For those who don't believe in God, what happens after we die, then?

[nevermore]

@Othersider

I’m not completely sold either way on God or the afterlife, but I think the idea that atheism is more life-affirming is ridiculous. Believing in God, the afterlife, or anything else shouldn’t affect the extent of fullness to which one lives life. Afterlife or no afterlife, I live my life “to the fullest” every day just as much as you. […] Believe what you want, and in what you want, but don’t tell me that because of what I believe, that I’m not truly living, or that I’m not using my time to the fullest, or anything else like that. That’s just not right.

You may very well be living your life to the fullest, but some people are not, simply because they believe in an afterlife. Take some of my more staunchly religious family, for example. They are by-the-book Christians who will turn off a movie they’re enjoying if it says the word “goddamn” (or “GD”, as they call it). They won’t let their kids read Harry Potter or watch Pokemon because “it’s idolatry and witchcraft” and the Bible says that’s wrong. I strongly suspect that one of my relatives is gay but has so thoroughly repressed it with religion that he’d never admit the possibility, probably not even to himself.

Some people genuinely believe that if they can only suffer through this life abiding by all God’s rules, they’ll be in paradise for all eternity. They want to do things and won’t do them because they won’t endanger their chances of spending their afterlife in heaven. Atheism frees us from this unfortunate mindset, and allows us to realize that the only rules that apply to us are the ones that we choose to be subject to, that “good” and “evil” are completely subjective and situational, that your life is YOURS with which to do YOUR will. No, you don’t have to be atheist to see it this way, but atheism basically encompasses and represents these ideas, which is I think what Sleel was trying to say.

[David_Simmons]

@nevermore

You may very well be living your life to the fullest, but some people are not, simply because they believe in an afterlife. Take some of my more staunchly religious family, for example. They are by-the-book Christians who will turn off a movie they’re enjoying if it says the word “goddamn” (or “GD”, as they call it). They won’t let their kids read Harry Potter or watch Pokemon because “it’s idolatry and witchcraft” and the Bible says that’s wrong. I strongly suspect that one of my relatives is gay but has so thoroughly repressed it with religion that he’d never admit the possibility, probably not even to himself.

Some people genuinely believe that if they can only suffer through this life abiding by all God’s rules, they’ll be in paradise for all eternity. They want to do things and won’t do them because they won’t endanger their chances of spending their afterlife in heaven. Atheism frees us from this unfortunate mindset, and allows us to realize that the only rules that apply to us are the ones that we choose to be subject to, that “good” and “evil” are completely subjective and situational, that your life is YOURS with which to do YOUR will. No, you don’t have to be atheist to see it this way, but atheism basically encompasses and represents these ideas, which is I think what Sleel was trying to say.

My mother was raised a Baptist and became a staunch Methodist later on. She went to church every week as long as she was able and never even thought about deviating from the true path. Until …

In her early eighties she heard snippets about the book Any Woman Can and one day said, “You know, I wonder if I’ve missed something?”

[Sleel]

@Othersider

You sound like you’ve been reading Rand.

No, I haven’t, actually. I’ve heard of her, of course, but I’ve never read anything by her. This is my opinon based on knowing far too many people who are more focused on the afterlife and the end of everything than on what they are doing here and now. I wasted an awful lot of my childhood living in a Christian fundamentalist bubble, so I have some personal experience with this.

cosmosdan: Communism can’t be compared with either atheism or religion. Atheism and communism have about as much real connection as Christian thought has to do with a republic. The ideas of democracy pre-date Christianity and while the two are often conflated they are neither equal nor dependent upon each other. Athiesm was only one aspect of communism, it was not the whole. Implying that the fault in the system was to exclude religion is silly reductionist thinking.

You have a bit of a point in saying that I find this path more life-affirming for me. While I might wish that everyone would find comfort and fulfilment in reality, not everyone prefers this. Personally, I find it kind of sad that they feel the need to blind themselves that way, but I can’t insist that my way is right.

[spingears]

@Idle Thoughts

What do you think or believe happens when we pass on? If your answer is that you don’t know until it happens, that’s fine enough too.

What happens is what happens. You won’t know till it happens. OTOH Those who believe the Bible are convinced that at death they enter a spiritual realm. There will follow a judgment of everyone who ever lived on this earth and that they will thereafter be relegated to a place where they will be separated from God forever and the obedient believers will spend eternity with God.

[stepsahe]

We you sleep and you wake up in the morning.
When you are drunk and you don’t remember.

We are just blood and cells.

[cosmosdan]

@nevermore

You may very well be living your life to the fullest, but some people are not, simply because they believe in an afterlife. Take some of my more staunchly religious family, for example. They are by-the-book Christians who will turn off a movie they’re enjoying if it says the word “goddamn” (or “GD”, as they call it). They won’t let their kids read Harry Potter or watch Pokemon because “it’s idolatry and witchcraft” and the Bible says that’s wrong. I strongly suspect that one of my relatives is gay but has so thoroughly repressed it with religion that he’d never admit the possibility, probably not even to himself.

Some people genuinely believe that if they can only suffer through this life abiding by all God’s rules, they’ll be in paradise for all eternity. They want to do things and won’t do them because they won’t endanger their chances of spending their afterlife in heaven. Atheism frees us from this unfortunate mindset, and allows us to realize that the only rules that apply to us are the ones that we choose to be subject to, that “good” and “evil” are completely subjective and situational, that your life is YOURS with which to do YOUR will. No, you don’t have to be atheist to see it this way, but atheism basically encompasses and represents these ideas, which is I think what Sleel was trying to say.

Perhaps but it sure wasn’t explained that way. We all make choices about what is right and wrong and have our own motivations. If a Christians truly believes and is content with the choices they make then they’re not giving up anything. They just chooseing. Certainly more than a few probably repress certain desires but that’s no different than what an atheist might do if they held back because of what Mom and Dad, or their friends might say. I think you make a valid point. I just don’t agree the general statement that atheism is a more life affirming choice. I know plenty of people, myself included, that have spiritual beliefs and certainly enjoy life. I appreciate the way you put it. In my mind it isn’t about obeying the rules but about discovering your own path. That means taking responsibility for your choices and your priorities.

[cosmosdan]

@Sleel

cosmosdan: Communism can’t be compared with either atheism or religion. Atheism and communism have about as much real connection as Christian thought has to do with a republic. The ideas of democracy pre-date Christianity and while the two are often conflated they are neither equal nor dependent upon each other. Athiesm was only one aspect of communism, it was not the whole. Implying that the fault in the system was to exclude religion is silly reductionist thinking.

I hope I didn’t give you the impression I thought that way. I agree with your thoughts on Communism. I don’t blame the atrocities of the Soviet Union on atheism any more than I blame every bad thing associated with any spiritual belief on religion {Which is what someone else was doing}

You have a bit of a point in saying that I find this path more life-affirming for me. While I might wish that everyone would find comfort and fulfilment in reality, not everyone prefers this.

That’s assuming your definition of reality is the correct one. I think we are all in the process of discovering reality and embrace or let go of certain concepts in our own time. It’s okay for people to vary. In my mind, hateful is hateful and kindness is kindness and it’s those things that come out of a person that I value and trust. Whether they are believer or not is only a statistic compared to who they are as a person.

Personally, I find it kind of sad that they feel the need to blind themselves that way, but I can’t insist that my way is right.

Personal honesty is an honorable thing, but it’s a work in progress for all of us. I don’t know why people choose to cling to myths as the truth but it’s a trait I think all humans share to some extent.

[monavis]

In response to Cosmodon: The first Christians were communistic, they shared all things in common; according to the writer in the New Testement,a couple was struck dead by God because they held back some of their monies.

Monavis

[cosmosdan]

@monavis

In response to Cosmodon: The first Christians were communistic, they shared all things in common; according to the writer in the New Testement,a couple was struck dead by God because they held back some of their monies.

Monavis

Um…yeah…and??That’s not exactly what we were talking about is it?
The early Latter Day Saints lived in large communities and worked and shared their possesions. They were financially successful because of it and others became very resentful of their success. Trivia

[Sam_Stone]

As a thought experiment, ask yourself what it means to be alive and conscious. When you sleep and wake up, what is it that makes ‘you’ you?

Perhaps it’s nothing more than a conscious mind reconnecting with the collection of memories and electrical current flowing through neural pathways that have been altered by experience to react in certain ways. That’s what makes you feel like you’re still ‘you’, even if your consciousness was broken up by sleep, coma, or even temporary death.

If that’s the case, then there remains an opening for an ‘afterlife’. If the universe is indeed infinite, then just through random chance the conglomeration of neurons and memories that makes me ‘me’ may arise again.

If someone were to build a computer of near-infinite power and had the capability to simulate every brain that ever existed, when it hit the random combination of connections that makes up ‘me’, will I ‘wake up’ again? I have no idea.

As another thought experiment… If we can develop a machine that duplicates the brain down to the last neuron, and someone makes a copy of me while I’m sleeping and transports it into a clone body, will both of us ‘wake up’ and each perceive our consciousness as being an unbroken line to that moment? If so, then that also opens the door for the kind of reincarnation mentioned above. No deity required.

But frankly, this is all just wild speculation. I’m firmly of the belief that we are just meat and electrical impulses. There’s no magic in us, no soul, nothing. When we die, we die. The universe was here for billions of years before I came along, and I perceived none of it. Or if I did, I have no memory of it. That state will continue once the infitisemal bubble that is my consciousness pops, and I will have no experience of that either. So from my perspective, I am immortal. The Universe began with my first conscious thought, and it will end with my last.

However, in an infinite universe of inifinite combinations, it would be silly to make any categorical statements about the nature of reality and existence. In a truly infinite universe, there is at this moment another Earth with another ‘me’, and another, and another. In fact, every combination of ‘me’, in every time frame, with every combination of possibilities that it was possible for ‘me’ to experience. And that will continue forever.

However, we do not as yet know enough about cosmology to really understand the nature of reality, so my default position is that I’m here now, I’ll be gone soon enough, and I won’t care.

[David_Simmons]

@Sam Stone

As a thought experiment, ask yourself what it means to be alive and conscious. When you sleep and wake up, what is it that makes ‘you’ you?

Perhaps it’s nothing more than a conscious mind reconnecting with the collection of memories and electrical current flowing through neural pathways that have been altered by experience to react in certain ways. That’s what makes you feel like you’re still ‘you’, even if your consciousness was broken up by sleep, coma, or even temporary death.

If that’s the case, then there remains an opening for an ‘afterlife’. If the universe is indeed infinite, then just through random chance the conglomeration of neurons and memories that makes me ‘me’ may arise again.

I don’t believe that the brain electrical activity stops during sleep or even a coma. Has anyone ever been resuscitated after brain activity has stopped?

[Sam_Stone]

Absolutely. People have been clinically dead for a long time and revived. People who drown and get trapped under the ice, for example.

Here’s a case of a woman who was revived after being clinically dead for two hours: Woman revived after skiing accident

[Fear_Itself]

@Sam Stone

Absolutely. People have been clinically dead for a long time and revived. People who drown and get trapped under the ice, for example.

Here’s a case of a woman who was revived after being clinically dead for two hours: Woman revived after skiing accident

Your example says nothing about brain death. Hypothermia is well known to reduce metabolism to a point that allows brain survival long after death would have occurred at normal temperatures.

[Othersider]

@nevermore

You may very well be living your life to the fullest, but some people are not, simply because they believe in an afterlife. Take some of my more staunchly religious family, for example. They are by-the-book Christians who will turn off a movie they’re enjoying if it says the word “goddamn” (or “GD”, as they call it). They won’t let their kids read Harry Potter or watch Pokemon because “it’s idolatry and witchcraft” and the Bible says that’s wrong. I strongly suspect that one of my relatives is gay but has so thoroughly repressed it with religion that he’d never admit the possibility, probably not even to himself.

Some people genuinely believe that if they can only suffer through this life abiding by all God’s rules, they’ll be in paradise for all eternity. They want to do things and won’t do them because they won’t endanger their chances of spending their afterlife in heaven. Atheism frees us from this unfortunate mindset, and allows us to realize that the only rules that apply to us are the ones that we choose to be subject to, that “good” and “evil” are completely subjective and situational, that your life is YOURS with which to do YOUR will. No, you don’t have to be atheist to see it this way, but atheism basically encompasses and represents these ideas, which is I think what Sleel was trying to say.

I see what you’re saying and you have a good point. Even though I’m not an atheist, I completely agree with what you’re saying about how some people live ‘in the confines’ of their religion, and I think it’s unfortunate.

Here is a bit of a tangent - I hope I don’t offend anyone by it.

Hypothetical situation:
Given: God exists (if you don’t believe this, just bear with me for a bit)
Let us suppose that God in fact did ask some people to write down some of His words. However, maybe (because people are innately fallible) they didn’t get it quite right. Also, perhaps in the many times these words have been translated into other languages, the original meaning was altered (either a little or a lot, in different places).

Suppose further that all the things that were written down that some people say that God said we shouldn’t do…instead of being rules, the breaking of which could amount to being punished, up to damnation, they might instead be guidelines, things we might strive for to lead a righteous life.

A common example might be people that say gays are going to hell. I have a big problem with this. If God loves all his children, which seems more likely to me than not, I have a hard time believing he’d send gays to hell. And there are gays of various faiths, right? Surely they don’t all think they themselves are going to hell…that just doesn’t seem consistent with following a faith.

Personally, I don’t think we should take it upon ourselves to judge what will happen to others when they die. It’s not like any of us knows he or she is right, anyway.

And I’m also not down with the whole “resisting temptation” thing - to the point of changing one’s self into someone he or she isn’t - just because someone convinced you God would send you to hell for being who you are, as long as it wasn’t hurting anyone else. If God made you that way, why would he judge you for being yourself? I don’t buy it. If God made you gay, that’s how he made you. There’s nothing you can do about it. I don’t buy that conditioning can make you straight, that seems ridiculous to me. And whatever happens when you die probably won’t be any different. If it is, well, there wasn’t much you could do about it.

Sorry for that long tangent, I know I kinda went off some there, but I think I made a couple of points worth mentioning.

[cosmosdan]

@Othersider

Personally, I don’t think we should take it upon ourselves to judge what will happen to others when they die. It’s not like any of us knows he or she is right, anyway

. I agree. Be true to your own beliefs and allow others the same privilage. Other than that let God judge. Unfortunately for many even though the Bible says “judge not” they can’t resist being “righteous” judges of other peoples lives. There are legitamate questions about where the lines are drawn on moral behavior and what hurts society.

And I’m also not down with the whole “resisting temptation” thing - to the point of changing one’s self into someone he or she isn’t - just because someone convinced you God would send you to hell for being who you are, as long as it wasn’t hurting anyone else. If God made you that way, why would he judge you for being yourself? I don’t buy it. If God made you gay, that’s how he made you. There’s nothing you can do about it. I don’t buy that conditioning can make you straight, that seems ridiculous to me. And whatever happens when you die probably won’t be any different. If it is, well, there wasn’t much you could do about it.

Well of course, which is why most anti-gay Christians believe being gay is a choice and not something you are born to be.

[SentientMeat]

@Sam

If the universe is indeed infinite, then just through random chance the conglomeration of neurons and memories that makes me ‘me’ may arise again.

Like I keep saying, the universe is NOT infinite in this respect.

[Pushkin]

I beleive that my friends and family will be quite upset (they’d better be!) my physical body will rot in the ground or be cremated and my conciousness will be gone with it.

[CurtC]

@Sam Stone

As another thought experiment… If we can develop a machine that duplicates the brain down to the last neuron, and someone makes a copy of me while I’m sleeping and transports it into a clone body, will both of us ‘wake up’ and each perceive our consciousness as being an unbroken line to that moment?

Of course you both would - is there any thoughtful person who doubts this?

I haven’t read through the whole thread yet, but this atheist is surprised that anyone would even ask the question in the OP. The thing we call “consciousness” is simply the process of the electrochemical processor in your skull doing its thing. When you die, that process simply stops. To me, it’s like asking what happens to a computer program after the computer it’s running on is turned off and destroyed.

[Othersider]

@cosmosdan

Well of course, which is why most anti-gay Christians believe being gay is a choice and not something you are born to be.

You know what would be funny? If one of them turned out to be gay. :smack:

[Der_Trihs]

@CurtC

Of course you both would - is there any thoughtful person who doubts this?

I expect a lot of people who believe in souls do; I expect some would claim the new version wouldn’t wake up, or that it’s “soulless”, and therefore just an automaton. After all, the alternatives are to stop believing in souls, or that it’s a soul-duplication machine.