yerserve wrote on Thursday, March 29, 2001 at 00:05:25...

People don't postulate God because of the death of someone. People believe in God because they experience God while they are still alive.

JJA replies...

I think that people have the 'experience' of god because of their drive to believe things that aren't true. It is very, very common for people to try so hard to believe something that they wind up believing it despite the lack of evidence.

yursever wrote on Thursday, March 29, 2001 at 00:18:05...

An atheist approached the man who was contemplating the car.

"Why so down, my friend?" the atheist asked.

"Oh, you should have seen this car in it's prime - it went wo fast."

The atheist looked at the car in disbelief. "Speed doesn't exist", he said "It's just a myth. There is no way that you can prove to me that this car ever moved at all."

JJA replies...

It may surprise some people, but I do not claim that 'soul' does not exist. I just reject this bizarre idea that the 'soul' can be separated from the material body and stored elsewhere and kept forever, just as most people reject the idea that you can separate the 'speed' from the material car and keep it somewhere else. Soul is a collective phenomenon, the result of the may working parts of a functional human body and mind, just as speed is a collective result of the many working parts of a functional car.

Since we can take the various aspects of a person - love, life, laughter, intelligence, good works, emotions - and group them under the word 'soul', some people take things much further and think of 'soul' as being an object or entity unto itself.

Similarly, some people take the aggregate appearance and qualities of a vast amount of water and tag it as 'ocean.' This is convenient and works well for most purposes. But have you ever heard someone insist that 'ocean' can exist without any water (or other non-solid substance)? The only reason we tolerate this in regard to 'soul' is that it fits with something we really want to believe - that the process of life will not end.

yerserve wrote on Thursday, March 29, 2001 at 01:23:08...

So, in the course of time, the atheist approached the first man.

"What's your problem?" the athiest asks.

"Oh. I'm sad." The first man says. "I knew a source of love and life and laughter, and now it's gone."

"My dear man." The athiest chuckled. "Your problem is that you suffer from a distraction of the brain. You have given heed to foolish myths and stories handed down from your ignorant forbearers. These things you call 'love' and 'life' and 'laughter' simply do not exist - they have no substance that you can measure in a laboratory. Why, this set of chemical reactions that you termed your 'friend' never had these things because they are not real. You have lost only your illusions. As such, you have no reason for sadness."

The first man looked quizically at the atheist. "You are mistaken, my friend, these things do exist and are witnessed by many people every day. And if you were to open yourself to these things rather than willfully closing yourself off to them then you would similarly experience their reality."

"Posh!" The atheist replied. "These things you describe as 'love' and 'life' and 'laughter' are merely illusions brought on by the wishful thinking of the brainwashed masses. They are clearly subjective experience, with no basis is fact. I could never open myself to such things."

The first man looked at the atheist, then looked at the grave of his departed friend, then looked back at the atheist. "You are more dead than she." The man observed. "At least she experienced the reality of these most important things while she had the chance. You, have closed your mind to a reality only because it is at present beyond your comprehension. So, you have cut yourself off from any hope of learning that which you do not now know."

JJA replies...

Love and life and laughter are real; I don't know any atheists who claim they're not. They're just akin to snowflakes and leaves and clouds. They exist for a time, then they lose their identity and merge back into the great interaction of matter called the universe. There is no cosmic collector out there carefully storing love and life and laughter and human personalities in little mason jars. Each snowflake and each human is unique, but uniqueness is a very common thing in this universe, and all the evidence shows that it does not equate to permanence.

As for the rest of your comment - I don't see how you got that out of the parable.

Richard wrote on Thursday, March 29, 2001 at 07:21:33...

I am impressed with this article. It is hard to accept the end of something special and harder when the special thing is your own life. A whole system of belief has been created in order to enable people to avoid facing their own death, we call it religion.

JJA replies...

I agree. While the survival wish is not the only factor causing the existence of religions, it's certainly a very large one.