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If you did not believe in gravity, would you no longer be subject to it?I don't believe in life before being born or life after death.
Your confusing nonexistence with no memory of an event. If I were in a traumatic car accident and could not remember what happened, does it mean those events did not occour? 'Memory' is a very frigile thing and can be influenced by all sorts of different factors, and is not a reliable standard to identify if something exists or not.So to help me understand what it be will like to not exist at all I use the idea of how I was before I was born to help me mind understanding it.
What I think is inline with Judeao/Christian Beliefs.I was wondering what you thought about it.
Define proof. What does proof look like of an after life or a prior one?If you think we might have existed before being born then alright. That is a very supernatural oriented question and so I don't regard it as useful. I don't believe in those things. I can't give proof that I existed or not before I was born and I don't think that's a reasonable or logical request to make.
Drich
My beliefs matter because they determine who I am and how I live, they are the basis for how I interact with and perceive my world and they are not conscious choices a person can make. It is foolish to ask that a person think or act outside of their beliefs.
Good Again! So logically, if 'Memory' does not define existance, and your only reason for not believing in a life beyond what you can currently remember then why would you claim to 'logically' dismiss what you do not remember?While my belief does not determine what is real I am not going to have a conversation on things like gods, demons, existing before I was born because those ideas are illogical and warrant no consideration on my part. I am not going to try consider why logic should be dismissed.
Actually you did. In the OP you assume that non existence was like the time before you were born.. which conclusivly states you assume that believe that existance is somehow tied to memory. I am showing you that conclusion is wrong despite what you strongly believe.I did not address memory at all so I did not mistake memory for anything.
Don't look now sport but I just prooved to you that you existed before you were born as well.(even if you have no memory of it.)If you think existed before you were born then that's fine.
Actually my determination that you lived in your mother's womb before you were born is based in logic and reason. If you insist that it isn't, shows you have closed your mind to anything you do not currently believe.I am not going to pursue that topic and I am not going to try to remember my life before I was born because that would be undermining logic and reason itself.
Drich said:"Oh you intend to be logical! Me too, so you have a duty to logically prove that my pet unicorn from the planet Xerac doesn't exist"
Oh, but it does!you said:Sorry but that's not how it works.
We shall see.Thanks for providing what you think about existence after death. I didn't ask anything else of you. Your interest in what I think and whether or not I should or can prove it isn't the topic or important to me.
What its like after death
It is not that I "feel like there needs to be something after we die", but that there is something after we die is self-evident. Especially in light of Christ's resurrection, the fact of a continued existence - and my own resurrection at some point - seems to me to be quite unavoidable.I know that Christians believe in a heaven and hell and they might also feel like there needs to be something after we die... how could we simply stop existing? What would not existing be like?
There is no way you were before you were conceived and born. You did not exist. So, you cannot go back to the way you were before you born. You had no "way you were" because there was no you.I have begun to think that after I die I will go back to the way I was before I was born. That is to say that the way I was before being born is the way I will be after I die.
So far, your ruminations have not made much sense to me...This makes not existing understandable to me. This makes it easier for me to comprehend what I think not existing means.
I don't feel enthused about the idea of there being nothing after death. Makes life rather pointless, it seems to me. It would mean that whether someone lives like Mother Theresa or Hitler, the end is the same. Not a good incentive for noble, self-sacrificial behaviour. If this life is all I've got, then I would be an idiot to expend any of it in a way that did not maximize my pleasure and self-gratification.How do you guys feel about the idea that we don't really need and afterlife, there doesn't have to be anything, we don't need to continue existing because we didn't need these things before we were born either?
This is a logical fallacy (moving the goal posts)Drich
You would need to provide information for my central nervous system to access and allow it a way to come to a new conclusion.
Why? Is it as i have outlined and you have a closed mind on anything you do not currently understand?Until that happens it is foolish to expect me to talk or act outside of my beliefs.
I don't have the free will to act in a way other than how I believe I should and my beliefs are determined by my brain.
The rest of what you provided displays your confusion on the matter so I am not going to pursue it
If this were true.. then why the need to tell me?You answered my original question and I have nothing else to talk to you about.
Okay.I don't think I had a nature to comprehend before I existed.
But why should you think that you will end the way you began? This is a non sequitur. How can you be certain that your life is just a bridge between points of non-existence?It's that not existing before I was born makes sense to me and so now not existing about I die begins to make sense to me too.
I agree: It is not answerable. Non-existence has no positive character. It is not a state of being, but of non-being.It didn't make sense before because as you said I don't have a memory or an experience to tie to not existing. I was trying to see what it was like to not exist and that doesn't seem like an answerable question.
You haven't really made clear why that is. It sounds to me like you are making an assumption about what transpires after death. It also appears that you are equating your physical self with your intangible Mind-Self, your soul, and are thinking that the end of the former necessitates the end of the latter. Why is that, exactly?But when you compare ceasing to exist to before you existed it's starts making more sense to me.
Well, that may be true for some. I can't really say. It is not, however, true of me - or many other Christians whom I know.The reason I brought up "needing" to exist is because it seems like people insist that they will continue to exist for the reason that they cannot comprehend nonexistence.
Again, I don't see how the one necessitates the other.But if we can comprehend nonexistence by considering the time before we existence then maybe they wont think they need to exist forever.
lol. First me, then drich. aiki should be joining us soon.
...if we can comprehend nonexistence by considering the time before we existence then maybe they wont think they need to exist forever.
I agree with aiki that it doesn't necessarily follow. But I think the more important question is why are you so concerned about people having a need to exist forever? What's your goal in doing so?
I do not have endless patience and I do not talk about things that do not interest me and I do not talk to people who have personal grievances against me very often and if I cannot manage both my goals and another persons methods then I stop talking to them. This is the responsible thing to do and benefits both myself and that other person.
It preserves my happiness and also allows the other person an opportunity to observe and address and possibly resolve their own short comings and accomplish the growth that they need.
If you provide enough incoherent content and the person becomes frustrated with you they are likely to go away. If after two or three of their best attempts they make no progress they are likely to give up and go away.
I don't have a large concern or any goal other then the previously explained desire to see what you think about the information I provided. It was an interest, not a concern.
No one here has any personal grievances against you, my friend. I have offered to have a respectful discussion with you and you refused. I think that if you reviewed our exchanges, you would find that no insults have been coming from my side of the conversation.
Oh, I'm sorry. So the following was not a goal statement?
"...if we can comprehend nonexistence by considering the time before we existence then maybe they wont think they need to exist forever."
I apologize then. I guess I just misunderstood.
It was very clearly stated right there. A very simple request was made. You are projecting your own feelings on to me. You are confusing your own concern with my belief for a concern on my part. Having to explain things like this and endure what appears to be your grievance toward me is frustrating and I don't do that for more than a few posts.How do you guys feel about the idea that...
Very interesting! Do you think it's harder for you to comprehend yourself not existing than it is to comprehend a sandwich not existing?
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