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Originally posted by amantine
There is conclusive proof that your mind, your character is at least in part caused by the brain. If certain parts of your brain are damaged you behave differently. If your brain is completely destroyed in death, your character and mind should be at least completely changed and probably destroyed as well.
The 'energy can not be destroyed'-argument is stupid. The energy itself does not remember what it used to be energy of. You can never figure out what the heat in your room used to be before it was kinetic energy. The energy can't carry information about a mind or something.
If souls are made of energy and souls go to some afterlife we can't measure, the conservation of energy is violated. Violation of this important principle of physics has never ever been measured before.
Near-death experiences or visions are not proof of an alterlife. Evidence has to objective and measurable. It is known that be exciting certain parts of the brain or by putting certain chemicals (drugs like '___') in the brain visions can be induced in laboratory environments.
I still stay with my point that there is no evidence of any afterlife. I personally don't like the idea of an afterlife, but if all evidence pointed in that direction I could only draw one conclusion. Luckily, it points in the opposite direction, and supports my case. Death is never something to be feared, especially when there is no afterlife. A life without afterlife is the best kind of life: Lucretius' de Rerum Natura and Seneca's de Consolatione ad Marciam.
Originally posted by 2009
why do you say life without afterlife is the best?
but i think i know what you try to say. after death, we would simply become non-existence, hence we have no more worries about this and that. but heres the brain twister, what if i still want to live? would that contradict what you believe in?
Originally posted by amantine
It's not a belief, but an observation. I have yet to see any evidence of an afterlife. All observations until now do not indicate an afterlife. Why add one in theories, when a life without afterlife is better?
Lucretius compares death to an eternal sleep, free from any worries, pain or suffering. Did you ever feel bad while sleeping? You don't have to worry about hell or heaven when there is no afterlife.
You've had 80 years (maybe more with medical technology) to do whatever you want to do. You don't have to worry about wanting to live on after you death, because through death you lose all worries. Your life with be better as well if you accept death as eternal rest without afterlife. No longer fear of what is to come, no longer spending time to prepare oneself for the afterlife.
I think to live forever is one of the worst tortures possible. The boredom and continuous problems from your body getting older would not be fun at all. Living eternally in hell or heaven is a torture, unless living eternally in heaven means eternal rest, but then it's equal to a life without afterlife.