Jane Goodall says she believes in the afterlife because of "experiences I've had"

Oh, I hope it wouldn’t! Living even a hundred times as long and yet not growing many times more as a person from the experiences does sound awful. There’d have to be some value from it. :grimacing:

…Does your friend not sleep?

6 Likes

I believe there’s an afterlife too.

I don’t believe that having such a belief is in any way shape or form, “newsworthy,” even if the believer is famous.

I recently saw a vid about this is that’s relevant to that point:

4 Likes

8 Likes

Does anyone know if it is the case that some christians don’t believe there are animals in heaven since they do not have souls?

3 Likes

Wait, Keith Richards got a makeover?!

6 Likes

Quoting myself from another thread

8 Likes

Well, how else you gonna convince the lessers that they’ll be rewarded for a lifetime of obedient subservience?

5 Likes

All of our guys are waiting in heaven for belly rubs and ear scratches, and they’re waiting for me to pick them up and walk around heaven with them.

I can’t speak for all Christians but my idea of pets and heaven is exactly like The Twilight Zone episode The Hunt.

Mr. Serling really got that one right.

7 Likes

Apparently true story: the famously frugal Tommy Cooper would go to any lengths for a joke. He entered a library and asked for a pair of scissors. He used them to chop the bottom inch off of one of his trouser legs, and handed the fabric to the bemused librarian, saying, “That’s a turn up for the books” :hugs:

2 Likes

While I won’t argue that’s not a dominant belief, it’s a lot more nuanced than that. The central message of Christianity is forgiveness, not judgement. Jesus didn’t say, “If you’re good enough, you can get to heaven.” He said, no one is good enough to get into heaven on their own. We’re all flawed beings who screw up and do the wrong things (which isn’t to say some of us aren’t more flawed than others). Based just on how much good they’ve done, no human can have eternal life. However (this is the central message of Christianity) if you can accept that you are flawed and ask for forgiveness, then eternal life is accessible, regardless of how badly you may have screwed up in the past.

2 Likes

Yeah, I wasn’t going to get into the variants of “depends what you mean by ‘good’” with him - actions, intentions, acceptance, repentance, etc. What struck him as weird was the very un-Buddhist idea of permanently being anywhere or anything.

2 Likes

“Oh, Infinity. When will you stop?” — Joe Frank

(Excerpt from The Exorcist III);

5 Likes

Sure… whatever she believes is fine with me… My point is just that that isn’t what she actually said. Lots of people in the thread are just reading the headline and ignoring what she actually said (which is a failure of the headline), which is that she doesn’t know, but is at peace with whatever does come next.

7 Likes

It says this too though:

“I happen to think there is something because of experiences I’ve had, [and] because of experiences other people have had – very powerful ones.”

So she doesn’t know, but she does guess there will be. Although I highly suspect that isn’t as unusual among scientists as it makes it sound.

4 Likes

HEARD.

Some folks are responding to what they think she meant, not what she actually said.

Typical.

I think that’s great way to look at it.

4 Likes

She doesn’t say she KNOWS, while the headline gives the impression… :woman_shrugging:

1 Like

Fun fact: That episode was written by Earl Hamner, Jr., creator of The Waltons— which kind of tracks, doesn’t it?

1 Like

I guess that depends on how you read it. To me, saying “so-and-so believes” doesn’t imply certainty in this kind of context, they way saying they know would. But I can easily see why you might interpret it otherwise, especially since someone just thinking there’s likely to be an afterlife is really not that unusual, scientist or not.

1 Like

Just wait 'til she finds out first-hand that there’s no afterlife. That’ll show her! :wink:

1 Like

You’re all getting distracted by the afterlife. I want to know why she’s sure there’s an undiscovered primate species roaming around

6 Likes