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"Life after Death"

Do you believe in life after death?. Following being diagnosed with cancer my life was put on stop, my world changed instantly. I and my family were in shock but I was not mad or asked why me?. I was however mad at the system that allowed me to get in this situation because there was history in my case that appeared not to mean a thing. I then had experiences that only convinced me that there are stranger things in heaven than on earth. Not a stranger to mystical events in the past I started a mission to work with cancer

How is it a cop out to be a naturalistic philosopher because there are some unexplainable occurences? They're unexplainable - hence they're not inside nature (perhaps) but EQUALLY if not more so, not necessarily OUTSIDE nature.

It is worth thinking about the richness of human life and how we conceive beauty, emotions, love, moral values all that kind of stuff within our brains, are we taught all this or are there physical entities within our brain. Philosophical naturalists believe there is nothing beyond the physical world, no supernatural creative intelligence in the universe, no soul that outlasts the body but miracles occur in natural phenomena that are not yet understood. A bit of a cop out!!!!
Then we have the Deists, Theists and Pantheists all with their version of God or the Creator. The physicists and scientists trying to explain “why” then the followers of any religion believing that their God is the soul way, truth and light. Religious Gods are interventionists, miracle wreaking, thought reading, sin punishing, prayer- answering all through faith, priests, mullahs and rabbis. So do we talk to our friends and ask “Do you believe in an afterlife” I doubt it but it's a great talking point.

Cycloon wrote:
> Indeed Garin, it certainly has changed in many ways. What I meant
> was in its essential 'core', Christianity remains exactly the
> same as it was. Same with other religions. As far as I'm aware.
> It's more a comment on the process rather than the facts. ish.
>
> Geffdof; because it doesn't have the right answer, it has an
> answer. And that's the whole argument all over again, so let's
> not go there ;) Leave it at that i finks.

I was meaning if anything had the right answer why would it need to change? Religion thinks it has the right answer and doesn't need to change. Science assumes it has the best answer with the current evidence and will alter in the future. Its probably foolish to get into this again though, as you say.

Science is seen by many as the only way forward nothing else exists, religion has no place, Richard Dawkins is a good example but what happens in nature he describes as a wonder.
Religion and science have been poles apart for millennia; one deals morals and faith the other with mathematics and models. It is the path between and the undiscovered dimensions that await us is challenging. Dean Hamer a guy who is a leading geneticists working on personality traits for the National Cancer Institute in the USA, has found spirituality is an innate part of human beings and can be measure. Religion is results of spiritual experience the two are different. Hamer also studies Bible stories through genetics. The exodus of the Jews from Egypt is correct, as far as he can tell from their genetics. Jews diverged from that part of the world around the time of Jesus. By blood testing for twelve Y-chromosome markers that Cohanium Jews (a special priesthood) around the world had a distinctive genetic signature. Even black South Africans who were Jews, way down at the end of Africa, isolated still kept that injunction.

Indeed Garin, it certainly has changed in many ways. What I meant was in its essential 'core', Christianity remains exactly the same as it was. Same with other religions. As far as I'm aware. It's more a comment on the process rather than the facts. ish.

Geffdof; because it doesn't have the right answer, it has an answer. And that's the whole argument all over again, so let's not go there ;) Leave it at that i finks.

I think it would be very difficult to argue that religion hasnt changed anyway.

If religion has the right answer, why would it need to change?

That's called science. The point being, science responds to the evidence and changes theory accordingly. So yes, there might be scientifically explainable 'supernatural' (if that's not a contradiction..!) events etc, but the thing is they're not scientific orthodoxy.

Science can be accused of snobbery in that respect, in that weirder theories might not get airtime - usually because they actually suck (and don't confuse science with translation of science into industry, i.e green cars being stifled by oil companies etc). The point being, it's the best we have - religion has the same idea for 2000 years and refuses to change. There's a fantastic diagram I found which depicts all this...but i can't seem to link to it hah.

Read some Popper, nothing is 100% provable anyway in science. Doesn't mean it's not the best way to go at the moment...

A report in the "Sunday Times" on 13th December 1981. It said that physicists could have been wrong for forty years about the make-up of the universe. !!!!!1

"The suppression of uncomfortable ideas may be common in religion and politics, but it is not the path to knowledge, it has no place in the endeavour of science."
Carl Sagan. "Cosmos" 1980
Sir Oliver Lodge and Sir William Crookes were pioneers of radio and television, they were able to put forward a rational explanation to account for the seemingly "supernatural" phenomena appearing at their experiments. They said that this etheric world is the same place as our radio and television signals, but at a much higher frequency. Recent discoveries in quantum mechanics - the study of the building blocks within the atom - completely vindicate what these great physicists said at the beginning of the century. They were adamant that we all survive the death of our physical bodies. The experiments proved that we must possess two bodies - one finite body containing the brain that dies, and another infinite body, containing the mind that separates when our short stay on earth is over. Lodge said the people from the "next world" who are appearing at the experiments must possess bodies that are made of the same invisible matter as our radio and television signals. He called it an etheric substance.
Written by Michael Roll (campaign for philosophical freedom)
Einstein said on his 70th birthday:
"Now you think I am looking at my life's work with calm satisfaction. But there is not a single concept of which I am convinced that it will stand firm. I am not sure if I was on the right track after all."
There are discoveries that are challenging the know mathematics and physics. If these are being suppressed by our materialistic world are people interested?

The "God" idea just makes me sceptical that we will ever find life "out there". From a science point of view, there is no evidence (as far as I know) to life on other planets. If there was I'm sure it would have been all over the media. All we have managed to do is to send a handful of people to the moon and no further and then a few robots to Mars so I think we have barely scratched the surface of the universe and I doubt we will be getting very far any time soon.

If I don't believe that life can spontaneously appear on earth, then it logically follows that I shouldn't believe in it happening on other planets either. From my point of view, any other life in the universe would also be made by God. I suppose that's possible, but I personally doubt it. I have no evidence to back that up of course. The bible doesn't say that there is no life on other planets so I suppose its possible. I just doubt it myself.