dhw: […] that does not give you the right to dismiss other ideas as “out and out wrong”.
DAVID: I am too forceful in my statements. 'Out and out wrong' is my view of the approach. you certainly have the right to propose what you will.-Thank you.-dhw: And although it was you who used the term “voyeur”, I still don't know why it can't be applied to someone who according to you is intensely interested but keeps himself concealed.
DAVID: I am using the word voyeur in its derogatory sense of spying on someone without their permission or knowledge.-Yeah, well, that would fit, wouldn't it?-David: Doesn't change my approach. You don't think in teleological terms at all.

dhw: Not so. I try to consider all possibilities, and if God exists, I would very much like to know his purpose in creating life. The hypothesis that he did so in order to relieve his eternal boredom is teleological. It is a hypothesis, not a belief, but in all honesty I must say I find it more rational than the hypothesis that he wants a relationship with us and yet conceals himself from us.-DAVID: The gap in your reasoning is because you do not accept the fact that the arrival of humans is an very extraordinary and unnecessary event from an evolutionary endpoint. We should not be here, unless God intervened. Relationship with Him requires faith.-We don't know that we are the endpoint, but as we have agreed a thousand times, the arrival of all multicellular organisms was extraordinary and unnecessary, since bacteria have survived to this day. According to you, even the weaverbird's nest could not be here unless God had intervened. And since God deliberately conceals himself and we know nothing of his nature, a relationship with him (which is different from belief in his existence) requires not just faith but a vivid imagination.
 
dhw: It is perfectly possible to consider the evidence for and against the existence of God and at the same time to hypothesize about his nature (if he exists) by studying what he has created. You have drawn one conclusion from such studies; others may draw different conclusions.
DAVID: Just so! He created humans. I don't see how they can be a glorious accident, per Gould. He was convinced and I'm quoting him, that if the tape of evolution was run over again, we would not appear! You do not want to accept that we are that degree of special, thus our degree/ kind battle.-According to you, God also created the camouflaged cuttlefish. All life is special. But I agree that our consciousness is specially special. That does not prove God planned and created all living things just for our sake. And what would happen if the tape of evolution was rerun seems to me a totally pointless speculation.

BBELLA: Putting myself in God's place (as only a mere human), I do not think I would want to (or could) give up my ONE true I-dentity. ....This very concept dominates many religions as well as lives alive and well in most if not all human thought processes (at least somewhere in the back of one's mind - the possibility of God). Many formal beliefs embrace this very concept of God as all and separate.

dhw: If, on the other hand, there is a single Creator who is me but is not me, and if I am to be one with him when my body dies, it seems to me that one of us is going to have to give up his identity. .... I must acknowledge that I am far too limited in my thinking to conceive of eternity and infinity, let alone the possible identity/identities of an infinite and eternal mind! (Though as David will confirm, I still keep trying!)-DAVID: It's instructive to follow you guys. I've looked into these issues by extrapolating from NDE's. The experiencer sees only dead people. They have not lost their identity, but they are over on the other side with God. Their ability to have their own thoughts is shown by the reported telepathic instructions to go back.
-NDEs are an important factor for my agnosticism, especially when they result in patients being given information they could not otherwise have known (e.g. the recent death of a relative). You are right - they all keep their identity. However, when we have discussed this in the past, we have noted that some NDEs can be frightening and unpleasant, and they are not all “with God”. On the other hand, some patients mention being welcomed by Jesus. Does that mean Jews and Buddhists and Hindus have got it all wrong? Or do people enter a world of their own imagining? It's a fascinating and bewildering field of study.

Dhw: This is where mysticism takes over - which is not meant as a criticism. God must close the door on his own identity, and yet he retains his own identity. And: “All identities return to that place in-between”, where they are…what? Themselves but not themselves? And God is “all and separate”. -BBELLA: I would think anytime we talk of God we are stepping into the waters of mysticism. Religion is just mysticism written in stone (a book), so at least we aren't going there. But, we are treading the waters between science and religion. We are discussing the unknown that we know is not science, but can be discussed scientifically - about what we do know. 
There are a lot of factors that can be considered that we do have evidence of, as I said before, by testimonials. The fact that so many religions, personal testimonies, etc, tell us there is something "out there" and an afterlife, God or whatever - some have even been "there" and returned to tell us about it, does give us some scientific facts to go on - just on the overwhelming amount of accounts (probably way over 50%) alone! We have to at least acknowledge there is an overwhelming possibility that "something" happens after we die - has to be a huge possibility and more likely true than nothing happens. But what happens? is the next question, scientifically.-David has once again raised the subject of NDEs, and one can broaden this out to other psychic experiences such as your own, in which there is a transcendence of our known material reality. Materialists may not agree that such experiences are “scientific facts”, or at best they will argue that there must be a materialist explanation. The latter case requires faith and has nothing to do with science, while the former depends on how you define “scientific”. If someone provides otherwise inaccessible information which has been confirmed by independent third parties, that's good enough for me, and the experience must be taken seriously. But the word “scientific” bothers me, as you will see in Part 2!

BBELLA: So the next question, what happens after we die? It can be answered with it's own facts. The diversity alone should be as much considered a fact about the afterlife, as it would be if all testimonies/religions agreed on only one belief/philosophy. 
So diversity itself is a scientific fact about the afterlife.-I can't divorce “scientific” from science, and I really don't know if one can talk in such terms about the hypothesis of an afterlife. It is an historical fact that the Battle of Hastings took place in 1066, and it is a personal fact that I like chocolate, and it is a scientific fact that the Earth goes round the sun. I regard science as the study of the material universe, and scientists can get away with linguistic murder by cloaking their most far-fetched theories in the respectability of “scientific” just because they relate to the material world. But by its very nature an afterlife - life after the death of the material body - can't be related to the material universe as we (think) we know it. It is a fact that different people have had different experiences of an apparent afterlife, and so it is a fact that diversity is a feature of the hypothesis. But I don't see how you can call it a “scientific” fact. 
 
BBELLA: So what if in fact the this fact of diversity is simply a factor (or an aspect) of the multi-level possibilities of the afterlife - in the same sense that there is a multi-leveled possibilities of types of beings and experiences on the earth itself. From the most simplest organism to the most complex, etc - the diversity of what is experienced here on earth is on such multi-levels it cannot be categorized easily if at all. 
So why not the same about the afterlife? Simply, if our world that we know is filled with such diversity of levels and experiences of all that it can be (all possibilities), why not the unknown in the afterlife be the same? Could not that which is above be the same as that which is below?
 Maybe, between the separate i-dentities and the ONE I-dentiy of God, is a multitude of levels of states of being that we humans can experience (on some level) while here. This could account for our experiences that seem so different from each others experiences, though sometimes they seem similar (kind of like the fable of the blind men feeling the different parts of the elephant and giving different accounts of what they feel).-Perhaps we are back to solipsism, in the sense that we all experience this reality in our own way, and the same may apply if there is an afterlife. But I'm not sure what is implied by “levels of states of being”. It's true that some of my experiences on Earth seem more profound than others - I do not regard my love of cricket and chocolate to be on the same level as my love for my family - but all these levels co-exist within me and help to form my identity (I like your i-dentity!). However, “states of being” seems to indicate some kind of spiritual hierarchy that culminates in God. Perhaps you could explain this in terms of our i-dentity?-BBELLA: Also, it could be a fact that the very fact of these differing accounts that might cause a person who has not experienced any of these experiences (never even felt an elephant), very skeptical that there is anything of truth to any of it - that all of these experiences must be a figment of billions of peoples imagination. In other words - there is no elephant. Possibly?-That is unquestionably so. I'm sure your average materialist will say there is no afterlife. And I think you would be right to ask whether such a person considers these experiences to be frauds or delusions. (I wish Tony would join in this discussion, because he would attribute them to the Devil.) I think many so-called psychic experiences are as real as our everyday experiences, but whether the i-dentity actually lives on after the death of the body (not just the brain) is a question I simply don't feel able to answer.


> DAVID: Great answer. In s[h]ort humans accept cause and effect and want to believe in a first cause.
> 
> dhw: In short, humans want to know the answers to unsolved mysteries, and want hope and reassurance. “Want to believe”, however, would be an atheistic explanation of why people “invented” God. (First cause does not have to be your God.) As an agnostic, I must naturally point out that belief in a God or gods may be founded on the existence of such a being/beings! The OT teaches us that God need not be the object of hope and reassurance. He can also be the object of fear,.... Like so many things in this wonderful world, the concept of God is open to different interpretations, whether he exists or not. - The OT has a forceful fearful god, the NT preaches love, a good advance. The Koran tells us to look for God is His works, a final more mature approach. It shows us that humans had to mature in their appreciation of who or what God might be. Whether mature religious folks realize it or not, they follow the Koran and look at works.