Two Questions for Any Dyed in the Wool Atheists

Two Question for Any Dyed in the Wool Atheists


What happens to you when you physically die? What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass? If the plan is a ceremonious open casket church funeral, gravesite internment service and a convivial catered post mortem reception with pricey food and booze why would such a fancy exit matter to you so much? Just wondering. An immediate, simple cremation of the already decomposing mortal coil without any artsy fartsy genteel service is my expressed wishe. My RHP Chess Opponents may claim any skulls, earned or not, at will.

gb

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Two Question for Any Dyed in the Wool Atheists


What happens to you when you physically die? What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass? If the plan is a ceremonious open casket church funeral, gravesite internment service and a convivial catered post mortem reception with pricey food a ...[text shortened]... s my expressed wishe. My RHP Chess Opponents may claim any skulls, earned or not, at will.

gb[/b]

"What happens to you when you physically die?"

Your existence ends.

You know what it was like before you were born... Well it's like that.

"What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass?"

None as yet, Not intending to die any time soon.

However all of my relatives that have died in my lifetime have had cremations so that's probably the default option.
Although if anyone brings a priest to direct the proceedings then I'm sodding well coming back as a poltergeist to
show how I feel about that.

"If the plan is a ceremonious open casket church funeral, gravesite internment service and a convivial catered
post mortem reception with pricey food and booze why would such a fancy exit matter to you so much? "

Funerals are about the people who knew the deceased remembering them.
It's not FOR the deceased as much as it's FOR the people they leave behind.

It matters in as much as you care what last impression you leave with the people you knew and loved.

So as I am and always have been an atheist and more than that an iconoclast antitheist... It would for example be
completely out of keeping to have a theist of any stripe directing proceedings or for there to be any prayers or hymns
at any funeral for me.

Not that that's an issue in my case as all my relatives are (as far as I know) atheists as well. And certainly all my close
relatives are.

It is an issue though for those who do have lots of religious relatives as it is not unknown for people to ignore the
deceased wishes and to have a priest or other religious figure conduct the ceremony against the atheists wishes.
Which is yet another example of theists imposing their beliefs on others who don't want it.


And that was three questions. ;-p

Originally posted by googlefudge
[b]"What happens to you when you physically die?"

Your existence ends.

You know what it was like before you were born... Well it's like that.

"What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass?"

None as yet, Not intending to die any time soon.

However all of my rela ...[text shortened]... g their beliefs on others who don't want it.


And that was three questions. ;-p[/b]

Thank you.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Two Question for Any Dyed in the Wool Atheists


What happens to you when you physically die? What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass? If the plan is a ceremonious open casket church funeral, gravesite internment service and a convivial catered post mortem reception with pricey food a ...[text shortened]... s my expressed wishe. My RHP Chess Opponents may claim any skulls, earned or not, at will.

gb[/b]

What I think is theists are just fooling themselves and taking an extremely arrogant stance that a god would love them so much it would keep them going, after reproducing in the billions to the point where there would be literally trillions of souls floating around in some kind of eternal bliss, just a fantasy.

I would like to hear some dyed in the wool theist tell me what their god would WANT with trillions of souls around?

This god needs eternal worship? Bit of a childish god that would need that. Can you imagine a god capable of creating whole universes billions of light years wide with perhaps millions of intelligent civilizations on planets all around that universe, could create an infinite number of those, and then theists telling themselves it would need eternal worship? Or would be vengeful if ignored or whatever?

To me it is just theists making up anthropological traits of the worse of human behavior and transferring them to a made up god so they can control people and especially to suppress women.

I can't deny the possibility there could be a god or maybe even an infinite number of gods but I cannot accept the theistic view of such a god having any interaction with humans.

To me it would be like a person having an ant colony and picking out his special ants and then stomping on the ones he thinks diss him.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
What happens to you when you physically die? What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass?

Surely funeral or commemorative services are for the survivors, and belong to them, especially relatives. They are not for the deceased and, therefore, are really none of their business, unless respecting the deceased's wishes is the way the survivors want the commemoration to be.

Originally posted by googlefudge
[b]"What happens to you when you physically die?"

Your existence ends.

You know what it was like before you were born... Well it's like that.

"What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass?"

None as yet, Not intending to die any time soon.

However all of my rela g their beliefs on others who don't want it.


And that was three questions. ;-p[/b]

"You know what it was like before you were born... Well it's like that."

Deep. This may be worthy of a separate thread if it can be kept to the topic. Which means, never mind.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass?

None so far, but when I think I am old enough to need a will, I will probably ask to be cremated. But I must note that this is for similar reasons as my Christian dad gave and has nothing to do with religion or atheism. Neither of us believed that the body or what happens to it has any real value to the person who died. As others have said, respect for dead bodies is more about the people left behind than anything else. But I believe this is the view of almost everyone, religious or otherwise so I am curious as to why you are asking atheists specifically.

Originally posted by googlefudge
[b]"What happens to you when you physically die?"

Your existence ends.

You know what it was like before you were born... Well it's like that.

"What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass?"

None as yet, Not intending to die any time soon.

However all of my rela ...[text shortened]... g their beliefs on others who don't want it.


And that was three questions. ;-p[/b]

Your existence ends.

How do you know that ?

You know what it was like before you were born... Well it's like that.

How do you know that it is exactly the same ?

Originally posted by jaywill

Your existence ends.

How do you know that ?

You know what it was like before you were born... Well it's like that.

How do you know that it is exactly the same ?

Does it make any difference if all instances of not existing, are alike or not?

Originally posted by sonhouse
What I think is theists are just fooling themselves and taking an extremely arrogant stance that a god would love them so much it would keep them going, after reproducing in the billions to the point where there would be literally trillions of souls floating around in some kind of eternal bliss, just a fantasy.

I would like to hear some dyed in the wool n ant colony and picking out his special ants and then stomping on the ones he thinks diss him.

What I think is theists are just fooling themselves and taking an extremely arrogant stance that a god would love them so much it would keep them going, after reproducing in the billions to the point where there would be literally trillions of souls floating around in some kind of eternal bliss, just a fantasy.

It is not arrogant to believe that God loves me. It is arrogant to believe that God loves my sin and my sinning. But that God loves me ? This is not arrogance anymore than it is arrogance to believe my mother and father love me.

Now if there were not provision for my sins, no remedy for transgression of God's law, that God loves all that evil baggage that I bring long, that is arrogance. As it stands in His love He has made provision for my sins in Chist's salvation.

It is not arrogant to believe God loves us. And if one were thankful to their Creator they could easily look around and find many many things for which to thank God as tokens of His love.

I would like to hear some dyed in the wool theist tell me what their god would WANT with trillions of souls around?

Don't think we thiests have not considered the practicality of such things. First of all the universe testifies to the unlimited power of God. He has provided an emblem of His eternal power and infinite provision.

While we may not have details of how God would handle population in eternity, our trust is inspired by the testimony of His creation. The Bible tells us that God names all the stars. Now the ancients saw billions of stars up in the sky just as moderners do. They could see the Milky Way with billions of stars. And the word of God told them and us that God names all the stars and that the hairs on our head are all numbered.

The bottom line is that God can make provision. We just do not know all the details.

trillions of souls around?

God's salvation is more practical. It includes not only the SOUL of man. It includes the BODY or man, the SPIRIT of man, and the whole environment of man.

When I first became a Christian I thought of souls floating in some ethereal light or on clouds, was the eternal future of the saved. Reading the Bible for myself erased these ideas and I realized how practical His love and provision are to include our whole being and the creation itself.

This god needs eternal worship? Bit of a childish god that would need that. [Can you imagine a god capable of creating whole universes billions of light years wide with perhaps millions of intelligent civilizations on planets all around that universe, could create an infinite number of those, and then theists telling themselves it would need eternal worship? Or would be vengeful if ignored or whatever?

It is interesting that when God creates man He gives man no instructions on how to worship. He only warns man what not to eat.

This is a window into the nature of man and his God. What we eat is what we take into our being. God put man before "the tree of life". This signified that God's eternal is for man to take into himself God as "food."

Man is to take God in as "food" and be constituted in his being with what God is. Like "You are what you eat" saying.

What does it look like to take in God continually ? It looks like Jesus Christ.
So Jesus Christ says " As the living Father has sent Me and I live because of the Father, so he who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me." (John 6:57)

The true worship is to take God into our heart and spirit as "food" that we may live because of God.

Of course if you go around the Internet you will see people praising the best movie, the best rock group, the greatest dancer or actor or song writer. People have this idol to praise. People have all kinds of idols to worship, constantly heaping adoration on things they enjoy.

What is wrong with praising the God whom we enjoy ? It is quite appropriate and also makes one quite joyful.

If worship of God for you is ardious and wearisome labor of boredom, then you are just being religious. Of course if you read the Bible you would see plenty of indication that such wearisome "worship" God is not pleased with.

I guess you never heard about Jesus breaking the Sabbath and being persecuted for it.

To me it is just theists making up anthropological traits of the worse of human behavior and transferring them to a made up god so they can control people and especially to suppress women.

To me, the athiest secretly looks within himself. He sees the ugliness of his own sinfulness according to his God created conscience. And then he cannot believe that a God exists because that would be a BIG person. And the atheist knows from experience what problems are involved in personhood.

The atheist projects his problems out on any proposed larger Person. Basically, I think the atheists thinks - "No. It cannot be that a BIG ME exists. There can be no god."

Of course he also doesn't want there to be God. So he comforts himself with the worst examples of mythoogy, religion, fanaticism, and all negative examples of religiosity. And with these negative factors he quiets his conscience that he is doing "good" to reject God.

I can't deny the possibility there could be a god or maybe even an infinite number of gods but I cannot accept the theistic view of such a god having any interaction with humans.

Your attitude is amazingly 1,000,000 % the opposite of a certain Theist that I know about. His name - Jesus.

The degree to which He held to idea of His Father being "involved" with every person on earth led Him to a place of absolute devotion to the Father's will. Maybe what He believed and spoke and demonstrated is truth.

To me it would be like a person having an ant colony and picking out his special ants and then stomping on the ones he thinks diss him.

This to me is the problem of "Why shouldn't God recuse Himself as the Final Judge of all ?"

Recuse has this definition:

to disqualify (oneself) as judge in a particular case; broadly: to remove (oneself) from participation to avoid a conflict of interest

If there is an Ultimate Governor of all reality then that One is qualified to be both Savior and Judge of all mankind. It is just a part of His responsibility as God of all.

The problem you pose is that God should recuse Himself from inacting ultimate justice because He has a vested personal interest. Ie. He cannot judge righteously because He has a vested personal interest in being worshipped and loved.

But the same God who is judge of all also became the Substitute wrath bearer on behalf of all. "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not accounting their offenses to them, and has put in us the word of reconcilation. On behalf of Christ then we are ambassoadors, as God entreats you through us; we beseech you on behalf of Christ, Be reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:19)

In His triune being, in His three-one nature, the Judge of all has made provision to in principle be the Savior and Attorney of all, if we would be reconciled to God.

For this reason the Ultimate Judge of all need not recuse Himself from fulfilling His righteous responsibility to His own being - to put eternal justice in order.

The cosmic buck has to stop somewhere. If the cosmic buck does not stop with God then at who else will the buck stop ? What is hard for you to imagine is that the God who wants the greatest love is also the same God who is setter of things to their greatest level of rightness. The two you cannot see co-existing in one Person.

So you think the God who wants our greatest love should recuse Himself from being the Ultimate Righteous one to set things right. Someone else with no vested interest should set things ultimately right. Or no one at all should do so. I think that is what your attitude suggests.

Originally posted by jaywill

Your existence ends.

How do you know that ?

You know what it was like before you were born... Well it's like that.

How do you know that it is exactly the same ?

How do you know that ?

Good question.

It's the question I regularly ask theists and fail to get an answer.

It's simple really.

There is evidence that shows beyond any reasonable doubt (science doesn't do absolute
100% total certainty) that our minds are the product of the workings of our physical brains
and that there is thus no such thing as souls or spirit or anything that stores or continues
our brain states after we die.

Therefore when we die and our brains stop functioning our minds cease to operate.

We cease to exist.

Now I could list and go through some of the evidence but I have yet to see any sign that you
care about evidence or would accept any evidence that contradicts your bible.
So I will just say that the evidence is enough to convince me and the scientific community as a
whole.

So that's how I know that upon death your existence ends.

How do you know that it is exactly the same ?

Well I didn't actually say that they were 'exactly' the same, I said it's 'like' that.

However as JS357 said, "Does it make any difference if all instances of not existing, are alike or not?"

There is obviously a difference to the world between the two as after you die there are the effects and
memories of your existence still playing out.
However there is no difference to you.

Your mind didn't exist before you were born and wont exist after you die.

Originally posted by JS357
"You know what it was like before you were born... Well it's like that."

Deep. This may be worthy of a separate thread if it can be kept to the topic. Which means, never mind.

In fairness it's not a line I made up...

But I can't for the life of me remember where I heard it or who from.

Originally posted by googlefudge

How do you know that ?

Good question.

It's the question I regularly ask theists and fail to get an answer.

It's simple really.

There is evidence that shows beyond any reasonable doubt (science doesn't do absolute
100% total certainty) that our minds are the product of the workings of our physical brains
and that there is th o you.

Your mind didn't exist before you were born and wont exist after you die.

Good question.

It's the question I regularly ask theists and fail to get an answer.

It's simple really.

You must not have asked this theist (me). I would answer that I don't know. Then I would say I have the integrity and approvedness of one Jesus to trust His word on the matter in faith.

That is simple. I regard Christ an a reliable authority on the matter. He's been to death and back.

There is evidence that shows beyond any reasonable doubt (science doesn't do absolute

In other words you have something like what I have - faith of sorts, a trust.

I thought you were suppose to be so different.

100% total certainty) that our minds are the product of the workings of our physical brains and that there is thus no such thing as souls or spirit or anything that stores or continues our brain states after we die.

Therefore when we die and our brains stop functioning our minds cease to operate.

We cease to exist.

But what if there is a God who is able to recall you back into physical existence ? It is not too far fetched.

If Someone could bring a marvelous being like you INTO existence so mysteriously, the same One may have the authority, and power, and desire to reassemble you even years after you die.

I have Christ's words and experience to factor into my musings on these things. "I am the resurrection and the life ..." (John 11:25)

It behooves me to factor in the personality, power, and words of one Jesus of Nazareth. He speaks as one having authority on the matter as no other.

Now I could list and go through some of the evidence but I have yet to see any sign that you care about evidence or would accept any evidence that contradicts your bible.

I consider lots of evidence which seems to contradict the Bible. I put it on the scales with evidence which confirms the Bible. And I make my decision.

Contrary to what you may think, there are powerful evidences which confirm that the Bible is speaking to me the truth. It is not a one-way matter.

So I will just say that the evidence is enough to convince me and the scientific community as a whole.

Okay. You gave me an answer. Thanks.

So that's how I know that upon death your existence ends.

I doubt this very much for other reasons too.
There is really no accountability.
There is no accounting in a way that is ultimately meaningful to a moral absolute.

Sure, you can muster up some token nobility. But we all know that if everyone simply dissolves back into the dust of the earth, hey, you really got away with all your sins.

Conversely, rght living is not rewarded. If I am non-existent either after death or there is no resurrection, then it REALLY doesn't matter how I live righteously or evilly.

You know that regardless of a show of nobility, if there is no judgment beyond death, you got away with it all. Conversely, evil things done TO you someone will also get away with.

I think rather UNIVERSAL accountability after death - either immediately or upon UNIVERSAL resurrection is more likely in God's universe.

You spoke of evidence before. Well, of what I just said, I have EVIDENCE in the Bible and in the life and words of one Christ, that that indeed is the case.

The issue of Christ's impeccable credentials is a factor.
The issue of His integrity being, for me, beyond questioning, is a powerful factor.

How do you know that it is exactly the same ?

By now you should have heard something of my reply.

Both of us do not KNOW with mathematical certainty.
Both of us have a kind of "trust" that things will turn out a certain way.

When it comes down to it, in this human life eventually we have to put our trust in someone. Your evidences are thoughtful and worthy of some consideration. All in all I think credentials of Jesus Christ are more persuasive.

I think that history will end in Christ's total vindication, as to His life and His teaching. He simply has His hands on too much truth.

Your mind didn't exist before you were born and wont exist after you die.

Its a point. However, when you are very very deeply asleep, it seems ALSO that you have no mind. Then you wake up again and realize that you ARE and that you DO have life and a mind.

You never slept and TIME passed by which you were totally unaware of ?
It seems that you even forget who you were or that you were.
Ever happen ?

Like in a operation when you are deeply sedated. Your mind seemed GONE.
Then you awoke and remembered that you ARE.

Could be the same with physical death.

Originally posted by jaywill

Good question.

It's the question I regularly ask theists and fail to get an answer.

It's simple really.

You must not have asked this theist (me). I would answer that I don't know. Then I would say I have the integrity and approvedness of one Jesus to trust His word on the matter in faith.

That is simple. I regar ...[text shortened]... awoke and remembered that you ARE.

Could be the same with physical death.

Or not.

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
[b]Two Question for Any Dyed in the Wool Atheists


What happens to you when you physically die? What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass? If the plan is a ceremonious open casket church funeral, gravesite internment service and a convivial catered post mortem reception with pricey food a ...[text shortened]... s my expressed wishe. My RHP Chess Opponents may claim any skulls, earned or not, at will.

gb[/b]

What happens to you when you physically die?

Your existence ends.

What instructions have you given to your kith and kin pertaining to the disposition of your carcass?

I would say to buy the cheapest coffin possible (preferably biodegradable) and to have the memorial that they feel commemorates me and their feelings for me. Funerals are really for the living.