Water Head Zombies?, sometimes zombies isnt so smart....

In that specific scenerio, neither belief is a factor and won't have time to be called into play before death arrives. My theory does not apply in scenerios where you die so fast your belief system does not even have time to be recalled.

Mine is not an arguement that saves you from death. It is a theory that affords for a less angst ridden death. Of course you will die, but my point is, if you die with the notion that you will continue to live, you will die with considerably less fear than if you were to die with the notion that your life will be terminated into non existance.

No, No, No!!! *bangs head on wall*
I believe this is a tier in which you are having a hard time reaching. You will NEVER find out if you were right!!! So technically, "if you never find out", you NEVER find out <period!>. You "never finding out consciously" that you were right is still never finding out!!! For you cannot "find out" for anyone else BUT yourself, and if yourself cannot find out, than you find out for NO ONE else!!!
To some abstract ominous 3rd person viewer who is allowed to exist beyond non existance (God?) it could be viewed that you were right, but to yourself, you will never, ever know and thus it is of no concesquence if you are right.

Well obviously your theory has flaws since there are atheists, who are physcologically stable, do not believe in the afterlife theory, and do not fear death any more than a religious person. From my viewpoint on religion, believing in a god or an afterlife has no inherent advantage over not believing in them. If you are dealing with the masses, then you would be correct, as religion is designed to confort them, however, this is not a debate about the masses, so in this instance, there is no benefit to beleving in religion.

Not really, I'm already there, you are just too entreched in your own idea to see that.

Thank you for agreeing with me (though I'm sure you intended otherwise). I said I could not find out, and since if I am not proven wrong after death, and if I never find out, I was proven correct. I was never arguing that if I was correct, that I, or someone else, would find out upon death.

The fact that if I am correct, then I will never find out does NOT change the fact that I was correct in the first place.

This post has been edited by Immoral Sniper on March 01, 2005 05:16 pm

Obviously that is not a flaw in my theory, but rather a blatant flaw and bias in your logic:
Your viewpoint is athiest, so naturally you would view afterlife theory as useless.
It would be like a gay man saying: "from my viewpoint on sexuality, finding a woman attractive is of no advantage"... of course not to him!, but the straight man may beg to differ!
Of course you are prone to say that athiests have no more fear than afterlife theorists, but that's because, given that you remain athiest, you will never know how it is to die with a sense of continuation of life. Thus naturally from your standpoint (athiesm) you will view afterlife theory as non beneficial.
So then you are probably asking "what makes me so qualified to argue from both standpoints?"- easy, I am a human being. As a human being we are born with the notion that death is the end of life (axiom #1). Afterlife theory is not something that is inherent, but rather learned. Thus I can legitimately say I've been in your "shoes"; there have been many periods in my life in which I have reverted between the two.
Thus, if it is the case that you've never believed in afterlife theory, your argument for or against it is biased.
However, if it is the case that, at some time in your life, you have believed in afterlife theory, and I mean wholeheartedly, then you must honestly ask yourself:
"When I thought of the notion of death under afterlife theory was I more, or less perturbed about it than when I thought about it under the notion of it resulting in non existance?"
As one who has been on both sides of that arguement I can tell you wholeheartedly and undoubtedly that death purturbed me much more when I thought of it from the standpoint that it was the termination of my existence (athiesm).
As for the target of this theory, it does not solely apply to "the masses", but applies to all people as individuals as well (except for those stipulated as non-applicants). Likewise, as Case #2 upholds, the theory's applicatory value is directly correlated to how strong your faith is.

Contrary to whatever you may have read into, I never argued your theoretical correctness. I agree that you are correct in theory (and I implied as such), but you failed to understand my last statement:

Meaning that, although you may be correct in the eyes of an "ominous 3rd person" (or in the "eyes" of the universe), you cannot be correct in your own eyes or anyone elses because your "self" no longer exists to be aware of its correctness. In order for correctness to exist practically, someone must acknowledge it. Since nothing exists past nonexistance to acknowledge your correctness (unless you believe in God), being correct is of no consequence.
So, you asserting your theoretical "correctness" is like trying to cash in monopoly money at a bank: it is worthless.



This post has been edited by |2enegade on March 02, 2005 04:00 am

For the first nine or ten years of my life I believed in God, then I went a few years without thinking of religion and after that stuck to athesim. I've seen both sides of the coin.

And I can say the exact opposite, though I was too young to think logically through it, reflecting back upon it now I can honestly say back then I was more afraid of dying and going to hell rather than dying and no longer existing.

I'd like to note that athesim and life after death are not mutually exclusive. So, in fact, I may stand to be proven slightly incorrect in my own views (since I personally do not believe in said theories) but still correct in assuming there is no god.

Don't forget that such an argument can just as easily work against you. No third party that exists in time or space as we know it can acknowledge you were correct either. So by the same token, if you are correct, your being correct is also worthless.

Because you were young you may have viewed religion it less critically and more forcedly (as I did when I was young too). So in order to experience both sides, you should contemplate afterlife theory when you are able to devote your entire logic to it, rather than just recall your forced belief in it during your childhood.

You raise an important point with "hell". Perhaps one could argue that it is better to not exist, than exist eternally in hell. This is why I do not believe in a hell. My theory on hell is another story entirely, but I will explain it briefly:
God is an all-loving entity. His love for us is that of a parent but a million fold. Now, picture that you are a parent with a rebellious son. If your son does wrong against you and tells you boldfaced that he doesnt want to remain apart of your family anymore, hurt as it might, you will not wish harm upon him in his future encounters (that would be malicious). Infact, no loving parent would spitefully wish for harm to befall their child, regardless of the state of the relationship between them. The same is with God to an even greater degree. If one of us (God's children) rebukes him, even hates Him, and seeks to live their own life, I truly do not believe that God, being the all-loving entity he is, would "cast them into the burning fires of Hell" for eternity. This is why I believe there is only heaven. For me, heaven is a state of being rather than a defined place or time. It is the state of being in eternal bliss/eternal. And if I am right in this definition, only heaven will remain, because those who love God will live eternally with him (their heaven) and those who hate God will live eternally without him (their heaven).

I too question many beliefs of sructeralized religions (I was baptized Roman Catholic), and I have faced the dilemma of questioning my faith, however, instead of entirely discarding it and adopting atheism, I worked hard to pick apart and reconstruct my own theory from the logical fragments of many religions (mostly Christianity)
My above theory about the non existance of hell is the result of the 5+ years of personal contemplation on this matter. Thus I may have been in err not to mention this before, since you may have felt that this whole time my "afterlife" theory included a hell. Perhaps now that I have cleared it up, it will shine a different light on the matter.

By "correctness" I was referring to your belief that afterlife theory is incorrect. So it upholds that if you continue to live on after death, you were incorrect.

You have been gravely mistaken. If I am correct that there is an afterlife in which I described, my correctness will be of complete value because, myself still being alive, will exist to acknowledge my correctness as well as perhaps others who have lived beyond death.
If you are correct (afterlife theory is false) you die, you cease to exist, you never know if you were correct, thus your correctness is of no value.
If I am correct (afterlife theory is true), I die, I continue to live after death, I realize that I am correct (as well as possibly others too), my correctness is of value.

This post has been edited by |2enegade on March 03, 2005 08:16 am

That was going to be my sig.But it was to big glad some one aggres with me.

i agree with you on this one. but i thought this discussion was about zombies... whatever.

This post has been edited by zombieslaya on March 04, 2005 03:56 am