I do not want to be reincarnated I want to die and stay dead forever
And I say so because I do not think reincarnation is actually possible
So please find someone or something to give your life meaning before it is too late
I am old and I do not care but you are still young so go get what ever it is you need
As I suspected, your argument is ad emotionum
I will be dead within fifty years so it makes no difference anyway
I am not worried about it they can do whatever they want to me
How do you know you will not be born back unto this Earth?
How much pain do you believe you can tolerate, percentage wise, and still care to be a conscious entity on this Earth?
“Intent” is based on will. You have no choice in the matter when it comes to dying. All you can do is try to take care of yourself in a way which might postpone your biting the dust, so to speak.
There is no way to find out anything unless consciousness survives and we cannot know if it does either way.
Even if C did survive, what kind would it be and just what would we know or intuit?
The brain would be dead and gone so…
No idea but I do know that I have a low threshold for it and that I prefer not to experience it if I can avoid it instead
I do not believe in reincarnation and I do not want another life
Nobody wanted to be born before they were born. Yet we are born anyway
No one enjoys pain unless he/she is a masochist so how do you know what your threshold for pain might be?
It may be higher than you think or choose it to be.
I also think that sometimes it is based on how much the “rubber band” has been stretched.
I don’t “see” reincarnation either but it doesn’t mean either way that it is or isn’t.
I would be quite happy to enjoy coming into another life. I know that it is a gamble but would we be wiser than we are now?
Would we, in actuality, retain something of who we are to give us the impetus to further our individual human evolution? Just think of all the books we can read that we never read before - unless we forgot and read them again…more enjoyment to be had and more understanding.
i find comfort in the fact that I shall never have to spend eternity with a bunch of religious nutcases.
Being an atheist does not necessarily mean that there IS NO God even though perhaps not the God by most standards. Being an agnostic, I cannot know for sure either way.
But if you were smart, you might want to prepare yourself just in case and learn how to spend time with those religious nut cases comfortably. We cannot know whether our likes or dislikes or fears influence our consciousness after death (if it does survive that is). Perhaps death is like our dreams which are influenced by and come from the material within our lives.
We die so very many times in this lifetime in having to detach from people and things - in having to let go of so much beauty, joy, happiness and awesomeness in our lives that one would think that we would get the general idea of what death is like and concentrate only on living the best way we can and be grateful in the momeny. Death is our best teacher then on how to live. Why fear something which is more or less so totally out of our contol.
Death tells us to do what John Keats said: “I will clamber through the clouds and exist.” (Existing meaning truly living)
No being smart is knowing that death is an end, and living your life accordingly - and not waste your life playing Pascal’s Wager.
You make my point so eloquently.
I prefer the thoughts of Albert Camus “For who would dare to assert that eternal happiness can compensate for a single moment’s human suffering.”
Religious people, it is said, are scared of death. But more likely they are scared of life. When you know that death is final it is the greatest liberations and makes life all the more interesting, and your living of it fearless.
Sculptor
As for the first paragraph I was more or less teasing there. I think that the word “karma” came to me. But there may be some truth within that
Well, our immediate death is an end but who can really know if it is the end to end all ends? How can we possibly know this as fact?
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. - Hamlet (1.5.167-8), Hamlet to Horatio
Do you think that all agnostics stand on Pascal’s Wager? Personally, I do not believe something or disbelieve it because it may be true or not. I’m skeptical.
But might it not depend on what that single moment’s human suffering was for or about? As for eternal happiness, what is that?! Have philosophers even defined what happiness is as of yet?
Can we really make such a blanket statement? I think that it would depend on the “individual” him/her-self.
Some religious people are afraid of death/to die so they are good - they want that so-called eternal life with God. Some I would say love their God purely for the sake of loving of God and neighbor.
I can agree with you though. So many are afraid of living. Perhaps they feel that they do not deserve a good life. Perhaps they need to learn, to let go and to soar.
We cannot know that death is final but we can know that we will someday die so we “clamber through the clouds and exist”.
What is that song something like “If that’s all there is…” da de de de de 
It may have more to do with our own minds and brain chemistry. The cup is either full, half full or empty or perhaps not even there for them.
It’s called evidence.
We cannot know for a fact that there is not a teapot orbiting Pluto. But since there is not a shred of evidence to support such a claim then I’m not going to spend any effort building a spaceship. I’ll just pop down the road and buy one downtown if I want one.
Opinion in a fiction with a ghost. Not exacly reliable is it?
No only a foll plays Pascal’s wager, because if there is a god, who is to know which one to follow in any case. Just live your life as authetically as possible with no care for an uncertain future state.
If god does not like that then ytou have to ask why he created me that way.
The best way to play the wager is not to play it at all.
Not really.
“we” are not making it. I am making it and am prepared to defend it.
Soar?? Seriously I do not see the need to duck for all the soaring religious people. In fact all the religious people seem to be carrying a ball and chain.
Er nope never heard that one.
Whatever the level of the cup, a cup is for drinking, so drink and be merry for tomorow we die.
Sculptor
What evidence? I thought that one could not prove a negative. Can you point me to the evidence of there not being consciousness after death? Have the philosophers, neuro-scientists, et cetera proven that?
lol You’re funny. I may be wrong here but something tells me that I may think more like you than you think.
Yes, I understand that opinion is not fact; just one’s own way of looking at something.
Why did you use the word “ghost” here though?
.
Well, how many gods can there be? If there be one, how can it be other than just the creator god? I think the problem is with the word "God/god in the first place.
We are human beings. Do you really think that that is such an easy thing for many?
But I may be wrong here. Perhaps it might be if we work hard at it, focus on it, just live in the moment…perhaps almost like a “sculptor” would. Mold and shape and chip away what is not necessary - only keep what creates the most authentic form one is going for. Your username, sculptor, literal or figurative?
Questioning is really important. Agnostic or not, I still question God though I realize I may be talking to myself.
I’m not a gambler, well not when it comes to religious gambles.
What does “not really” refer to - the last sentence?
Do you see the “individual” or do you really believe that all religious people are alike - think and feel the same way? Show me where you can prove it?
That made me laugh. I can see you trying to swat them on their way up. I was not so much speaking of religious people here soaring but really about laying down one’s shackles, whatever they are, and soaring…just feeling free and unencumbered. 
Could you also just gaze at it and ponder it or meditate on it depending on how much is in that cup?
A corpse and rotting flesh is not negative evidence.
Nor is the loss of the mind associated with injuries to the brain, Alzheimers and many other diseases which demonstrate the indelible association between the peronality/self/mind/conssiousness and the working of a healthy brain.
DId you not quote Hamlet?
Have you ever seen the play? Maybe you did not know the derivation?
How many gods?
My guess is ZERO.
But there are plenty of contenders, and for each one, an almost infinite set of behaviours you are suppose to follow to get your reward.
I’m not a priest so have no say in what others do.
Mostly figurative, though I delve into the dark art of abstration sometimes. Most work from clay.
Apparently this activity is completely anathema to the Muslim God for which I am likely to be damnned.
The Christian version not so much.
THere is hope for you yet
I do not think they are on their way up, but have no interest in swapping them. They are free to waste their lives. Trouble is that they can get in may way, and try to impose their fake morality on others. We are lucky enough to live in a time and plae where they are mostly having to take a back seat. But we have to keep defeinding the freedoms that have taken thousands of years to achive in the face of religious bigotry which is always just around the corner.
Often.
A MIND IS LIKE A PARACHUTE : IT DOES NOT WORK UNLESS IT IS OPEN??
Really??
Not sure the analogy is very good since you have to throw yourself out of a plane before its anything more than a useless burden.
The brain itself is also made up of consciousness. It cannot be made up of something that is not consciousness as, well, that wouldn’t make sense. Thus the brain cannot logically create consciousness: it is a consciousness-composed analog.