Inability to comprehend the end of the 'spirit' or conscience does not make it false

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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(Posted here as I am not asking for a debate. just sharing)

Last night I realized (probably always knew this underneath) that just because I can’t ‘get my head round’ the idea that when I die it is quite possible (probable even) that my consciousnes just stops. I can’t fear death (apart from the pain a few seconds or more before) because when it happens there stops being the ‘I’ that could suffer it.
Among other reasons for being I think religion may be resulted from a human desire to come to terms with the inability to comprehend the impermanence of the conscience. (or not. as the case could be. I am only speculating)

And that feeling the theists claim is god could be a condition of the brain created by believing in a god, similar to the feeling in the head created in all people when they are in Love.

It is possible to feel love for something that doesn’t exist. It’s quite easy even, if you happen to believe it does.

So IMO claiming god exists because you can ‘feel him’ is not a very solid argument to me.
Belief in god or gods has the same ‘appearance’ in my head as belief in father christmas and tooth faries (I don’t mean to belittle it as childish. I mean I see religion as another myth like tooth fairy is a myth told by parents and others). it’s something parents tell to their children. but unlike father christmas and tooth faires the children don’t stop believing it probably because it just so happens that enough people around them continue to believe it to make it probable that they will.

When I was a kid on christmas eve night I would lie in bed and mistake the wires banging againts the inside of the lamp post outside my window for the reigns of santa’s sleigh. If you had asked me then if I believed in FC I would probably swore blind that he exists, just like theists swear blind god exists. (not saying they are wrong. only saying what I believe, as an atheist)

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(From the rather unsuccessful version of this thread in GD)

Apos I appreciate your reply in that thread. You made good points.
When have you lost consciousness?

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I’m not entirely sure how to read this; are you saying that you personally don’t fear death for that reason, or that it is generally illogical (or logically impossible) to fear death for that reason?

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It was a relatively feeble thing that slipped through the net. I happen not to fear death (the not being alive anymore bit, not the painful bit) and it has something to do with knowing that there isn’t a consciousness to suffer it. and if there is, that’s a bonus because I get to see what happens.

I guess if I pondered it enough it might scare me. Life/living is worth keeping hold of, but when I lose it I won’t feel the loss because I’ll be dead. Fear of losing something good is really a fear of having to bear not having it any more, but if the conscious stops I won’t have to bear not having it.
And I am not saying it’s logically impossible to fear death for that reason. It probably is logial in some way.

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On second thoughts it’s selfish. My death (or ‘a’ death) may cause suffering to others. And I do/have in the past when thinking about death decided that’s a pretty good reason to avoid it.

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It seems to me obvious that an individual (or even mass) failure to comprehend anything, has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not the thing exists or occurs. So I guess I don’t see the blinding insight in realizing that just because you don’t understand or accept something, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen anyway.

What makes me impatient in your post is this:

This is a common opinion of many atheists (especially new atheists) – that believers must believe because they don’t know better. Why do I believe? Well, gosh, it couldn’t be because I’ve intellectually thought it out and reached a different conclusion than you, no, it must be because I’m a sheep who believes because people around me believe. :rolleyes:

If you concede the shocking truth that your inability to conceive of something does not mean it isn’t still true, then you must also concede that your conclusion that God does not exist may in fact be wrong, because His existence has exactly zero to do with your ability or willingness to perceive and/or grasp it. Right? So maybe a more fruitful inquiry for you would be to ask why thinking intellectual theists believe, rather than speculating they do so because they’re too dumb to do otherwise.

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That is not the point I meant to make. I didn’t mean to imply that theists know no better and are sheep. My point was that the overwhelming number of people who believe it in adulthood would greatly reduce the desire to question it. not eliminate, just greatly reduce. If few people believed it the individual would have to wonder about it’s validity.

At the time of thinking it I was aware it’s a fairly obvious fact in general, but that it has a special validity to non-consciousness. it is special because it is more definite than the ordinary level of ‘lack of comprehension does not affect fact’. The non comprehension of non-consciousness and the concept of infinity (in space) are unique.

I will have to concede then, but only on a technicality. I cannot deny gods existence because of the concept of non-comprehension not meaning non-existence, but I can deny it on the less solid (but still solid) basis that belief in god bein a ‘story’ that stuck makes perfect sense to me, and also that I believe it is possible for an infatuation in something can make a person feel sure beyond doubt that it exists (like I did with santa) with out it’s existence being true.

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Plus my opinions of what the truth is are based on the plausability of the arguments and I have never heard a plausible argument for the existence of god.

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LOBSANG –

Why would this follow? I mean, you had the desire to question it, right? Why would you assume that other people’s desire to question it would be reduced, when yours was not?

Well, I don’t see how. If we truly die (cease to exist), then whether or not we believe that or accept it will not, at the end of the day, change it. Well, yes. And, by obvious extension, if we don’t truly die, but continue to exist somehow, our belief or acceptance will not change that either. I sorry, but I don’t see how that’s extra-valid, more definite, or particularly unique.

You can hardly expect the fact that it “makes perfect sense to you” to be taken by anyone as basis for a reasoned denial of the existence of God or gods. So you are correct to call that a “less solid” basis – considerably less solid. And reducing God down to a “story that stuck” minimizes not just the beliefs of theists, but the beliefs of atheists as well, becauseif that’s all He is, then it it is no great intellectual feat to disbelieve.

On what basis do you conclude that theists’ beliefs are “infatuations”? You can marshall no more solid evidence for your disbelief than they can for their belief – which is to say none. Sounds like “post hoc ergo proper hoc” to me; you disbelieve, so anyone who believes must be “infatuated.”

The comparisons between God and Santa are fundamentally insulting, BTW. The reason that you do not believe in Santa is that Santa is a fiction for children that is truly “believed” by no one of an age to intellectually judge. Indeed, no one over the age of ten argues that Santa truly exists or claims to see any evidence, subjective or objective, for his existence. By comparing the two, you implicitly equate God to a fiction that people should intellectually outgrow, just as they outgrew Santa – as you were able to do but they, poor infatuated masses, have not been able to do. All of the arguments that God is an infatuation, or a childhood fiction, or a mass delusion, or something believed in by lack of thought – all these arguments at bottom translate to “believers are stupid” and, for that reason, these arguments are annoying. Just as annoying as the theistic argument that atheists are somehow deficient in morals or senstivity simply because they don’t believe.

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I could say I was one of the minority, or it was chance, or (assuming it takes a higher than average intelligence to question life) I had a higher than average intelligence, but it probably has a lot to do with being born and bred in a largely post-christian society (Britain) where religion seemed to most to be some background habit that a few people had and the rest took for granted.

I just can’t explain it very well. Most things that one can’t comprehend I believe we will be able to comprehend when someone figures it out. but I believe there are a few things that our brains are physically incapable of comprehending. yes, that’s the distinction - ‘physically incapable’ as opposed to simply not yet comprehending something but still being physically capable of doing so when someone figures it out.

I’ll respond to the rest of your reply tomorrow when I am sober and rested. I am going to bed.

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My first instinct was to post a la Princess Bride, “I do not think that word means what you think it means”, but maybe you are asking about “conscience”, are using that word deliberately, and I’m just not in synch here?

Are you stating or intentionally implying that many or most folks who believe in life after death (presumably theistic folks) believe or emphasize the survival of the conscience as differentiated from or isolated from the rest of consciousness?

Hmm, unless one is capable of engaging in actions after death that have moral consequences, would one need a conscience? Do people who posit the real existence of life after death visualize sinning spirits, evildoing angels with guilty feelings, damned spirits in torment for additional wickedness engaged in after the death of the body?

Or did you just do a malaprop substitution of “conscience” for “consciousness”?

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Damn, I was hoping this thread would die.
I meant consciousness.

I posted in GD about a thought I’d had about consciousness being able to end without being capable of comprehending it. then I started having more religion based thoughts and so I posted them in the same thread, which was a bit silly because it wasn’t really relevant.
My only point relevant to conscience was that one source of fear of death is fear of it causing suffering to friends and family.