Is science about to prove/disprove the existence of Heaven/Hell?

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
Tests shows that dogs can be brought back to life with no brain damage. Assume the same for humans.

[/ QUOTE ]

I didn't read the news item in question, but this statement is the crux of the matter, regarding brain damage. I have always understood that permanent irreversible brain damage results after 5 minutes of oxygen deprivation. So it would seem that unless some procedure can be undertaken within that time frame, then it cannot succeed. And as far as religious implications, it is pointless to conjecture without verification that it does in fact work.

[bholdr]

[ QUOTE ]
i think that the more interesting question would be if a large portion of the revived people reported seeing some sort of afterlife, would atheists even care? many people report supernatural things and atheists choose to either ignore them or discredit them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Atheists generally choose to ignore or discredit such claime because, in every single case that i am aware of, the evidence pointing to a supernatural cause is far, far outweighed by the probability that a natural cause is responsible.

Even if EVERY SINGLE person reported the same experience, then it would still be almost infinetly more likely that there is some sort of cultural, genitic, or chemical memory or process at work than an actual afterlife.

[TStoneMBD]

this just proves that atheists are fooling themselves as religious believers are. both groups just view supernatural happenings from different perspectives.

[SomethingClever]

[ QUOTE ]
this just proves that atheists are fooling themselves as religious believers are. both groups just view supernatural happenings from different perspectives.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree this statement is logically sound, although I would argue most athiests are "more" rational than most religious believers.

In reality though, anyone who claims to have the answers is lying.

[drudman]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Any propositions about the afterlife are literally meaningless.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, you just swallowed AJ Ayer whole didn't ya?

[/ QUOTE ]

Of all the logical positivists, his prose is the most attractive. I tend to use his quotes.

[bholdr]

[ QUOTE ]
this just proves that atheists are fooling themselves as religious believers are. both groups just view supernatural happenings from different perspectives.

[/ QUOTE ]

WRONG! sorry, but this is totally ass-backwards... Atheists are (generally- strictly speaking, it's ratioalists that i'm really referring to) unwilling to believe something unless evidence, solid, REPEATABLE evidence, can be introduced to support that belief, while most christians are the exact opposite- they are willing to believe something on faith alone.

Many Christians simply DON'T GET that there are things that a person can do to determine the validity of any specific belief, and those tests (repeatability, logical consistancy, etc) just do not apply to religion, so the rationalist is forced to conclude, that since a thing is unprovable (as opposed to not proven), it must therefore not exist.

The main difference is that rationalism is internally consistant, while christianity (and judiasim, islam, budhism, taoism, paganism, and every single other faith-based belief system) is chock full of internal inconsistancies and illogical lines of reasoning- that is, irrational.

Thus, a rationalist cannot chose to believe in supernatural happenings if those things are unprovable. if they are simply not proven, then the logical person OUGHT (ought is a very big word) not to believe in them, but is free to reserve judgment.

[bholdr]

nope- it's not a matter of perspective at all.

[ QUOTE ]
In reality though, anyone who claims to have the answers is lying.

[/ QUOTE ]

yet, we still have to assume that we are capable of finding the answers. I believe that i have (though my beliefs can and have changed) and the answer is this: It is impossible to prove or disprove the existance of god, therefore, a reasonable person ought to select the option that they feel is most supported by available evidence, which is clearly 'no god'

[TStoneMBD]

your comments are extremely arrogant and dumb, and i am insulted just by hearing your opinion on the matter.

find a person who claims to have seen angels and therefore believes in god and tell me that this person should obviously assume that his vision is false because he cannot prove what he has seen. now find an atheist who knows this person who has seen this angel, and he knows that this person would not lie about this sort of thing. the atheist obviously just assumes that it is a hallucination because the person's vision is unprovable.

yah, sure, that is entirely rational. assume that everything is impossible until provable rather than be openminded and agnostic instead. beautiful.

[NotReady]

[ QUOTE ]

Even if EVERY SINGLE person reported the same experience, then it would still be almost infinetly more likely that there is some sort of cultural, genitic, or chemical memory or process at work than an actual afterlife.

[/ QUOTE ]

Atheists should stop asking Christians for evidence.

[bholdr]

[ QUOTE ]
Atheists should stop asking Christians for evidence

[/ QUOTE ]

aggreed. any thinking atheist knows the arguments that show that the existance of god is not only unproven, but unprovable.