It seems to me that the opportunity for developing healthy relationships, nurturing joys and just generally "learning better" would be reason enough. And if it were not, an afterlife would just be more of the same anyway, not an answer.
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Non believers/athiests/and similar: what is your view after death and the end of life?
- Thread starter Smart_Guy
- Start date
It seems to me that the opportunity for developing healthy relationships, nurturing joys and just generally "learning better" would be reason enough. And if it were not, an afterlife would just be more of the same anyway, not an answer.
I'm liking @Quintessence and @YmirGF 's answers. I'm hoping that the answer is stranger than any of us can imagine, and I'm pretty darned sure it isn't anything like any Heaven or Hell the most popular religions describe.
As a bit of an aside, I see no logical reason why an atheist can't believe in an afterlife, the two seem orthogonal.
Ok, back to the OP, I have some optimism that there is something vaguely like "the force" and that the spark of energy that drives us forward returns to the force. But I also agree with the folks who are saying that the prospect of death should drive us to appreciate each moment of life to its fullest. Again, I don't see why I can't hold both of believes at the same time.
As a bit of an aside, I see no logical reason why an atheist can't believe in an afterlife, the two seem orthogonal.
Ok, back to the OP, I have some optimism that there is something vaguely like "the force" and that the spark of energy that drives us forward returns to the force. But I also agree with the folks who are saying that the prospect of death should drive us to appreciate each moment of life to its fullest. Again, I don't see why I can't hold both of believes at the same time.
the soul is eternal. after death it leaves the body an gets another destination(body) according to its karma. as per the Vedic literature, there are 8400000 species of life within this material universe(including the 14 dimensions or 14 planetary levels of this universe) & according to our karma we'll get a body within these 8400000 species in order to enjoy or suffer the fruits of our actions...but on the other hand, if some1 is a pure devotee of GOD, he does not take birth again in this material world but in stead he enters the kingdom of God enjoys blissful eternal life there in the spiritual realm
Altfish
Veteran Member
We are animals so our point of living is to pass our genes on to the next generation, preserve the species.
Yes and you're the kind of person who, when he was in his mothers womb said " at the end of 9 months I'm finished and outta here and no longer exist'.
Because you were unaware of the outside world while you were in your mothers womb didn't mean it didn't exist. You probably asked questions like 'why do I have these stupid arms and legs'.
All the while you were completely ignorant of the life outside the womb and it seems that hasn't changed. Haven't you learnt anything at all? Your unawareness of the next existence is just plain ignorance that's all. You are in another womb now apparently repeating the same mantra.
Sentience changes that significantly.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Having been suicidal and depressed for many years I can well understand where @BSM1 is coming from. What I found is that the desire to live is not rational but instinctual. You just accept the desire to live and don't resist it. It's a form of self-love in that you allow yourself to believe in your own significance, forgive yourself for being mortal and not see it as some sort of failure.
Death is inevitable and there is no afterlife. But death is not a choice. The physical necessity of death, the fact we don't have a soul and therefore cannot have an afterlife begs questions about our significance and meaning when we venture outside the comfort of believing we have intrinsic value based on our uniqueness. We are small and insignificant clinging to a rock with the thinnest of atmospheres as we hurtle round the vacuum of space. It's hard not to wonder what it all means.
What I realised was the problem isn't death itself. Death will come eventually. It's the "fear" of death that is the problem. The fear of a sort of moral oblivion in which the self is rendered meaningless and we become- as if we always were- nothing. To escape that you have to let go of the ego. You cannot face death based on selfishness because it makes us cowards. You need some desire for self preservation but you just let go of the self and let it "blur" with something transcendental that goes beyond the ego and identifying with "humanity" as a greater cause is what works for me. The collective immortality of mankind transcends the individual and gives our lives significance. What we contribute to mankind is our consequence and survives our own individual extinction. So it's a very "secular" conception of transcendence and immortality but I have one of a sort. It just works for me.
IndigoStorm
Member
Reincarnation. It makes dying an adventure worth looking forward to after our life force leaves its now useless host.
QED.
QED.
Two poles of human existence: positive and negative/heaven and hell correlates.
Both available while alive or not at all. The goal or purpose of living, if mind grabs attention to think it NEEDS purpose, is to experience existence independent of the body and be able to call the body back to attention and remember/testify to the experience. All revealed literature have their reference from experience possibilities had while being able to call the body from memory. Without a brain, there is no existence because memory is that by which we detect change. No change, no existence.
I am IGNOSTIC, not agnostic. I was in a boiler explosion two weeks afore my sophomore year in high school. Was eating, at noon, at a hamburger joint at the counter, looked up to see a hospital room at night, 10:30, and I could not sit up or touch the top of my head with a tremendous pain.
No memory circuits being "tickled" to a stable memory so there was NO existence, not Heaven, not Hell. But I do, from other explorations stand with my feet below Hell and my head above Heaven. All such references based on experiences of the living including my own view of the East Gate of Eden, not the other entrances, and the blockade there, the burning bush, the flaming sword. Nope, no getting back to Paradise by that entrance for sure.
The living purpose AFTER experiencing Heaven and Hell comes from doing battle in the physical against the enemy: PSED (Pain, Suffering, and Early Death.)
Both available while alive or not at all. The goal or purpose of living, if mind grabs attention to think it NEEDS purpose, is to experience existence independent of the body and be able to call the body back to attention and remember/testify to the experience. All revealed literature have their reference from experience possibilities had while being able to call the body from memory. Without a brain, there is no existence because memory is that by which we detect change. No change, no existence.
I am IGNOSTIC, not agnostic. I was in a boiler explosion two weeks afore my sophomore year in high school. Was eating, at noon, at a hamburger joint at the counter, looked up to see a hospital room at night, 10:30, and I could not sit up or touch the top of my head with a tremendous pain.
No memory circuits being "tickled" to a stable memory so there was NO existence, not Heaven, not Hell. But I do, from other explorations stand with my feet below Hell and my head above Heaven. All such references based on experiences of the living including my own view of the East Gate of Eden, not the other entrances, and the blockade there, the burning bush, the flaming sword. Nope, no getting back to Paradise by that entrance for sure.
The living purpose AFTER experiencing Heaven and Hell comes from doing battle in the physical against the enemy: PSED (Pain, Suffering, and Early Death.)
Godless Ray
New Member
I take the view that death can't be experienced . Looking at it from being alive as we are now it would be like instant and complete unconsciousness the closest experience might a general anaesthetic that you don't wake up from.
Mary Blackchurch
Free from Stockholm Syndrome
...the same thing that happens when a star burns out. It's gone. It cannot illuminate again. We are electrical circuitry of stardust. Lights out = lights out. Blackness and silence. (sounds fabulous in fact).
dandbj13
Member
Why would you think death would be any different for humans than for earth worms?
Do you think humans somehow magically live forever? If so, do you think we always preexisted without a beginning? If so, there is no such thing as death. And your question is moot. But if we had a beginning, why would you not expect us to have an end?
If you define death as an end, then your question is already answered. By definition, death is the end. If anything came after it, then it wouldn't be death. So a better question is, do you believe in death, not, what happens after death.
Do you think humans somehow magically live forever? If so, do you think we always preexisted without a beginning? If so, there is no such thing as death. And your question is moot. But if we had a beginning, why would you not expect us to have an end?
If you define death as an end, then your question is already answered. By definition, death is the end. If anything came after it, then it wouldn't be death. So a better question is, do you believe in death, not, what happens after death.
Vancouversailor
Member
As an agnostic I have always believed that the end is the end and that one of the aspects of religion is to prey on people's fear of dying in order to gain control over them, manipulate them and do all the bad stuff we normally associate with religion.
That view was reinforced for the first time during the two years I worked as an orderly in the emergency ward of a major hospital and where one of my tasks was to bring deceased patients down to the morgue. In the morgue I had the chance to chat with pathologists and technicians who had views, albeit occasionally somewhat morbid, on life and death, Not a single one of them believed in a life after death.
The second experience I had was when I had a cardiac arrest while at a bus stop seven years ago. I later was told that I had been lifeless on the sidewalk for about seven minutes before the paramedics arrived and revived me. I was fortunate as I was about five minutes by ambulance to Vancouver General Hospital, which has one of the best cardiology departments in North America. I spent weeks under icepacks as they kept my body temperature down to prevent organ damage. After two months I came out of my coma and could start a recovery process that lasted several years.
As to what happened when I died/became lifeless? Somebody turned out the lights and that was it until I woke up and could make out the outline of a nurse standing beside my bed. Nothing, absolutely nothing, in between.
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capumetu
Active Member
The Bible is the best way to find the answer if you believe it is God's word. The Bible teaches us that death is a result of sin Rom 5:12; 6:23
It teaches us what death is also Gen 3:18; Ps 146:4; Ecc 9:5,6,10; 2 Thes 1:9. Death releases or acquits us of sin Rom 6:7 The good news is it is not final Jn 5:28,29
You know how it felt before you were born? I imagine after death will be a lot like that.
I've already experienced non-existence once. I see no reason to think that the second time will be different.
Frankly, I see more pointlessness in a religious viewpoint: if this life is just the prelude for the "real" life in Heaven, why care about this life now? If God is going to swoop down and make everything perfect regardless of what you do, how do your actions matter? If a needy person is going to be rewarded in Heaven for being needy far beyond what you could give them, why help them?
Most religious outlooks on life make it seem absolutely futile to me.