Challenge to materialist atheist accepted

I am for the most part a “believer” but I don’t fear nonexistence after this short life is over. In fact ... I'm getting sick of hearing that fear of oblivion argument against "believers." My fear is, if the reductionist materialism theory is true, then it would truly mean that all of life is meaningless.

Yes … I know atheists and/or materialists will find the same joy and meaning with their lives perhaps through the love of their friends and family (even though this love that they experience is just chemicals in the brain that make them feel good.) Right?

But I’m not referring to the meaning of our short physical life. We can all experience meaning in our impossible short lives, no matter what worldview one has.

I’m talking about the information that includes memories, culture, art, relationships, etc. etc. etc. That this information of human existence (past, present and future depending on when the end comes) can and will be absolutely obliterated. It is only a matter of time that all of human life (and all of life for that matter) will be erased. Forever! If a giant asteroid collides with our planet tomorrow, all of human information will be completely erased. All the human emotions ... plus all of human experiences, history and civilization will be gone.

And it is worse than that. It is if all of this information of human life (and … again ALL LIFE) will be if it NEVER existed at all! Because no god, no spirits, no angels, no demons, no multidimensional beings, no extraterrestrials, no other life forms at all will be here to even document the human existence and experience. Human information was never here. We were NEVER here.

So yeah! I hope the materialists are wrong. It scares the shit of me of the thought that they could be right, because that will mean nothing will matter and all of our information will ultimately be nonexistent. So … I will hold on to my "fairy tale" belief that there is much more to all of us at the risk of being ridiculed by atheists. Thankfully the evidence is mounting against this ridiculous and bleak worldview we call materialism.

Ouch! That was loud. I forgot to turn off the mic before I dropped it.
 
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I was listening to a theoretical physicist on the "something from nothing" problem the other day. His opinion was that it wasn't a problem as what we have now is still 'nothing', just arranged differently.
 
I was listening to a theoretical physicist on the "something from nothing" problem the other day. His opinion was that it wasn't a problem as what we have now is still 'nothing', just arranged differently.

If you can arrange it, it is not "nothing". I think his idea comes from using math too much. (+1) + (-1) = 0. But +1 and -1 are not nothing. Potential is not nothing. Natural laws are not nothing.
 
I was listening to a theoretical physicist on the "something from nothing" problem the other day. His opinion was that it wasn't a problem as what we have now is still 'nothing', just arranged differently.

https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-mystery-of-consciousness

I believe that this notion of emergence is incomprehensible—rather like a naive conception of the big bang. The idea that everything (matter, space-time, their antecedent causes, and the very laws that govern their emergence) simply sprang into being out of nothing seems worse than a paradox. “Nothing,” after all, is precisely that which cannot give rise to “anything,” let alone “everything.” Many physicists realize this, of course. Fred Hoyle, who coined “big bang” as a term of derogation, is famous for opposing this creation myth on philosophical grounds, because such an event seems to require a “preexisting space and time.” In a similar vein, Stephen Hawking has said that the notion that the universe had a beginning is incoherent, because something can begin only with reference to time, and here we are talking about the beginning of space-time itself. He pictures space-time as a four-dimensional closed manifold, without beginning or end—much like the surface of a sphere.

Naturally, it all depends on how one defines “nothing.” The physicist Lawrence Krauss has written a wonderful book arguing that the universe does indeed emerge from nothing. But in the present context, I am imagining a nothing that is emptier still—a condition without antecedent laws of physics or anything else. It might still be true that the laws of physics themselves sprang out of nothing in this sense, and the universe along with them—and Krauss says as much. Perhaps that is precisely what happened. I am simply claiming that this is not an explanation of how the universe came into being. To say “Everything came out of nothing” is to assert a brute fact that defies our most basic intuitions of cause and effect—a miracle, in other words.
 
It's rather pointless to chuckle about atheists/materialisst being afraid of living forever. I mean, besides the fact that is a frightening thought. Because I can just as well say that believers are afraid of nonexistence. It doesn't advance the discussion.

~~ Paul
Why do you think it is a frightening thought?
 
I was listening to a theoretical physicist on the "something from nothing" problem the other day. His opinion was that it wasn't a problem as what we have now is still 'nothing', just arranged differently.
To this layman, that sounds like a prime example of hand waving.
 
I am for the most part a “believer” but I don’t fear nonexistence after this short life is over. In fact ... I'm getting sick of hearing that fear of oblivion argument against "believers." My fear is, if the reductionist materialism theory is true, then it would truly mean that all of life is meaningless.
Why would it mean that?

I’m talking about the information that includes memories, culture, art, relationships, etc. etc. etc. That this information of human existence (past, present and future depending on when the end comes) can and will be absolutely obliterated. It is only a matter of time that all of human life (and all of life for that matter) will be erased. Forever! If a giant asteroid collides with our planet tomorrow, all of human information will be completely erased. All the human emotions ... plus all of human experiences, history and civilization will be gone.
Why does this bother you? And how does a non-reductionist-materialist theory help?

And it is worse than that. It is if all of this information of human life (and … again ALL LIFE) will be if it NEVER existed at all! Because no god, no spirits, no angels, no demons, no multidimensional beings, no extraterrestrials, no other life forms at all will be here to even document the human existence and experience. Human information was never here. We were NEVER here.
Again, why does this bother you?

~~ Paul
 
Because either (a) I'm going to exist forever and there is no possible way this won't be absolutely awful, or (b) It's not really me living forever. Do not confuse existing a long time with existing forever.

~~ Paul

What is "forever" really? I honestly believe our notion of time isn't the whole picture of what time really is. I don't even think we can fully understand concepts like "forever" or "eternity".....if there is an afterlife maybe time is nonexistent or altered in some way incomprehensible to us in our temporal reality. But who knows?
 
What is "forever" really? I honestly believe our notion of time isn't the whole picture of what time really is. I don't even think we can fully understand concepts like "forever" or "eternity".....if there is an afterlife maybe time is nonexistent or altered in some way incomprehensible to us in our temporal reality. But who knows?
Time at the very least is flexible, it can appear to expand and contract, in our terms.

There was a report from someone moments away from disaster,
"The two cars in front of us parted and this blue car was about to hit us dead-on going 65mph vs 60mph."
One would hardly thing this an appropriate situation to go on an extended nostalgic daydream, reminiscing on one's life,
"The moment that I realized that I was absolutely going through that windshield and going to die, I left this plane.

"I was me but wasn't in my body. I could see and feel all of the experiences of my life thus far. I also felt an indescribable feeling of pure and overwhelming love from people in my life who were alive and who had passed such as my Grandmother. All of the past experiences that I was shown, anyone who was involved in those experiences I could also feel how they felt at the time. But the most important thing I felt was love. From these people I could feel what they felt for me, but I could also feel the love I felt for them as well. It felt like at least 2 minutes that I was somewhere else feeling that love is the most important part of life, but it was actually only a second or two."

From:
http://www.nderf.org/Experiences/1md_fde.html
 
Why does this bother you? And how does a non-reductionist-materialist theory help?

Perhaps the more interesting question, at least from my perspective, is why doesn't it seem to bother you? And how does the reductionist-materialist theory bring your life meaning? Or does it? Or does your life really need such a meaning and simply existing is simply enough for you? I'm sincerely asking your perspective on this as I'm not trying to be smart-ass.
 
I see what Paul is saying, I would to not like to live in human form forever, just seems creepy and it would probably get redundant and boring after awhile. Now living longer? That would be cool, another 100 years or 200 I have no problem with, hell even 500.

Maybe my mind just can't grasp the living forever concept. Then again every living being alive never would of thought of living life on this planet. Maybe we just have a small scope through the lens. The idea of "eternity" is also kind of terrifying, cause I am thinking of it in a human way because I can't grasp what the "afterlife" would be like. If there is a afterlife I'm hoping it is so profound we can't begin to understand it
 
If there is a afterlife I'm hoping it is so profound we can't begin to understand it
It has been suggested that the brain acts as a filter (a restriction) on consciousness. I'd suggest that all we see and all we know of the physical world acts similarly as a filter, a restriction on our understanding. That is to say, it is not so much the brain, but the mere fact of inhabiting the physical world, all of it, not just our bodies, but the external world too, just being here, feeling a part of it necessarily limits our ability to comprehend what it would be like to not be part of the physical.
 
Perhaps the more interesting question, at least from my perspective, is why doesn't it seem to bother you? And how does the reductionist-materialist theory bring your life meaning? Or does it? Or does your life really need such a meaning and simply existing is simply enough for you? I'm sincerely asking your perspective on this as I'm not trying to be smart-ass.
I derive my own meaning. What I don't need is some kind of cosmic meaning that gives me a permanent position in some grand scheme of things. And even if I ponder what that would be like, I don't come up with much. What grand scheme? What could possibly be so important that I need to be a part of it?

~~ Paul
 
I derive my own meaning. What I don't need is some kind of cosmic meaning that gives me a permanent position in some grand scheme of things. And even if I ponder what that would be like, I don't come up with much. What grand scheme? What could possibly be so important that I need to be a part of it?

~~ Paul

So, what's your own meaning then, since you don't feel the need to be connected to some "grand scheme"?
 
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