It is absolutely brilliant!

He was a known atheist. He wouldn't have believed he was going to be with her.

The dead don't need defenders.

RIP Gene.

as atheists, not those of the dead.... They just try to disguise it as the other.

... if you're illiterate.

No one is speaking about Gene's feelings. Gene's dead. They're talking about two things: 1) historical accuracy; and 2) the feelings of Gene's widow, which apparently don't matter because she didn't say funny shit on SNL.

"Historical accuracy"? Wrong. Unless, of course, you can show us where anyone questioned the fact of Gene's atheism.

I doubt that Gene's widow is reading DU right now, but, as others have said, given the public nature of Gene's marriage to Gilda, I think.she'd understand.

I can see that DU's militant atheists aren't doing too well on this thread, but lame arguments and faux 'concern' won't help.

Witty rejoinder there. What, with the whole "go back to reading 101" schtick, I almost forgot I was on a web forum and not a schoolyard. Terrific banter. Very authentic.

"which made sense if that was the only way of portraying Gene inaccurately".

Say what? You're now telling us that this 'discusson is based on someone on the thread "portraying Gene inaccurately"?

Excuse me, but please tell us where Gene is being "portrayed inaccurately"? on this thread? Who is doing it, and how?

What, in fact, ARE you talking about?

I suggest you come back when you actually learn to construct an argument and articulate it.

You nailed it.

I never engage in battles of wits with unarmed opponents.

5 times as long to his current wife! I thank you for saying it here ... You just can't stop celebrity follower fantasy

he is dead

.

no guy in the sky in my world.

If there was/is gonna' be whatever, a heaven and hell and a bunch of the people I know will be going to heaven as they think they will I'd rather take the other road and go to hell rather than spend an eternity with them. sorry

Atheist from the heart.

I do wonder about reincarnation though as I remember my childhood well, I remember back before my eyes could focus so what is that, within days of birth. Anyways I've always felt that I've lived before and I'll live again. I never felt that I knew what or when I lived before just felt I hadLong before I was indoctrinated in the religious ways of which I ultimately was. That lasted until I was about 14 YO.
From then on I've not for a second thought there is anything to the bible or a heaven or a hell. I'm a free spirit and when I die I want my ashes put in a hole in the ground with a sycamore tree planted in the hole. Just in case my spirit may want or need a place to hang out and roost possibly rest, just in case mind you

That makes no sense at all.

I simply don't believe in a god, a supreme being. Has nothing to do with my questions concerning my possibly having lived before

and then go on to talk about how you feel you've lived before and will live again.

You do the math.

They would be kind of mutually exclusive states. You could only be in one or the other at any time. And the existence of one would not be predicted on the existence of the other.

I won't bother with any more answers to this

ABORT! ABORT! ABORT!

Belief in reincarnation has nothing to do with gods, therefore nothing to do with not believing in gods, therefore nothing to do with atheism.

This isn't rocket science.

One that is no more provable than belief in a supreme being.

Atheism isn't a lack of belief, it's the lack of belief in a god. Everyone believes many things, not everyone believes in a god.

Last edited Wed Aug 31, 2016, 06:15 AM - Edit history (1)

Atheists generally defend their view by attacking all "belief" not backed by empirical evidence... Reincarnation is obviously in the same category.

The argument that the choice is either a pre-packaged sky spook or oblivion is a false choice put forward by people peddling their own belief.

There are other options besides having to stand before a father figure deity who is conducting the ultimate "People's Court".

With no afterlife, there can be no reincarnation.

Maybe some atheists believe in an afterlife and souls, but Madokie evidently doesn't.

How can you possibly believe in reincarnation then?

There are faiths where you hopscotch from life to life without the existence of a mystical realm.

Which is required for reincarnation.

You're right, it's not rocket science.

Energy cannot be destroyed, not rocket science.
Death=energy leaving the body.
Energy immediately is transferred to another being, whatever, insect, animal, person that is either going to be born or is being born. Reincarnation! No afterlife.

Remember everyone is almost an atheist. If you believe in only one god, you have already rejected all the other deities that some believe in.

We atheists just went to the final step. Rejecting all gods.

I knew it, I'll come back as a cockroach...

Why are you wasting time on the internet when there is so much work for you do? I mean, the existence that gets to define how everything works must be busy. Get back to work and fix the messes the GOP has made.

We beseech thee to get off thine divine fundament and getest thine work done? That is, if thee is the decider of all things.

The concepts of an afterlife and reincarnation are more mutually exclusive than dependent on one another, IMO.

An afterlife in many religions are a heaven and hell thing, include puragtory if you are really anal about controlling the flocks.

Reincarnation is coming back as something else, which most of the aforementioned religions vigorously rule out.

Granted, there is some overlap in that some religions believe that you keep coming back until you get it right, and only then is there an afterlife.

But declaring that there can not be reincarnation without an afterlife is just silly.

"We beseech thee to get off thine divine fundament and getest thine work done? That is, if thee is the decider of all things. "

"THY work done."

and "if thou art...."


"thine divine" is divine tho'.... (but should be "thy". "Thine" is used in front of words that begin with a vowel or "h".)



And I'm ribbing you y'know.....

"Afterlife" generally refers to some other non-earthly existence after we die (Heaven, for example). Reincarnation, in that respect, is not an afterlife. Yes, it is a return to life after death, but it is not another realm.

And both the belief in another realm of existence after death AND the belief in reincarnation are not things that, themselves necessarily require a belief in God (that is, a specific individual supreme intelligence responsible for creating these things). In theory, to the extent that these things could possibly exist at all, they could just as well exist without such a God.

Put differently, if someday we manage to prove that either an afterlife or reincarnation exists, that still wouldn't prove the existence of God. Different issues.

In most forms of Buddhism there is no supreme being, but we do believe in reincarnation.

I believe in it based on science. Matter and energy can neither be created or destroyed. The matter in my body will be redistributed along with my energy. In some sense, I've always been here and always will.

Interesting story: a friend of mine had an abortion, never told anyone about it. Several years later, she had a son. When he was about 5 years old, he told her that he had tried to come to her before, but that she was not ready for him, so he had to wait. He had not been told about the abortion, had absolutely no way of knowing it.

I have no explanation for this, except I think it is very much in line with what you are saying about matter and energy. As for me, I'm convinced I've been here before and will be here again.

I'm also interested in Buddhism. Do you have any books, etc, you could recommend?

We moved into our current house when our younger son was 4.

A few months later he told us that the previous owners had a big dog. This baffled us, because he'd never met the previous owners, nor were there any dog-obvious signs in the house that he could identify. So my wife and I asked him how he knew:

"The lady told me on the stairs."

Spooky, right? Some sort of mysterious woman telling secrets to our toddler son in our very own home?

Nope. It was our realtor, who had bad knees and sat on the steps with him while we checked out the second floor of the house, and she told him about the dog.

The point is that parents--even very hands-on parents--don't control all of the information that flows into their kids' brains. Children are highly imaginative and are exceptionally good at retaining and regurgitating information in a way that makes it seem mysterious if you lack all of the details, much the way your friend lacked all of the details about her son's cryptic revelation.


In short, that anecdote--though admittedly charming--fails completely as evidence for reincarnation, and it certainly has nothing to do with the conservation of matter and energy.

Incidentally, that's a trendy ad hoc way of shoehorning a caricature of modern physics into a caricature of ancient wisdom. It's ultimately not very persuasive to anyone who doesn't already have faith in the underlying philosophy.

You can be an atheist and believe you've lived before. First off, people can think and believe anything they want.

Reincarnation may be part of physics rather than religion. Energy can't be created or destroyed, parallel universes, what's at the other end of a black whole. Who knows what happens after the physical body releases that energy. Where does it go?

Anyway madokie, save a branch on that sycamore tree for me.. Thanks.

if you go first save one for me

Last edited Tue Aug 30, 2016, 05:21 PM - Edit history (1)

But at least you've made yourself feel better than everyone else. Great job!

The theist vs wishy-washy agnostic vs evangelical atheist is a source of great entertainment. Who would wish to stand in the way of that?

much less come to anything like an agreement on.

Insert your favorite (or least favorite) sample of highly vocal insisters, if you will.

..... watching faiths kill each other if someone does not believe exactly as they believe ....




At least atheists just argue.

Here, all of the (n)faith arguments about who is the real this and the real that are pretty fucking hilarious.

Salvador Dali said he could remember being in the womb.

But I don't believe him EITHER.


Remember..... every memory of any event or thing, but the 1st one, is remembering your last memory of it. One incorporates things that came after, and things that never played a part at the time, mis-remembered things....without realizing. Like a game of Chinese Phonebook (apologies to Chinese folks). Who knows what you are actually remembering.

And "feeling like I've lived before" means nothing.... like deja vu.

I could care less what you believe or think.

Oh good. that means you do care!

Unless you meant "I couldn't care less...."


And the science of memory is not "what I think".

do a little research
Some of us can remember to within days of being born. Thats fact, I am one of them so I know

You have a good rest of the day. I know I will

Peace

Well, you told me to do a little research!


Sorry you are wrong about your memories, dude.

Everybody creates false ones.

And that's fascinating, but ultimately irrelevant.

Cool story, bro.

but you have no clue either

I'm confident that you believe that you remember it, and (like my rotation-sensing friend) nothing will convince you to the contrary.

But you're still wrong, and you're certainly not in a position to tell anyone that they don't have a clue about it.

there are those of us who can remember all the way to within days of our birth. I'm one of those persons. Some within hours. I'm not far from that myself.

I know exactly what I know and it matters not what you or anyone else thinks you know as obviously you don't know shit about this subject.

I'm not going to go looking for links for you either as I've better things to do with my time. The information is out there on this. Been too long since I read about the study in fact it was long before the internet and I believe it probably was Science or Discovery magazine as that was a couple of my fav's back then when I first read what confirmed what I already knew.

Call me a liar if you want but that is only a pox on you not on me.
Peace, now either educate yourself on this or shut up and in the mean time quit making excuses for your lack of knowledge here on this subject

You're asking me to accept an extraordinary claim on faith with no evidence and no citations, simultaneously refusing to "go looking for links" for me.

So keep telling people about the day of your birth. I'm sure that you'll find more than a few credulous sorts who'll believe it without question.

At any rate I could care less what you think, believe or don't believe. its your loss not mine

I will tell you, you have no idea what you're talking about but then again I could care less. So buzz off, ok

here's something else you might take issue with, My grand father fought as a union soldier in the Civil war. Last I read there was only 109 families in America with grandfathers that go back that far. That was 20 plus years ago so I'm sure that number has declined by now

You remember bright lights and lots of commotion and maybe a bunch of people fussing over you.

You don't actually remember the day of your birth. I believe that you think that you do, but you don't. You have constructed that memory from readily available stock images, and you've invested your self-image in the "reality" of that memory.

I don't care if you don't believe me. It's "such a big thing" to me because I have no respect for nonsense. Why is it "such a big thing" for you?


And why would I take issue with your grandfather? The last living child of a slave died just a few years ago, so I can readily believe that some families' generations span 150 years. It's well within mathematical possibility.

Unlike your claim that you remember the date of your birth.

I said I remember before my eyes focused. What is that a week maybe ten days

Of which I do, even after all these years I still remember

You have constructed that memory.

And how could you possibly verify it, even to yourself?

Just like we can't prove our dreams. Yes, we can have eeg's and prove when we go into the various states of rem and ram. But we can't PROVE our dreams. And there are times we don't even have dreams. All because we don't remember it? Maybe. And how to prove that I had this dream and not that dream? It is still a subjective experience.

How do you prove your feelings and emotions?

That is the thing with subjective phenomenons. You can't prove it. But just because we can't prove it doesn't mean it doesn't exist or that it didn't happen. There is much we do not know. There is much more to be discovered and learned in Science. And maybe one day, we will find a way to measure or prove the abstract concepts in our lives.

And he is making that claim in indirect support of claims of reincarnation or the afterlife. Since he is making those claims on an open forum, he is inviting refutation, even as he claims that he doesn't have to prove it to anyone. Maybe he doesn't "have to," but there is no way to believe his extraordinary claim except as an act of pure faith.

He also urged disbelievers to "do a little research" in order to help him support his extraordinary claim. It's flatly dishonest of him to make a claim and then require others to document it for him.

This is especially true because his claim directly contradicts established understanding of cognitive function in newborns.

Unfair? Not at all.

You're the one making a definitive statement. You prove it.

You believe what you want and I'll believe what I want, ok

No god for this old man.

Nobody who matters is here...lighten up Francis...

If a believer dies, and an atheist says something about there not being an afterlife, etc., they are dismissed as rude and nasty.

If an atheist dies, and someone says something about there being an afterlife, etc., we are supposed to just let that slide. They 'meant well' or something.

Unless the dearly departed's loved ones are members here, nothing said really matters or is important.

They're both stupid and insensitive. (Though I lean toward insensitive more because of his current wife than the afterlife aspect.)

Most memes are, though.

The desire to be the scornful critic in the room is perfectly natural. It probably feels like power to some personality types. But you really gotta wait until someone else freaks out over a nothing before playing that card.