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What do you think happens after death?

Uncharted2

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Sorry to be morbid, I had a discussion with a few friends this morning about this topics, and we all had different opinions on this.

We will all die someday and I don't think anyone is really ready for when that time comes but it is a part of life.

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hfenton

Maybe the purpose of the question is a way of finding out which religious belief or none that someone holds without asking them directly?
Presumably most Christians will view that after death, there's a judgement of your life and then based on that, eternal existence with or without God and everything that goes along with that, whereas Atheists don't believe in God/souls anything non-physical etc., and generally hold that death marks the end of your existence, with no kind of afterlife, and that Agnostics haven't decided for or against any particular belief or non-belief one way or the other.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123054261#Comment_123054261

This largely holds true in Ireland, for those with roots in a Christian community, but doesn't work so well once you go beyond that. For example, the world's largest population of atheists are Chinese who may also subscribe to other beliefs and superstitions surrounding death, reincarnation and the possibility of an afterlife. There are religions out there, for example Buddhism and some branches of Taoism, which don't actually have any God or gods but may still have firm supernatural beliefs surrounding death.

hfenton

I wasn’t aiming to come up with a universal answer as such. I’m just casually sharing my thoughts within the context of an Irish forum, specifically in the Christianity section. Of course, answers would likely differ greatly in places like China or India, or perhaps in a Wicca or Satanism forum. It'll vary again on other planets, in different dimensions, across time, or even outside of time and space—whether theoretical or real. Or perhaps this currently perceived existence is a figment of someone or something else's imagination or random particle alignments.

boardise

Whatever way one might try to respond to the issue of death -logic can have no part in it. For instance -people who say they believe in some form of 'heaven' and eternal life should be delighted when a relative has died because they are now taken to be in a place of perpetual neverending happiness. This is very rarely the case however.

Then one hears people saying that someone who has died is 'together' again with some relative who predeceased them .But how can this be envisioned? Where are they , do they have bodies , what are they wearing , what age are they , what are they going to be doing. where will one meet relatives who have died before us etc.? Another illogical trope is that some dead relative can intervene in earthly affairs -down to the frankly hilarious claim that they can ensure victory for a club team that a relation of theirs plays for …by ensuring that a winning point is scored in the final minute etc. etc.

In fact neither logic nor imagination can help our puny intelligence grapple with the notion of death. We must remain mute and unknowing before this profound mystery.

walshb

lot people say nothingness.. but we as humans only have ever known existence. Living! It’s too difficult to comprehend what is nothingness

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123078219#Comment_123078219

Nothingness was your life before you were born. To me, that is how ill feel after I die , in other words, absolutely nothing.

54and56

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123078219#Comment_123078219

Can you comprehend being knocked out unconcious? Nothingness is same same but different.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123078014#Comment_123078014

I suppose the difference between Christianity and atheism, agnosticism and wider irreligion here is that Christian's subscribe to a codified belief system that tells them what they can expect to happen after death, whereas the others do not. By definition, we know that atheists don't believe in a god or gods but that is the full extent of what we can say they have in common. So when you say that atheists "generally hold that death marks the end of your existence, with no kind of afterlife", I'd ask how you came to that conclusion. The 2022 census showed that about 14% of the population of Ireland, roughly 755 thousand people (up from 450 thousand in 2016), are irreligious. The last census to distinguish between irreligious, atheist and agnostic was 2016, which showed that while 10% of the population identified as irreligious, only 0.16% identified as atheist and 0.1% as agnostic. I'm not aware of any study that seeks to understand what irreligious people do or do not believe in beyond this.

Man Vs ManUre

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123078254#Comment_123078254

I’m glad I wasn’t around during the famine or world war 1 and 2, but I would like to be here when the iPhone 500 launches!!

Ash.J.Williams

Darkness

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123083524#Comment_123083524

Atheism and agnosticism are not religions so those who ticked "other" and then wrote either of those in were actually filling the form in wrong 😉

hfenton

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123083524#Comment_123083524

Again, it's not a conclusion, I don't have a conclusion or claim on what other people do or don't believe, that's up to themselves, I only remarked in the most casual and general manner what most prominent atheists thinkers of our day have said many times when interviewed and asked about it. Most of them are dismissive of the notion there is anything other than this life or anything supernatural. I haven't come across many of today's prominent atheist thinkers claiming there is evidence that death is not the end of existence and there is an afterlife, or they it believe that to be so anyway. If lots of atheists in fact do or don't, or some of them do or don't, it makes no difference to me. If it's not harming anyone, what other people do or don't believe doesn't bother me in the slightest, so I'm so sure why sudden the big obsession about one casual sentence to the exclusion of everything else said. It wasn't designed to touch a nerve if someone somewhere else believes something else. If some atheist’s in fact do believe in life after death, great, go for it, if some atheists don't, great go for it, whatever floats people’s boats.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123089853#Comment_123089853

The problem there is that unlike senior members of the clergy, prominent atheist thinkers don't actually speak for anyone but themselves and their immediate fan-base. Atheists are simply those who don't believe in a god or gods, they have no connection to either one another those who might consider themselves prominent atheists.

I'm not having a go here, and my apologies if it comes off that way. I'm merely highlighting the common misconception that most atheists have anything in common with one another beyond not believing in a god or gods. If you compare this to religious people, most are a member of church, mosque or whatever else. The vast majority of irreligious people aren't members of any irreligious, atheist or agnostic group.

hfenton

No worries, don't read too much into other people's casual posts or assume what they think and believe about everything in detail. Everyone's different. Of course, all atheists do not all universally share the same common beliefs, I don't make any such claims, I just want to point that out, but I can also point out that atheists that do share common beliefs, also exist, e.g. Atheist Ireland, who represent the common beliefs of their members (and, no, before anyone tries it, I don't mean the beliefs of every atheist in Ireland) at national level, make public policy submissions, and brief government and public service committees, both nationally and internationally on behalf of their members.

Hotblack Desiato

I don't think AI have ever made any what you might call "doctrinal statements".

What they make submissions and statements about is secularism, i.e. the separation of churches and state.

nozzferrahhtoo

As in some posts above, I grew up also talking about how there is nothing that links atheists but their atheism. Especially when conversations about things like despots and warlords being atheists came up. I very often mentioned the fact that linking such people through atheism was about as meaningful as linking them up about whether they had a beard or not.

What I realized as I grew up though…. especially during my college misadventure of doing scientific experiments on the eucharist…. but also during the oft cited survey at the bishops conference in Ireland….. is that you equally are not on safe ground grouping people under terms like "Christian" or "Catholic" either.

The weirdly high %s of people in those groupings who identified as not believing in an afterlife or…. weirdly enough…. a god…. was a bit of an eye opener for me. Both of which the previously ignorant immature me thought were pretty low bars you might have to cross to qualify.

The only thing I've learned growing up therefore is a growing lack of interest in labels. On questions like whether there is a creator or not, an after life or not, an ability of consciousness to act independent of the brain or not…… if someone answers the question with a an identity like "atheist" or "deist" or "Theist" or, to a lesser extent "agnostic"….. I realise I am still waiting for them to answer the question they were actually asked.

On my journey and my quests, I have met atheists (Sam Harris is a good example) who are open minded about consciousness surviving body/brain death…. and I have met theists who think the universe was intentionally created but we humans die at death entirely all the same. And everything in between.

As much as we like to use labels….. our brother sitting beside us using the same label might have entirely incongruent ideas. SO as I grow older I enjoy more delving into any individual I meet rather than crusades for OR against labels like I used to do, even on this forum, 10 or 20 years ago. Looking back over my posts on this forum I find myself one part proud and one part embarrassed by a lot of them :)

As for the question of the OP, what I personally think happens? The only answer I can give is "I do not know, but in all the studies I have read, and in all the arguments, evidence, data and reasoning I have seen, I have yet to see any small iota of anything that personally makes me expect that consciousness can act or survive independently of the brain".

So a markedly weighted "I dont know" is the best I can come up with :) And I find as I get older I care less and less too. Because whatever the answer is, it seems that THIS life is important either way. Either because it's the ONLY life you get or because in many theist concepts it's a prelude the life you will get in the "ever after". So either way, a focus on the present has become more and more the direction I lean.

smacl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123090519#Comment_123090519

Organisations such as Atheist Ireland tend to be quite vocal and hence influence popular perception about atheism and atheists in general. At the same time, they also tend to have small membership numbers, which I'd guess would amount to a small fraction of 1% of irreligious people and no mandate to speak on behalf of those people. Similarly the celeb atheists like Richard Dawkins, whose views are very much their own and not an indicator of atheist behavior in any wider sense. At the same time, he's disproportionately visible and again tends to influence popular perception about atheism (and not in a good way).

Also just casual banter on my part and cheers for the conversation.

Hotblack Desiato

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123090797#Comment_123090797

Too late to edit to add:

The RCC, or at least its Irish bishops, constantly maintain that secularism is irreligion - in Ireland they blame all of their problems on 'secularism'. That's only because they're the largest religion in this country and traditionally pulled many of the levers of state power.

You'll find them quite in favour of the separation of church and state, i.e. the actual meaning of secularism, in countries where other religions are in the majority.

Papagei

I would say it's the same as before life.

Papagei

Another question is which version of the person who died inhabits the afterlife? Is it their old, frail, senile self, or when they or some younger, healthier version?

suvigirl

I presume I'm aethist, I don't believe in any God. Is that what makes me aethist?

I don't know. But I know I don't believe in anything after death, purely because I don't believe in any God.

Belief in God, any God, is belief in fantasy, in my mind, so any belief in after death/life whatever, is fantasy.

Maybe others have other ideas.

itsacoolday

Many would say same as before life.

Besides, do you think apes, chimpanzees and other animals ( from whom we evolved) go to heaven to?

Nobody knows for certain, that is for sure. But science and logic points in one direction.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123102658#Comment_123102658

If you have no belief in any god, you're an atheist. That's literally what the term means.

You can believe or not believe in anything else at all; it won't affect your claim atheism in any way.

Hence you can lack any belief in a god and still believe in an afterlife of some kind.

No offence, but your view that belief in good is a fantasy, so any belief in an afterlife is also a fantasy doesn't really hold water. The unspoken premise is that, if there is an afterlife, it can only be dependent on a god, but this isn't necessary so; we can easily postulate an afterlife that isn't dependent on a god.

Millions of atheists in East Asian cultures practise ancestor worship, and millions more believe in reincarnation. So, yeah, it is certainly possible — and, indeed, common — for an atheist to believe in an afterlife.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123100448#Comment_123100448

In the mainstream Christian view, the "you" that you will be in the afterlife is the redeemed you — the perfected you; a you that you have never experienced in this life.

You won't be younger; you'll be ageless. As for healthier — well, you'll be immortal, experiencing no pain or infirmity. So I guess that's healthier.

(Probably. All this is theological speculation, since the scriptures have very little to say about the afterlife. But it's mainstream speculation.)

NIMAN

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123100448#Comment_123100448

If there was any form of afterlife, why do you think you'd take a physical body with you?

suvigirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123103266#Comment_123103266

My beliefs or lack of them, don't need to 'hold water'

They are my beliefs, as I said, others may believe otherwise.

Everyone is entitled to believe whatever they wish, they can have a faith or not, believe in an afterlife or not. Their beliefs don't 'hold water' either. They are beliefs. There is no proof of God or an afterlife. But people can believe it if they wish. In the same way I believe it to be fantasy.

lumphammer2

If there is an afterlife or not is unknown ….. there is a lot we don't know ….. what was the force that created life ?? …. where did it come from ?? …. if life can come from somewhere else to here can it go back to somewhere else ?? ….

Some say there is no proof of an afterlife ….. but there is also no proof of there being no afterlife ….. truth is we don't know ….. the afterlife depicted often in religion and other traditions is almost certainly an imagined form though ….. the reality could be very different …..

Some people believe in ghosts and/or reincarnation ….. some people claim to remember things/people from past lives and/or interpret dreams as visions from past lives and/or are convinced they are a particular person reincarnated …. as an Elvis fan I read that one person a few years back claimed he was the reincarnation of Elvis claiming he 'remembered' things from Elvis' life ….. a lot of this stuff is the domain of the scammer especially the Elvis example …. and anyone who writes a book about such things to sell is just making it up ……. but who knows for sure what forces are out there …..

Everyone dreams ….. some people feel they 'remember something similar' when they experience something for the first time ….. etc …… scientific explanations have not yet answered many things to do with life ….. like when did time begin ?? …. what was there before the big bang ??? …. how did all that rock, etc. originate ??? …. no wonder words like 'god' and 'magic' come to mind because it appears time existed forever and the materials too …. so a given life can theoretically exist forever too …. albeit not bodies …..

PS: I mentioned Elvis and here's Elvis' take on the subject:

(2) Elvis Presley - Life (Official Audio) - YouTube

Papagei

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123103400#Comment_123103400

I don't think there is an afterlife. I think after life is the same as before life. I'm just curious what other people believe?

carveone

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123103400#Comment_123103400

As this is the Christianity forum, I'd say bodily resurrection is an essential Christian doctrine (1 Cor. 15:13-18). It's in the Nicene creed for example, not that everyone pays attention 🙂

The way I understand it is that Christian philosophy (which I personally base my belief systems on, regardless of my faith in the Church, which is somewhat non existent), is based on Aristotlian philosophies of hylomorphism and the teachings of Aquinas. Which is that every being is an indivisible composite of matter (body) and immaterial form (mind or soul). I guess to be trivial about it, I feel it's like a book - matter and form or content make up the entity that is a book and one is meaningless without the other. You are not your body alone or soul alone but both body and soul.

carveone

As an aside and as I can't help myself but wander slightly off topic because it's interesting: The early Christian church spent a bit of time (Paul goes on about it) railing against concepts like body-spirit dualism. In the first century the belief was that the body was evil and would die and the spirit was good and would be eternal. Which was convenient if one wanted to spend a good bit of time either indulging in depravity or flogging the evil out with whips. There's probably overlap there. The Church considers it heresy as it implies questions about the nature of Jesus that are wildly contrary to the Gospels (eg: Jesus was an entity which possessed someone human or similar).

A modern variant of this is mind-body dualism or Cartesian dualism. This is the idea that (deserving) humans have a sort of separate soul thing commanding a complicated biological organism. This is "the ghost in the machine"; your body is a some random biological assignation and is not relevant to your sense of self.

I personally think this is the worst idea ever as it allows people to divide all life into deserving humans and every other life form, the latter being no more than clever biological automatons. No more deserving of empathy than a toaster. This is convenient if you want to class blocks of people as subhuman or want to trash the entire planet. In Descartes case, he tortured dogs and other animals to demonstrate somehow that their pain didn't exist. Which makes him a complete asshole as far as I'm concerned.

Also if you are fabulously rich and feel that death is somewhat inconvenient, you'd like to believe in your ability to transfer your conscious mind into either a computer, or more chillingly, into one of those sub humans you don't believe have a soul. This is, of course, insane.