Questions without answers

[Deleted]

Greetings and salutations my dear champions! How are you today?! I hope you are all fine and dandy.

Today I was talking with my boss about some things in life that we still can't answer, even with all our technology.
So I wanted to share some of my questions with you:

• What happens with us after we die?
• Are we alone in the universe?
• What is heaven or hell? Do they really exists? Who is supposed to judge us?
• Does parallel universes exist?

I'd love to hear your opinions in some of those topics, and if you have any questions, post them here too!


See you soon!

1) We cease to exist. Like sleeping and never waking up again. Lack of conscious mind. Null and void.
2) No.
3) Made up fantasy realms. No. No one.
4) No.

[Maxilian]

As someone who spent years promoting scientific thinking and enganging in countless discussions about religion and superstition (Brazil is a very supersticious country) I found that many people are actually able to have an honest and nice discussion about their beliefs.

But sadly when such discussion is open to the public, it always devolve into an endless cicle of people rage quitting, name calling and parallel debunked arguments that keep resurfacing everytime someone new joins the discussion...

Five years ago I had this discussion with a guy who said that the Great Flood was a scientific fact... After a nice discussion with him where I showed why the classical view of the great flood was incompatible with our genetic history (among other things) he admited that while he still believed that the event ocurred it wasn't supported by science... Ok, fine... But to this day I still receive notifications from people posting fake Arks photos/articles, raging about my arguments and praying for my corrupted soul. Someone somehow even sent me an annonymous package containing dozens of Jeovah Witness articles about the flood.

At least it wasn't anthrax.

I know how you feel, Latin American, in general, tend to have a lot of people like these

[Maxilian]

1) We cease to exist. Like sleeping and never waking up again. Lack of conscious mind. Null and void.
2) No.
3) Made up fantasy realms. No. No one.
4) No.

The last one can be debated also... (and the first one can also be debated... hey... is a question that have always been asked for a reason)

No, the only god is not Sargeras, he's a mere Titan, if he were a God then you will have to count all the others Titans as gods, also... we have the OLD GODS, so yeah... no, sorry Sargeras

[Deleted]

Sargeras shits on Old 'Gods'. He's the only true God.

'A King that needs to call himself a King is no King at all.'

replace king with God for topkeks

but yes the last one is totally up to debate, it's just since WoD sucks so hard I don't want it to be true lol

now stop derailing the thread you little monster

[Maxilian]

Sargeras shits on Old 'Gods'. He's the only true God.

'A King that needs to call himself a King is no King at all.'

replace king with God for topkeks

They do not call themselves Old Gods, we call them Old Gods

but yes the last one is totally up to debate, it's just since WoD sucks so hard I don't want it to be true lol

It was not that bad (well... i didn't play it so i can't say much:P)

now stop derailing the thread you little monster

Sorry, we were talking about religion (kind of) and your signature was perfect for the moment :P

[unbound]

Greetings and salutations my dear champions! How are you today?! I hope you are all fine and dandy.

Today I was talking with my boss about some things in life that we still can't answer, even with all our technology.
So I wanted to share some of my questions with you:

• What happens with us after we die?
• Are we alone in the universe?
• What is heaven or hell? Do they really exists? Who is supposed to judge us?
• Does parallel universes exist?

I'd love to hear your opinions in some of those topics, and if you have any questions, post them here too!


See you soon!

What happens with us after we die?

Different religions and philosophies have different answers ranging from an external reward (if you are good and/or confess your undying love for the correct diety) to coming back as a new person (or an animals if you weren't good) to nothingness. Since no one ever comes back from those situations, it is nothing more than guess work. Pick your favorite choice and enjoy.


Are we alone in the universe?

Almost certainly not. Is there intelligent life out there that can relate to us? Probably, but they would have as much difficulty getting to us as we would getting to them. Much more advanced civilizations probably don't see us as any better than we view bugs (intelligent, but not that intelligent), so they wouldn't relate to us at all.


What is heaven or hell? Do they really exists? Who is supposed to judge us?

This boils done to only some religions. No one can ever really tell you if they really exist (if it does exist and you get there, you can't come back to verify it with the rest of us). The ultimate deity of your religion is the one that is supposed to judge us. Again, pick your favorite end-of-life concept and enjoy.


Does parallel universes exist?

Mathematically, they should exist. However, mathematics doesn't always mean that it is how things actually work. However, smart people are trying to figure it out, so we will likely have real answers to that question at some point in the future (unlike heaven/hell which will never be proven one way or another).

[haxartus]

Greetings and salutations my dear champions! How are you today?! I hope you are all fine and dandy.

Today I was talking with my boss about some things in life that we still can't answer, even with all our technology.
So I wanted to share some of my questions with you:

• What happens with us after we die?
• Are we alone in the universe?
• What is heaven or hell? Do they really exists? Who is supposed to judge us?
• Does parallel universes exist?

I'd love to hear your opinions in some of those topics, and if you have any questions, post them here too!
See you soon!

1. We get eaten by worms and integrated into the environment again.
2. Probably not alone, although the chances of making contact with aliens are almost zero due to the size of the universe.
3. Heaven and hell are human constructs due to fear of the unknown. They don't exist. Judgement is also a human construct.
4. If you are talking about "movie parallel universes" then most likely no. If by that you mean universes with different rules of physics or spatial dimensions, then probably yes.

[Adam Jensen]

How can you say it is starting to look like we are alone in the universe? We've explored like what, nothing of it?

Indeed, many people overestimate how much of the universe we have actually seen. We have seen very little of it. All those planets we've found? We have no way of actually looking at them directly right now. Hell, it took a flyby probe that made a decade long journey just to catch a glimpse of our distant dwarf planet, and that's in our solar system. The exoplanets aren't visible to use, we only know they're there by the visible and gravitational effects they have on their host stars. We can make some inferences on those planets, but nothing that can indicate whether or not life is on them. Beyond our own galaxy, everything is too distant for us to know what is truly out there. There could be billions of civilizations at our level out there, and it would be next to impossible to find them. Our own radiowaves have only gone 200 lightyears (or so) and our galaxy is 100,000 light years across, the nearest one is 2.5 million LY away and our universe (as far as we can see) is 93 billion LY across. The universe might be teeming with life and we wouldn't know right now.

As to the rest:

What happens when we die? Likely, it's the reverse of being born. Your awareness just shuts off to never come on again. And that's it. Afterlife? Reincarnation? Who knows, but I see no reason to believe in such things.

What is heaven and hell? Mythical places described by ancient shamans and priests in order to make people behave, by promising reward or punishment for behavior during life

Do parallel universes exist? Well, physics says they might, but there's no hard evidence that they do.

[haxartus]

Our own radiowaves have only gone 200 lightyears (or so)

More like 20. After that the signal gets so weak that it is below the background radiation and therefore impossible to detect.

[CheeseSandwich]

Apparently when I was a kid I asked all sorts of unanswerable questions, like "Why is grass?" and "How is car?". I just think I didn't end my sentences that.

[nextormento]

I don't know why when it comes to religious beliefs people suddenly want to play patty cake and be strict agnostics about everything.

When it comes to the afterlife, or lack of it, I think there's more to it than religion at play. Or, at the very least, people think their rationalizations have little to do with religion.
Note how civilization after civilization, most people have developed ideas and rituals around death. We can trace it back to behavioral modernity.

Many atheists think that religions are but unchallenged continuation of tradition. In that paradigm religion is not inherent to the human nature, and we should all be able to reject it eventually as cultural mores change. Yet the question remains, what is then inherent to human nature?: questioning the afterlife sounds like a sufficiently de-dramatized one, as opposed to "does god exist?". Because otherwise, we'd be naturally -or evolutionarily- mandated to develop religion itself. Essentially: if there is some metaphysical aspect that we unavoidably develop, and since there is evidence that we consistently develop rituals around death, they, as atheists, prefer it to be the question of death, rather than religion itself.

Be as it may, people do, eventually, formulate the question and think it is profound. Arguably, we're bound to do so: because we're embedded in cultures with profound religious roots.

Of course, we can argue that the rituals are merely an expression of our social nature. Or that the very concept of "inherent to our nature" is unproductive (and remains as one of those receding pockets of belief: other animals do art, use tools, talk, are intelligent...). Alas, that's not a degree of consistency I'd expect from many people, atheists or not.

To the flames.

Pretty much.

[Maxilian]

I am interested in reality, I am interested in consciousness, and I am interested in the how and why.

That I can use "I" is interesting to me.

The problem is not that I (or other agnostics/atheists) do not care about these fundamental questions. I think many do. I think the problem most see is that religion picks an arbitrary answer, then tries to pound a square into a circle, because the answer does not fit reality. All sorts of things get distorted.

Finding out the/a factual answer which anyone else can test or verify is what I care about. Religious faith is not factual... by definition. We cannot test any of its claims. And there is not one religion but many, some of which contradict each other. The nice things about science, is that it's true whether or not you believe in it, and if it works for you, it will usually work for someone else.

Religion has a top down approach to reality. God, and then everything else trickles down from that.
Science has a bottom up approach to reality. You start with a simple foundation, and build upon it.

Personally, I like a solid foundation to base my worldview on. Though I realize that is not for everyone. And as long as religious people keep their beliefs to themselves(when having to do with secular law), I have no problem with them.

My only problem with Religion is that sometimes, people can't accept a "We don't know" as an answer, just because we don't have the answer of something doesn't mean the answer is God... it could be, but please... stop, it makes it looks like you're using religion as an excuse to be ignorant (IMHO Religion will need to work together with science, eventually...)

[Maxilian]

Yes, this is what is known as "God of the Gaps". And the Gaps will eventually get filled in with knowledge. So if anyone bases their belief on the gaps, it has a receding quality.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson answers this well:

This is something that the Religious organization have to realize and work with (also thanks for the video)

[nextormento]

The problem is not that I (or other agnostics/atheists) do not care about these fundamental questions. I think many do.

I am interested in reality, I am interested in consciousness, and I am interested in the how and why.
The nice things about science, is that it's true whether or not you believe in it
Science has a bottom up approach to reality. You start with a simple foundation, and build upon it.
Personally, I like a solid foundation to base my worldview on.

It's pretty clear you care about those questions when you invoke so many concepts of ontology and epistemology in one go .

[PACOX]

No problem . And yes, I think they will have to. And some do... for instance the Catholic church accepting the Big Bang theory, and Evolution.

It will be interesting to see what other things we discover that go against supernatural(as described by world religions) reasons for reality.

Catholics accepting the Big Bang theory? They practically came up with it. Allegorical interpretations of the creation story in Genesis were around well before the compilation of the Bible.

[Dezerte]

What happens with us after we die?

I imagine being dead is functionally the same as being not born yet, and in that state there can be no "I" and worrying about death seems a silly as worrying about the time before you were born. This question I'm fairly sure has an answer, but our fears about death and dying will keep the question alive forever.

Are we alone in the universe?

We don't know. We've barley begun our search for alien life and given the vastness of space it might very well be an unanswerable question for a very long time. This is a question which we most likely will find an answer to, if we do find life, but given the vastness of space it also seems unlikely that we'll ever be able to say that we are alone in the universe.

What is heaven or hell? Do they really exists? Who is supposed to judge us?

This will involve religion, and most religion is non-falsifiable. It's also against the forum rules so we best not.

Does parallel universes exist?

Possibly. But it's most likely impossible to test if they do exist. So probably a dead end.

[Independent voter]

It's more that if I told you something like invisible unicorns are actually pulling the Earth on its orbit around the Sun and it's not a function of gravity, though they do it in a way that looks like gravity, or something else similarly ridiculous, just about everyone would reject it out of hand and not give it a second thought.

Yes, a lot of people go around calling themselves atheists when they have religious beliefs. Atheism should not == religion. The two should be separate just so the meaning the of words aren't diluted. If you call someone an atheist, it should mean "absence of belief".

And being noncommittal, isn't a black and white world so much better?

[zorkuus]

We Christians believe in an afterlife. Atheists believe you are simply turned off like flicking a switch on a light.

Actually I believe we don't know, but thanks for trying to speak for me.

•Are we alone in the universe?

I hope not but it's beginning to look that way.

We've searched like 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001% of the galaxy.
That's like taking some water from the ocean into a glass and concluding there are no whales there.

[schwarzkopf]

[*]What happens with us after we die?

That one has been answered, we spent 14 billion years not alive, after we die - we spend eternity in the same state.

By definition - we as we are cease to exist at death, after that - we as individuals cannot continue to exist (this can be shown by deduction - but not going into that here).

[*]Are we alone in the universe?

Pretty sure we aren't - but for all practical purposes we may as well be.

[*]What is heaven or hell? Do they really exists? Who is supposed to judge us?

Inventions of the human mind before we understood the universe, useful constructs to explain a terrifying world.

[*]Does parallel universes exist?

According to some variations of the inflationary theory, pocket universes exist, however by definition the existence of true parallel universes will never be provable as existing or not existing.

[Deleted]

Greetings and salutations my dear champions! How are you today?! I hope you are all fine and dandy.

Today I was talking with my boss about some things in life that we still can't answer, even with all our technology.
So I wanted to share some of my questions with you:

• What happens with us after we die?
• Are we alone in the universe?
• What is heaven or hell? Do they really exists? Who is supposed to judge us?
• Does parallel universes exist?

I'd love to hear your opinions in some of those topics, and if you have any questions, post them here too!


See you soon!

The thing is, they are called "questions without answers" for a reason.
Nobody can prove beyond any questionable doubt that Parallel Universes/God/Aliens/Afterlife exists. In the end, all we have is our beliefs and the fact that people will never accept that others have different opinions from theirs.