Do you believe in an afterlife.?

Burial. · 21-06-2017 11:50PM

I do think there's more to this life than just the coffin/the oven and then you're gone. Wouldn't have a notion what but I'd like to think there's something. Whether that's being reincarnated into a puppy or a jackdaw or 'born again' as a human again I have no clue. I guess if we rot and the matter in our bodies breaks down and becomes parts of things like soil, plants, the ocean... That's kind of an afterlife that seems pretty logical doesn't it?

MonkieSocks · 21-06-2017 11:59PM

Birneybau wrote: »

Will be like a switch going off. Don't think my telly thinks of what wonderful things it could be showing when I unplug if for the night.

This is what you're telly does when you go to sleep

dd972 · 22-06-2017 12:03AM

Why not, go for it, what's to lose.

Wildsurfer · 22-06-2017 12:04AM

What I always find amazing when this topic is discussed is how otherwise clever people claim there is no afterlife as a fact... But it's like saying for a fact there is no other life in the universe... You can give an opinion but that's all you can give, as in truth we'll never know as long as we're alive. But stop for a minute and think about how amazing it is to be here right now having this discussion, formulating thoughts in that mushy lump inside your skull, and then tell me for a fact that there isn't a greater force at play... Or at least a possibility of it?? I believe evolution gave giraffes long necks to eat the leaves of trees, but what we have become as sentient beings is quite possibly the work of a greater force.

Pherekydes · 22-06-2017 12:11AM

Academic wrote: »

Not true. An atheist is simply someone who denies the existence of god

Not true. An atheist is someone who does not believe in a god or gods.

AtomicHorror · 22-06-2017 12:14AM

Where were we in the 14 billion years before we were born? That's where we're headed back to.

Unless quantum immortality is real, in which case we're all headed for an extended existence of infinite, un-killable consciousness, mostly characterised by unending loneliness, suffering and ultimately madness, as we spin utterly alone in the vast freezing black at the end of all time.

Try not to think about it.

osarusan · 22-06-2017 12:20AM

“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

― Mark Twain

bodice ripper · 22-06-2017 12:27AM

Apres moi, le deluge

storker · 22-06-2017 01:11AM

Lady is a tramp wrote: »

Yeah but doesn't atheist mean non-believer ... you're not an atheist if you believe in ghosts, afterlife, etc.

Not at all, the definition of atheism refers to the existence of a god, and nothing else.

storker · 22-06-2017 01:12AM

MonkieSocks wrote: »

This is what you're telly does when you go to sleep

Cool, I'm staying up tonight to watch that.

ArchXStanton · 22-06-2017 01:18AM

If there is an afterlife...it's certainly not what they're telling you

Mountainsandh · 22-06-2017 01:25AM

RobertKK wrote: »

We are in the matrix, maybe we only escape it through death and enter the after life, life after the matrix.

I see that Matrix concept is taking off nicely these days.
If we're in the matrix and we escape into the after life with death, what's the point of the bloody matrix, and why is it not endless anyway ? For what purpose would it end for random people at random times ?
I loved Patrick Ness's More Than This for anyone into the matrix idea.

McDermotX · 22-06-2017 03:36AM

nozzferrahhtoo · 22-06-2017 07:52AM

Wildsurfer wrote: »

What I always find amazing when this topic is discussed is how otherwise clever people claim there is no afterlife as a fact... But it's like saying for a fact there is no other life in the universe... You can give an opinion but that's all you can give

I agree to a point, but I do not think I would be AS pessimistic as you about our ability to come down on one side or the other.

Quite often, for example in science, we have a lot of data pointing one way and a lot of data pointing another way. And sometimes we have to make an educated guess which way the weight of the evidence is going. And sometimes we make the wrong guess.

Not so with an after life.

Our knowledge of the workings of consciousness and sentience is not complete by far. Nor is it small however. We know a lot. And currently 100% of what we know links sentience and consciousness to the biological brain. 0% of what we know..... nothing at all..... suggests any level of disconnection between the two........ let alone to the degree of one surviving the biological death of the other.

So when 100% of the available data set points one way, and 0% of it points the other way........ I think you are doing a little more than offering MERE opinion when you suggest there is absolutely no reason at all at this time to expect there to be an after life, and plenty of reason to expect there not to be.

Pherekydes wrote: »

Not true. An atheist is someone who does not believe in a god or gods.

I have always hated the word and never really used it to describe myself...... even though I have no issue with anyone ELSE calling me it.

One of the many issues I have with the word is that it is a-theism. A meaning without. And Theism meaning Theism.

Deists are also without a theism quite often too. So the etymology does not sit well with me.

I wish I could reach into history and and delete the word atheist and replace it with adeist. :=)

People who have no belief in a god do not just lack a theism, they lack deism too. But you can have deism without theism. I am not entirely convinced you can meaningfully have a theism without a deism though.

But for other reasons I probably STILL would not self identify using it. But still, it would be an improvement.

murpho999 · 22-06-2017 09:58AM

Juan More Time wrote: »

As an atheist I don't believe in God or any religious nonsense So I don't think there is a bearded man in the heavens regulating the universe... But I've seen several ghosts over the years, So It's possible that the life force of a living being leaves the body upon death... The pagans believed the veil between this life and the afterlife is incredibly thin, and can break at times allowing the living to catch a a fleeting glimpse of something the defies rational explanation...

No you haven't!

22-06-2017 10:02AM

Academic wrote: »

Not true. An atheist is simply someone who denies the existence of god: a-theist.

It doesn't by itself entail the denial of the supernatural.

Denying the existence of God would mean that there is a God that exists to deny.

valoren · 22-06-2017 10:05AM

We're like a non-rechargable battery (our body and all the systems therein) that powers a shining light (our conscious minds)

Full of electric energy initially, then as time goes by, the energy get's depleted more and more until the energy is gone.
The total energy varies from person to person, some last longer than others, some become damaged and get depleted prematurely.
Some lights are brighter than others, some lights become broken.
In the end, that shining light that shone brightest becomes dimmer and dimmer until the light goes out forever.

I remember when our next door neighbour died when he was 43.
Sitting in the funeral, the priest spoke about how the choir of heaven sang proudly today to welcome him into heaven.
I was sitting there thinking. This choir. Do you have to audition? Do they have a rota system? Did they go for drinks after wards?
Do they all get along with each other?
When I start thinking about the notion of forever and ever and ever, I think give me permanent, blissfully unaware deep sleep everytime.

nozzferrahhtoo · 22-06-2017 10:30AM

circadian wrote: »

Denying the existence of God would mean that there is a God that exists to deny.

Not in any language I speak it doesn't no.

seachto7 · 22-06-2017 10:32AM

What's the population of heaven? If someone died in 1643, do they now have a smartphone? Do they have to work? Pay bills?
Who cleans the rubbish? Recycles? Drives the buses?
Is there smog? Electric cars or gas guzzlers?
Is heaven next door to Jannah? Can you get a direct flight or go by boat? What language do they speak?

jimmytwotimes 2013 · 22-06-2017 10:36AM

There's nothing after death. Would be some craic if there was an afterlife though.

Would cavemen be there wrecking the place? Or does anyone before the Christian god, David Icke or whoever, not qualify?

ScumLord · 22-06-2017 10:41AM

Ally Dick wrote: »

I believe in God, but I don't think we are that high on the priorities. It's like a big chicken laying an egg. We're a germ on the egg.

Imagine how mad god must look to his peers. "Why are you talking to that egg god?".. "I'm not talking to the egg you fool, I'm telling a subsection of the germs on the egg that they can't eat meat on a particular friday".. "OK God"

Wildsurfer wrote: »

But stop for a minute and think about how amazing it is to be here right now having this discussion, formulating thoughts in that mushy lump inside your skull, and then tell me for a fact that there isn't a greater force at play..

There isn't a greater force at play.... Fact..

Or at least a possibility of it?? I believe evolution gave giraffes long necks to eat the leaves of trees, but what we have become as sentient beings is quite possibly the work of a greater force.

Why do you think it was something other than evolution that brought about humans? All the evidence shows we evolved into our current state over time. We can see the same processes at work in us that we see in other animals. Your cherry picking a scenario that makes you more special than all the other living things. Either we all were created by this special force or we were all created by evolution, because humans are part of nature, we were born and breed by it.

eamonnq · 22-06-2017 10:47AM

murpho999 wrote: »

No you haven't!

but he believes that he has ?

Akrasia · 22-06-2017 10:48AM

Wildsurfer wrote: »

What I always find amazing when this topic is discussed is how otherwise clever people claim there is no afterlife as a fact... But it's like saying for a fact there is no other life in the universe... You can give an opinion but that's all you can give, as in truth we'll never know as long as we're alive. But stop for a minute and think about how amazing it is to be here right now having this discussion, formulating thoughts in that mushy lump inside your skull, and then tell me for a fact that there isn't a greater force at play... Or at least a possibility of it?? I believe evolution gave giraffes long necks to eat the leaves of trees, but what we have become as sentient beings is quite possibly the work of a greater force.

We evolved alongside the other life on this planet. When a Giraffe dies, it's neck gets decomposed and it's 'mind' dissolves as it's brain is starved of oxygen. The human 'mind' is not categorically different to other animals. Consciousness emerges on a scale of complexity, from insects who are conscious enough of their surroundings to make the decisions they need to make to survive, to Crows who are capable of abstract problem solving using tools, to primates like Orangutans who might not be able to communicate verbally with us but they undoubtedly have some degree of consciousness and self awareness.

Consciousness is an emergent property of the brain and nervous system. Humans aren't born with higher cognitive abilities, they emerge as the brain develops through childhood and the emergence is totally contingent on there being a healthy and functioning brain. Consciousness and any meaningful 'self' can be ended while the human body continues to live if there is a sufficiently harmful injury to the brain. This is enough evidence for me that consciousness ends and doesn't transcend death.

Some people believe in an afterlife that doesn't require consciousness or any memory of this life, but I just wonder, what's the point of that?

Some people consider a butterfly as metamorphosis as some kind of afterlife where the caterpillar gets destroyed but reborn as a butterfly, but even though most of the body is broken down and rebuilt, key parts of the brain remain intact and so some part of the butterfly's memories and experiences are retained from it's larval stage.

Without a physical media to store memories, whether electronic or organic, that information is lost forever.

sbsquarepants · 22-06-2017 10:54AM

Obviously you can't ever know for sure - but I'm confident enough hat there isn't to not let it factor in my life in any way. I have no expectation of ever seeing grandma again, or partying with kurt cobain or any of that shít.

It would be great if there was, but it would also be great if Gillian Anderson was pestering me to be her sex slave. Just because something would be great doesn't mean it's reality.:mad:

ScumLord · 22-06-2017 10:55AM

The only way there's going to be an afterlife is if people in the future figure out how to make people live forever then hop in their time machines and figure out a way to swap you out for a clone at the last minute. Then bring you into the future to live forever.

Cee-Jay-Cee · 22-06-2017 11:00AM

Academic wrote: »

He's saying he won't be "wishing" anything, or finding anything "dull and boring." He's saying he won't exist.

FFS it was meant as a joke.

Akrasia · 22-06-2017 11:33AM

ScumLord wrote: »

The only way there's going to be an afterlife is if people in the future figure out how to make people live forever then hop in their time machines and figure out a way to swap you out for a clone at the last minute. Then bring you into the future to live forever.

but would that clone be you, or a clone of you?

If you could download your consciousness to something else, a version of you would survive, but the consciousness in your brain would still wither and die.

TomSweeney · 22-06-2017 11:36AM

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

But when your dead and there is just nothing won't you be wishing there was something because nothing is terribly dull and boring.

You won't be stuck in a black box somewhere bored out of your mind though ...

nozzferrahhtoo · 22-06-2017 11:40AM

Cee-Jay-Cee wrote: »

But when your dead and there is just nothing won't you be wishing there was something because nothing is terribly dull and boring.

The other funny think about this joke (and yes I saw it was a joke even if two others users at least missed that) is that the opposite is also possible too. Given an ETERNITY of an actual after life where you have everything rather than nothing........... why would THAT not get terribly dull and boring after some time too?

People imagine being reunited with their loved ones for all time for example. I have loved people deeply in my life, but even at the deepest point of love I can not imagine love lasting for an ETERNITY. I do not care how perfect someone thinks their spouse is........... an eternity spent with them is eventually going to grate on the nerves.

storker · 22-06-2017 11:41AM

circadian wrote: »

Denying the existence of God would mean that there is a God that exists to deny.

Dear me, where do these logical contortions come from...

So, if I tell my child there is no Santa, that means he really does exist?

Do you believe in an afterlife.?

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