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Do you believe in an afterlife?

Do you believe in an afterlife?

  • Yes

  • No

  • Unsure


Results are only viewable after voting.

Sgt. Pepper

All you need is love.
The poll is open for everyone to answer, regardless of religious beliefs or the lack thereof.

If you answered yes, please explain why you believe in an afterlife. If you answered no, please explain why you don't believe in an afterlife. If you answered "unsure," then please explain why you are unsure. I decided to post my thread in the Religions Q&A forum rather than in the Religious Debates forum because I'm more interested in a civil discussion than in a vigorous debate on the subject. As always, please be respectful towards the members that you don't agree with. Thank you, in advance, for your response.

Sgt. Pepper
 

PoetPhilosopher

Veteran Member
I think there are a long of strange things out there, and I'm open to the idea of an afterlife. Although, part of my being open-minded to the idea could be that I don't consider "no belief" to really be the default position to anything. Not for myself, anyway.
 

Estro Felino

Believer in free will
Premium Member
I think that people pursue happiness. Even the 1776 Declaration of independence says it...humans deserve happiness and pursue happiness.

The problem is that: how can you be happy, unless all the others are happy?
The awareness of that, that is all human beings deserve happiness, and their pursuit of happiness is a must for everyone, is what I call being at peace with the world. And being at peace with oneself.

That peace I call it afterlife, since it transcends death.
 

Mock Turtle

Oh my, did I say that!
Premium Member
I answered No since I don't find any evidence of such to be credible and the alternative explanations more credible. Just as I do for so many similar areas involving that which we cannot measure reliably. And besides this, I think the whole notion just throws up a whole load of other issues to be explained if this was the case. Like, when did this occur in our human timeline? And can we (those who do have an afterlife) then be mixing with our long lost ancestors - with a large language problem or just as to thinking - or did they not qualify for such?
 

Ella S.

Dispassionate Goth
No. I think mind-body dualism has been disproven by neuroscience and psychiatry, and I think we understand where concepts like "wakefulness," "awareness," and "metacognition" are generated in the brain as well as what chemicals or damage can disrupt them. I think the scientific evidence clearly points to our minds and self-awareness being a physical phenomenon contained within our nervous systems.

As such, when those nervous systems are destroyed, the mind is destroyed with it. Nothing we could call "us" survives bodily death.
 

Secret Chief

nirvana is samsara
The poll is open for everyone to answer, regardless of religious beliefs or the lack thereof.

If you answered yes, please explain why you believe in an afterlife. If you answered no, please explain why you don't believe in an afterlife. If you answered "unsure," then please explain why you are unsure. I decided to post my thread in the Religions Q&A forum rather than in the Religious Debates forum because I'm more interested in a civil discussion than in a vigorous debate on the subject. As always, please be respectful towards the members that you don't agree with. Thank you, in advance, for your response.

Sgt. Pepper
I voted No. Death is the permanent end of an individual life. Is the concept an Abrahamic one?
 

ChristineM

"Be strong", I whispered to my coffee.
Premium Member
No, life ends when brain function ceases. However the dead bits go on for ever
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Where was this thing called "I" before it found itself encased in this too, too solid flesh? What exactly was "I" doing during Tiberius Caesar's reign, or Charlemagne, or Victoria? Nothing, I did not yet exist. My existence came into being with the awakening of the neurons and synapses in my brain, which formed during and after my time in my mother's womb.

Since that time, I have been under general anesthesia a few times, and during each of those times, "I" was again not present. My body was, my brain cells were, but due to the drugs, certain important synapses weren't firing. "I" was gone, temporarily ceased to exist, until the drugs wore off and synapses fired again.

And when death finally comes, and those synapses shut down forever, what would make me suppose that "I" would continue on, when I clearly wasn't able to when those very synapses didn't exist, or when they were temporarily turned off?

There is no after life. Dead is dead.
 
Last edited:

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
The poll is open for everyone to answer, regardless of religious beliefs or the lack thereof.

If you answered yes, please explain why you believe in an afterlife. If you answered no, please explain why you don't believe in an afterlife. If you answered "unsure," then please explain why you are unsure. I decided to post my thread in the Religions Q&A forum rather than in the Religious Debates forum because I'm more interested in a civil discussion than in a vigorous debate on the subject. As always, please be respectful towards the members that you don't agree with. Thank you, in advance, for your response.

Sgt. Pepper

Yes.

This is the afterlife right now.

Why?

Because before birth, you were not alive. Same as when you die, you won't be alive once again.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Where was this thing called "I" before it found itself encased on this too, too solid flesh? What exactly was "I" doing during Tiberius Caesar's reign, or Charlemagne, or Victoria? Nothing, I did not yet exist. My existence came into being with the awakening of the neurons and synapses in my brain, which formed during and after my time in my mother's womb.

Since that time, I have been under general anesthesia a few times, and during each of those times, "I" was again not present. My body was, my brain cells were, but due to the drugs, certain important synapses weren't firing. "I" was gone, temporarily ceased to exist, until the drugs wore off and synapses fired again.

And when death finally comes, and those synapses shut down forever, what would make me suppose that "I" would continue on, when I clearly wasn't able to when those very synapses didn't exist, or when they were temporarily turned off?

There is no after life. Dead is dead.
I agree with that but only in terms of ego.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
No, I don't believe in an afterlife, but unsure isn't incorrect, either. I can't claim to know that there is none, just that, as with gods, I have no reason to believe that.

I have nothing to add to what I just read here, but I'll reinforce those opinions by repeating a few. I don't believe there is an afterlife because there is insufficient reason to believe that there is, I have no reason to believe disembodied minds can or do exist, and I expect the time after death to feel a lot like the time before birth - oblivion.

You didn't ask, but if I had a choice between eternal consciousness and eternal unconsciousness, unless I could change my mind about being conscious down the road, I would choose unconsciousness. That simply can't be bad.
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
Yes. But you also asked why I believe as I do.

First, what kind of afterlife: The evolving and reincarnating soul spends time in the astral plane between lives encased in flesh. The time there is spent consolidating and for humans reviewing experiences from the life completed before taking a new body.

In humans, those who lived relatively positive lives have positive experiences of such joy that the label heaven applies. For those who have lived on balance negative lives, regret and other such emotions predominate and that is called hell.

As to why, first the intellectual level. When I started moving away from atheism, problems such as theodicy needed to be solved. The best solution was karma and reincarnation. While it's not necessarily simple (kill and be killed), the pain and suffering that one causes will be balanced in one way or another. And the joy and help that one renders similarly is reflected back.

The second answer to why is my belief in Meher Baba as the Avatar, the Christ come again. After reading books, studying his life, questioning and questioning again, my belief in him was forged.

The third why is experience. I've had experiences, some of which I've recounted on RF, that are so real that they convincingly demonstrate that people exist in non-material realms.
 

Viker

Häxan
To be honest, I can't say no for sure. I suspect that it won't be life or like life. I still hold onto the thought that an afterlife will be like before birth. But there's a part of me wants to believe something happens later. Either we're turned back to star stuff or in some way join the gods, so to speak.
 
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