Comments on: You only live once

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 05:06:35 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by ManOnASoapBox: You only live once: GUEST commentary by Edinburgh-based writer and skeptic Steuart Campbell, whose books includ.. http://bit.ly/Z0ItF...

By: rog

rog — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 02:31:21 +0000

I quite like the terry pratchett disc world version of the after life, DEATH COMES AND ASKS YOU, THEN YOU GET THE AFTERLIFE YOU KNOW YOU DESERVE…

sorry for the caps!

ok, for the purposes of debate: is is cruel to disabuse a person facing death* of the existence of an afterlife?

* I realise that to some degree, that is all of us.

By: barriejohn

barriejohn — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 19:40:32 +0000

So what if we do, Angelo? You can fantasize about all sorts of things that “might possibly happen”, but in the total absence of evidence such speculation is pointless.

By: rog

rog — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 15:37:51 +0000

@Angelo

Prove it!

By: Angelo

Angelo — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 09:34:23 +0000

But we really don’t know, do we?
What if our consciousnees as an emergent phenomenon goes beyond physical reality and leaves a quantum imprint on the Cosmos’ structure? What if we do reincarnate in other dimensions?

By: Tom Rees

Tom Rees — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 07:58:44 +0000

Sorry for any confusion – and for not coming back here to clarify. Suicide is higher among the non-religious. It’s well recognised. e.g. for example: http://bhascience.blogspot.com.....icide.html and also various cross-national studies into suicide rates. They’re higher in societies where the importance of religion declines.

Suicide goes in the opposite direction to other markers of societal health – mostly because people turn to religion when times are tough, but also because religion reduces governmental welfare and replaces it with inefficient support for the people at the bottom of the pile. e.g. my own research published in J Religion & Society which I summarized here: http://bhascience.blogspot.com.....gious.html

By: Stonyground

Stonyground — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 17:56:35 +0000

I think that suicide in order to avoid a drawn out and painful death is actually a good thing. I believe that this kind of suicide is more common among non theists than among those who believe that their life belongs to God. Could this be a factor that screws the figures in favour of more religious societies?

By: polomint38

polomint38 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:15:12 +0000

It seems to me Mr. Green may be speaking from personal experience. How else can he be so certain that â€œsuch activities are routine in the homosexual world.”

He has a video collection that depicts it, probably.

By: William Harwood

William Harwood — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:01:03 +0000

Tom Rees wrote that “markers of societal health go down with increasing atheism.” Pardon me for reading that as a declaration that atheistic societies are less emotionally healthy than those that are godphuqt. That he meant the precise opposite now strikes me as probable, given that he contrasted it to suicide rates. Muslims have higher suicide rates than Catholics for the logical reason that the former think suicides will be rewarded in Cloud Cuckoo Land’s copulatorium, while the latter think they will be eternally tortured with flamethrowers. And Catholics have lower suicide rates than nontheists, since the latter are aware that death is the end of existence and an afterlife more miserable than the life they are escaping is an absurdity. The enormous suicide rate for priests is a function of their coming to realize that their sadists’ wet dream called Hell is as nonexistent as their cult’s sadistic Sky Fuhrer. Suicide rates are identical for nontheists and those theists who reject the “hell” concept.
I reiterate that even many nontheists gullibly accept statistics compiled by rigged polls that asked questions designed to elicit a predetermined answer.

By: Neuseline

Neuseline — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:29:18 +0000

I have just read the article on Gately’s death on the “christianvoice” site.

“‘Here we have two men in a civil partnership, Gately and Cowles, supposedly publicly committed to each other, cruising for sex with other men in a gay bar. Cowles picks up Dochev and they take him back to their flat. There Gately decides that he will leave the bed to his ‘partner’ and the stranger he has taken fancy to, and occupies the sofa. Maybe there was a row, maybe there wasn’t, but such activities are routine in the homosexual world.”

It seems to me Mr. Green may be speaking from personal experience. How else can he be so certain that “such activities are routine in the homosexual world.”