David
Could you possibly restate that assertion for those of us who have concluded that our spirit is eternal? As it stands, we see the statement as an equivocation fallacy.
No theism thread could be complete without a reference to Star Trek!
Tabeitha’s post conjured up vague recollections of an episode, I believe it was Voyager, where at the time of death the energy/spirit of a planet’s inhabitant was somehow transported to and comingled with a ring of energy that surrounded the planet. The crew members thought it was just some quaint legend, but at the end of the episode their sensors picked up some unusual energy readings.
I remember thinking, that kind of story sure makes a lot more sense to me than the belief that one’s individual soul/consciousness continues to exist somewhere. The traditional Christian heaven-fable has long struck me as pretty egotistic. Maybe I just have such low self-esteem that I don’t think i’m uniquely all that important that I necessarily continue on in some form identifiable as me.
Question: if every soul continues to exist (and assuming “heaven” is structured in some manner that overcrowding is not an issue), and if souls are not recycled through reincarnation, where do the new souls come from? This type of question strikes many believers as insulting, but is not intended as such. It merely represents a disbeliever’s attempt to make sense of a story that seems pretty darn convoluted and unnecessary. The more you look into it, the further from observable reality you have to get. At what point, when you pile iunprovables upon unprovables, do you just say, this story is too unwieldy to maintain belief?
I have long considered myself an atheist, though I freely admit I am unable to prove the nonexistence of God/gods. I have assumed agnosticism implied some fence-sitting, bet-hedging. Do I “know” there is no God? Well, suffice it to say I see no need for a God to expalin anything I experience, and the belief in God seems to run counter to many things I do believe in. So I am very conmfortable with the understanding/belief that there is no God.
-I don’t believe other supernatural claims - mind reading, telekinesis, reincarnation, magic, seances, ghosts, etc. - why should I believe this set of supernatural beliefs?
-Why is this set of beliefs, which lack any scientific foundation and seem to be counter to some pretty well established scientific proofs, different from, say, claims of the occult?
-I believe current scientific thinking, as best as I can understand it, seems to make sense. Scientific thinking attempts to establish what is provable, and extrapolates from the immediately observable. When inconsistencies exist, they are either tested, or existing theory is adapted in manners that do not violate what is generally “known.” This strikes me as more reasonable that acceptance as infallible certain interpretations of the writings of men.
-It seems to me that much of modern religions, certainly Christianity, both in their origin and subsequent development, can be explained as the works of men, not requiring divine participation.
-How does a Christian question non-Christian belief systems, without turning the same microscope on their own beliefs. If the Moslems are wrong, why are the Christians right? Also, Scientology and Mormon mught strike me, and many Christians, as pretty wacky. To a non-believer, the main difference is that they don’t have millenia of p.r.
REALLY? WOW! So, what’s it like to die, David?
You’re right. It requires no faith to be a skeptic. But it does require faith to be an atheist. BTW, do I at least get points for questioning the questioner?:o
God bless,
jenkinsfan
Tell you what this atheist fears more than death: a long, lingering period of disability and dependence at the end of my life. When the end comes, I hope it comes suddenly. Oblivion really doesn’t frighten me.
There are infinite ways to die . Once your dead , it’s not like anything . It’s nothing , finito , adios .
“You (or the famous parrot 
) have ceased to be” to bastardise John Cleese .
That is how I see things . I cannot see or have been shown anything that would make me change my mind .
You of course are free to believe whatever you like and I will defend your right to do so . Am I correct in assuming that is recipricated ?
Spoke- I fear that even more than death itself . 
::printing out the lengthy defintion/discussion of “soft atheism”, “weak atheism” and “fallibilistic atheism” in this very thread and why it does not require faith and smacking jenkinsfan about the head with it:: ARRGH! ;^) ;^) We just went over this!
You are correct that “strong atheism” does require faith, but you should understand that to such a person it is like having faith that there are no purple unicorns on Mars–they do not consider it to be a very strong degree of faith. Atheists may also absolutely deny the existence of specific Gods while not denying the possibility of any God–for instance, they may say the Christian God’s attributes of omniscience and omnipotence are incompatable with free will, or that the Christian God cannot be wholly merciful and wholly just, so He cannot logically exist. And incidentally, “strong atheists” are very rare, in my experience; most atheists are quite aware of the (admittedly miniscule amount, to them) faith required to completely rule out the possibility of something that cannot be disproved, and prefer simple skepticism to any sort of faith in the existence/non-existence of God.
Personally I plan on finding a vampire and living for at least a few hundred years. Death scares the pants off me.
Esprix
Guadere, Have we explored every corner of the ocean? Have we explored every corner of our universe? Or how about other universes? And who’s to say that our eyes aren’t capable of seeing God? And if we could see God, we would have to look everywhere at once to make sure God wasnt’ constantly running behind us and hiding in the places we had previously searched. Yes, atheists do have faith. Lots of it.
BTW, this might be better written, but Gaudere hurt my head when he smacked it.
But can you feel yourself decomposing? Scientists
don’t know too much about the human brain yet.
I personally believe nothing, but it is a fear that
i’m going to be somewhat aware in the coffin. Afterlife
could be some kind of dreamlike state.
I’d also like to state the question, because i’ve been
wondering personally, burial or cremation?
It doesn’t seem too cool to be in a coffin under ground,
but i’m too afraid of the fire to decide 100% that i want
to be cremated.
jenks, read all my posts on this thread carefully before I have to smack you again. 
“jenkinsfan, Have we explored every corner of the ocean? Have we explored every corner of our universe? Or how about other universes? And who’s to say that our eyes aren’t capable of seeing faeries? And if we could see faeries, we would have to look everywhere at once to make sure faeries weren’t constantly running behind us and hiding in the places we had previously searched. Yes, non-faerie believers do have faith. Lots of it.” <grin> I don’t know how you manage to find the enormous amount of faith required to believe that no faeries exist.
There are a lot of things that might either be or not be, but there’s no substantive evidence of their existence. Gods, Invisible Pink Unicorns, the afterlife, the Loch Ness Monster, and so forth.
In the absence of any evidence, the ‘null hypothesis’ - the one that is accepted until substantive evidence for the alternative is found - is quite logically the hypothesis of nonexistence. Nothing says the odds on existence v. nonexistence of any of these things comes down to a fifty-fifty, coin-toss chance. Anytime there’s no evidence at all in favor of or against the existence of some phenomenon, the only reasonable null hypothesis is nonexistence.
Is this more or less what you were trying to say, Gaudere?
(About time we wound up on the same thread - long time, no see!)
Err, jenkinsfan?
Okay, re-read the thread very carefully.
Just in case you don’t, let me state what has been driven into the ground already.
1.) Hard Atheism is the absolute statement that there are no Gods. I do not believe that anyone here would disagree that this requires faith. In other words, avoiding the confusing double negatives, we all agree that Hard Atheism Requires Faith.
2.) Soft Atheism is the statement “God or Gods may exist, but I’m not convinced that they do.” This overlaps with agnosticsm, but is also called “athiestic.” This does not require faith; in fact, it specifically denotes a lack of faith (“Sure, it might be, but without evidence to support it, I can’t believe it. Of course, I can’t specifically tell you that it doesn’t exist, either.”).
Most of the people so far who have stated themselves to be atheistic (Gaudere, Kyberneticist, etc.) have stated themselves as being Soft Atheists; ergo, they do not need faith. I agree with them completely (though I will continue to call myself an agnostic because that keeps people from assuming that I firmly believe there is no God).
BTW- Gaudere is female. Your pronouns may need adjustment.
Anyhow, working from there, jenkinsfan and synikal, the point is that belief in the likelihood of the nonexistence of God or the afterlife requires no faith. Belief in the existence of God - a belief I share, mynd you - is what requires something special.
I believe in God because I’ve been lucky enough to experience what I interpret as God’s presence. To me, obviously, that’s enough evidence to overcome the null hypothesis of nonexistence of God. But I can’t produce any evidence, in the form of objective fact or strong argument, that would satisfy another intelligent person.
The only way I can produce evidence of the existence of God (and possibly from there, the afterlife) is by living the sort of life that is consistent with what I claim is the nature of God. And even that’s only going to be provisional evidence to the relative handful of people who come in contact with me; it won’t, and shouldn’t, do a thing to convince the zillions of people who don’t know me.
On the other hand, if I’m enough of a jerk, I can be a strong argument for the nonexistence of the God for whom I proselytize.
RT- Except the problem with extending the ‘null hypothesis’ to the existence of A Higher Power is that it attempts to apply quantifyable status to a non-quantifyable item.
That is, I can understand the ‘null hypothesis’ being easy to extended towards the Loch Ness Monster- it has a specific area that it is supposed to live in; said area has been dredged, watched, and surveyed over and over again with quantifiable results of nothing. Ergo, to step to the conclusion that nothing results from nothing is akin to the conclusion that a flipped coin will not land standing upon its edge.
Likewise, said hypothesis can be extended towards the God of the Bible. We know the Earth is round, that the Sun revolves around it, that it took more than 7 days to create, and there haven’t been any pillars of fire at night to lead the Jews around that I’ve noticed. Given the abscence of the actions or deeds of God as written in the Old Testament, it is not that much harder of a step to say that such a God does not exist (notice the emphasis on “such”).
However, to apply that thesis to the possiblity of any higher power requires evidence we do not yet have- that is, while specific demonstrations of God- the Christian God, the Hindu Gods, the Greek Olympiads, etc.- can have the ‘null hypothesis’ placed, the Deist “Watchmaker” God cannot have such a hypothesis placed, because it involves actions we do not, and possible can not, know the answer to- what exists of our conciousness before or after death? How did the Big Bang come to be? What exists in the dimensions outside of the three we understand, and what exists outside the edges of the Universe?
To answer such questions requires faith, because no evidence can be given. Ergo, those who state definitively that there is a God, or those who state definitively that there can be no God, act upon faith. Those who state that such answers are unknowable and trying to find the answer only results in serious migraines and wasted time are welcome to join me for a beer and discussion of much more useful matters, such as whether the Redskins will truly kick ass now that they’ve signed Neon Deion.
OOOOPS! So sorry! I didn’t know.
My feelings towards the after life is this- you can’t prove Heaven and Hell exist and you can’t prove they don’t exist. People believe whatever makes them most comfortable.
jenkinsfan, you appear to be saying that, based on your faith that God exists, atheists must have lots of faith to believe that God doesn’t exist. Surely you can see that it takes no leap of faith to withhold belief in extraordinary claims until presented with compelling evidence; even if others choose to believe the claims without proof.
In other words, it does not require any faith on my part to be of the strong opinion that there is no deity, even though others believe in a deity. To repeat: this is an opinion I hold, not a system of belief.
I can understand the trouble you’re having with this concept, however, seeing that you believe things such as “God may be hiding from us, so we shouldn’t believe he isn’t there just because we can’t find him.”
John - much as I hate to disagree with you, I’d say the ‘null hypothesis’ idea applies very clearly to that which is unknowable in any way, shape, or form.
Think of it this way: there are lots of things that may or may not exist, for which no evidence may be marshalled on either side. Invisible Pink Unicorns, spatial dimensions beyond the three we know, the afterlife, Zeus, salamander-like creatures swimming in the gaseous interior of Neptune, intelligent life on planets orbiting stars in distant galaxies, and so forth.
We can’t reasonably say, “each one of these has a .5 chance of being true, simply because there’s no evidence on either side.” If so, the very act of making up absurd entities such as the IPU increases the expected number of such entities that exist. The IPU may or may not exist, but the likelihood of its existence must be effectively zero for the Universe not to abound in such critters.
Therefore, I would submit that the only reasonable initial assumption regarding the IPU - or anything else which may or may not exist, with absolutely zero evidence on either side - is its nonexistence. Nonexistence has to be the null hypothesis, the rebuttable presumption, whatever the appropriate term is. There may or may not be an afterlife, but there’s no reason that the absence of evidence either way should have us interpret the odds as a tossup.
Great to see you again, RT! And thank you for the able defense.
I don’t think you can say that categorically; it clearly makes many of us decidedly uncomfortable to say that there is no afterlife, we just feel that the most compelling evidence supports lacking belief in an afterlife. A theist may even be uncomfortable about the prospect of an afterlife if they believed they were going to Hell (although I’ve never met one who did, and likely never shall–what’s the point of Hell as punishment if no one ever thinks they’ll be punished? But anyhow…). However, I do think for some people it is whatever makes them comfortable–I do know a few who say they believe in an afterlife because the alternative is too depressing.
No problem about the gender switch, jenkinsfan; I realize my name is rather ambiguous and I generally don’t correct people who get my gender wrong. You haven’t done as badly as some. 
I would say there’s a difference between disbelieving in God and disbelieving in life after death. In the case of God, an atheist’s never having experienced the presence of God is, as Gaudere puts it, a null hypothesis.
However, your non-believer in life after death has never been dead, so they can’t meaningfully say they’ve never experienced life after death, so they don’t have any more evidence - even for a null hypothesis - than a believer. Therefore, their beliefs require more faith.
sigh Not at all. The hypothesis of life after death requires introducing some extra element besides our physical brain and body. Either elves that reconstruct the brain, or some soulstuff that overlaps it, is intimately affected by it in life, but immediately gains independance at death, or somesuch.
People believing in life after death are introducing more variables without adequate explanation for them.
Their hypothesis requires more faith.