How would the world react to proof of life/no life after death?

[Discofan]

Truth be told, there can't be any proof of life after death. Science is the only discipline capable of delivering any proof and science doesn't deal with that matter. The only thing that's noticeable in these matters is that the mind is heavily dependant on the body's physical state, so, until proof to the contrary (proof that can't exist) when the body deteriorates to a heap of inert protoplasm, a similar deterioration happens to the mind.

 

[Kor]

I once saw on the cover of a certain well-known nationally distributed publication (available at every grocery store checkout line), that they had accidentally discovered the existence of hell when doing some deep underground drilling and picking up sounds of screams of torment on the audio monitoring.

Kor

 

[TribbleFeeder]

I once saw on the cover of a certain well-known nationally distributed publication (available at every grocery store checkout line), that they had accidentally discovered the existence of hell when doing some deep underground drilling and picking up sounds of screams of torment on the audio monitoring.

Kor

Do you have any links to this? I’d be interested in reading.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

You could, potentially, eventually design an experiment that could demonstrate the phenomenon of consciousness is more than the sum of its parts. If there is a part of you not attached to the physical meat, you could potentially prove it scientifically.

 

[Kor]

Do you have any links to this? I’d be interested in reading.

On this particular topic, Snopes would be the most useful source of information: https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-well-to-hell/

Kor

 

[Discofan]

I once saw on the cover of a certain well-known nationally distributed publication (available at every grocery store checkout line), that they had accidentally discovered the existence of hell when doing some deep underground drilling and picking up sounds of screams of torment on the audio monitoring.

Kor

It's amusing because the idea that Hell is a physical place is a bit obsolete even among consensual religions. In Medieval times they thought that Hell was not underground but a place on Earth, no need for drilling back then.

 

[Aragorn]

Do you have any links to this? I’d be interested in reading.

Kor is referring to the National Enquirer types of publications.

 

[Tosk]

Truth be told, there can't be any proof of life after death.

Not if it doesn't exist, no.

I wouldn't be so quick to say that there is something we can't some day come to understand. It wasn't that long ago that people though the idea of leaving the planet was lunacy. (Pun intended.)

 

[Discofan]

Not if it doesn't exist, no.

....It wasn't that long ago that people though the idea of leaving the planet was lunacy. (Pun intended.)

(Other) people have thought of means to leave the planet for a very long time. As for the idea that Columbus was opposed to people thinking that the Earth was flat. It's completely wrong. Columbus was the one in the wrong, he thought that the Earth was much smaller than it is which would have made the trip to India through the Ocean by the west, commercially profitable.

It wasn't.

All his life Columbus thought he had reached India, hence autochthons were called "Indians".

People have known/suspected that the Earth was spherical since Greek antiquity. Eratosthenes even gave a good approximation of its size, that Columbus more than a thousand years later ignored...

 

[Tosk]

I didn't mention Flat Earth, but good to know.

 

[RunningValkyrie]

Not if it doesn't exist, no.

I wouldn't be so quick to say that there is something we can't some day come to understand. It wasn't that long ago that people though the idea of leaving the planet was lunacy. (Pun intended.)

I have often thought of the multiverse theory as an explanation for a hypothetical excistence of an afterworld. The afterworld would then be another layer of the multiverse.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Even if there isn't an afterlife - with or without virgins on tap, quantum immortality or eternal return might be options.

So it goes.

 

[Discofan]

I didn't mention Flat Earth, but good to know.

Well, most people who like you believe that leaving the planet is a recent notion also believe that Colombus proved that the Earth was spherical. There are stories about people traveling to the moon or other planets as far back as three or four centuries ago.

Micromegas, for example, is a story by Voltaire of someone traveling through the solar system to Saturn and then to SIRIUS!

It was published in 1752.

 

[Discofan]

Even if there isn't an afterlife - with or without virgins on tap, quantum immortality or eternal return might be options.

So it goes.

At worst death would be like falling asleep in a dreamless state and never waking up. I don't see what's so terrible about it.

 

[Tosk]

Well, most people who like you believe that leaving the planet is a recent notion

Recent in terms of human history, yes. No to mention, it was just an example of why it is perhaps shortsighted to say that there is a thing that we can never understand or explore or prove one way or another.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

1. Animals don't have souls or an afterlife. I was definitely told this is the case during religious education.
2. Humans are animals. DNA, biochemistry and anatomy demonstrate this fact conclusively.
3. Given 1 and 2, unless humans somehow evolved souls and an afterlife, we have neither souls nor an afterlife.

 

[Discofan]

Recent in terms of human history, yes.

Sure, it's even more recent if we consider the age of the universe!

No to mention, it was just an example of why it is perhaps shortsighted to say that there is a thing that we can never understand or explore or prove one way or another.

I was speaking in terms of fields of interest. It's not presumptuous to say that Ichthyology will never be about shoe size or violin tuning.

 

[Discofan]

1. Animals don't have souls or an afterlife. I was definitely told this is the case during religious education.
2. Humans are animals. DNA, biochemistry and anatomy demonstrate this fact conclusively.
3. Given 1 and 2, unless humans somehow evolved souls and an afterlife, we have neither souls nor an afterlife.

That reminds me of a series where an old man explained to a weeping little girl that her cat went to heaven: "Cat heaven is filled with delicious mice running around!" so she asked him about mouse heaven: "it's filled with cheese!"

Well, maybe there's a tiger heaven filled with people.

 

[RunningValkyrie]

1. Animals don't have souls or an afterlife. I was definitely told this is the case during religious education.
2. Humans are animals. DNA, biochemistry and anatomy demonstrate this fact conclusively.

I agree, we are more alike animals both in behaviour and in body constitution than many of us would like to admit. I believe that if humans have souls then animals have souls too.

 

[Discofan]

I agree, we are more alike animals both in behaviour and in body constitution than many of us would like to admit. I believe that if humans have souls then animals have souls too.

Seriously, I have no idea what people mean by "soul".