Possibilians

[Pathless]

Anyone else come across this yet? I find it refreshing:

RNS Feature: "For `Possibilians,’ afterlife is one big possibility"

“It’s not being an agnostic, which I find to be a weak term,” explained Eagleman, 38, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. “Agnosticism is not knowing whether the guy with the beard in the cloud is real or not. “Possibilianism’ is going out and making up a bunch of new stories, because we know so much more now than those people who came up with those stories thousands of years ago.”

In contrast to traditional religious descriptions of heaven, hell, reincarnation and the like, the inventive scenarios in “Sum” range from afterlives that resemble airport lounges to failed utopian experiments. In one vignette, humans who die simply resume their laborious jobs maintaining the cosmos (Earth, it seems, was a rare vacation); in another, they end up in a somewhat mundane eternity, joined only by those they had met while alive.
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[wil]

Raised a secular Jew, Eagleman said he dabbled in atheism as a young scientist before concluding that claiming any kind of certainty about what happens after we die—whether based on faith or science --was ultimately illogical.

While this I can hardily agree with. Spending time imagining varoius scenarios as any more than a passtime seems like someone is desiring a religion.

 

[path_of_one]

I like it. It's what I've been for a while, I suppose- didn't know someone wrote a book about it. I believe in a Divine- you could call It/Him/Her "God" but it ain't the beardy-sky variety. I believe I will have an afterlife. But beyond that, I'm pretty much just open to whatever happens. I no longer have any clear ideas about what the afterlife will look like, and I tend to think it might be different for everyone, potentially based on our willingness to receive what could be.

Ever read "A Gracious Plenty"? I loved that imagery- that the recently dead are involved in the natural cycles of earth- bringing in wind, rain, making the flowers bloom... before they move on to that white light. To me, I am not sure heaven would be different from being a nature spirit in that way- to ride the wind and rivers and to be a midwife to the earth.

 

[Snoopy]

“It’s not being an agnostic, which I find to be a weak term,” explained Eagleman, 38, a professor at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

When Thomas Huxley coined the term he did not intend it to be a weak term; he meant it to be as robust any "view".

Perhaps the professor needs to read some more wiki! -

s.


Types of agnosticism

Agnosticism can be subdivided into several subcategories. Recently suggested variations include:

• Strong agnosticism (also called "hard," "closed," "strict," or "permanent agnosticism")

—the view that the question of the existence or nonexistence of a deity or deities and the nature of ultimate reality is unknowable by reason of our natural inability to verify any experience with anything but another subjective experience. A strong agnostic would say, "I cannot know whether a deity exists or not, and neither can you."

• Weak agnosticism (also called "soft," "open," "empirical," or "temporal agnosticism")

—the view that the existence or nonexistence of any deities is currently unknown but is not necessarily unknowable, therefore one will withhold judgment until/if any evidence is available. A weak agnostic would say, "I don't know whether any deities exist or not, but maybe one day when there is more evidence we can find something out."

• Apathetic agnosticism (also called Pragmatic agnosticism)

—the view that there is no proof of either the existence or nonexistence of any deity, but since any deity that may exist appears unconcerned for the universe or the welfare of its inhabitants, the question is largely academic.

• Agnostic atheism

—the view of those who do not claim to know of the existence of any deity, and do not believe in any.

• Agnostic theism (also called "spiritual agnosticism")

—the view of those who do not claim to know of the existence of any deity, but still believe in such an existence. Søren Kierkegaard believed that knowledge of any deity is impossible, and because of that people who want to be theists must believe: "If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe."