Today, an autopsy conducted in Oxford, Fla., established that 2 yr old Sheyenna Hare was killed by the family's pet Burmese python. The animal escaped from its aquarium, slithered into the girl's bedroom, then into the crib, where it bit and eventually coiled around and killed the baby. The dad tried to stab the snake but it was too late.

[I’m looking for] one convincing argument that death is not the end. So far, nothing.

So much of so many people's lives depends or is contingent on the belief in an afterlife and I see no reason for it.

ZeusBoy, aren’t these sentences about different things? The first sentence suggests that you are spiritually searching for a reason to believe in an afterlife. The second sentence suggests that you disdain those who do believe in an afterlife.

I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I take issue with the first half of your second sentence (if I read it correctly). Do you really think that “so many people” would have no reason to live if they were told there was no afterlife? I know a few religious people, and I don’t think they would commit suicide or fall into despair if someone told them conclusively that there was no afterlife. Religious people are human, after all, with a natural desire to live. Without an afterlife or a God, I’m sure most of them would “adjust.”

No.

These two aren't contradictory at all. You're assuming I'm searching to satisfy a spiritual quest. I'm not. What I'm saying is that nothing I've ever heard or read convinces me that there'a any rational basis for a belief in an afterlife. I'm interested in reading any argument, if there is one, that convincingly lays out such a case for it.

In the second sentence, I'm saying that much of what religious people do depends or is contingent on their belief in an afterlife. Again, you're assuming that I think they would be plunged into despair without this belief. I'm not saying that. I didn't insinuate that. I'm simply saying there no reason why they should believe what they believe, they can't convince me of what they believe and I think their beliefs should not govern their behaviour.

Why shouldn't their beliefs govern their behavior? Your beliefs govern yours, do they not?

(Now, their beliefs governing your behavior is another kettle of fish...)

I'm talking specifically about the belief in an afterlife, in context. I should have clarified. Let's keep our focus.

Highlights for me:

1. Florida
2. They previously searched the home for dope. Said the snake was ok.
3. "There is no law regarding a snake that kills a person at a residence."

.

I don't believe there is a god, so this means that according to you there can be no answer, right?

You believe. I don't believe. Simple as that, really.

FIlm at 11:00.

... you still haven't explained how all this doubt adds up to knowing anything?

Repeating your reasons for doubting others beliefs does not add up to hard evidence that you know anything.

Polo does a much better job of explaining why he thinks he knows things, so far all you've done is express strong opinions and insist that these are things you 'know'.

It looks to me as if you don't properly understand the difference between opinion and knowlege.

That would place you squarely in the same camp as the folks who believe in the spagetti-monster who lives in the sky.

I'm simply saying there no reason why they should believe what they believe, they can't convince me of what they believe and I think their beliefs should not govern their behaviour.

And why do you have the right to use "should" when it comes to what other people believe?

It seems to me the only time we need concern ourselves with other people's beliefs only when they impinge on us in some way. And when they do (i.e. trying to abolish Roe vs Wade), our response can be a legal one.

But, hey, didn't we all have this discussion in college? Why are we having it again? No one is going to change anyone else's mind.

Do you believe in the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics? It was you who mentioned the demiurge, but can you then not put Copenhagenism in your pipe and smoke it?

There are some strange conflicting vibes at work in what you write, maybe it's your tone, I can't quite put my finger on it ... but I'll try.

Your previous post made a couple of assumptions which were totally unfounded: You assumed I was on a spiritual search of some kind, and I'm not, and then you completely exaggerated my point about how a belief in an afterlife is an untenable, indefensible, and an unsound basis upon which to structure any life.

Now you're saying I have no 'right to use "should" when it comes to what other people believe'. You say further that what people believe should be challenged in the courts if it impinges on us in some way. And then you finish off with a cavalier dismissal of the entire topic under discussion because "we" all discussed it in college. And nobody changes anyone else's mind.

Are you being hostile for a reason?

Yes, we should use "should" when it comes to what other people believe: If some crazy religious fanatic straps a few kilos of ammonal to his body and then goes into a crowded marketplace and murders 30 people because he believes he'll go straight to heaven where he'll be attended by a bevvy of virgins, then I will argue he shouldn't believe that. If a priest buggers 20 young boys and believes he still has a chance at heaven if he confesses his sins, repents, and all that business, then I'll argue he shouldn't believe that or act in that way. I have this right because I give myself this right.

Some beliefs are just crazy. They need to be refuted, debunked, challenged, exposed, whatever, and they need to be treated in this way not only because they affect us in some way but because they're just freaky, weird, stupid, whacked-out. You may have arrived at an impasse at college, so now we should never discuss this again -- Is that what you're saying? Hardly.

I don't pretend to understand 'the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics', so I wouldn't deign to believe or not believe it. Maybe you can explain it to me.

What I'm saying is that nothing I've ever heard or read convinces me that there'a any rational basis for a belief in an afterlife. I'm interested in reading any argument, if there is one, that convincingly lays out such a case for it.

It depends on your governing paradigm. If you begin with the reductionism that is the most widely-applied validity paradigm in modern thinking, then you will never get to an "afterlife," since the whole point of that paradigm is to exclude all data and methods except the elements of empirical science. An "afterlife" conceived of in materialistic terms will easily be shown to be incoherent. Q.E.D.

Philosophy, however, is more ancient than empirical science; and there was a time that monism (what Huxley called "the Perennial Philosophy") was almost universally regarded as the unavoidable premise and ultimate conclusion of human thought. Monism holds that all separate existence is "illusory," in the sense that it is erroneously perceived as subsistent; but it does not exclude the possibility of perceiving existence as simultaneously individual and merged into a single Universal Being. (That kind of statement commits the modern heresy of "mysticism," which is why outside particular discourse communities it is not respected. It is forgotten, however, that virtually every towering human intellect before the eighteenth century, and at least some since then, endorsed some version of it.) If that vision of reality as simultaneously plural and unitary is admitted, then it would not be difficult to argue that bodily life is but one aspect of a more comprehensive reality. In fact, the proposition becomes tautological--Q.E.D.

I avoid the word "belief," since it seems to imply making some kind of loyalty oath to a set of abstract propositions, and I see no need for that at all. I prefer to use the word "imagine," which to me implies a kind of dynamic mental adaptation to a vast and changing array of data, including one's own less-articulated internal experiences. In that sense, I do not find it at all impossible to imagine what is usually called an "afterlife." By that, I don't mean that I could describe it, merely that I don't find the concept disharmonious with the multitude of other improbabilities that we all accept every day without thinking about them.