How did you stop believing?

[johnson1010]

This isn't a stop believing comment, but a comment on the afterlife in general by professor Brian Cox with an interviewer in "carpool".

Int:
Do you believe in any kind of afterlife.

Prof. Brian Cox:
No.

Okay.

No.
It’s thermodynamics. I don’t know, I just can’t get over it. You can’t get around thermodynamics.

Can you explain why thermodynamics is a good scientific reason why there isn’t an afterlife?

Well the thing is, you need…
As far as I am concerned, we’re information processing devices. So, we’re processing information at the moment.

Yeah

Which requires energy. It requires, actually, temperature difference to do that. And so we generate that by eating food and converting that into energy and there’s some temperature differences around so we can do work. So that’s… we’re a heat engine. That’s what we are: heat engines.
And so if you stop providing the power source, then you stop processing information. And I can’t get beyond that.

That’s how steam engines work, and fridges. Fridges work by taking heat out of the box with a big heater on the back of it. Have you ever wondered why your fridge has got a heater on the back of it? It seems like a weird thing to do, but the temperature at the back of the fridge has got to be higher than the temperature of the kitchen in order to allow it to do work and take the heat out of the fridge. And that’s how it works, and that’s how we work as well.

So if there were an afterlife I would have to reconsider the engineering design of fridges. With a very critical eye.

Well that’s a great story to be told then, isn’t it, about the physicist who wakes up in heaven and says, “Wait, well how do fridges work then?”

[ant]

This is an interesting post. It's interesting to see how people rationalize their faith in the non-existence of a universal intelligence (god, Jehovah, whatever you chose to name it).

I have never attended church in my entire life.
I've always felt there was a supreme intelligence behind all of creation.

Whether of not I am able to commune with a supreme intelligence is questionable. I am limited in my understanding and awareness of all that exists. My (and yours, of course) senses can only detect a minuscule portion of what's out there.

Does God care if I get that new TV I've had my eye on? Will he help me get a parking space if I prayed hard enough?
Does he want me to worship him? I can't imagine a supreme intelligence concerning herself with such trivial matters.

Logic and reason are gifts of evolutionary processes. What set evolutionary processes into motion that resulted in a "participatory universe" is perhaps a question we will never be able to answer. And perhaps our intelligence is limited at this point in evolution. No doubt, Man is not the final product of creation. But unquestionably, we are at a stage where consciousness emerged with the ability to look back in the direction of its origin. And how on earth consciousness emerged from a bowl of primordial soup is beyond my understanding!

Thomas Aquinas was of the view that "natural bodies" act as if guided toward a definite goal or end so as to "obtain the best result." It is both fascinating and awe inspiring to consider a supreme intelligence directing this magnificent performance.

As it stands now, call me a deist/pantheist.

[Interbane]

It's interesting to see how people rationalize their faith in the non-existence of a universal intelligence

The process by which someone doesn't believe in a higher/universal intelligence requires neither rationalization nor faith. Not to say that there aren't pea-brained atheists who use both. However, I think Brian Cox isn't one of those pea-brained types.

I read a book he co-authored about why E=MC2. It was interesting and informative but left me unsatisfied. His reasoning above doesn't do much for me, but its conceptual power may only apply after making a career of physics.

Personally, I don't object to the idea of a higher intelligence, but there is simply no good reason to believe. Perhaps for the camaraderie one feels in church, but I see that as a beneficial byproduct of a false belief system.

[ant]

It's interesting to see how people rationalize their faith in the non-existence of a universal intelligence

The process by which someone doesn't believe in a higher/universal intelligence requires neither rationalization nor faith. Not to say that there aren't pea-brained atheists who use both. However, I think Brian Cox isn't one of those pea-brained types.

I read a book he co-authored about why E=MC2. It was interesting and informative but left me unsatisfied. His reasoning above doesn't do much for me, but its conceptual power may only apply after making a career of physics.

Personally, I don't object to the idea of a higher intelligence, but there is simply no good reason to believe. Perhaps for the camaraderie one feels in church, but I see that as a beneficial byproduct of a false belief system.

His thermodynamic analogy was a joke. Or at least I took it as one.
Was it

[ant]

It's interesting to see how people rationalize their faith in the non-existence of a universal intelligence

The process by which someone doesn't believe in a higher/universal intelligence requires neither rationalization nor faith. Not to say that there aren't pea-brained atheists who use both. However, I think Brian Cox isn't one of those pea-brained types.

I read a book he co-authored about why E=MC2. It was interesting and informative but left me unsatisfied. His reasoning above doesn't do much for me, but its conceptual power may only apply after making a career of physics.

Personally, I don't object to the idea of a higher intelligence, but there is simply no good reason to believe. Perhaps for the camaraderie one feels in church, but I see that as a beneficial byproduct of a false belief system.

His thermodynamic analogy was a joke. Or at least I took it as one.
Was it

Just to amplify a bit regarding his analogy: just because his premises are true, the conclusion does not have to be. Particularly since humans (consciousness in particular) are/is much more complex than a fridge.

Fallacy of Affirming the Consequent

[johnson1010]

Cox let that fly pretty lightly, and is probably one of many problems he has with the idea of life after death.

Though he didn't go into it in extreme detail, i think it holds well.

What are people? People are their brains and neural networks. When the brain is damaged all indications are that the expression of the personality is likewise damaged.

If we were not our brains, how could something as silly as drinking alcohol have a definite impact on the "thinking soul"? Why do drunk people do things that they would never do sober, if it weren't that their brains were impaired, and the brain is the repository of our personality?

That being said, brains are the heat engines, or information processors Cox references. There is no other part of our body responsible for this activity. So when our brains cease to function there is no indication, at all, of any kind, that our personalities do anything but also cease to function.

Take away the energy source of our information processors and it stops working.

So, if not our brains, what mechanism could there be for consciousness after everything that was our mind and personality has been destroyed?

There is no evidence for it, and being someone who recognizes the necessity of evidence, Cox finds wishful claims to the contrary to be without merit.

Like i said, he riffed that bit about thermo-dynamics in the context of a light-hearted interview, not a serious debate on the after life.

[R. LeBeaux]

When considering the possibility of life after death, I think the one question that first needs to be asked is: exactly what is death? Looked at scientifically, the phenomena can be compared to an engine that ceases to work, either because it is damaged beyond repair or worn out due to age and/or misuse. And, of course, the demise of the body, leads to the demise of the brain Still, the actual mechanism of the moment of death—exactly what separates life from death—remains a mystery. It is this seemingly impossible-to-answer question that has led some (even so-called non believers) to find solace in the one scientific fact that is undisputed: that nothing can be destroyed, only disassembled—broken down into its smallest components, to someday be reassembled into something else. And it is in contemplating this fact that I, myself, have often speculated on the possibility of life after death. Not, perhaps, life as we know it, and certainly not a duplicate or perpetuation of individual consciousness, but the idea that, rather than being the end of life, death serves as Nature’s transition stage: the mechanism that sets the stage for life, in whatever cosmically abstract way, to begin anew.

[lady of shallot]

what I find interesting about this question is that the people I know of faith in an afterlife, actually do not seem to really believe in it. Oh, they say things, like "he is in a better place now" and they profess to a belief in it, but of the people I know who have died (all of our relatives in the generation above ours) plus a sister and a brother and a nephew. I have yet to hear one person refer to one of the dead ones in anything other than the past tense. There is no speculation about where they are or what they are doing. Now if they believe in "life after death" isn't there somewhere that life is being lived? Aren't the re-born decedents doing something? Somewhere? I imagine if I asked them they would say "well, we just don't know", "or it isn't like life on earth" Well if they know that or don't know that, how do they know anything about life after death?

[Andrew_angusa]

I do believe in an afterlife. I someties have doubts but I always give it a lot of thought and there has to be something after this. I believe in God and Jesus and all of the saints. It is so much better than having nothing to believe in. That is sad. I just know in my heart that the afterlife will be so much better than what earth offers. Everyone on earth suffers in one way or another. I believe all of the sadness and pain here will not be there in the afterlife.

[lady of shallot]

I do believe in an afterlife. I someties have doubts but I always give it a lot of thought and there has to be something after this. I believe in God and Jesus and all of the saints. It is so much better than having nothing to believe in. That is sad. I just know in my heart that the afterlife will be so much better than what earth offers. Everyone on earth suffers in one way or another. I believe all of the sadness and pain here will not be there in the afterlife.

Actually I think it is kind of sad that people find it necessary to have to believe in "God, Jesus, after life and all the saints"

It sure is true that everyone on earth suffers, some greatly, some not so much. So do all animals. I guess we could say plant life suffers too. Trees get cut down, grass dies, snow melts, rivers dry up. Seems most things have a life and death, including stars.

I am sorry if the wonder of having a life on earth and the joy of loving other human beings (and animals and plants too) seeing nature, learning about all the wonderful things the people who preceded us have created for our benefit, the music the art, the architecture etc. does not seem to satisfy so many people.

To address the original topic of this thread, "how did you stop believing?" I don't believe I ever "believed" I accepted what I was told as a small child and youngster but as I got a little older (maybe 8 and above) and could really hear what was being said, it didn't make much sense. Sermons seem to have included ridiculous claims. Too often the topic was how we the congregation should feel like trash upon the face of the earth. I did not like that nor believe it.

Maybe atheists actually have more "true faith" because we accept the way things are. . . that they are proceeding pretty much the way they should, and that it is not necessary for us to explain, second guess or otherwise manipulate our own brains and those of others.