the belief in an afterlife is required in old age for mental health

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

It is much easier to befriend the thought of being "immortal" than facing reality in which everything ends and dies at some point, including humans. Accepting reality and using the available resources cleverly is the winner strategy regardless of the existence of an afterlife. Accepting reality makes your life much easier in many situations: dying parents, ending relationships, etc... This is reality and one can not escape. Accept it and live for the good times.

I'm not going to embrace nihilism and I've heard much better worked out arguments for doing so than this one..

I may be wrong on this, but that sounds more like stoicism, or perhaps Epicureanism, than nihilism. Nihilism is the belief that nothing has meaning, and often comes with the consequence that everything that exists should be destroyed. Sometimes this is coupled with the idea of building a better world after the old one is destroyed.

 

[Lark]

There are countless near-death experiences you could research if you'd a mind to. Popular today, for example, is Eben Alexander.

There's obviously never going to be any physical proof of something nonphysical. That's an absurdity. But it's still a choice whether to believe only physical things are real, or to believe there are (or may be) also nonphysical things that are part of reality.

My thoughts and dreams and feelings are not physical, but they're part of my reality.

To identify oneself entirely as a physical body is, IMHO, very sad and self-limiting. But each to their own.

There are of course naturalistic (as opposed to supernaturalistic) explanations for the non-physical things.

That's why I endevoured to mention the world spirit, veltgheist, of Hegel or life force, of Nietzsche, Goethe, Wagner (though each has a pretty different idea of that that is) or historical materialism, of Marx and the young (or revisionist) Hegelians.

To simplify it further you could believe in art, culture, society or nation, although history has demonstrated just how tragic or fatal or horrific that can be.

To suppose "I'm a body" and conclude the logical consequences of "hedonism til I die", including very possibly sadism, objectification of others, even rape and murder, is a pretty terrible thing.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

There are of course naturalistic (as opposed to supernaturalistic) explanations for the non-physical things.

That's why I endevoured to mention the world spirit, veltgheist, of Hegel or life force, of Nietzsche, Goethe, Wagner (though each has a pretty different idea of that that is) or historical materialism, of Marx and the young (or revisionist) Hegelians.

To simplify it further you could believe in art, culture, society or nation, although history has demonstrated just how tragic or fatal or horrific that can be.

I don't believe in art, culture, society or nation, not in the sense of being an ultimate good, anyway. I believe in people and I've spent a decent amount of time observing them. An advantage of the internet is that I've spent a lot of time observing thought patterns. I have some idea of what motivates people.

Nietzsche went mad, and Marxism was a disaster. I get what you're trying to do, but I'm talking about something entirely different.

 

[Lark]

I may be wrong on this, but that sounds more like stoicism, or perhaps Epicureanism, than nihilism. Nihilism is the belief that nothing has meaning, and often comes with the consequence that everything that exists should be destroyed. Sometimes this is coupled with the idea of building a better world after the old one is destroyed.

Stoicism is agnostic, one of the stoics writing about a life well lived being long, it may have been Seneca, I dont remember discussed another being taken away to be executed who told his friends not to be sorry for him because while people wondered at the possibility of a life after death he would soon conclusively know himself.

Epicurean thinking was hedonistic or at least sensualistic and disbelieved in any post-sensual existence, that is to say when the senses died with the individual's body then so the individual as there is nothing besides the senses, but Epicurous was less about living for the good times than people suppose, even a cursory acquaintence with his life would tell you that as he used to drink water at the parties he arranged while his friends drank wine.

Nihilism does affirm that there is no meaning and therefore hedonism is all there is to life. So I see the perspective of accept (the finality) of death and live for the good times to be pretty nihilistic, I dont see nihilism as ever connected with the idea of a better world emerging from the ruins of a destroyed one, not ever.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

Nihilism does affirm that there is no meaning and therefore hedonism is all there is to life. So I see the perspective of accept (the finality) of death and live for the good times to be pretty nihilistic, I dont see nihilism as ever connected with the idea of a better world emerging from the ruins of a destroyed one, not ever.

That's what you want, for a better world to emerge from the ruins of a destroyed one?

LOL @ me being a nihilist.

 

[Lark]

I don't believe in art, culture, society or nation, not in the sense of being an ultimate good, anyway. I believe in people and I've spent a decent amount of time observing them. An advantage of the internet is that I've spent a lot of time observing thought patterns. I have some idea of what motivates people.

Nietzsche went mad, and Marxism was a disaster. I get what you're trying to do, but I'm talking about something entirely different.

I dont think you're getting it at all.

Art, culture and other abstractions are the trace which people can and do leave, so for many they can and do constitute the non-physical legacy or "immortality" achievable for them, I think John Grey wrote about this in the immortality commission, there was another author I cant recall who also wrote about it peoples lives being dedicated consciously or unconsciously to an immortalising legacy, whether its art, culture, religion, politics, ideology or adding to the common treasury which constitutes humanity.

The hebrews who did not (some still dont) believe in an afterlife or existence other than this life did (and do) seek to create familial legacies or ethno-nationalist legacies, this was all part of how and why Christianity proved controversial because Jesus preached an alternative, he did not appear to care much about the limited definition of the family which existed at the time and had a vision embracing everyone and not an elect or select few among humanity.

Is that what you mean if you say you believe in people? Its often easier to love humanity at large than it is individual humans, its how you get the phenomenon of misanthropic socialists which GB Shaw loved to laugh about and satirise.

To be honest I dont see how madness invalidates Nietzsche's philosophy, I dont believe it does it any harm at all, particularly not when considered in context and comparatively with other philosophers before and immediately after as some authors do, like the author of The Disinherited Mind, but I think there's problems with, as a lot of younger people do, reading it for the first time and adopting it as if it were as fresh, vital and valid as the day it was written.

Marxism as a philosophy has much more to recommend it than most people believe, although that involves a lot of context, knowledge of hegelianism, german philosophical disputes and discussions and dialogues, along with english classical economics and early french socialism than most people can be bothered with and is quite apart from the sorts of things people know of marxism as or associate it with after all the history in the interim between the day Marx and Engels wrote in and now.

What do you think I'm trying to do that you say you're talking about something entirely different?

 

[Lark]

That's what you want, for a better world to emerge from the ruins of a destroyed one?

LOL @ me being a nihilist.

I responded to a post which originally was not by you, unless you have multiple accounts, then further responded to a post you made suggesting what was meant in the original post which was not by you. I did not suggest you were a nihilist. Although I might suggest that given you managed to steer this discussion thread back to your self and that it is a pattern you have followed in other threads that you are a narcissist.

LOL @ that whydontcha.

I dont know why you consider that I want a better world to emerge from the ruins of a destroyed one since that is what you wrote and I stated that I dont equate that with nihilism, for all your observation of others it seems you are yet to find their thinking as anything other than confounding your understanding.

 

[Julius_Van_Der_Beak]

The hebrews who did not (some still dont) believe in an afterlife or existence other than this life did (and do) seek to create familial legacies or ethno-nationalist legacies, this was all part of how and why Christianity proved controversial because Jesus preached an alternative, he did not appear to care much about the limited definition of the family which existed at the time and had a vision embracing everyone and not an elect or select few among humanity.

Actually, I think Jesus had some good ideas.

 

[á´…eparted]

There are countless near-death experiences you could research if you'd a mind to. Popular today, for example, is Eben Alexander.

There's obviously never going to be any physical proof of something nonphysical. That's an absurdity. But it's still a choice whether to believe only physical things are real, or to believe there are (or may be) also nonphysical things that are part of reality.

My thoughts and dreams and feelings are not physical, but they're part of my reality.

To identify oneself entirely as a physical body is, IMHO, very sad and self-limiting. But each to their own.

Near death experiences are not proof. In the absence of proof, or reduceable doubt, I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe or put stock into it. It may be a choice, but it's an irrational one and wrong one to make.

I think the idea of a soul is really sad and limiting. I used to believe in such things years ago. Not anymore and I am immensely happier for it.

We are 'bodily' but we are not 'bodies'. What we are is more than that.

Define "more".

 

[Patrick]

There are of course naturalistic (as opposed to supernaturalistic) explanations for the non-physical things.

That's why I endevoured to mention the world spirit, veltgheist, of Hegel or life force, of Nietzsche, Goethe, Wagner (though each has a pretty different idea of that that is) or historical materialism, of Marx and the young (or revisionist) Hegelians. . . .

Well, this thread started out being about old age and mental health. And as someone who's sixty and has already had to face the possible imminence of dying, I'd say thoughts about philosophy have little, if anything, to do with it. Your body is about to self-destruct, and whatever attitudes or feelings about that you've picked up are the ones you have to deal with. There's no time to be musing on what philosophers or preachers have said; there's only what you expect (i.e., believe) and what actually happens. Ultimately, there's only what actually happens. Philosophy is something for people with more leisure time to busy themselves with.

 

[Patrick]

Near death experiences are not proof.

Not the kind of proof you're looking for, you mean. That's OK; I'm biased too. I've read articles by materialists who argue that thoughts and dreams and mystical experiences and near-death experiences are merely electrochemical processes in the brain--and I consider that utter hogwash; their little scientific experiments are no proof at all to me. They've proven nothing; they've only made up their minds to reject anything nonphysical and to accept only empirical data.

In the absence of proof, or reduceable doubt, I have absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe or put stock into it. It may be a choice, but it's an irrational one and wrong one to make.

Why is it any more irrational than what you do? You assume, without any proof, that you are your physical body and nothing more. You can't possibly prove to me, or anyone, that it's true; yet you persist in believing it. Isn't that irrational? IMO it's also wrong. And I'd say my opinion is as good as yours.

I think the idea of a soul is really sad and limiting. I used to believe in such things years ago. Not anymore and I am immensely happier for it.

Well, if you're happier, my hat's off to you. I'm all in favor of happier.

I can't imagine why you'd be happier, though. Can you explain that?

 

[Evee]

Define "more".

Inquiries about what it means to be are called "ontological", and inquiries about entities are called "ontic".

The self is not an entity (in this case a body).. it is a characteristic of Being.

You can never ask "What is a self?".. that is meaningless. But rather, "What does it mean to be a self?"

Or better yet.. "What does it mean to be?"

So you see.. what you said is actually meaningless.

 

[á´…eparted]

Not the kind of proof you're looking for, you mean. That's OK; I'm biased too. I've read articles by materialists who argue that thoughts and dreams and mystical experiences and near-death experiences are merely electrochemical processes in the brain--and I consider that utter hogwash; their little scientific experiments are no proof at all to me. They've proven nothing; they've only made up their minds to reject anything nonphysical and to accept only empirical data.

Uh, it's the only kind of acceptable proof. Anything else is not. I am not bias, I quite well know what counts as proof or not. I'm a scientist after, so I quite well know what counts as evidence or not. You consider those reasonings hogwash. Well, I'll make a note to never respect your opinions or matters on anything scientific then, because what you're doing is rejecting scientific reasonings in place of something else that has no factual support at all. All that backs it is anecdotes, that are being used to support something that has no support beyond anything but a hollow opinion. This is little different than being anti-vaccine; rejecting scientific explanations and theory for "personal opinion" that is unsubstantiated in every which way.

Why is it any more irrational than what you do? You assume, without any proof, that you are your physical body and nothing more. You can't possibly prove to me, or anyone, that it's true; yet you persist in believing it. Isn't that irrational? IMO it's also wrong. And I'd say my opinion is as good as yours.

Yes, I do assume that without proof the body is just a body. My opinion isn't even remotely irrational. YOU are the one who bares the burden of proof because you're the one who made the claim that there is a soul. You have to prove it, I do not have to disprove it. Logical arguments do not work that way. It is the claim makers job to provide evidence. As they say, extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence. See here.

Well, if you're happier, my hat's off to you. I'm all in favor of happier.

I can't imagine why you'd be happier, though. Can you explain that?

Because I live my life in accordance to my own rules and laws, and live life in accordance to the world around me. I don't have to worry or concern myself to some external self or force that has no way of understanding what to do, what is right, what is wrong, aside from extremely flimsy "assumptions" and "gut feelings". I don't have to worry about some sort of afterlife (which would be really shitty to experience, I do not want to "live" forever). The only consequences I have to worry about are the here and now. I don't have to concern myself with some kind of existential idea that can not be reasonable solved even a little.

Inquiries about what it means to be are called "ontological", and inquiries about entities are called "ontic".

The self is not an entity (in this case a body).. it is a characteristic of Being.

You can never ask "What is a self?".. that is meaningless. But rather, "What does it mean to be a self?"

Or better yet.. "What does it mean to be?"

So you see.. what you said is actually meaningless.

This is a bunch of spiritual and psychobabble, talks in circles, goes no where, and is ultimately unsubstantiating. If I didn't know any better, I'd guess this would be written by Mole. I'm sure you know how I react to such things. What you said did not even remotely answer my question, and I'm honestly thinking you either can't, or don't want to. If I ask a plain question, I expect a plain answer. Besides, it's painfully obvious you have all kinds of clear opinions on these matters and think lower of a shit ton of people (me included), but are too afraid to speak it. I should have known better than to expect you to be straight forward with how you actually think and feel on this. You should full well know being vague is completely unsatisfying to me, and I don't accept it.

 

[Patrick]

So you see.. what you said is actually meaningless.

Seems to me there's a lot of that going around.

 

[SiegfriedSchtauffen]

People are entitled to their own opinions, they are not entitled to their own facts. Are you suggesting that my view is unreal?

For me the anchor of reality is the material world. I have to wake up into that every day. From my perspective souls and afterlife are pretty much "unreal".

I dont consider it to be bending reality, I'm not sure what's meant by that, although I would say that I could not be satisfied with the reductive postivistic or empirical idea of life you possess. Its your funeral though, as they say.

For me bending reality is believing in something that has seemingly no connection with the material world.

Most of our debates can be traced back to the definition of "reality". For me reality is the material world. The world into which you wake up every day, in which you can be hedonistic, sad/broken. In which you can help or punish others' (or others' bodies if it fits more...), you can destroy, you can build, you can be buried. For me it was only the fear that made it difficult to accept my current "reality".

I presume if your experience is limited to that of your years of life, context and circumstances you would not hold it universally valid. I could see a psychopath whose experience to date led them to believe that torture, killing and the objectification of others was fine being pleased with the moral relativism you're holding to be valid.

Being cruel is probably another dimension of personality. You have to be extremely sick in order to take cruel actions against others, actions you wouldn't like others to take against you. I do not hold anything universally valid, I'm just anchoring myself to the material world, to my "reality", and I'm solving my problems in it, I'm defining my truths in it.

I would not find what you are describing to be a satisfactory way of life, its settling a question by never asking it or never speaking of it again, which is of course one way of dealing with any question. It may work for you, maybe for your entire life but I doubt the majority of humanity, for the majority of human history, would be in agreement. Not suggesting that mere majoritarianism validates a thing but if you are searching for universally valid ideas it is a significant correlate to consider.

I'm simply trying to avoid asking and answering questions that make no sense for me in the material world. I'm not searching for universally valid ideas but I'm drawing the line for myself usually in reasonable and often materialistic ways.

I suspect that you're just using the word "insanely" here as a prejorative term, that is a poor form of reasoning I'm afraid, throughout history people have labelled things insane when what they meant was it merely was deviant from their own norms or something they rejected while wishing to give this the veneer of a universal truth. A great deal of time has been spent trying to rigorously root that out of disciplines like psychology, sometimes disposing of ideas along the way which deserved more careful consideration in a "throwing out the baby with the bathwater" style, but it would seem that its not something atheists feel strongly enough about to refrain from doing.

People refused to believe in "insane" (often material and scientific) things even when proof was available. This often resulted in witch burning. Mostly because of stupid and/or false beliefs. I make a difference between (proven) things that are connected to the material world and things that are not. You can reason about material things, you can't really do the same with afterlife or souls.

Actually when I've written "insanely" I was thinking about the story of a scientist who believed in a theory, dedicated decades of his life to find a proof, and then killed himself when others proven the theory to be wrong.

I'm not going to embrace nihilism and I've heard much better worked out arguments for doing so than this one.

Although you hold to your own opinion as reality with such certainty I dont really see any point in carrying on a discussion, all I would say is that there's lot more you could learn and much more in the way of alternative thinking available to you should you choose to interest yourself in it and enrich your life as a consequence. The choice is your own. The ages have bequeathed much in this respect but if you're happy with the musings of contemporaries then that's grand. Whatever works for you.

I don't think that accepting that everything ends at some point would be nihilism. Knowing something that has limited lifespan is a privilege. I can really value things - much more than I could before realizing that basically "everything" on Earth has a finite lifespan.

Afterlife may or may not be part of reality (our material world). Before we have any reasonable evidence I'm not going to waste much energy in believing or not believing in it. I don't know whether it exists or not and I'm not really interested in the answer because it wouldn't really change my "real" life.

 

[SiegfriedSchtauffen]

YOU are the one who bares the burden of proof because you're the one who made the claim that there is a soul. You have to prove it, I do not have to disprove it. Logical arguments do not work that way. It is the claim makers job to provide evidence. As they say, extraordinary claims, require extraordinary evidence. See here.

Straight to the point. I forget this very important thing too often...

 

[Mane]

So the general OP claim is "I don't know if there is an afterlife, but only people in the afterlife can be fantastic people, and people who don't are boring sucking the life out of those around them"... Which makes sense subjectively, from the perspective of people who do believe in an afterlife, people who don't believe in an afterlife are a threat to personal hope (Life sucking) self perception (Devaluing) and provide more to avoid thinking about then to think about (And thus boring), stripping away the concrete notion of transcendence they are familiar with without actually introducing them to the emergent notion of beauty in nature and depth of meaning and mystery entangled in it... But that's more of a very limited narrow field of vision that says more about the limits of the eye then the object observed.

 

[SiegfriedSchtauffen]

So the general OP claim is "I don't know if there is an afterlife, but only people in the afterlife can be fantastic people, and people who don't are boring sucking the life out of those around them"... Which makes sense subjectively, from the perspective of people who do believe in an afterlife, people who don't believe in an afterlife are a threat to personal hope (Life sucking) self perception (Devaluing) and provide more to avoid thinking about then to think about (And thus boring), stripping away the concrete notion of transcendence they are familiar with without actually introducing them to the emergent notion of beauty in nature and depth of meaning and mystery entangled in it... But that's more of a very limited narrow field of vision that says more about the limits of the eye then the object observed.

You are underestimating the capabilities of the material world along with the values it provides. The material world isn't boring. It is possible to be strong and spiritual with a down to Earth approach. I don't mind if someone uses his brain (or soul) to express things in artistic ways but claiming the existence of an afterlife without evidence is a step beyond that.

In my opinion you have nothing to think about if you know that you may disappear completely with your death and you have to think about making your current life good (why is this boring?) regardless of having an afterlife and doing so is the opposite of life sucking from my perspective. I would treat afterlife as a possible bonus. There is no problem with thinking about artificial worlds (workoholism, afterlife, ....) as long as you are not trying to escape into them.

 

[Mane]

You are underestimating the capabilities of the material world along with the values it provides. The material world isn't boring. It is possible to be strong and spiritual with a down to Earth approach. I don't mind if someone uses his brain (or soul) to express things in artistic ways but claiming the existence of an afterlife without evidence is a step beyond that.

That's what I said:

So the general OP claim is "I don't know if there is an afterlife, but only people in the afterlife can be fantastic people, and people who don't are boring sucking the life out of those around them"... Which makes sense subjectively, from the perspective of people who do believe in an afterlife, people who don't believe in an afterlife are a threat to personal hope (Life sucking) self perception (Devaluing) and provide more to avoid thinking about then to think about (And thus boring), stripping away the concrete notion of transcendence they are familiar with without actually introducing them to the emergent notion of beauty in nature and depth of meaning and mystery entangled in it... But that's more of a very limited narrow field of vision that says more about the limits of the eye then the object observed.

As far as why they'd find it boring, my guess it isn't really about a measure of what is interesting, so much as its that they don't reach the point of thinking and dwelling in the beauty and meaning of it because they find the notion threatening to what they already hold ad are afraid of thinking about in the first place, and in avoiding it, not having anything to think about is.... Well, boring.

But that's a 2 second psychological analysis generalizing over 5 billion people on my part, so you know... Grain of salt.

 

[Patrick]

Uh, it's the only kind of acceptable proof. Anything else is not. I am not bias, I quite well know what counts as proof or not. I'm a scientist after, so I quite well know what counts as evidence or not. You consider those reasonings hogwash. Well, I'll make a note to never respect your opinions or matters on anything scientific then, because what you're doing is rejecting scientific reasonings in place of something else that has no factual support at all. All that backs it is anecdotes, that are being used to support something that has no support beyond anything but a hollow opinion. This is little different than being anti-vaccine; rejecting scientific explanations and theory for "personal opinion" that is unsubstantiated in every which way.

What about experiential evidence? Eben Alexander and many others like him have literally been to heaven, so to speak. Hence, it is a real place for them. It's a nonphysical dimension that of course there can be no physical (empirical) evidence for. You can't measure something psychic or spiritual with physical instruments, but that doesn't mean psychic and spiritual things are unreal.

Yet, materialist scientists persist in using their physical instruments. They try (in vain, IMO) to explain near-death experiences by pointing only to what they can measure--e.g., electrochemical processes in the brain. I don't see how they can prove or disprove life after death that way. But those who are dyed-in-the-wool materialists seem to believe they can.

Stephen Hawking acknowledges that other dimensions of reality could exist. They've been neither proven nor disproven from a scientific viewpoint. But meanwhile they've been experienced by many people (or so they claim). And they may be experienced by all of us.

More later. Gotta run.