Life after this one…

Ok, I understand now, Thanks again for your answer :)

Ge wrote:

sceptical guy wrote:

Gerry, the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages was one of the forces holding back the development of capitalism. they believed that usury was wrong. The Protestant work ethic seems to have been more conducive to capitalist development. The Churches haven’t been behindhand in more recent centuries, mind you. Apart from the Church of England’s billions of pounds of investment in in socially unethical but highly profitable companies revealed about a year ago (the Church says’ it’s dealing with it), there is the small question of goings-on at the Vatican Bank. they’re trying to deal with it, though.

In your opinion. Mine differs.

Well, no, not my opinion, but I’m happy to have my horizons widened when it comes to the development of capitalism in the Middle Ages.  Anything recommended?

sceptical guy wrote:

I’m surprised that some of the tough people who don’t need any kind of god to comfort them posting about the futility of life are still posting. I was expecting the cyanide pills to have been handed round. There is still time for everybody to open their veins.

Why do you do this, in one breathe you suggest keeping the debate “adult” and in the next breathe type comments like this.

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Psycho Babble

I’ll try again. Scep, I hereby accept that you have it all right, and I have it all wrong. Please can you enlighten me in your wisdom as to how I should think regarding this whole God and religion business? and / or where I have got it all wrong?

• This reply was modified 7 years ago by  Psycho Babble.

TheNorfolkMafia wrote:

sceptical guy wrote:

TheNorfolkMafia wrote:

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but when you’re dead, you’re dead. The notion that all living creatures have a soul and paradise awaits with worms, flies, rats and bats fluttering around as relatives peer through the haze saying welcome to heaven is too ridiculous to merit a discussion.

Again, I have to ask, Mr Norfolk. What you’re saying may well be true or maybe not. But how do you know?? You may feel you feel fairly certain, but some Muslims feel just as certain that they’re heading for a harem in paradise. maybe they’re right, too. Who knows? How do you know?

I don’t , I use the balance of probability with the limited information at my disposal. I would suggest my approximation of what happens after death bears a closer resemblance to truth than a book of fiction based on a middle aged paedophile and his 9 year old wife but who knows.

You need to think things through.

You write an eminently sensible series of posts pointing to the changes in scientific thinking whihc began about 100 years ago with quantum mechanics, and with relativity theory before that.

Those changes destroyed our conception of the universe of strict physical laws of gravity. Our notions of space and time, fixed for centuries as eternal truths by Euclid and Newton, were destroyed overnight as our ideas of space and time were extended into a multi-dimensional realm.

In short, as you have pointed out, the whole notion of probability has been turned on its head. We really don’t know. Mystery has replaced strict mechanical laws, and has set scientific experiment and theory on a new course. During the last century, that mystery has deepened.

Now apply it to death. We no longer know what death actually is; we don’t even know when it actually occurs. The doctors set the watch when breathing has stopped for a set length of time, and you’re pronounced to have kicked the final bucket. But we remain alive in the brain for a period of time.

Nothing is actually certain. We know that when someone is buried their body is dead (unless they’ve had a dirty trick played on them, or the NHS has declined even further in efficiency), just as we know that when you drop a pencil on the table it’s going to fall down, not up. But there’s more to another type of life that that.

Mystery surrounds death. Maybe one day we’ll break it. Until that happens, you can assert forcefully what you think will happen but you don’t really know any more than the next person.