Hey, they're dead! We can say whatever we want!

*watches a zombie lurch towards him... followed by more zombies*

O.O

*runs*

(To the super sensitive, yes I am joking around )

Well, I believe in beer and rock music... (And babes, of course!)

That's all there is to it for me

God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you
Gave rock and roll to everyone (oh yeah)
God gave rock and roll to you, gave rock and roll to you
Put it in the soul of everyone.

I want to comment on this thread, but I don't really know enough about religion yet to say anything. I will say that I'm agnostic, though.

Reading the bible someday soon. I wanna read the other big books as well...

[Keeker]

<Rolls up sleeves> Here's my tuppence worth. My apologies in advance for the length of this post (and this is the cut-down, much simplified version I'll have you know!) If you start to lose the will to live half way through, by all means, stop reading.

I would have to say I'm an atheist in that I don't believe in a god. Certainly not a big old chap with a shepherd's crook and a bunch of smelly lambs at his feet. Religion itself is created by people and is therefore just a power trip/people controller. However I do believe in 'something beyond' which is comforting to me if nothing else. I pull this belief from a variety of sources, my meagre understanding of quantum mechanics, biology, observation of living and dying and just plain old gut feeling.

The study of quantum physics shows us that things get really weird in the realms of the very small. Particles can be waves and waves can be particles. Particles can appear to exist in two places at once and particles can 'poof' into existence and 'poof' out again. Where do they come from? Where do they go? Other dimensions outside our four observable ones? It sure seems so.

Our brains work using an electro-chemical system. This creates a good deal of electrical energy. I was taught that energy doesn't just stop, it has to go someplace or transform into something. Recent studies have shown that our brain cells have quantum structures on them... wee tubules of some kind (apologies for lack of correct terminology but I wanted to keep it easy). It seems feasible to me that the mental energy, the mind itself perhaps, could easily slip away via these tubules into some other place. Yes, I know some folks believe the mind is merely a construct of the brain but I think the mind is separate from the physical structure, at least in part.

I could drag in the interesting work being done at Edinburgh University's Department of Parapsychology at this point too I suppose. Experiments giving strange results that are pretty hard to explain via conventional science. Again, there are theories about quantum stuff in there, electro-magnetic field effects on the temporal lobes and so forth. I'll let those interested do some searching there on their own however, or we'll be here all night. Suffice it to say I think the paranormal is just the normal that we haven't grasped the science of yet. But we'll get there. Things like clairvoyance and mediumship... seems to me that, again using those little quantum bits in our brain, some folks could have brains that are 'tuned in' to certain magnetic frequencies a bit like radio receivers. Perhaps this makes them receptive to information from other dimensions a little bit? Or able to tune into our brain and pick up information that seems spooky.

Now I'll move on to the more personal, amorphous things that I feel about life and death. I live in the countryside, I grew up on a farm next to the harsh realities of the natural world. You look into the eyes of enough dying creatures you begin to sense that they don't just 'stop.' Something drifts away at the moment of death. That's the 'gut feeling' part I mentioned above.

I know there is a part of the brain that has evolved to make us feel 'spiritual,' give us a love of ceremony and all that kind of social cohesion, conformity thing. A useful trick to keep our tribes together and so on. However, since it is there I can't deny that I feel the spiritual tug when staring up at the stars or lying in the long grass gazing at the sky, feeling the weight of the world beneath my back and the vastness of space and time out in front of me. These are the moments you ponder on where it all came from and why, yet it doesn't make me believe there is a god. An energy, a consciousness perhaps, running through everything. Gaia, anyone? Or are we just, each of us, like individual brain cells in the mind of a universe trying to know itself?

So there you have it. I feel confident that I won't cease to exist when my body dies and I feel peaceful with the notion that I'll be recycled in some other plane of existence. ( I don't discount reincarnation as a possibility either, btw).

Then again, perhaps the meaning of life is, after all, just 42.

maybe if we step back a second and look at how society has grown. we're accepting things today that would've been hell illegal back in the olden days. why? because society has grown, not payiogn any attention to the bible. god had never intended for men to go off with each other, and just because you turn around and say "I want to do this new thing, but the multi-thousand year old law is against it, it's in the wrong!" doesn't mean that it is. let's say, you want to go and steal from someone. of course, the law says that you shouldn't steal, so is it fair to turn around to that law and say "this law sucks because I can't steal, screw the law!"? hardly.

So would you argue that what is right or wrong is defined (maybe even solely defined) by the bible?

Our brains work using an electro-chemical system. This creates a good deal of electrical energy. I was taught that energy doesn't just stop, it has to go someplace or transform into something.

That's a strange argumentation IMO. Yes, in physics the energy conservation law exists. But that doesn't mean there's some kind of wonderful energy surplus stored in our brains when we finally die. It's the other way round, our metabolism stops working, the conversion of chemical energy in electrical energy stops and our synapses are put to eternal rest.

Yup', I agree... and if you add to that the grim prospects of the world (or at least civilisation) on the energetico-environmental point of view, as well as geo-politic, you get a pretty pessimistic Falk (yeah, me^^), who wish he could believe in any god and afterlife rather than just thinking he'll end as fertilizer for whatever organism that would hopefully make it through global warming, so he wouldn't die totally in vain .

[Keeker]

Our brains work using an electro-chemical system. This creates a good deal of electrical energy. I was taught that energy doesn't just stop, it has to go someplace or transform into something.

That's a strange argumentation IMO. Yes, in physics the energy conservation law exists. But that doesn't mean there's some kind of wonderful energy surplus stored in our brains when we finally die. It's the other way round, our metabolism stops working, the conversion of chemical energy in electrical energy stops and our synapses are put to eternal rest.

I knew I'd cut down too much. My apologies for any poor science. What I was supposed to be inferring here is not that the mind is just electricity (otherwise that lightbulb I smashed the other day will come back and haunt me ) but that my idea of consciousness is that it uses the brain's electrochemical system as a kind of vehicle. I think I'm speaking about the Duality model here although there are 'plot holes' with that theory too. I reckon there are other forms of energy we just haven't learned how to detect yet. Since science is constantly finding new bits and pieces all the time I won't be surprised if they do turn something up before long. I don't think the Biological Identity Theory works. I find it hard to believe that the mind is purely biological, I've read too many arguments amongst scientists about it. It skips over too many unexplained issues. Also nobody knows yet exactly how the brain functions... we're just scraping the surface (if you'll forgive the horrible mental image that conjures)

Kyle: Oh, hey Stan. Where's your best buddy, Gary?

Stan: I'm not hanging around that kid anymore.

Cartman: [needling] Oh no! You guys broke up?

Stan: You guys were right, okay? The new kid's a douche. Now I just gotta find a way to keep him away from me.

Gary: [shows up] Hey Stan.

Stan: Oh brother.

Cartman: Uh oh, the jilted lover returns.

Gary: Listen, I just wanted to let you know you don't have to worry about me tryin' to be your friend anymore.

Stan: I don't?

Gary: Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life. and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don't care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people. And even though people in this town might think that's stupid, I still choose to believe in it. All I ever did was try to be your friend, Stan, but you're so high and mighty you couldn't look past my religion and just be my friend back. You've got a lot of growing up to do, buddy. Suck my balls. [turns around and walks off. All four boys just look at him in wonder, even Cartman.]

Cartman: Damn, that kid is cool, huh?

I wonder how long until all of the Scientologists commit mass suicide...

NO! Beck is not dying, dammit.

Gary: Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life. and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that. The truth is, I don't care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people.

That's totally fine with me - as long as religion doesn't try to fight back science, the enlightenment and human self-determination. No, the earth is not a plate, the luminaries are not rotating around the earth, and the theory of evolution is still incomplete, but it's consistent, and it was never falsified.

I don't want our western societies to go back to the darkness of the middle ages.

I remember when I was a little kid I was going home in the car after mass and my dad said 'the bible is so out of date'. I think that's when I started trying to interpret what they meant instead of falling asleep for a half an hour every sunday afternoon. And I think for the most part I was successful in my plight, and what the church was teaching were good things.

But as I grew older I attained more perspective, I realised the hypocrisy within this religion. And the paedophilia scandals, the wealth, the contraception issue, the divorce, the abortions, the ridiculous hypocrisy of it all made me look deep into my own beliefs, to the point where I realised I had no choice but to take the logical route, and admit that there may be a God, but then again this creation may be one of mortal fear, misinterpreted through the ages like so many things to do with it.

The religion teacher we have at the moment was going on about how Mary was a virgin the other day. I put up my hand and told her how wrong she was. And she basically told me 'that was my opinion'. And I think one weakness of a lot of people who believe in Christianity is that they seem to filter logic and truth where appropriate to their beliefs.

And Keeker, your post was class. Posed a lot of damn interesting theories. But I don't buy reincarnation at all. Like, you could come back as a dog or something, but then again you could come back as some sort of symbiotic parasite, or a tree or something. I just don't find it plausible..

Like I care what somebody who has no tolerance of anyone elses beliefs thinks.

Sorry to go back a few pages., but i cant allow that. Dawkins is very tolerant of other peoples beliefs. If anything its religious intolerence and ignorance he's fighting against. Just look at nothern ireland??? Where's the tolerance for protestants?

When do beliefs ever justify murder?