This post isn't about the paranormal or whether there is, in fact, life after death. Rather, it's about the mistaken philosophical conclusions to which atheists sometimes come. In fact, for the sake of this thread, we're going to assume that when you die, there is no afterlife, and you are dead forever.
There are two versions of the Incorrect Interpretation of What It Is Like to Die, as I call it here: the Mean Version and the Nice Version. Both are mistaken in that it is implied or stated that one experiences death after one loses all ability to experience anything.
The Mean Version
You dead, m*th*f***a! And you dead forever! Ain't no sweet chariot coming down to sweep you up to Abraham's bosom. No sir. Just you in your grave, all trapped in there--rotting piteously! The seasons will come and go, the earth itself will be swallowed up by the sun a few billion years from now, and all you'll be is cinders in a dying star. You dead, m*th*f***a!
The Nice Version
Lay your burden down, sweet friend; let the reaper take you easily. When you close at last those heavy lids, all duties, all troubles, all sources of stress or consternation will dissolve like mist--and all that will remain are eons of peaceful rest. The seasons will come and go, the birds twitter in the oaks, and you shall be returned to nature, one with all, at rest for eternity.
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I think we've all read or heard sentiments like the ones above. It all depends on the type of non-believer. Some want to taunt you because you believe naively in the Resurrection. Some want to comfort because you think that fear and loathing of death must accompany the atheist worldview. But either approach is incorrect, if we take seriously the tenets of Modern Science.
Here are the facts. If any of these is unscientific, let me know. I'll recant!
1. No region of space-time is any real or more actual than any other. 500 years ago in Africa has just as much being as tomorrow near Beta Centauri.
Why do we think or feel otherwise? Simply because we occupy one patch of space-time and not another. But this perspective in no wise alters what was, is, or will be. In fact, the future is *already* just as real as today appears to us right now.
2. The passage of time is NOT a process. Similarly, the passage of times does NOT turn the present into the future.
With a little thought, the truth of the above is readily apparent. While it is true that all processes take time, time itself is not a process nor the product of a process. Consider a chemical reaction. We dump sodium bicarbonate into vinegar, and the process of neutralization occurs. If we dump it, it does occur; if we don't, it does not. The process is contingent on our actions and the chemical and physical properties involved.
But time is not contingent on any actions. Would the years stop if the earth stopped revolving around the sun? No. Can we speed time up or slow it down? No. We cannot influence it, catalyze it, encourage it or discourage it. It is not a process; rather, it is a location.
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Let's put these facts together with the reality of death. We die; we're gone. What happens?
We wake up as squawling newborn babies.
The reason is simple: We occupy a certain region of spacetime; that region never goes away (Fact 1), is never ground by time's grounder into oblivion, as time is a location, not a process (Fact 2).
Of course, we do not remember our future, and our future is the same as it ever was or ever will be. The same life events within the same space-time.
Likewise there is no oblivion, pleasant or un-, to be experienced. We are not there in space-time to experience it. Just as I experienced no unpleasantness when supernovae eons ago exploded and thereby formed the iron running in my blood this moment, I will experience nothing positive or negative when the sun withers in the future. I will, however, experience my experiences within my patch of space-time, and nothing can ever undo that ("The writing finger having writ...").
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We must, however, consider the question of how merciful all the above facts truly are. I would hold that the negativity we experienced in the past *continues* to be experienced in that piece of space-time (that is, the passage of time does not obliviate it), and likewise all the good we experiened *continues* to be so experienced.
This is quite unfair, perhaps, to those who experienced more negative than positive. It may, in fact, be that, for some, the Mean Version of an experienced oblivion is preferable to an unpleasant life within space-time that *continues* to persist.
What do YOU think?
When you die, I suspect you wake up crying
by IronGland 27 Replies latest jw friends
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IronGland
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ezekiel3
Hold on I'm pondering.
Time is not reality, it is a dimension. So I am measuring existance with my physical sense of being "to date." My physical senses are limited and filtered by my preconceptions. My measurments of reality are flawed by my limitations. Therefore everything I know of existance is inaccurate.
Check out Deepak...
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Satanus
Wha, wha??!! *wakes up w puzzled look on face* O ok, well I don't see how there is a difference between nonexistence and nonexistence. But then, i exist, so what does what i say about it count for. Ya gotta ask a nonexistent person S
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Preston
I read your post irongland
Believe it or not my partner and I were discussing this exact same thing not too long ago,
...and I think despite the crude way * albeit accurate* you presented the negative post-life view of things in one of your scenerios (that was not an insult by the way) I appreciate you how acknowledged that by perception it really isnt as bleak as made out to be. I am going through a period time right now where I've found myself thinking about death.... a lot. I don't think this is anything really serious, its just that I'm doing a lot of reflection. What I got form your post is that time isnt vertical (a straight line if you will), it really is three-dimensional. We may catch a glimpse of the future every once in a while, and sometimes even the past. We are actually experiencing the past, the present, and the future simultaneously if you will. The space that we inhabit now is no more different as we are alive, than if we we were not. In essence, our lives continue forever....
Good post.
- Preston
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Big Tex
When I die, I have this horrible feeling God will look at me with vague and quizzical eyes and say, "And you are?"
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darkuncle29
I think of our lives as being like a great simulation. When its over, you could be "debriefed" and maybe want to give it another go. If no, then no big deal. I think the experience is what we're in it for, to learn from the good and the bad.
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willy_think
There is another version of death.
When you die, you are not.
Time can be looked at as a measurement of change in the relative position of matter. Take for example, the earth streaming from point to point around the sun. At any point there is no time, all bodies down to the atomic level are like a snapshot, constant in relationship to each other. For me to cry again as the same baby I was, all the bodies of space and earth would need to stop being where they are at my death and start being where they were at my birth. All matter that has converted to energy would need to become matter again, some how without a stream of change.
It is no coincidence that the idea of time travel put forth by Mr. E=M*C^2 involves moving very very fast.
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PaNiCAtTaCk
My parents were visiting an island for an assembly back in the 1960's and they stayed in this old run down motel. Later that night they were attacked by the demons in a violent way. Both of my parents are serious people that are also College graduates. My mom was validictorian<<---------did i spell right? Anywayz in my mind if their are Demons then their is a Satan and a God and Angels and Jesus. So there must be an afterlife. It means something to me that it happened to my parents and no rumors or word of mouth demon stories that are always floating around the witnesses.