What's your Religion?

yes mother.

 

I really wrote something thoughtful and nice and that guy totally just flamed me. Its time to ignore that person comepletely. Give them a negative points rating, and then block people like that. Its not about their belief, or their disbelief- its about respect. And those who have no respect, and are flame artists-

they should get what they deserve.

 

jeez. im getting really bad anxiety attacks over the thought of ceasing to exist.

what happens to the thought process that is happening in my brain now? where will i go? wtf is going to happen. so scary.

 

Best post I've seen on here.

 

Well, the good news is, if you are correct, then you won't know that you've ceased to exist. Seriously, I'm not trying to be funny or sarcastic. If you are correct, you will simply cease to be without knowing that you have.

 

unsuscribing

 

thats horrible though! haha. whatever can't do anything about it anyway.

 

We're electrical- are we not? What happens when the battery gets switched off? I think the only way out is to download whatever our brains contain, and let that go in a computer or onto the net, or perched in a robot with similar senses. Then we could live forever, I bet. Otherwise, off. It has happened to everyone, ever. It sucks, but it's part of our life.

Life is processed in your brains. Yes, -all- of you.

We gather data, sense things, with our sensory organs- eyes, nose, ears, skin, tongue, and a few others. That encoded data is transmitted via electric current to a place where the signal is decoded. The decoding is "experience." That means as you see something, there must be a little movie in your head that you are watching. You are definitely not "seeing the outside world." You are sensing it with your eyes, but your brain is "making sense" of it- inside your brain.

Your only communication with the outside world, the direct contact, is olfactory.

But why despair? Rejoice! You get to interact with everything in this world, and you can think in amazing ways. Life is robust, just not infinite.

 

Most people demand the various parts of their lives make sense- until religion comes along. Then, the same rational people allow exceptions to hard-fought rules.

I continue to ask why, and nobody has answered.

I'm not being coy, I genuinely want to know why.

 

^^ thats exactly how i feel. i argue as hard as i can against everyone who believes. not because i want to prove them wrong, but because i want to be proven wrong. i want there to be a point where i can argue no longer.

 

Im not one to talk philosophy, especially considering I don't have the wisdom that comes with age. But there are a lot of things that don't make sense to me in life, (politics/genocide/media/murders/many aspects of science) and I am okay with that. There are many mind boggling things of this world I will never understand but I truly believe is god created us, we screwed up, and god sent his son to redeem us. i believe in your previous post you have pointed out some type of contradictions but i feel there are times when it comes to faith. besides, science doesnt have the answers to everything. i have accepted that there are things we as humans can't understand i believe science would back this up. Don't quote me on this but i have heard Einstein said we only use like 10% of our brains. and i truly believe with that other 90% we'd have a better understanding everything ranging from the beginning of time to the end.

Somebody else could proably answer your question alot better than me but there is some of my reasoning

 

I just read through the last 5 or 6 pages and came to one conclusion. I want pizza.

 

interesting post about life, brains and everything on this earth. What are your thoughts about a person's soul, or lack thereof? Your posts are well thought out and I'm just curious. Thanks.

 

just had pizza for lunch brother....nom nom nom....yummy......

 

I clicked "other".

I'm a Blue Domer.

 

It's religion we are talking about here, there is no right or wrong, just different opinions. If you are looking to be proven wrong you will never get it, all you will get are people's individual interpretations and beliefs.

 

You, at any age, have just as much right to put forth your own ideas about life and the nature of reality. I love the way children flatly and openly deny supposedly "adult" beliefs, religious or otherwise. They seem to be honest without peer pressure- at your age I had just made the transition from Catholic to "I dont know, but I sure feel a lot of guilt for letting down my family and friends and the whole town but the truth is probably something other than what they want to force down my throat, perhaps"

Why do you believe God made us?

I dont believe there is a soul in the same way I do not believe in the term "mind." We have a brain, and in that brain is where we receive signals about the outside world- we do not have the outside world in our brain. We dont experience it directly. Anything we "experience" is has been sampled, encoded, then the electricity sent to a part of the brain where we decode the signal, and construct some approximation of the world. We do not see in 3-D, the back of our eyes are flat, so, your brain "created the illusion" of 3-D. You feel robust and alive, and you are. And in the same way that the mind is what we project it to be- an extension of our brain- the soul is thought to be the extension of our bodies. But, cut me open and what comes out? Brains, blood, goo, whatever. If you destroy the body, no soul leaks out, and if you destroy the brain, the "mind" is nowhere to be seen.


Things dont make sense- is what you said. I would argue that human beings can not do anything other than try to make sense of stuff. The alternative is to accept ambiguity and most people find that to be disturbing or scary, so we go ahead and make sense of available data- even if we have to make sense in a way that is wrong (imagine you were in a war, should you really kill a man who is a stranger?). I'm not arguing about war, I'm arguing about making sense of things in ways that arent true or lead to poor choices. That man was not your personal enemy, and so killing him for your country may not make the most sense in a personal way, and I believe that's where we get some of the PTSD cases (even tho it may have saved your own life). (There are many other examples- and I ask everyone who reads this not to get stuck on my war example, but to come up with other examples of their own.)


Science does not have answers to everything, but it at least provides a method of returning useful data. Any data or hypothesis proven false is rejected, and in turn, leads the scientist to more useful questions. Once something is considered to be true, are we foolish enough to think we are correct without the possibility of error? Hopefully not, but also, I hope we are not egotistical- in other words, if I spent my life proving my theory and at the end of 80 years of searching and questioning I was proved to be wrong- I would accept that as a triumph even if I was wrong the whole time. Not to preserve my ego, but because we found something to be true.

I would rather hold one true fact in my head than a billion dazzling falsehoods.

The brain. [FONT=Trebuchet MS,Bookman Old Style,Arial]Brain imaging research techniques such as PET scans (positron emission tomography) and fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) clearly show that the vast majority of the brain does not lie fallow.

As you get older, you will be bombarded by information from every source possible. People, TV, the sky, cereal boxes, etc... There's too much info, and some of it is just easier to "allow" rather than to "question." Just dont allow the big stuff to go unquestioned. Do allow anyone- not me, not your parents, not "religious leaders", not the president of France, not bloggers on TacomaWorld.com, not ANYONE- to tell you what to think about anything. If you want to believe in God- I think you should prove the existence of God (otherwise why bother?) to yourself. The idea that there is a God (where) is not the problem- to me it is the unquestioning belief. I have friends who will tell me outright- "do not even bother to question me on it, I simply believe in god." They have no proof and nowhere to build a foundation for knowledge.

I dont believe in god because no proof exists. If it did, I would believe right now and even then I would keep an eye out for trickery. Science is on the quest to prove what is true and what is false, it is not the enemy of religion (even as religions accept more and more of what science brings to the table, like technology).

I think we can understand even the very complex stuff, maybe not now, but with computers and other technology, and further breakthroughs in small steps, we will one day understand the nature of the universe. Think back 5000 years ago, they did not talk to a person who was "out of earshot." Even if you could yell, the farthest was about a football field. And only recently did we grasp the technology to talk to a person, anywhere, at any time, and without shouting- even while driving over a mountain in your sky blu tacoma 4x4.
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I didn't want to quote anything out of context so I left it all together.
Brother your post is awesome. Even though I may not roll with what you are saying, you say it very well. I would hope when I advocate Christianity I can do it as good as you advocate your beliefs/non-beliefs. Probably don't though, cause I don't think I'm as smart as you. I mean that respectfully too.

(1) so true. I have gotton proof in my life which helps me to verify His existance. Such a true statement. We only need to seek our own proof, not proof from others.

(2)I work with a converted atheist that had many of the same thoughts and made statements like this as they were true facts too. He got so frustrated trying to disprove creation that now he is a Christian and a dedicated creationist who is well versed on many proofs. His knowledge of creation and the Bible always amazes me. He studies creation many hours a week and even as a Christian he tries to find the cracks kinda like you mentioned, and can't seem to do it.

(3) so true. As a matter of fact, scientists help to prove creation as written in the Bible.
hope I'm not getting too far off your thought process but check this out. Maybe true, maybe not, but just something to watch>> http://www.allaboutscience.org/evolution-of-man-video.htm

(4) I don't think you actually meant 5000 years, but if you did, can you prove the earth is that old? Just sayin..... .......oh wait, lets not do any of that proving stuff because I'm not going to go through trying to prove there is a God and that the earth is not 5000 years old. Nevermind point #4. Refer to point (1)


Thanks for your post dude. Not to put words in your mouth, but I gathered you don't believe humans have a soul.


Thanks for your time to post your thoughts on this subject.