Unfortunately you seem rooted to the empirical, and trying to disprove that which is not empirically possible to do so by constantly referring to the empirical.
There is no heaven when the brain is unconscious
- Thread starter Write4U
- Start date
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
I believe that is a false equivalency. I don't accept the issue of heaven at all and you cannot accuse me of ignorance.
I don't need to know.
The existence of heaven is your claim. You will have to prove your claim and if you cannot, I don't have to believe you.
Of course that is the point. I am making reasonable statements, but I am wrong? Exactly how am I wrong?
OTOH, you are advancing the idea of heaven and cannot reasonably support that claim, but I am the one who is wrong? That is not reasonable!
Yes, it's just an idea,
Oh, I understand that you are making a claim you cannot support. And without proof of an immortal soul on your part, I am not obligated to believe your non-scientific account.
This is a lecture by an accredited neuroscientist. He explains that experiential consciousness resides in the brain and that when the brain dies and consciousness fades to oblivion all other functions like homeostasis dies along with it. The only thing that leaves the body is heat.
In hours the body begins to disintegrate into simpler patterns until it returns to "dust" (a biblical term), a particle that has no conscious experience. No heaven there. ]quote] Genesis 2:7[edit]
According to Genesis 2:7 God did not make a body and put a soul into it like a letter into an envelope of dust; rather he formed man's body from the dust, then, by breathing divine breath into it, he made the body of dust live, i.e. the dust did not embody a soul, but it became a soul – a whole creature.[8] [/quote] And that is the non-scientific description of an emergent property of a specific complex dynamic pattern. (Tegmark).
But when the pattern with emergent consciousness disappears all emergent non-physical properties disappear along with that. The soul (self-awareness) is an emergent property of a living patterns.
Tegmark clearly explains this in that little video.
We could make a case that a person's soul remains after death as a "memory" in the living people that knew the person. Hell and Heaven are abstract earthly domains.
The memory of Hitler lives in the earthly Hell of "infamy".
The memory of Einstein lives in the earthly Heaven of "praise".
Last edited:
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
You have this all upside down. And I am the one being accused of being "unscientific".
AFAIK. The scientific discussion of the universe and its properties rests on empirical proofs.
The existence of a heaven is your claim. It is you who cannot prove the empirical existence of heaven.
I don't have to prove anything about the concept of Heaven. I just don't believe the theist claim that there is a soul and a heaven .
p.s. I disagree with the OP title. It should read "There is no heaven".
The addition of human consciousness does nothing to address the existence of heaven.
Last edited:
It's not a false equivalency at all! The issue is not whether you accept the issue of heaven or not. The issue is how you know that there is no heaven when the brain is unconscious!
The issue is that you're claiming to know something you don't. Sure, you believe that there is no heaven, but you don't know that there is. That is the issue. And if you do claim to know, how do you know? You have agreed, iirc, in another thread that religion is not scientific, so how can you, supposedly a man of science, claim to know that a non-scientific claim is false. One of the reasons that such a claim is deemed unscientific is precisely because they are unfalsifiable - yet you seem to know that the claim is false. So how?
If you don't know, then, have the decency to say so. If you are claiming to know that there is no heaven then explain how you know. That's all I'm asking. But at the moment you are simply asserting that there is no heaven when the brain is unconscious. Is this just your belief, or are you claiming to know?
1. It's not my claim; 2. I don't claim to know whether heaven exists or not, thus there is no claim for me to prove; 3. Noone is asking you to believe anyone. There are asking you how you know that there is no heaven when the brain is unconscious. Do you know, or do you not know? If you do, how? If you do not, have the decency to say so.
Again, for the umpteenth time across numerous threads, Write4U, the issue is not so much with what you're claiming but that you're simply not answering the questions being asked.
You have made the claim that there is no heaven when the brain is unconscious. I, and others, have asked you how you know this to be true. You have given perfectly reasonable science-based answers as to why science might not recognise heaven as being a scientific matter, and even why someone might not want to believe in the existence of heaven. But note that neither of these actually answers the question of how you know your claim to be true. You simply saying that you don't need to know, or that you don't accept the issue of heaven, is NOT answering the question. Note that noone is asking you to believe in heaven. All you are being asked to do is show how you know that there is no heaven when the brain is unconscious, as you claimed.
Or are you saying that you do not know?
How do you know?
No one is asking you to believe anything. Note that I am not making any claim. What claim do you think I have made? I have simply asked you how you know that your claim (that there is no heaven when the brain is unconscious) is true. How do you claim to know something that you also seem to accept is outside the purview of science? All science can do is claim that, as far as current science can tell, heaven is not a scientific matter. It is unfalsifiable, for a start.
But you seem to be know that there is no heaven when the brain is unconscious. How? Or are you saying that you do not know?
Everything that follows from you here does nothing to show how you know that you are correct. You mention an interpretation of Genesis from which the "soul" is apparently understood... but there is no proof that this is the correct interpretation, for example.
It also does not address heaven at all.
So, are you actually going to explain how you know, or are you saying that you don't actually know, and that all you can do is conclude that heaven is not a scientific matter (and by doing so admitting that you can not possibly know while you only use empiricism for your knowledge)?
Do you understand the difference between the following?:
1. Not believing X to be true
2. Believing X to be not true
3. Claiming to know that X is not true.
With regard the proposition "there is a heaven", which of the above applies to your view of that proposition (tick all that apply)?
No I don't. Unfortunately it is you that does...
Case in point: noone is accusing you of being unscientific. Or at least I am not, and I am not aware that anyone else has.
What I am accusing you of doing is making claims of knowledge of that which you, as someone who adheres to science as the root of knowledge (although correct me on this if I am wrong), can not possibly know. To wit: if something is not within the purview of science, e.g. if it is unfalsifiable, then science can not claim knowledge about its veracity. All science can do is say "as far as science is concerned, it is not a scientific matter". Claims of knowledge (of either the veracity or falsehood of the proposition) can not, therefore, be supported by science. Yet you are just spouting science to support your claim (knowledge that the proposition is false) regarding something that you have seemingly admitted is not a scientific matter.
It does. Yes.
I have not claimed that heaven exists. But you have claimed that it does not (when the brain is unconscious). Yet now you are refusing to support that claim with anything other than science while also acknowledging that it is a matter outside of the purview of science - i.e. science can not comment on the state of its veracity.
Are you finally acknowledging that you don't know that there is no heaven when the brain is unconscious? And that this, after all, was just your belief?
If you are now acknowledging that you don't know, would you also go so far as to acknowledge that you can't know?
The title was taken from a claim you made in another thread, which derailed that thread and so was split out to this.
Correct, it does not, of course unless one has a view that "heaven" is a state of the conscious mind, and can only be experienced while conscious, or some such conception of heaven, for example.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Yes, I started with the statement that in reality everyone is agnostic. i.e. No one knows for sure.
I think we agree on that?
But if you ask me the question of probability that God or Heaven exists, then this becomes an entirely different consideration. I would say, based on what I believe to be good scientific evidence that the probability of an extant god is much lower than the probability that the science of biology of living organisms is advancing with great strides, now that we can probe at very small scales.
But my argument primarily is that for every religious charity, there is a religious dispute or war.
Atheists can organize the same charities, but atheists don't have religious wars.
It has been thus for millennia. Because of the "exclusive" nature of each related biblical religion, religion is a very unreliable basis for a peaceful symbiosis with the a priori natural laws of the Earth.
Fear begets Zealotry, zealotry begets envy, frustration, anger. As long as there are zealots who genuinely believe that their God gives them permission to commit violence instead of the administration of care. And that makes the intellectually brilliant humans the most dangerous species to the earth's biome, and the intellectually simple honeybee, the most benign species to the earth's biome.
The Mind can appreciate its own experience of heaven only when it is produced and kept alive in the conscious state, not when it is dead and in an oblivious state.
Last edited:
No, I don't. That is my belief. But I can not know that it is true. Do you?
[quoite]But if you ask me the question of probability...[/quote]Noone is asking you that. So stop answering it. You have been spouting claims as if they are true when you don't know that they are, and rather than simply admit that no, you don't know that they are true, that they are just your belief, you spout arguments that are not actually relevant to what is being discussed.
How does this support the view that there is no heaven? What you're spouting is an argument against religion, not the tenets of one of their beliefs. Don't you see that it's not relevant to the discussion of this thread? Go and take it to a thread where it is relevant. There are plenty where I'm sure it will be right at home.
Again, none of this is relevant to the discussion of this thread
Yes, we're agreed that for those that consider heaven to be an experience within the conscious mind, depriving the brain of that conscious activity thereby deprives the person of heaven. This is trivial, but it only covers a tiny fraction of the concepts of heaven.
So, just to be clear, you're saying that you don't know that there is no heaven?
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
irrelevant again.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
OK, something relevant. The brain doesn't create heaven, if there exists a heaven to begin with
The OP asks the wrong question. No matter how one answers the question it is always going to be wrong. There is no heaven to begin with. And even if there was, what hubris allows one to answer that question at all?
The OP asks the wrong question. No matter how one answers the question it is always going to be wrong. There is no heaven to begin with. And even if there was, what hubris allows one to answer that question at all?
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Prove that I don't know that there is a heaven.
Are you saying that you do know that there is a heaven? Prove it.
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
There is no heaven? A. You do not know this. B. You cannot demonstrate that in any sort of scientific/ empirical way.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
No. you got this wrong. I don't have to prove the absence of anything. It is up to you to prove the existence of something.
If you make the claim that heaven exists the burden of proof rests on you. If you can prove heaven exists I will believe you. If you cannot, then I won't believe you. The starting position is that there is no heaven, just like there are no Unicorns or Flying Spaghetti Monsters. I don't need to prove that any of these things don't exist.
The concept of heaven is not based on proof. By scientific standards that does not make a valid claim.
To answer the OP. There is no heaven whether the brain is dead or alive.
Last edited:
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Fair enough, the OP title is nebulous. There is no moon either.
I cannot provide any evidence of heaven other than scripture.
Wrong. The onus of proof is on you to support any claims that you make, whether they are positive or negative.
If somebody claims there is a God, the onus of proof is on that person to show that there is a God. And when a person claims there is no God, the onus of proof is on that person to show that there is no God.
You claim there is no heaven. But you can't prove it. It's just a belief you have. You have no proof.
Nobody here has claimed there is a heaven. You are the only person who has claimed to know whether or not heaven exists. You say you know it does not exist. So, how do you know? If you can't give any reasons for how you know that heaven doesn't exist, then you have failed to support your claim to that knowledge. You have also, in passing, failed to show that heaven doesn't exist.
Correct. But as soon as you make the claim that heaven, or unicorns or the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn't exist, you have adopted an onus of proof. At that point, it becomes reasonable for other people to ask you to provide your proof.
If your position is not that heaven doesn't exist, but rather that you don't know whether heaven exists or not, then you should say you don't know, rather than claiming to have knowledge that you don't have.
No concept is based on proof.
The claim that heaven exists is probably unfalsifiable. That might well make it unscientific. But then again, the claim that heaven does not exist would appear to be on a similar footing.
How do you know? Where's your proof?
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
I doubled checked where the title of the thread came from before coming back.
A quote from Write4u...
Heaven not existing when the brain is not conscious does not follow ANY sort of logical pathway. The two are not connected in anyway and evidence can be provided to the contrary.
A quote from Write4u...
Heaven not existing when the brain is not conscious does not follow ANY sort of logical pathway. The two are not connected in anyway and evidence can be provided to the contrary.
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Not wrong.
I am only making the claim that I do not believe the claim that god exists....difference.
If I claim that pink unicorns exist, can I demand that you prove pink unicorns do not exsist?
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
But that is the wrong interpretation of what I said.
If you have read any of my posts at all, it is clear that I do not believe that humans created a real Heaven, right?
Heaven is a human-created imaginary place. i.e. "God created Heaven", but when the brain dies, Heaven and everything else ceases to exist for that human. The imaginary part dies along with the brain. Therefore the claim of going to Heaven after you die is a moot claim.
You would not know if you were in Heaven or not. You as the product of your brain, no longer exist at all.
I believe that is a reasonable and defensible argument.
Last edited:
Pinball1970
Valued Senior Member
Write4U
Valued Senior Member
Because you must be dead for your soul to experience Heaven (whatever that means).
Pun: Even if it were real it would be imaginary in your brain.
No. You keep making the claim that heaven does not exist.
If you want to revise that to "I do not believe that heaven exists", I'll stop bugging you about it. What do you say?
You can demand whatever you want. However, the important thing is that once you claim that pink unicorns exist, you have adopted a burden of proof. It's up to you to show they exist, not up to somebody else to disprove your claim.
We're 40 posts into this thread, and you still haven't even attempted to explain how you know that. Are you going to? Or are you just pretending you know?
How do you know?
If the imaginary part is dependent on the brain, then that makes sense. What about the real part (if there is one)?
Not if heaven is real.
How do you know?
How do you know?
You haven't made any argument yet. All you have done is stated (repeatedly) what you believe. Do you have any reasons for your beliefs? Or not?