Is it better to die than to live?

[aliceBB]

maybe you ought to follow your own advice Alice. Enjoying one of your rare nights in are you?hum

 

Irrelevant how I spend my time. I'm not the one inviting people to 'debate' silly, undebatable questions!

 

You know as well as I do that the belief in an afterlife isn't based on what is know or not known about it, it's based on a set of strongly held beliefs, so why argue about there being no point in debating what we cannot possibly know? As if knowledge is a requirement when debating belief

 

OK, so the non-debate will look like this :

 

P1 : I believe there's an afterlife and that it's better than life pre-death.

P2 : I don't. I think there is nothing after death, you just rot. So it's worse. Or it's the same, depending on what your pre-death state was like.

P3 : I believe some people go to Hell, which is worse, and some go to heaven which is better.

 

Which is not a debate at all, just a series of subjective, unprovable and disconnected assertions. You may as well invite people to 'debate' by describing what their sock drawers are like.

 

---------- Post added 03-03-2014 at 08:50 ----------

 

Okay, what's the reason you have a belief in an 'afterlife'?

 

Don't confuse him.

[crazybaby]

On the other hand, it could just have been a dream//delirium/delusion and not real at all.

 

This is possible, but the strange thing is people who report nde's usually have the same experience. How likely is it that these people are all having the same dream?

[danot]

Okay, what's the reason you have a belief in an 'afterlife'?

 

Besides you, who said I have a belief in a afterlife?

 

---------- Post added 03-03-2014 at 09:43 ----------

 

Irrelevant how I spend my time. I'm not the one inviting people to 'debate' silly, undebatable questions!

 

 

 

OK, so the non-debate will look like this :

 

P1 : I believe there's an afterlife and that it's better than life pre-death.

P2 : I don't. I think there is nothing after death, you just rot. So it's worse. Or it's the same, depending on what your pre-death state was like.

P3 : I believe some people go to Hell, which is worse, and some go to heaven which is better.

 

Which is not a debate at all, just a series of subjective, unprovable and disconnected assertions. You may as well invite people to 'debate' by describing what their sock drawers are like.

 

---------- Post added 03-03-2014 at 08:50 ----------

 

I'm not remotely interested in how you spend your personal time, but if you don't like being ridiculed over how you spend yours, don't taunt others about how they should spend theirs. Simple.

[Phanerothyme]

Suppose it's true that after death, some of us will be transformed into something better then taken to a better place.

 

Does this mean that it's better to die than to live?

 

Yes, categorically, as defined in your question. No other correct answer is possible.

 

It's a good example of the real meaning of "begging the question" though.

[Bob England]

In Iraq I was blown up in a Marine Corp Humvee. 5 of my companions were killed. I sustained life threatening injuries and "died" whilst undergoing surgery. I have to say that the whole experience did not impact on my life experience. I did not undergo any form of mystical or spiritual experience.

 

However, the experience has taught me to value life, to live one day at a time. I have not had the opportunity or gift, to experience any form of premonition regarding what is to come. I suspect that I will become dust, as dust I will be assimilated into my mother earth and will help to provide sustenance to life. In that way I am immortal, as to my spirit, my unique being, I do not know.

 

If I enter heaven I hope to have lived my life in such a way that a benign and merciful deity will allow me access and forgive me my million sins. If there is no such thing, so be it, I return to carbon, and will be useful.

[JFKvsNixon]

This is possible, but the strange thing is people who report nde's usually have the same experience. How likely is it that these people are all having the same dream?

 

The thing is that under a standard general anaesthetic needed to have typical surgery the patient would not have dreamed, because they'd have been unconscious and not asleep. There is a difference, under a correctly given deep general anaesthetic all apart from the essential brain functions are stopped, and even these are working far below their optimal levels.

 

Due to this unconsciousness from the patients perception there is no space from "going to sleep and then waking up". As a result, often what the patient is thinking when they loose consciousness is the first thing that they think of when they wake up. Considering that surgery is extremely stressful and it often comes with a high perception of risk of death, it is not uncommon for patients to think of theirs and their loved ones mortality when they are loosing consciousness, and as a result this is what they are thinking when they regain consciousness.

 

Many people do say that they remember dreams that they have whilst having a general anaesthetic, but what usually happens is that as the unconscious part of the anaesthetic comes to an end you then go in a sedated sleep. It's worth remembering here that powerful drugs have been given as part of the anaesthetic and these will have an effect on your dreams whilst you are in this sleep.

 

It's more than likely that dreams of near death experiences only gain significance and are remembered and reported after a life threatening emergency, and when they happen after a routine procedure they are quickly forgotten.

[skinz]

Or, if a scientist said " God did not create the universe"? What mental tool would they have used to reach their conclusions?

 

Overwhelming scientific evidence, negating zero evidence of creationism. A scientist would not say "did not". That would categorise them the same as theists with the line "God exists".

 

if a atheist told a theist that there was no afterlife,

 

The same as above..knowledge.

 

If I told you last night that I saw in my dreams that 15 pixies danced on the head of a pin then suggested it has some validation outside of a dream, what would be your reply?

 

 

Science does not look to debunk creationism, that being the case science would stagnate and move forward at a snails pace, if at all.

 

---------- Post added 03-03-2014 at 10:47 ----------

 

The thing is that under a standard general anaesthetic needed to have typical surgery the patient would not have dreamed, because they'd have been unconscious and not asleep. There is a difference, under a correctly given deep general anaesthetic all apart from the essential brain functions are stopped, and even these are working far below their optimal levels.

 

Due to this unconsciousness from the patients perception there is no space from "going to sleep and then waking up". As a result, often what the patient is thinking when they loose conciseness is the first thing that they think of when they wake up. Considering that surgery is extremely stressful and it often comes with a high perception of risk of death, it is not uncommon for patients to think of theirs and their loved ones mortality when they are loosing consciousness, and as a result this is what they are thinking when they regain consciousness.

 

Many people do say that they remember dreams that they have whilst having a general anaesthetic, but what usually happens is that as the unconscious part of the anaesthetic comes to an end you then go in a sedated sleep. It's worth remembering here that powerful drugs have been given as part of the anaesthetic and these will have an effect on your dreams whilst you are in this sleep.

 

It's more than likely that dreams of near death experiences only gain significance and are remembered and reported after a life threatening emergency, and when they happen after a routine procedure they are quickly forgotten.

 

Doesn't take much to go beyond the 4 walls does it. Good post JFK.

[aliceBB]

Besides you, who said I have a belief in a afterlife?

 

 

I'm not remotely interested in how you spend your personal time, but if you don't like being ridiculed over how you spend yours, don't taunt others about how they should spend theirs. Simple.

 

It wasn't a taunt, more an objective observation. And if you aren't remotely interested, why did you ask?

 

You are making less and less sense as this thread stumbles on.

 

And you still haven't answered Snailyboy's question.

 

---------- Post added 03-03-2014 at 12:25 ----------

 

This is possible, but the strange thing is people who report nde's usually have the same experience. How likely is it that these people are all having the same dream?

 

The power of suggestion is immense. They could have read about it in a magazine and transferred the experience to themselves. It is a recognised psychological phenomenon, I understand.

 

Interestingly there is no reference to it in literature before about 1850.

[danot]

Yes, categorically, as defined in your question. No other correct answer is possible.

 

It's a good example of the real meaning of "begging the question" though.

 

I only set the question, I didn't event the concept. I don't understand why some folk are so touchy about it?

[cuttsie]

I'll tell you exactly what it feels like to be dead, it feels like before you were born.

I remember being born.

Spent the rest of my life trying to get back in.