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Originally Posted by tore;
This isn't about asking questions as much as it is about answering them. We all ask questions. What happens after we die? Even though we don't know, you have an answer to that question. So do I.
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Well, we both have theories. I would stop short of calling our best guesses "answers" in this situation.
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Originally Posted by tore
But I try to apply parsimony as a way to filter out my possible answers. What that does it helps reduce the likelyhood of me being wrong by basing itself as much as it can on the world as we know it.
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As do I, and pretty much anyone who is not religious (no offense to anyone or their religious preferences). It just seems that once something like religion becomes sacred, it seemingly becomes immune to criticism and any thought outside of the canons.
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Originally Posted by tore
If you have to come up with lots of new assumptions to accommodate your idea of the world, any one of those assumptions could be wrong.
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True, I can't argue with you there. But if any one assumptions in your chain of thought is wrong, so could be every assumption made thereafter. That's why we try not to make assumptions as much as we make educated guesses and hypotheses.
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Originally Posted by tore
You say the soul travels to a planet. That means you f.ex make assumptions that there is a soul, that this soul can travel through space and that there is a home for souls on a distant planet. These souls are obviously made of something that we can't measure at the moment and whatever that is, perhaps you believe it can hold information like shape, thoughts and memories. These are just a few of the assumptions one would probably have to make to accommodate your idea of what happens in the afterlife. I'm sure there'd be plenty more when you get into the details of it. None of these assumptions are supported by current evidence and as far as you know, any or all of them could be wrong. Basically, it's just you fantasizing. To me, that's just moving away from understanding.
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Most religions and belief systems share the idea of an afterlife. It is not a new concept that I just made up on the spot, it has existed for as long as humans have been conscious enough to form thoughts. I believe that these thoughts are somewhat intrinsic to human beings by nature. My beliefs were not conceived on a whim. I have gone through many religious and spiritual belief conversions in my 25 years. As I study more religions and schools of thoughts, I try to refine my beliefs based upon the more information that I have. Most religious or spiritual beliefs are based upon some sort of.. (I don't want to use the word faith here).. but a mental and spiritual connection that one feels. I just refuse to believe that with the vast majority of religions and spiritual belief systems that have existed throughout history, that they ALL could be wrong about an afterlife.
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Originally Posted by tore
What is a higher power?
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Religious subscribers would probably call them gods or deities. I believe they are any beings that have attained a higher consciousness than me.
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Originally Posted by tore
I do believe people who believe in religion to be wrong. If people want to have an objectively right idea of the universe and how it all hangs together in their head, then they should leave behind notions of deities, hells, heavens, ghosts, laying on hands, etc. All of this is based on assumptions that are not supported by evidence and have resisted all attempts at proving.
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I try to refrain from calling another's beliefs "wrong." Maybe misled or ignorant. I think that most religious stories and canons have been GREATLY misconstrued, misunderstood, taken out of context or exaggerated. Basing one's beliefs solely upon writings that no one can prove who wrote, when they were written, and the circumstances surrounding them just seems ignorant to me.
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Originally Posted by tore
Humans are not robots. We're prone to all sorts of mind tricks that we play on ourselves, be they placebos, suggestions or cognitive dissonance. These things affect us deeply and so when trying to find the truth, we need methods to get around our human weaknesses.
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Human error will always be a factor when humans are involved, there's really no way around it unfortunately.