Concepts of God (The nature of a \'Creator\')

by dhw, Sunday, April 10, 2016, 14:29 (3148 days ago) @ BBella

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.