root of two is irrational and provide a proof of that. You respond that it's not because I'm ugly. You must be a great math teacher. [That was sarcasm. I know you're reading skills are as bad as your math skills.]

Then Marcus repeatsM1, M2, and M3 without even addressing the arguments D4, D5, D6, and D7 which utterly destroy M1, M2, and M3.

Repeating arguments that have already been discredited does not restore their credibility. You have to address the responses you dropped.

Well, that takes care of Marcus. Now for Shrek.

SoftShell says

That's because God gave you your life, therefore when he takes it it is not murder, it is repossession.

If your god owns your life, then you are a slave and he is a despicable slaver. To even attempt to own another sentient being is evil. To play with a sentient being's life is utterly disgraceful.

SoftShell says

Your link provides thousands of opinions, none on which a simple majority of scientists agree.

Thanks for making my point.

I don't know what "your point" is, but I can assure you that it is a scientifically accepted fact that the brain is responsible entirely for consciousness and self-awareness, for every thought and every emotion you have ever experienced or will ever experience. This fact is easily demonstrable by mind-altering substances, all of which work on the brain.

This is the 21st century. At this point, anyone who denies that the brain is entirely responsible for our mind is like someone who denies that Earth is round and the sun is a star. At a certain point, such ignorance indicates that a person should not be respected by others.

SoftShell says

The fact that consciousnesses occupies physical components doesn't mean it is simple or worthless

And no one has argued that. On the contrary, the fact that the physical brain is entirely responsible for your existence as a person makes this mundane, Earthly life ever so much more precious. If the mythical soul were responsible for your existence, then your Earthly life would have little if any value.

SoftShell says

Until we truly understand consciousness, all bets are off regarding the survival/ejection/extradimensional transportation/termination of consciousness upon the body's demise.

Not only do I not believe that, but neither do you. I'm quite certain that you do not accept the possibility that in order to ensure life after death, you must rape a thousand cows. Unless you go cow fucking just to be safe, you don't believe that there is nothing we can conclude about the so-called afterlife.

SoftShell says

At this point, nothing what either of us wrote in this post can be verified 100% accurate.

I can be 100% certain that my computer doesn't run any apps when it is powered down. For the exact same reason, I can be certain that the computer I call my brain -- or yours -- doesn't run any sentience when powered down. Both computers follow the same laws of physics. And yes, things are knowable with physics.

SoftShell says

Your insistence on 'knowing the fate of consciousness' upon death is as self delusional as the worst fundamentalist. The most intellectually honest among us have the ability to just say "I don't know".

Make a case to back up the assertion that knowing the fate of consciousness upon death is delusional. I have made a damn good case in the previous paragraph to the contrary. As for intellectually honesty, that goes both ways. I have no problem saying "I don't know" something when that's the case. But it is dishonest to say that one does not and can not know something that one does.

I know the Earth is round and revolves around the sun due to gravitational attractiveness. To say otherwise is a lie. I know my computer performs no operations when powered down. I know that no human brain performs any operations when powered down. It is merely the acceptance of the known laws of physics that dictates this conclusion. There is nothing delusional or dishonest about knowing the laws of electricity and chemistry and being able to do the math.

Sentience is created and sustained by the brain. When the brain dies, the mind dies. It is an inescapable logical conclusion.

But I await your counter-argument that the death of sentience is unknowable. Make sure it's a good one.

SoftShell says

Wow. You really need to set aside your notions of 'what is/isn't ' for awhile and reexamine your statement below.

This is a non-statement and merits no response.

SoftShell says

"Does the brain create consciousness, or is consciousness a separate entity occupying the brain"

Clearly the brain creates consciousness. Numerous unethical experiments such as performing a lobotomy proves this beyond any doubt.

SoftShell says

The problem with this statement is that there are a lot of people who do know how "your computer does this" without a doubt.

Whether or not a person understands how a computer works, does not affect how the computer works.

SoftShell says

With consciousness, no one on the planet comes close to knowing without a doubt what it is.

One does not have to understand the implementation of consciousness to know beyond any doubt that whatever the implementation is, it is performed entirely by the brain. How the brain creates consciousness is irrelevant to the fact that it is the brain that creates consciousness.

In other words, ignorance does not leave room for the possibility of an afterlife. The God of the Gaps argument does not imply an afterlife.

Furthermore, you are left with the inescapable conclusion that if the afterlife did exist, then this girl's death is something we should rejoice. Are you rejoicing it?

SoftShell says

And this is your blind spot.

It is very sad for people here on earth who have loved ones who have moved on, regardless of where they moved on to.

That is a basic human trait.

Irrelevant. The tragedy isn't that the girl's mother is sad. The tragedy is that the girl's one and only life is over, prematurely, and for no good reason.

If the afterlife exists, then the logical, rational, and sensible thing would be for the mother to kill herself and thus unite with her husband and daughter. This would end the mother's suffering and bring great joy to her. If you do not think this is the most reasonable course of action, then you do not believe in the afterlife.

Again, the question of the afterlife is not an academic issue. It has very practical implications including whether or not to continue living, whether or not to wear your seatbelt, whether or not to strive for justice in this world. Damn important decisions are based on the conclusion of whether or not the afterlife is a lie, and if you pick wrongly, then you make very bad decision with grave consequences.

SoftShell says

The girls death is tragic to living people emotionally attached to her, regardless of whether there is or is not an afterlife.

That's the part you do not get.

On the contrary, the entire point of the afterlife lie is to make death have no sting. It is precisely because deep down everyone knows the afterlife is a bold face lie, that people find death tragic. They pretend to believe in the afterlife, but they really don't. People morn the irreversible loss of a human being precisely because they know the afterlife is a lie.

That's the part you do not get.

humanity says

So, I see this thread has changed from a question of whether we can blame religion for this girls suicide, because of a phrase in her suicide note, to the question of whether there is an afterlife ?

Actually, the entire thesis of this thread was about the afterlife lie, not religion. See D1, D2, and D3.

humanity says

it seems that humans have evolved to hold beliefs along these lines.

Yes, the evolutionary cause of superstition, including believe in reincarnation and afterlives, has been well studied in science. It's basically a trick our genes play on us because the negative consequence, for our genes, of intelligence is that the host organisms (humans) now realize that they are mortal and that would negatively affect slaving away for the benefits of our genes unless we are tricked into thinking we just might be immortal.

In any case, the fact that evolution has created part of human nature does not make that part of human nature good. Rape worked in the Stone Age as a strategy for getting your genes into the next generation. The fact that raped worked for tens of millions of years does not make rape good, nor does it mean we should promote the behavior or rape or the genes that contribute to this behavior. Evolution is a form of gradual ascent. Gradual ascent does not lead to global maximums, a.k.a. optimal solutions.

Consider belief in afterlives and other supernatural beliefs to be evolutionary baggage that is best discredited with frontal lobe thinking.

humanity says

And I expect that those like Dan, will have a position closer to mine than to what they say now, when they are in their final hours.

Even if what you are saying is true -- and it's pure conjecture -- that does not imply that the afterlife is real. In fact, it makes the opposite case. It argues that belief in the afterlife is driven by irrational fear and therefore such a belief should have no credit. Your argument is basically that the Denial Stage of Loss and Grief is reason for people's false belief in the afterlife. The Denial Stage is all about falsely denying a painful truth.

BobDDstryr says

Dan - for someone who doesn't believe in an afterlife, you sure do seem very certain about how it must work.

I am certain how logic works. It is self-evident.

I notice that you haven't actually made a counter-argument to the argument that the Christian afterlife implies the moral imperative to kill children. That argument stands.

BobDDstryr says

It's entirely possible that there is an afterlife - but that Christianity is wrong in some/all of the aspects about it.

The brain argument disproves any afterlife, but I'll play along. So if anything is possible in the afterlife, then it could be that you are condemned to being tortured in hell unless you commit at least one murder. Are you prepared to act upon that assumption?

After all, if all bets are off, god could be evil. Hell, Satan could be god. And to please god, you must commit a murder. Do so, and you get to live forever in paradise. Don't murder anyone, and you are tortured in hell for all eternity. Are you going to act on the belief that this is even a remote possibility?

The fact that you do not go around murdering people like a homicidal maniac is proof that you accept some assumptions you think are reasonable and reject a multitude of assumptions you think are unreasonable. The assumption of any afterlife is unreasonable. The question is can you think clearly enough to understand this? All afterlife assumptions, if put to the test, lead to making bad decisions.

BobDDstryr says

The article also states that they aren't sure what she believed. Oh, but you don't have to believe that part, because of a religious conspiracy, defending itself. And then you present a false choice - those aren't the only two options.

Entirely wrong. First, we have no reason to doubt the girl's letter. Second, of course the press isn't going to admit that the girl was being honest because the press fears negative reaction if they even remotely imply that religious beliefs caused a tragedy.

Third, and most importantly, it is irrelevant if the girl was lying. That doesn't change the facts that:
1. It is no tragedy that she died if there is an afterlife.
2. It was a reasonable and good decision to kill herself if there is an afterlife, even if she doesn't believe in it.
3. If there is no afterlife, then the lie of an afterlife is a bad thing because it does make sense to ends one life if one believes in that lie.

So even if I accepted your dodge -- and it is entirely a dodge -- that still is not a counterpoint to the fact that the afterlife is a lie and one we should not tell.

Fourth, I have never stated that the lie of the afterlife or this girl's tragic death was the result of a religious conspiracy. You are just making up a Straw Man argument. Yes, I will argue that religion is evil, but I have not and will not do so in this thread. This thread has purely been about the afterlife lie and I have stayed on that theme.

Fifth, yes, there are only two choices when it comes to suicide: yes or no. There isn't really a third option, now is there? It's pretty much a litmus test. And yes, there is either an afterlife or there isn't.

BobDDstryr says

But you've missed MY point, which is that a logical argument can be made for an atheist to commit suicide. So - even if she were a rational and committed atheist, she may have made the decision to commit suicide to end her pain. Which would mean that the underlying cause was the depression; the religion was just a contributing factor.

Of course an atheist can logically commit suicide. I'm an atheist and I'm 100% for euthanasia. I thoroughly supported Dr. Jack Kevorkian. And as I've said earlier in this post, suicide is the last act of a free man and every person owns his or her own life and is the only person who has any say in whether or not that life should continue.

However, when one is deciding whether or not to live, that decision should be made on correct facts, not lies. For example, if the doctor tells you that you will die horrifically in agonizing pain tomorrow, then it had better damn well be true; it would be terrible if you decided to commit suicide and it turned out the doctor was just being a dick and pulling your leg. The same thing goes for afterlife lies.

Nonetheless your point is irrelevant to D1, D2, and D3. The fact is that if the afterlife is real, then it is a perfectly reasonable thing for a 12-year-old to commit suicide to be with her dad even if she wasn't feeling any pain or sadness. Hell, if the afterlife is real, it is a moral imperative to kill babies as I've shown above.

Thus, if you do not accept these conclusions then you are, by mathematical necessity, rejecting the premises that led to them. And that is my point.

BobDDstryr says

You keep trying to boil things down to a choice - "either the afterlife exists, exactly as a I stipulate it, or there is no afterlife."

Actually, I haven't stipulated how the fictitious afterlife is. That was done by Western religions. And the girl in the original story is using the widely accepted afterlife myth of our society.

BobDDstryr says

The afterlife may work differently than you keep saying it must

You mean "than the believers keep saying it must".

And I've addressed that above in this post. You aren't killing people based on the belief that the Satan god wants you to.

BobDDstryr says

whether there is, or isn't, one, the death is a tragedy.

No. The entire point of the afterlife life is to make death not a tragedy any more than birth is. When a person is born, they don't cease to exist, they just transition from one environment to another. According to all afterlife myths, by definition, death is the same, a mere transition from one environment to another. Thus, it is not tragic.

The real tragedy of death is that it is the ending of a person's existence. That is exactly why we mourn the loss of someone who dies. If the afterlife lie were true, we would again see everyone who has died. A death would be nothing more than someone moving far away for a short period of time. And yes, a human lifespan is a damn short period of time compared to eternity.

Death is tragic and painful precisely because deep down inside we know it is real and permanent no matter how much we lie to ourselves on the surface. Death would simply not be death if there were an afterlife, and thus Earthly life would not be that important.

In conclusion, no argument has yet to directly attack D1, D2, and D3.

D1. The lie of the afterlife has tragically caused the death of a girl. We should no longer tell this lie because it does motivate people to make bad decisions.

D2. The death of the girl is tragic if and only if the afterlife is a lie. The death of the girl is joyful if and only if the afterlife is not a lie.

D3. By D2, anyone who considers the death of this girl to be a tragedy is tacitly admitting that he does not really believe in the afterlife.

Clearly the brain contains consciousness.
It is not clear how or if the brain creates it.
That is speculation on your part.

Dan8267 says

SoftShell says

"Does the brain create consciousness, or is consciousness a separate entity occupying the brain"

Clearly the brain creates consciousness. Numerous unethical experiments such as performing a lobotomy proves this beyond any doubt.

Dan8267 says

anyone who considers the death of this girl to be a tragedy is tacitly admitting that he does not really believe in the afterlife.

That is even more true in the abortion debate. Anyone who says that (a) life begins at conception, and (b) those who live without sin will go to eternal paradise, should celebrate abortion.

SoftShell says

Clearly the brain contains consciousness.

It is not clear how or if the brain creates it.

That is speculation on your part.

To believe that consciousness is not created by the brain, is essentially to believe that there are things in the brain that violate the laws of physics and then influence the brain physically.

There is no evidence of anything known that violate the laws of physics.

On the contrary, everything we know about consciousness is perfectly compatible with the laws of physics.

For example: almost anything physical that affects the brain can affect consciousness. If you drink alcohol, your consciousness is affected, which wouldn't be the case if your brain was just just a container of something unrelated to physics.

All evidence clearly point to a purely physical brain.

SoftShell says

At this point, nothing what either of us wrote in this post can be verified 100% accurate. To think otherwise is a form of self delusion.

If you were saying there's a pink unicorn living in New York subway but no one sees it because it bends the laws of physics to remain invisible and undetectable, no one could verify it either with 100% accuracy either.

Yet it would be a stupid belief anyway.

When bringing extraordinary thesis to the table, you better provide some kind of evidence.

When suicide happens, the reason is in virtually all cases an extreme emotional state, that is a mentally ill state of mind. We know NOTHING about the girl, or her circumstances. Maybe she has had trauma shortly before she killed herself, we just don't know anything at all. But her actions (killing herself) tell us she was in a sick state at that moment.

But Dan is so bad at losing arguments, that he comes back to tell us that he wants to spend thousands of words defending his position (actually it's not even his position - he's jumping on the band wagon of some pathetic radical atheists who want to make this girls tragic suicide the fault of religion).

Why ? This is all based on the one phrase that she wants to see her father again.
(ie essentially saying "don't feel bad Mom, I'm going to be with Dad" or possibly a passive aggressive message "feel bad Mom, for constantly giving me that BS story about heaven") The possible reasons for telling her mother that she was going to be with her father are many, but the most likely reason is the simplest one. After all the message was for the mothers benefit.

For centuries millions of people have believed in heaven, especially children. HAve we heard of cases of these people killing themselves to join dead loved ones ? Of course not. The desire to live (unless someone is suicidal) prevents one from doing this.

Also because it's a terrible sin. How can one believe in heaven, a reward for living a good life, and then think they get to go to heaven after doing the ultimate sinful thing, that is killing a human ?

Why ?

Why kill themself, when they can live a good maybe even enjoyable life and see their loved ones later in heaven anyway ?

It doesn't make sense, and that's why we never hear of it happening.

In this case, though because of that one phrase, Dan's going to pin the blame on religion ? Even if it wasn't for the Mother's benefit (the person the note was written to, and written for, "don't feel bad Mom, because.....") even if it wasn't for her, if someone understands anything about metaphor and abstraction, the idea of being with her father doesn't have to be literal, if she was in a very sick emotional place, which again,...is implied when someone takes their own life.

The FEELING that she is joining him as she gets close to the sick act of killing herself would be natural, and it would not have to mean that she literally thought (separate from that feeling) that she would be with him. This isn't a logical argument, it's an obvious common sense assertion about human emotion.

Is it possible on this site to NEVER SEE any post from either Religion or Politics 'zones'?

Patrick could make a coupla bucks charging extra $ to premium members to hide these horrifying time waster threads of complete lunacy and egoism, which only showcase how dumb/hopeless we are as a race. (unless you are at the top of a political and/or religious pyramid - then that shit is $4nothin&chicksferfree!)

seriously i hate every thread ever in those areas.

PockyClipsNow says

Is it possible on this site to NEVER SEE any post from either Religion or Politics 'zones'?

I can understand you feeling that way after reading more of Marcus attacking Dan with illogical drivel and misplaced ad hominem comments, but I've learned a lot from the religion and politics sections.

In particular:

Dan8267 says

anyone who considers the death of this girl to be a tragedy is tacitly admitting that he does not really believe in the afterlife.

That's it in a nutshell: the point of believing in an afterlife is to relieve temporarily the cognitive dissonance of mortality by denying it, but the professed belief doesn't hold up when the 'believer' is confronted with the undeniable fact of imminent or actual death. If you add up all the suicide terrorists, they are rarer than 1 in a thousand among Muslims; if they all really believed in the afterlife with virgins and a goat or whatever, there would be at least a thousand times more. School shootings and traffic accidents would result in celebrations, dancing in the street. This hapless girl was a true believer, and alas followed that belief to its logical conclusion, and the professed believers (e.g. Marcus) are dismayed and dissemble illogically.

bgamall4 says

Paul said he could wished that he himself was accursed if his brethren, the Jews would be saved.

By that logic, a truly believing female should have as many abortions as possible. Each "accursed" woman could have hundreds of abortions, sending hundreds of innocent children to eternal paradise, though at the risk of her own soul. If she survives past the age of fertility, she could then repent, and be saved.

Never heard that angle.
could you elaborate?

curious2 says

if they all really believed in the afterlife with virgins and a goat or whatever,

PockyClipsNow says

hide these horrifying time waster threads of complete lunacy and egoism,

I agree about it bewing a time waster and about the egoism.

It is a waste of my time, to respond to Dan here. And obviously he is wasting his time. But I don't see how it wastes much of your time. There are plenty of threads that I choose not to read.

Is it really that difficult to ignore this thread ? Especially after you know what it's about ?

Energy cannot be destroyed. Your brain runs on energy. Obviously the cells contained in the physical body "die" as humans describe it, but the energy contained within is simply transformed.

When consciousness is proven beyond a doubt to be entirely 'created' within the brain, you will have a point. We are not close to being there yet.

Regarding the laws of physics, they are being violated all the time.

After the death of his old friend, Albert Einstein said "Now Besso has departed from this strange world a little ahead of me. That means nothing. People like us ... know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion."

Heraclitusstudent says

SoftShell says

Clearly the brain contains consciousness.


It is not clear how or if the brain creates it.


That is speculation on your part.

To believe that consciousness is not created by the brain, is essentially to believe that there are things in the brain that violate the laws of physics and then influence the brain physically.

There is no evidence of anything known that violate the laws of physics.

Almost anything physical that can affect a car can affect the people inside.
A car is a container for people.
Your example below does not hold water.

Heraclitusstudent says

For example: almost anything physical that affects the brain can affect consciousness. If you drink alcohol, your consciousness is affected, which wouldn't be the case if your brain was just just a container of something unrelated to physics.

bgamall4 says

But regarding the afterlife, you either believe Christ and his Apostles testimony or you don't. You can't prove they are wrong.

Can we prove big foot is a fake? Yes. Can we prove the Loch Ness Monster is a fake? Yes. Can we prove that Zeus and Odin are fakes? Yes. Can we prove that Christ is fake? Yes. And all for the same damn reasons.

You disprove myths by showing that those who had "proof" of them faked the evidence. You disprove myths by showing contradictions of stories. Jesus is no different from Big Foot.

Just because some people are passionate about a fiction, does not mean there is any truth to that fiction. If that were the case, then we'd have teleporters, replicators, phasers, and Klingons.

bgamall4 says

If he has not revealed himself to you it does not mean that he doesn't reveal himself to others.

Substitute Allah, Shiva, Odin, or Alignak and your statement is just as true. Have you accepted your Lord and Savior Shiva? WWOD: What would Odin do? If enough people believe in Alignak, does he become real? Or is your religion racist for rejecting all other people's gods?

bgamall4 says

Not true. Paul said

The rantings of your Paul does not change the fact that the girl's decision to kill herself is perfectly rational if and only if the afterlife she believed in was real. Math trumps Paul. If one rejects the inevitable conclusions of a premise, one is essentially rejecting the premise even if one isn't honest enough to admit it.

SoftShell says

Clearly the brain contains consciousness.

It is not clear how or if the brain creates it.

That is speculation on your part.

1. The statement "the brain contains consciousness" is meaningless.
2. I have not anywhere speculated or stated how the brain creates consciousness.
3. It is empirically verifiable that the brain does create every thought, every sensation, every emotion, every moral principle, every political belief you have. Denying this in the 21st century is like denying that the Earth is round. It is that well established.
4. You still haven't addressed D1, D2, or D3.

curious2 says

Dan8267 says

anyone who considers the death of this girl to be a tragedy is tacitly admitting that he does not really believe in the afterlife.

That is even more true in the abortion debate. Anyone who says that (a) life begins at conception, and (b) those who live without sin will go to eternal paradise, should celebrate abortion.

Even more pertinent, it becomes a moral imperative to murder babies in order to guarantee their placement in paradise if the Christian afterlife has any merit. The idiots who invented the lie of the Christian afterlife didn't put much thought into it, which is why the belief in this premise leads to such spectacularly stupid conclusions.

Much of Christian mythological revisioning over the past 2000 years have been motivated by attempts to plug up all the holes inherit in the afterlife concept. However, you cannot duct tape something that's fundamentally broken and expect it to work. The foundation of the idea has to be sound.

Heraclitusstudent says

To believe that consciousness is not created by the brain, is essentially to believe that there are things in the brain that violate the laws of physics and then influence the brain physically.

There is no evidence of anything known that violate the laws of physics.

On the contrary, everything we know about consciousness is perfectly compatible with the laws of physics

This is true. Furthermore, this argument can be trivially expanded to show that any "supernatural" entity cannot in any way, shape, or form interact with any physical entity since such an interaction would, by definition, by a physical one and would require the supernatural entity to obey all natural laws such as the laws of conservation of various properties.

Hence, if anything supernatural exists, it cannot interact with anything physical, not even sending a message. Therefore, no supernatural god could "create" the universe or talk to man or convey a moral code.

Dan8267 says

The Young Turks discuss this issue including the clause about suicide written to discourage people from offing themselves during their productive and taxable years to get to paradise sooner

Interesting thread, but I can't believe that others aren't more upset at this little brat for killing herself before we could extract her wealth in tax dollars in her potentially most productive working years. We all needed her to prop up Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and all these other broken systems and now the kid got away with consuming our finite supply of food without paying the price, I tell you the nerve.......LOL

marcus says

When suicide happens, the reason is in virtually all cases an extreme emotional state, that is a mentally ill state of mind.

Why should anyone accept your assertion that "an extreme emotional state" is, by definition, a form of mental illness. I've been to weddings. The bride is always in an extreme emotional sense, as are the parents of the bride and many others. Are they all mentally ill?

Leave it to Marcus to define "mental illness" to be anything he doesn't like.

marcus says

We know NOTHING about the girl, or her circumstances.

1. We know what she wrote.
2. This is a dodge.
3. Even if this girl hadn't killed herself, the hypothetical question of whether or not a person should kill herself to be with a loved on in heaven alone is enough to discredit the lie of the afterlife and give us plenty of pragmatic reason to stop spreading that lie.

marcus says

But Dan is so bad at losing arguments, that he comes back to tell us that he wants to spend thousands of words defending his position (actually it's not even his position - he's jumping on the band wagon of some pathetic radical atheists who want to make this girls tragic suicide the fault of religion).

Marcus, you are such a sore loser.

First off, I never "lose" an argument because if anyone makes a valid counter-argument that disproves my belief, I immediately change my belief to fit the new knowledge. I'll flip flop on an issue like John Kerry at the International House of Pancakes if the evidence or reasoning shows my current position is wrong. I am not married to any idea or position. Hell, if you could show that the universe was created by a giant Smurf dick ejaculating the stars, I'll wholeheartedly accept that if the evidence supports it. However, I reserve the right to be skeptical about everything.

Because I'm always willing to change my position if someone can give me a rational reason to do so, it is impossible for me to "lose" an argument. The only thing that is possible is that you have failed to convince me of your position, and that's your bad, not mine.

Second, I have rationally addressed every single argument you made. I've even outlined each argument and my responses so that it is clear that every piece of bullshit you brought up has been addressed. In contrast, you have failed to address any of my responses with an adult conversation. Instead, you simply resort to personal attacks that reflect your immaturity.

Third, speaking of personal attacks, the fact that you dismiss atheists as "pathetic" indicates you are arguing at the level of Ad Hominem at best. See the argument pyramid.

As such, why should anyone respect you or accept anything you say, Marcus?

Fourth, D1, D2, and D3 are certainly my position and I have defended them well. Just because you hate me, doesn't make me wrong. In fact, you hate me because I'm right and you cannot think of anyway to discredit my arguments, which is exactly why you resort to personal attacks. And quite frankly, it's pathetic that you feel the need to do so instead of simply addressing the subject matter.

Finally, this thread is and has always been specifically about the afterlife lie, not religion in general; and the fact that religion causes people to do stupid things like killing themselves or flying planes into buildings is not the fault of atheists.

PockyClipsNow says

Is it possible on this site to NEVER SEE any post from either Religion or Politics 'zones'?

Yes, it's quite easy. Simply do not click on those threads. It's like channel surfing on T.V. If you don't want to see man butt sex, don't click on the gay porn channel.

curious2 says

That's it in a nutshell: the point of believing in an afterlife is to relieve temporarily the cognitive dissonance of mortality by denying it, but the professed belief doesn't hold up when the 'believer' is confronted with the undeniable fact of imminent or actual death.
...
This hapless girl was a true believer, and alas followed that belief to its logical conclusion, and the professed believers (e.g. Marcus) are dismayed and dissemble illogically.

Well said. That's D1, D2, and D3 in a nutshell. And none of the pro-afterlife-lie people have even addressed this issue.

curious2 says

By that logic, a truly believing female should have as many abortions as possible. Each "accursed" woman could have hundreds of abortions, sending hundreds of innocent children to eternal paradise, though at the risk of her own soul. If she survives past the age of fertility, she could then repent, and be saved.

Totally agree, except for the last sentence. The woman has nothing to repent for since she did what was morally right even though it took a lot of effort and suffering on her own part. She would be a fine moral example if the afterlife lie weren't a lie. Any just god would consider her the greatest saint ever.

The existence of the afterlife materially affects whether or not specific actions are good or evil. It's not merely a "white lie" that we tell to comfort people. It has real-world implications including moral ones.

marcus says

It is a waste of my time, to respond to Dan here. And obviously he is wasting his time.

It is never a waste of time to ridicule the village idiot. Doing so serves a purpose, the purpose of discouraging future generations from adopting the role.

Every time I make you look like a dumb ass, as easy as that is, some kid reading this thread will realize how idiotic your superstitions and irrationality is and therefore will reject them. This prevents the virus of your bigotry from infecting the next generation.

Stupid ideas that are popular must be refuted no matter how obviously stupid they are. Idiocracy should not be socially acceptable. This truth is illustrated by one of George W. Bush's statements,

God told me to invade Iraq.

Millions of deaths of men, women, and children justify the opposition of the falsehoods of superstitions.

SoftShell says

Energy cannot be destroyed. Your brain runs on energy. Obviously the cells contained in the physical body "die" as humans describe it, but the energy contained within is simply transformed.

Yes, but energy isn't consciousness. The vast majority of the energy in the human brain remains as rest mass. The chemical energy in the brain is transformed as the brain rots and is eaten by micro-organisms. The transfer of this chemical energy to the micro-organisms does not make those micro-organism sentient.

The law of conservation of mass-energy does not mean that consciousness is not destroyed.

SoftShell says

Regarding the laws of physics, they are being violated all the time.

The laws of nature, by definition, are not violated. That is precisely why we call them natural laws.

Human understanding of these laws are constantly being improved, but mankind's knowledge is already so far advance that the old "god of gaps" argument no longer has enough bullshit room to support an afterlife myth. Yes, man is considerably less ignorant of the universe than he was in the Bronze Age.

SoftShell says

Energy cannot be destroyed. Your brain runs on energy. Obviously the cells contained in the physical body "die" as humans describe it, but the energy contained within is simply transformed.

Brain energy is dissipated as heat constantly.
If you are trying to imply that consciousness should continue to exists simply because the energy continues to exist... That would be a very bad misunderstanding.

SoftShell says

Regarding the laws of physics, they are being violated all the time.

You are obviously not conscious of what you are saying. If there was a single reproducible experiment showing something that violates laws of physics, it would make headlines and be a huge opportunity for physicists to refine their understanding of nature. There are no such experiment. And certainly nothing we know about consciousness even comes close to that.

SoftShell says

Almost anything physical that can affect a car can affect the people inside.

A car is a container for people.

Your example below does not hold water.

That's a BS argument. If you believe that consciousness can survive brain decay after death, then, to follow your analogy, the total destruction of the car leaves people inside unaffected.

So you really need to explain to us how a simple chemical like alcohol can affect consciousness if total brain decay doesn't.

Dan8267 says

3. Even if this girl hadn't killed herself, the hypothetical question of whether or not a person should kill herself to be with a loved on in heaven alone is enough to discredit the lie of the afterlife and give us plenty of pragmatic reason to stop spreading that lie.

Except for the fact that as far as we know, millions of people (perhaps billions if we include the past - maybe even billions without considering the past) believe in an after life, and NONE of them have killed themselves for the sole purpose of being with deceased loved ones.

Oh wait, sorry, there is that one time, the reason for this thread, that in a suicidal state, a girl wrote a phrase about missing her father, while in her suicide note. Dan argues that it wasn't her sick suicidal state of mind that caused her to kill herself, it was that she truly thought with certainty:

1) heaven exists
2) she will be forgiven for killing herself and go to heaven
3) she will be with her father in heaven after she dies
4) going ahead and seeing him now is better than living her life first (not that "now" would even have the same meaning in heaven that it does in this world).

All that from one phrase in her suicidal note, explaining to her mother why she shouldn't feel bad.

Of course we don't know. Maybe she thought that she would go to hell for killing herself, and for some reason felt certain her father was in hell, and that they would be reunited there ?

PockyClipsNow says

seriously i hate every thread ever in those areas.

Study Myers Briggs personality types. N people love discussions about big fuzzy topics: politics, religion, afterlife. S people can't stand them. Not everyone is like you. Get over it.

BobDDstryr says

You keep saying that if you believe in an afterlife, that suicide is rational and logical; its still not. If there's an afterlife - you'll be able to see your loved ones again eventually, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't do what you can with this life - make friends, find love; have children; increase your circle of loved ones that you'd be spending your afterlife with.

marcus says

BobDDstryr says

Maybe she would have committed suicide anyway, but that made a convenient excuse. Maybe she felt that her mom would appreciate that note more than one saying "It hurts too much to continue living, and just being with you isn't good enough anymore." Maybe she thought she'd actually survive it, and it was an elaborate cry for help.

Another good point. What if her Mom was constantly saying that her dad is in heaven but she didn't buy it and was in a sick suicidal state. In that case it seems like a reasonable thng to say to her Mom. In other words "if that's how you cope with dad being gone, hopefully it will work for coping with my being gone too."

Excellent points.

Dan has, through force of hand waving, shaky assumption, logical deduction, and the sheer force of his overweening personality disproven the Afterlife (TM).
Now fuck off and die!

Quigley says

Dan has, through force of hand waving, shaky assumption, logical deduction, and the sheer force of his overweening personality disproven the Afterlife

He used even weaker reasoning to prove that one phrase to her mother (with the antecedent "don't feel bad Mom"), is proof that the girl was of sound mind and made a rational decision to kill herself for the purpose of being with her father in the afterlife, actually knowing that she would be.

He actually believes he has proven this ?

It seems that given enough hand waving, and his personality, Dan can prove anything he sets his mind to proving.

Hey, it is the internet after all. I don't think he even cares if this character "Dan" that he has created is a total douchebag.

For those that follow a religion: Islam/Christianity/Judaism/etc.. - committing suicide is a one way ticket to hell. So this girl was either not given the proper understanding of life and death or was mentally disturbed. To be clear, this was not an act of love but rather of misunderstanding and confusion.

As far as other claims made by atheists that there is nothing after death; they cannot give 100% proof to support their claim. Neither can those individuals who have "nearly" died claim to know what comes next as near death is not the same as death.

Atheists like to pin their arguments on the known and observable universe. So it would be pointless to discuss with them the unknown. This would be akin to debating the size of the unknown universe (e.g., the portion of the universe for which light has not reached us and may never reach us. Therefore we cannot observe it nor can we deny that it exists with absolute certainty).

Puzzling are Atheists in my book. Why you may ask? Simply because they claim that God has nothing to do with creation. They claim that everything happens by chance. By chance the Universe was created from nothing; by chance planets form, by chance humans evolved from a single cell amoeba, by chance septillions of stars (1 trillion times 1 billion) are created-all of them following the exact same laws of planetary motion- and so on...

From this chaos and absolute chance we are able to derive definitive laws for genetics, physics, etc. At the end of the day, the core argument for atheists is that pure chaos and chance begets absolute perfection. Puzzling indeed.

this is basically why they outlawed suicide so early on in the history of religions. People killing themselves to get to the afterlife became an epidemic in early iterations of religious ideas. Yes, humans really are that dumb.

kashif313 says

they cannot give 100% proof to support their claim.

I think this line of reasoning was thoroughly shown to be self-evidently stupid. While atheist can't give 100% proof afterlife doesn't exist, religious people can't give the slightest evidence it does. Therefore, given the grotesque surrealist, physical laws violating, concept, it is 99.999% reasonable to assume it doesn't exist, just like a pink unicorn in NYC bending the laws of physics can safely be assumed to not exist.

humanity says

He actually believes he has proven this ?

It seems that given enough hand waving, and his personality, Dan can prove
anything he sets his mind to proving.

Hey, it is the internet after all. I don't think he even cares if this
character "Dan" that he has created is a total douchebag.

LOL, you and others, don't believe that there's an actual person named Dan, that you and them have read his posts and responded to, yet believe in a god and an afterlife though.

Toooooooo funny.

kashif313 says

Atheists like to pin their arguments on the known and observable universe. So it would be pointless to discuss with them the unknown.

Agnostic people claim they don't know the unknown and that is the 100% correct position.

Religious people claim they know the unknown and have grand delusions about what is in-there.

Atheists stay on the safe side to assume there in nothing magical until it becomes known otherwise. A much safer position than the religious one.

Heraclitusstudent says

kashif313 says

Atheists like to pin their arguments on the known and observable universe. So it would be pointless to discuss with them the unknown.

Agnostic people claim they don't know the unknown and that is the 100% correct position.

Religious people claim they know the unknown and have grand delusions about what is in-there.

Atheists stay on the safe side to assume there in nothing magical until it becomes known otherwise. A much safer position than the religious one.

I agree with the agnostic part, doesn't mean there are no incentives to lead a good life. I also often heard that agnostics are just too scared to admit they are atheists, which I disagree with. You can believe in a creative force (which I do) without having to or being able to exactly outline every inch of it. Part of the creative force is that you cannot comprehend it fully, similar to us not able to experience more than 3 dimensions. Plus atheists cannot answer the question what was there before the big-bang or who created the massive and dense energy that erupted into the big-bang.

kashif313 says

They claim that everything happens by chance. By chance the Universe was created from nothing; by chance planets form, by chance humans evolved from a single cell amoeba, by chance septillions of stars (1 trillion times 1 billion) are created-all of them following the exact same laws of planetary motion- and so on...

What we know about how the universe became what it is from the big bang has nothing to do with chance, and it fact nothing to do with atheism: it's just what is known about it.

Typical of religious people to say they want to talk about the unknown, and start by dismissing what is known.