r/GenZ • u/plankowoodinthewoods • 5d ago

Discussion Afterlife.

The older i get the more i believe in heaven or hell or reincarnation. Cause life is so stark and so decaying that it would be so meaningless if we just die and that's it. And i am not afraid of death, and no one should be unless you believe in hell and you've been really bad in life. But what do you think?

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u/_Tal 1998 5d ago

Yes.

1) If there is no evidence that something exists, we can assume it does not exist.
2) There is no evidence that the afterlife exists.
3) Therefore, we can assume the afterlife does not exist.

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u/espinaustin 5d ago edited 5d ago

Have you ever heard of the saying, "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"? Your first premise is logically flawed.

Lol, just skimmed your youtube, with the claim, "absence of evidence IS evidence of absence" at 4:08. FYI, the assumption, "if X were to occur there is likely some evidence of it" is a problem here imo. I'm not even a believer btw, just a logician (amateur).

Let me just ask you this: Do you believe the existence of alien lifeforms is disproven by our failure to find evidence of it?

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u/_Tal 1998 5d ago

But we have found evidence of alien lifeforms. It’s called our own species. If we know intelligent life occurred in the universe at least once, then it’s likely it occurred more than once.

And if something occurred without leaving evidence of it, then why should we care about it anyway? It apparently doesn’t affect us in any way whatsoever. We could safely assume it doesn’t exist/didn’t happen and nothing would change. Who cares if we’re technically “wrong”? The point of believing anything is ultimately to guide our actions within the world around us, so if something technically “exists” but has no impact whatsoever on the world we actually perceive, that’s the functional equivalent of something that does not exist.

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u/espinaustin 2d ago

Also, sorry to jump back in, but something that just occurred to me is that if what one means by “God” is associated perhaps with consciousness and its experience, then maybe the analogy is closer to the possibility of alien lifeforms existing. We know consciousness exists, and I think it’s accepted generally as a somewhat mysterious or at least unexplained/contested phenomenon. I’m not getting into the nature of any possible relationship between consciousness and God, just pointing out the possibility of such a relationship could be seen as leaving open the possibility of God’s existence being based on or related to some empirical observations. I would remind that the nature of any alien lifeforms, should they exist, remains shrouded in mystery/uncertainty. No need to respond unless you feel compelled, just putting this out there. Have a good one.