By Yaweh!

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Religion is not used to control me, I can ditch christianity whenever I fell like it.

Well first ...

religion = mass crowd control

And second, I was born catholic orthodox ... was even baptized, have a godfather ... so how did I end up atheist ?

It wasn't easy at all ... it's like a drug, a drug that cures fear of death artificially ... you can try to quit, but the fear will always bring you back ... unless of course you demolish the fear at its root.

The only way to demolish all fear is to believe in yourself, know that you can take on anything that comes your way, even the whole world, even death.

Now I don't believe in any god, but I can still theorize about what happens after death ... if I choose to ... if you want to know my theories, I could write em down, at least the basic principles of logic behind them

[Aloone_Jonez]

H_TeXMeX_H,please do pot your theory on death, I'd be most interested.

Here's mine:

When you die, your body and brain both stop functioning and you're gone, you are no longer a living feeling emotional being on this planet in the universe, once you're gone, you're gone, you are expendable just like any other life form in existance.

I am scared of death it's my greatest fear, I know it's going to happen one day but I don't know when and I don't want to know either. I hope that when I die I either accept this or die very quickly, the latter would be nice in either case.

[piratePenguin]

Death is just a state of mind IMO.

[worker201]

Actually, quite the opposite.  Death is a loss of mind.

But check this out - what if the process of decay causes continued minor electrical impulses through the brain?  You could be left with the ghost of your thoughts for hundreds of years.  If your memories were bad, that could suck royally.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Ok, here goes nothing ... most of it is a thought experiment:

1) Say we have a machine that will perfectly clone you, it can build you atom by atom to an exact replica of you in all possible ways ... it's not impossible, we have crude molecular assemblers that can build nanotubes and stuff like that.

Question is ... is that clone you ? Obviously not ... as soon as the clone is built you wont somehow be able to control both yourself and your clone, so your clone, although perfectly identical to you in every way is not you. So what makes you who you are ? A soul ? No proof of that exists ...

2) Say we have another machine that can map all the atoms in your body in their particular locations, then disintegrate you into all your component atoms, and then rebuild you back into yourself ...

Will this be you ? If everything is put in the right place, it must be you, well who else could it be ? Would this process destroy who you are ? I argue it won't ... after all you are just an elaborate arrangement of atoms.

So, from these first two we can conclude that you are an arrangement of very specific atoms in space ... nothing more ... if we change the constituent atoms too much, you will no longer be yourself

3) Suppose we could make you live forever ... or nearly forever, this is not impossible either, we could alter your genes to stop your programmed demise. How would you change over an eternity ? Would some part of you stay the same ? Yes, but a lot of you will change along with the corresponding atomic and molecular arrangements inside you. However, this produces a nearly infinite number of possible configurations that would still result in you ... there are limits, since you can only change so much before you are no longer yourself

Ok, from all three we get that you will almost definately live another life, although memories of a previous life will not be present, or will not be credible. Think of it this way, the chances of you living again are in proportion to the chances of your molecules aggregating into a one of the nearly infinite number of configurations that would still result in some form of you.

Adding a bitchslap of reality, this will take an astronomical amount of time to happen. For example, imagine that we were to plot the loaction of all your atoms with reference to only one of your atoms versus time ... what would this plot look like ? Unless you creamated yourself their locations would stay relatively constant after death ... now thinking a astronomical amount of time into the future, at some point your molecules will be in the same place at the same time, hopefully in some form of live that can give birth ... and some form of you will result. You will have no memory of the past, or if you do it could be attibuted to merely a dream.

Reincarnation ? Not really ... not 40 days till you get reincarnated ... more like 40 to the 99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999 ...... power

And can you be reincarnated in another form ... such as a monkey or a cat ? Well, if we could perform a brain transplant between you and a monkey or a cat ... we might find out ... human brains are rather large, so maybe we could try to make you a dolphin or whale (a small whale), or a large squid or an alien :eek:

[Aloone_Jonez]

Interesting theory so basically even if I were to make an identical copy of you it won't remain identical for very long as it's living it'll change and become very differant to you. I'm sure that this it isn't possible possible, arranging simple atoms is quite easy, however I think the chaos theory will fuck things up quite nicely if you tried to clone anthing atom by atom.

 we could alter your genes to stop your programmed demise.

This is a popular misonception about the ading process, your genes aren't programmed to destroy themselves infact it's quite the opposite (if it were that simple then altering them to make you live for ever would've already been done). The mechanism behind the ageing process isn't fully understood but when your cells replicate themselves there are imperfections in the coppy (some genetic information is lost) and it's the build up of this damage that causes aging, your DNA has various safe gaurds to help prevent this  and the better they are the longer you live for.

Edit:
I neglected to mention that the enviromental conditions affect adging more than anything else as it's the enviroment that's responsiple for inflicting the genetic damage in the first place but my origional point still remains valid, it's the ability or the cells to withstand and prevent this damage that helps you live longer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence

[worker201]

1) Say we have a machine that will perfectly clone you, it can build you atom by atom to an exact replica of you in all possible ways ... it's not impossible, we have crude molecular assemblers that can build nanotubes and stuff like that.

Question is ... is that clone you ? Obviously not ... as soon as the clone is built you wont somehow be able to control both yourself and your clone, so your clone, although perfectly identical to you in every way is not you.

2) Say we have another machine that can map all the atoms in your body in their particular locations, then disintegrate you into all your component atoms, and then rebuild you back into yourself ...

Will this be you ? If everything is put in the right place, it must be you, well who else could it be ? Would this process destroy who you are ? I argue it won't ... after all you are just an elaborate arrangement of atoms.

These 2 statements are contradictory.  In both cases, the resulting body is exactly the same as the original you.  If you don't see how this is true, think of the rebuilding machine as making a copy of you, while destroying the original.  If I take one hydrogen atom from you and replace it with a hydrogen atom from a bottle of Sprite, will that change you?  Not in any significant way.  So it isn't the atoms themselves, it's their configuration.  And any configuration of atoms that adds up to you is you.

Point being that a copy of you is still you, from a chemistry standpoint.  Just like a photocopy of a piece of paper is a piece of paper.  Fortunately, this small problem doesn't affect your conclusions, that there is a statistical possibility that 'you' can exist again someday.

[noob]

This damn thread lol. All the stuff i often just think about. Whats the point in religion. How did everything start. What happens after death.

How many religions are there? They all want you to beleiev different things and all believe there is one god, but each god is different. I don't deny the existance of "God", but I dont believe there is a god either. I am open minded about almost anything. I believe M$ is a bad company, but if somone offers me proof to proove otherwise, I may change my mind.

How did the universe(s) begin? Okey, so if god created everything becuase the energy/matter antimatter clouds/large fart couldn't have just allways existed, then why can a god have allways existed? There is proof everywhere then there was some kind of explosion. Static on tv's and radio's is the left over radio waves from a big explosion. The fact that things in the universe are moving apart, but are very slowley loosing speed. All points to an explosion.

What happens after death? I have often wonderd, but don't want to find out just yet. I find it hard to believe that we just dissapear, because really, all a persons mind is is a load of electrical impulses. Electricity is an energy and energy can niether be created, or destroyed, mearly converted into other forms.

I say believe what the hell you want to, don't let any one else tell you what you can and can't believe, or can and can't do to show your belief's. I was baptized, all the usual religious stuff. Went to church in primary school. I don't believe in an all powerfull god, well maybe Tux. Thats my rather odd say on stuff.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

I think the chaos theory will fuck things up quite nicely if you tried to clone anthing atom by atom.

This is a popular misonception about the ading process, your genes aren't programmed to destroy themselves infact it's quite the opposite (if it were that simple then altering them to make you live for ever would've already been done). The mechanism behind the ageing process isn't fully understood but when your cells replicate themselves there are imperfections in the coppy (some genetic information is lost) and it's the build up of this damage that causes aging, your DNA has various safe gaurds to help prevent this and the better they are the longer you live for.

Edit:
I neglected to mention that the enviromental conditions affect adging more than anything else as it's the enviroment that's responsiple for inflicting the genetic damage in the first place but my origional point still remains valid, it's the ability or the cells to withstand and prevent this damage that helps you live longer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence

Chaos theory is my favorite theory, but I assure you that there are work-arounds for chaos theory impeding the precise cloning of an object ... but that's not the point ... it's just a thought experiment, the point is to help grasp the concepts behind my theory, not to clone people atom by atom, nor to make people live forever (yeah it isn't easy, and I don't agree with it either, I mean what is the world population ? 6,478,021,029 and counting)

These 2 statements are contradictory. In both cases, the resulting body is exactly the same as the original you. If you don't see how this is true, think of the rebuilding machine as making a copy of you, while destroying the original. If I take one hydrogen atom from you and replace it with a hydrogen atom from a bottle of Sprite, will that change you? Not in any significant way. So it isn't the atoms themselves, it's their configuration. And any configuration of atoms that adds up to you is you.
 
Point being that a copy of you is still you, from a chemistry standpoint. Just like a photocopy of a piece of paper is a piece of paper. Fortunately, this small problem doesn't affect your conclusions, that there is a statistical possibility that 'you' can exist again someday.

Yes, I agree, the copy would techincally be 'you', but only in the sense that one piece of paper is a photocopy of another ... although they are identical photocopies of one another they are not the same piece of paper :thumbup:

Note: this is just a theory after all ... no need to believe it, but it holds well with the rest of em, and it even has some quasi-logical proof behind it

As for: How did the universe(s) begin?
I can't help but answer this question ...
Answer: It didn't

[Jack2000]

If they say that the hole f* kin human race began with just two people
are not we "banging" our "sisters and brothers" ??
wtf is that ??
are they stupid or something
that religion is BUGed
i bet Bill is to blame ... ahem i mean god

[Jenda]

Jack2000: Even if you are a Darwinist (like me), you still have to admit that we have common ancestors. There must have been a time when the number of people who still have offspring living now was very small. In fact - I think we all originate from a single instance of primary life form, along with all or most living things today. But I wouldn't be surprised if some primitive contemporary lifeforms were completely unrelated - ie started from scratch at a different place/time than our line has.

[piratePenguin]

As and from now I am an agnostic:

An agnostic does not deny the existence of God and heaven but holds that one cannot know for certain whether or not they exist.

Discovered that word while watching Donnie Darco - what a brilliant film.

[Jenda]

Good film indeed.
I might be an agnostic too. I'll have to think about it.

BTW the word means (in latin) a person who "does not know".

[Jack2000]

about the:what makes you ... YOU!

well what makes you ... YOU is(or should I say are) your memories
even if you can clone yourself with your memories ... if you can not
transfer your thoughts as in the exact moment you will cease to exist
your exact "self" (should if you want) will cease to exist
making a copy of yourself is not the answer.
the only way to live  forever is to go digital...
by transferring your memories and your brain impulses into some
kind of "brain/flesh simulator" you can achieve true immortality
it is not the atoms it is the "mind"/"soul"/"electricity"/"whatever"
that makes you ... yourself


ps:the idea of karma is totaly wrong!
just in case you bring that up

[Kintaro]

The age or the world and universe is just 6000 years!

What about dinosours?