A question for Atheists (page 2)

gumby

When someone proves ghosts exist..................................

Gumby

seattleniceguy

SNG (an atheist version of high priest, he)

LOL...I guess I've been promoted. Does my payscale go up too?

I'll concur with AlmostAtheist and rem regarding consciousness. I especially liked rem's point about beauty not being spoiled by understanding. On the contrary, I often have more awe for a mechanism I understand. The mysterious aspect might have been removed, but the satisfaction of understanding is a more than adequate replacement.

Another thing to keep in mind when considering phenomena that we do not yet understand is the human tendancy to ascribe such things to supernatural forces. We have always done this. From lightening to earthquakes to volcanoes to crop growth - if we don't know how it works, we tend to throw up our arms and say, "It's God!"

Admittedly, the question of consciousness is surely one of the closest-hitting mysteries we will ever know. But AA makes a good point: Damage the brain and consciousness suffers. This clearly indicates that the goop in our heads is manufacturing our consciousness. Presumably a soul-mind would be unhindered by a little tampering with our physical brain, any more than it would be by us, say, losing a finger.

At the risk of rambling, I'll add one more paragraph. I'm reading Steven Jay Gould's Ever Since Darwin at the moment. On page 27, he muses:

Wonder and knowledge are both to be cherished. Shall we appreciate any less the beauty of nature because its harmony is unplanned? And shall the potential of mind cease to inspire our awe and fear because several billion neurons reside in our skulls?

SNG

talesin

Consciousness is a great and wonderful mystery. Maybe some day we'll figure it out; maybe not.

rem

What a great line. Yes, and yes!

Oh my!? We agree! Actually, I kinda like it.

t

Spook

I hold a natural world view. I am a part of life. Life is not a part of me. The meaning of my life is to add to the breadth, beauty, and power of life. By doing so, I experience BEING more fully.

I highly recommedn the writings of Gregory Bateson to all fellow atheists. His 'Steps To An Ecology Of Mind' provides an interesting connection of natural sacredness to the human condition. He has also influenced modern society. The line of consciousness lies between the mechanical and the supernatural. A natural world, real, splendid, now.

As for an afterlife, Epicurus was brilliant in his realization that so long as I exist, my death can not exist. If my death exists, I do not. My death exists in my head. I'll live life and die death.

the_classicist

I used to be an atheist. Usually, when people are or become atheists, they tend to throw out everything unprovable and they focus more on rationalistic science. An afterlife cannot be observed, so one assumes that it is likely to not exist. I find, though, that a lot of people who claim to be atheist, are really agnostic.

seattleniceguy

Spook,

Thank you for your excellent post. I will check out the book you mention.

SNG

sandy

I agree with SNG as well. We should live our lives the best way we know how and worry about the after life, if there is one, when we get there.

stevenyc

IP_SEC

I garantee, if I get there before you I'll PM you and let you know.

steve

Euphemism

I realize this is afield from your original question, IP_SEC, but I have to take this occasion to plug Robert Wright's The Moral Animal. I don't agree 100% with Wright (a lot of evolutionary psychology is very speculative at this point), but it did convince me that the human mind does not need a supernatural explanation.

Understanding consciousness is a bit like understanding evolution. Taken by themselves, the end-products of both seem far too complicated to have arisen by natural processes. No one can visualize the entire process from start to finish; all you can do is look at each individual part, and realize that it all adds up to a whole. At least, that's my experience.

Classicist...there is a significant degree of overlap between agnostic and atheist. For example, a person who believes that the existence of gods is unknowable, and therefore does not believe in any, is both an agnostic and an atheist.

Narkissos

I had given up the idea of an individual afterlife long before I gave up the idea of "God".

What am "I" made of ultimately? I mean the "I" which cannot distinguish itself from "my body", yet cannot help doing so? That which we used to call "mind" or "soul"?

It is a word in a world of words, speech, language, text, culture. The words I use, including "I", bear the untraceable trace of an infinity of speakers, dead or alive. Every day, mostly unconsciously, we all put our own imprint, or trace, into this symbolical stuff "souls" are made of. A smile, an expression, a word, an attitude of "ours" perhaps comes from a person dead centuries ago and already survives in a number of other people whom we happened to meet. Even a discussion board like this one is a theatre of "resurrection", whenever cherished ideas, words, expressions, attitudes, pass from people to people. Even fluff triumphs of death every day.

The thought of death, if not escaped through dreams of individual immortality, forces us to displace the center and borders of our mental picture. When we do so a completely different story emerges. The individual is just not the main character of the human story.

A question for Atheists

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