Originally posted by eagles54You could articulate numerous scenarios that might sound plausible. What do you have to indicate that any of them are actually true?
Maybe your mind continues, propelled by all your previous actions. In that case, you might then take a new birth based on causes that had been established previously.
Originally posted by rwingettAll I would have are other peoples' experiences, which are useless to answer you with in this instance. My only intent was to point out that you believe that life after death is wishful thinking and that you cannot know at present if that is actually the case. I could ask you what you have to indicate that that is true.
You could articulate numerous scenarios that might sound plausible. What do you have to indicate that any of them are actually true?
Originally posted by rwingettWell said. For some reason, this whole question never worried me one way or the other, even during my very-Christian years—which is one reason, perhaps, that I was always being accused of being a heretic (which I generally took as a compliment).
What existed before your conciousness came into being? Why wouldn't you merely revert to that pre-concious state. The universe existed for billions of years before I was born. Why should it bother me in the slightest that it will continue to exist for billions of years without me after I'm gone?
Student to Zen Master: “Is there life after death?”
Zen Master: “I have no idea.”
Student: “But, you’re one of the wisest, most knowledgeable Zen Masters around. If you don’t know, who does?”
Zen Master: “I don’t know. Go ask a dead Zen Master.”
Originally posted by eagles54Because it requires the fewest amount of assumptions. It fits in seamlessly with what we already know to be true. Therefore it has the greatest likelihood of being true.
All I would have are other peoples' experiences, which are useless to answer you with in this instance. My only intent was to point out that you believe that life after death is wishful thinking and that you cannot know at present if that is actually the case. I could ask you what you have to indicate that that is true.
Belief in an afterlife requires a whole scaffolding of unsupported assumptions to be put into place to support that belief.
Originally posted by rwingettI disagree that it requires fewer assumptions. We have life now, why is it any stretch to think that the process will not repeat itself?
Because it requires the fewest amount of assumptions. It fits in seamlessly with what we already know to be true. Therefore it has the greatest likelihood of being true.
Belief in an afterlife requires a whole scaffolding of unsupported assumptions to be put into place to support that belief.
Originally posted by rwingettYou can observe that a human body is born and dies but what about human mind? If it is your assertion that the mind dies with the body, I would have to say that is conjecture as well.
We can observe that things are born and that those things eventually die. Everything else is unsupported conjecture.
Originally posted by eagles54To a degree, perhaps. But it is a much stronger conjecture than trying to postulate some sort of mental continuance after death. A person dies. The body decays. The mental entity that constituted that person no longer communicates with us. Which requires fewest assumptions: that nothing survives after death, or that the person's mental faculties have survived independantly from the body which enabled them and that they they continue to exist in some place where they can no longer communicate with us?
You can observe that a human body is born and dies but what about human mind? If it is your assertion that the mind dies with the body, I would have to say that is conjecture as well.
I see we need to agree to disagree on this point, rwingett.
It just makes more sense to me that, having already taken birth and continuing toward so-called death, which may be nothing more than yet another transition in an infinite string of lives, the cycle will repeat once again.
I respect your opinion but I could never adopt it. I do use my intellect to mull over these great questions but for me, sometimes the heart speaks more convincingly to the point.