>> ^gwiz665:
There is no "driver behind the eyes", so to speak, but I know what you're getting at. Purely theoretically, molecules could form that made up the exact same "self" as the one I have now. But I don't see the difference between reincarnation and this? I don't think this could ever happen. The complexity involved is so enormous the the statistical chance of it being able to happen (again) is close to nothing.

Well, that's a different argument, actually: If the universe were to be infinitely old, in fact, you have probably existed before, with the exact same atoms and such. It's not infinitely old, but still an interesting argument.

But even still, it doesn't interest me very much that if in the future someone creates an exact duplicate of myself. My consciousness won't magically transfer from my dead body to the new one, so it's irrelevant. It's like those transporters on Star Trek - they annihilate one body and create a duplicate in another place. I'd never step on to one of them.

No, I'm talking about your conscious self, self-awareness, stream of consciousness, whatever it is that you'd like to call it. I think the only counterargument is that you're not actually a conscious entity. Which seems rather at odds with reality. Assuming, of course, that you do have conscious experience.

>> ^ShakaUVM:
I think the most compelling argument is this:
1) Before we were born, we didn't exist.
2) We exist now.
3) Therefore there is evidence that we can go from nothingness to existence.
4) Therefore after we die (ostensibly transitioning from existence to nothingness) there is no reason that we could not transition from nothingness to existence again. This supports either Buddhistic reincarnation or a Christian heaven.
5) In fact, the preponderance of the evidence suggests so, since we have evidence that we can transition from nothingness to existence, but nothing supporting the atheistic view that death is extinction, and nothing can happen to us after dying.


Wow. I am so... compelled.

There is no "driver behind the eyes", so to speak, but I know what you're getting at. Purely theoretically, molecules could form that made up the exact same "self" as the one I have now. But I don't see the difference between reincarnation and this? I don't think this could ever happen. The complexity involved is so enormous the the statistical chance of it being able to happen (again) is close to nothing.

>> ^ShakaUVM:
@Gwiz:
Aaah, I'm not going to flat out agree or disagree with that. "Life after death" implies that the life is sort of like the one we have now, or that "something carries over" to the second life. This I reject wholeheartedly, and the evidence does in no way support that idea.
Right. Which is why at no time did I claim that a reincarnated individual, for example, would have any memory of his past life.
The claim is about the you (the "you" sitting behind the drivers seat of your body, and not me) that could occur again after death. While it sounds wildly implausible, the fact that it has happened already is our only solid point of evidence, so it would be rather irrational for us to arrogantly claim it could never happen again.
Of course, in a "resurrection of the body" type environment, such things would be possible.

>> ^iwazaru:
so you're just assuming some kind of dualism. and jumping from that to any specific brand of religion is a giant non-sequitur.

I don't think that the dichotomy between dualism and materialism is meaningful beyond a certain sense of historical importance.

Is an idea different from, say, an apple? Trivially, yes. Is a thought located somewhere within our craniums? Trivially, yes.

So they're both true. Or both false. Take your pick.

There's a variety of flavors of dualisms and materialisms, but I don't think any are very good ways of trying to explain the world.

>> ^ShakaUVM:
Mind expanding on that thesis?The Christian idea of a created universe with a finite beginning and the gradual emergence of life matches our current scientific understanding. The Buddhist conception does not.


Oh, you mean the "When God created the heavens and the earth in six days" part?

You consider that scientific?

When you speak of life appearing relatively recently, you realize that you are only speaking of our own planet.

You can't say the same for other planets, nor can you say the same for other solar systems in other galaxies.

You have to consider that the phenomenon that we call "life" is in itself a very specific chain of events, and that there are probably other forms of life somewhere out there that do not cohere to our definitions, but they are alive nontheless.

I'm sorry, but to claim that the Big Bang theory proves Christianity correct and Buddhism incorrect is speculative at best, and very arrogant.

In short, you have no proof. You are drawing a conclusion based on limited facts, the same as me, the same as everybody else, and your conclusion is, at best, nothing more than a guess, or a wish.

>> ^ShakaUVM:
...scientific evidence favors Christianity over Buddhism.

Mind expanding on that thesis?

>> ^mauz15:
Another site you can get the course is:
http://academicearth.org/courses/introduction-to-political-philosophy

http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=yalecourses&view=playlists
They also have a philosophy of Death course.


For sharing those links with me you are henchforth bookmarked as a GOD AMONG MEN by me! All hail the Mighty Mauz (pun very much intended)!

>> ^youmakekittymad
1) the idea of the physical being inferior to the point of being "evil" is an Eastern religious/philosophical one, not Hellenic. Greek philosophy, if one takes Plato as representative of the entirety of that school, only held that perfection was not possible in the physical, but that is not a moral judgment. Ancient Hellenic religious traditions held that the gods were full of the same imperfections as humanity.
2) you would be hard-pressed to find a Christian dogma that holds that the dead are given new PHYSICAL bodies in the afterlife. if one takes their doctrine directly from the bible, hell is described as being a place away from the sight of god and without his grace, which is supposed to be eternal torment. being given a physical body in heaven would actually run contrary to christian teaching since it would allow for physical pleasures - which are generally deemed as base and even sinful on earth - in the afterlife.
which leads me to
3) presenting the miracles jesus is said to have performed in the healing of the sick as evidence for his divinity or the historicity of his person does not help your case a whit as that is one of the major points AGAINST his alleged divinity. it is a well-known problem in christian theology that while jesus taught that the earthly was base and that the afterlife he would create for all mankind was idyllic beyond description, he went to endless trouble to heal the sick and even went so far as resurrecting the dead. attempts to resolve this have only caused further arguments over the fate of lazarus after his resurrection and whether life of the soul after death would be granted, retroactively, to those who had lived before the time of jesus.
all of which is merely to say: sit down. your interpretation of christian doctrine of the afterlife is, at least, equally as made up. Hitchens merely has the edge on you of having his being scripturally correct.


1)I stand corrected. However, even Platonism is dualistic in nature - saying that there is a separation of the ideal/spiritual and the physical/material. My point is simply that this is not a Biblical idea.

2)Ummm, no. Catholics and most Protestants would agree that they ARE given physical bodies. Otherwise, Christians wouldn't call it Resurrection. Christian teaching never says that physical pleasures are evil. Rather, Christian teaching says that sin is a perversion or twisting of what God designed to be good. Contrary to popular mythology, even the Puritans respected a healthy sexuality. If any of them were having marital problems their first question was always "Are you having enough sex?" Christianity would say it becomes sinful when taken outside of marriage because that takes it out of God's intended design, but otherwise go have fun with it. Jesus' first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding. He was often criticized by the Pharisees and religious community because he would go to parties, feasts, and the kinds of people he associated with.

3)Jesus never taught that the earthly was base. Again, earth was very important. Why else would God have created the earth and humanity and then declared it good in Genesis? Why else would Jesus come as a man? One of the fundamental doctrines in Christianity is that Jesus was fully God and fully man. This means that there is NO problem with the sicked being healed, but instead reinforces the idea that the physical IS important.

I really don't know where you're getting these ideas of what Christians believe, but they're very far off. As for Hitchens being scripturally correct, I just watched the video again and he doesn't quote it even once. Instead, he makes generalizations about things the Bible never says. He also misquotes C.S. Lewis.

>> ^Morganth:
Hitchens makes an excellent argument against this straw man Jesus he's set up. "Take no care for the morrow" would be almost completely against what the biblical Jesus taught. Why would Jesus have healed countless sick people if he knew they were going to die anyways? The idea that metaphysical or spiritual is more important than physical or that the material world is evil is Greek philosophy, not a Biblical one.
Christianity is a faith that believes Jesus came to redeem all creation (the physical AND the spiritual). Christians don't think they're going to be just spirits floating around, but rather that they'll receive new bodies. Hitchens is just shaking his fist at a faith he made up.


1) the idea of the physical being inferior to the point of being "evil" is an Eastern religious/philosophical one, not Hellenic. Greek philosophy, if one takes Plato as representative of the entirety of that school, only held that perfection was not possible in the physical, but that is not a moral judgment. Ancient Hellenic religious traditions held that the gods were full of the same imperfections as humanity.

2) you would be hard-pressed to find a Christian dogma that holds that the dead are given new PHYSICAL bodies in the afterlife. if one takes their doctrine directly from the bible, hell is described as being a place away from the sight of god and without his grace, which is supposed to be eternal torment. being given a physical body in heaven would actually run contrary to christian teaching since it would allow for physical pleasures - which are generally deemed as base and even sinful on earth - in the afterlife.

which leads me to
3) presenting the miracles jesus is said to have performed in the healing of the sick as evidence for his divinity or the historicity of his person does not help your case a whit as that is one of the major points AGAINST his alleged divinity. it is a well-known problem in christian theology that while jesus taught that the earthly was base and that the afterlife he would create for all mankind was idyllic beyond description, he went to endless trouble to heal the sick and even went so far as resurrecting the dead. attempts to resolve this have only caused further arguments over the fate of lazarus after his resurrection and whether life of the soul after death would be granted, retroactively, to those who had lived before the time of jesus.

all of which is merely to say: sit down. your interpretation of christian doctrine of the afterlife is, at least, equally as made up. Hitchens merely has the edge on you of having his being scripturally correct.

>> Assuming all the negative stereotypes of atheists can be discounted ("criminal behavior, rampant materialism, cultural elitism")

Those are mostly false stereotypes, unless the Bush administration was a bunch of Atheists.

(yeah I know I am answering a logical fallacy with a logical fallacy)

Morality is independent belief in God or any religious belief. This has been known since Plato and Aristotle, and virtually every philosopher since then has concurred. Saints and criminals can be found among both believers and non-believers.

The simpleton who thinks that the only motivation humans have to do good in the world is so that we can get rewarded after we die, is in desperate need of education.

Whaddaya know, much of the plot is from Plato's 'Symposium':

At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way. He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will humble their pride and improve their manners; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soulmate#Theories

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffrent_Strokes#Post-show_troubles

Three of the child stars ended up having problems after the show ended. Dana Plato went on to pose for Playboy, and also appeared in softcore films. She was later arrested twice (once for armed robbery, again for forging a prescription for Valium). She died of a drug overdose in 1999 at the age of 34.[2]
Todd Bridges was arrested in 1994 after allegedly ramming someone's car after an argument.[3] He also had issues with illegal drugs for several years, before turning his life around. He has since traveled across the U.S.A., touring schools discussing the dangers of drug use.[4]
In 1989, Gary Coleman sued his parents and his former manager over misappropriation of his trust fund. Although he was awarded over $1,000,000 in the decision, he filed for bankruptcy in 1999. Coleman was charged with assault in 1998 after he punched a woman while he was working as a security guard at a shopping mall. In 2001, Coleman (still working as a security guard) was videotaped trying to stop a vehicle from entering the mall. The driver ridiculed him, and released the tape to be broadcast on numerous television shows.[5] In the mid-2000s, Coleman lent his voice and likeness to the controversial videogame Postal2. In 2007, Coleman was cited for disorderly conduct in Provo, Utah for having a "heated discussion" with a woman.[6]

>> ^MINK:
^and here unravels the "transparency" dream, who watches the watchers, etc etc.
don't worry this problem is only about 100000 years old.


Yeah, it was the major flaw in Plato's Republic.

I agree with MINK. I'm probably not as outraged, but the whole thing seems like it deserves an explanation at least. More minor things have been given a talk post, so why shouldn't this? What is going on with this hobbling stuff?

>> ^budzos:
D'Souza's "three basic faith-based principles upon which science is suspended" are utter fucking nonsense. Each one boils down to a logical fallacy, first and foremost being the straw man... I don't think any prominent thinkers are putting forth the idea that the universe is conscious, and I don't think anyone with intelligence is even able to confuse the laws of physics with the laws of man.
He's just a FUCK. ARRGH I CANT STAND THE BULLSHIT.


He does not say that the universe is conscious. He says it is rational. That is, it can be measured, chopped up conceptually into discrete chunks, bits of it can be mathematically compared to other bits, it shows order, and so on. The universe need not be conscious to be rational.

The three "faith-based principles" he mentions are indeed fundamental requirements for science as we know it. (Sort of. The third is only essential for the most popular notions about science, not for doing science itself.) However, the principles are not Christian in origin. They are Greek, from Athens rather than Jerusalem. The the universe is rational, and that the mind corresponds to it, can be found in Plato and Aristotle. That it shows a uniquely mathematical order can be found in Pythagoras.

The principles made their way into modern science through the Renaissance. The creators of modern science, men like Galileo and Kepler, were profoundly interested in Pythagorean theories of the universe.

>> ^GeeSussFreeK:
Government is great at failing, get used to it. It is why the founder fathers wanted it as small as possible.

"Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme liberty."
-Plato



WAIT! I thought only the Republicans failed! I thought only the Republican officials were to blame for abandoning the people of the Gulf Coast! Are you implying that all government can be faulty?!?!? I was promised hope and change...

Now that my sarcasm has run its course, let me applaud you for a very wise and poignant comment.