And you can prove this how? And if you can’t prove it, how is this any different from religion? Your religion just doesn’t have a happy ending! 
No, the way it should be stated is that a theist is a worshipper of a god, an atheist is a non-worshipper of that god. Once upon a time, anyone who didn’t worship your god, whether they had another or not, was an atheist. Nowdays, atheists are those who don’t worship any of the gods. I have seen no evidence of the workings of a divine hand in nature, so I don’t worship any divinity. I don’t rule out the possibility, but I am a non-worshiper, an a-theist.
To close:
I am still waiting for the scientists to validate the premise to this but they are coming around. The choices are:
- The universe will continue to expand forever.
- The universe will continue to expand but do so more slowly.
- The universe will stop expanding and then contract into a Big Crunch.
As soon astronomers and physicists calculate that the added mass of dark matter will inevitably lead to # 3 then I will start to contract out for my book deal “Eternal Life through Physics”
Once we know there is a Big Crunch then I think that many people will buy my theory. It is very appealing really; much easier than most religion because you don’t really have to do anything. It is basically eternal life on autopilot.
If you’ll note, John, David specifically mentioned a “lack of belief” as not requiring faith. He’s not saying there are no apples in the box; he is saying he lacks belief that there are apples in the box. There is no faith in that statement. I lack belief in purple unicorns living on Mars, but that does not mean I have faith that there cannot be purple unicorns living on Mars. See the difference? However, if someone asked me what I thought of the existence of purple unicorns on Mars, I’d probably just simply say they didn’t exist rather than qualify it with the very very tiny chance I admit that they may in fact be there. I don’t have “faith” in non-existence after death any more than I have “faith” in evolution or “faith” in quantum theory; in each instance, I am simply choosing what I believe is the best theory, but I do not really have “faith”.
However, you might class me as agnostic since I do not absolutely deny the possibility of God any more than I absolutely deny the possibility of purple unicorns on Mars, or any other thing that I find amazingly unlikely but not currently possible to be absolutely disproved (which is an awful lot of things). However, this particular lack of belief is very often called “atheism” (sometimes “soft atheism”) as well, so you might want to be aware that many of us who speak of atheism do it from this viewpoint, not the “any sort of God cannot exist, no way, no how, not ever” viewpoint.
I don’t think it’s really fair to call it your theory. After all, even Nietzsche embraced the eternal recurrence at one point.
So, there’s an infinite number of me thinking these exact same thoughts in this exact same sequence. There are also an infinite number of me in inexpressible agony. There are an infinity of almost mes. There are far larger and more infinite sets of nothing at all. This is assuming that your universe expands out in a random fashion, instead of exactly the same sequence each time, which is cool, I get reincarnated each time, but a little banal and purposeless.
In many ways though, this is similar to the hindu conception of the universe and its recurrence that hindu buddhism accepts.
Gotcha.
My apologies to Gaudere, Kyb, DavidB, or any other ‘soft’ athiest whose beliefs I misinterpreted. My definitions of atheism and agnosticsm do/did not agree with yours; therefore, my disagreement is mostly a matter of definitions, not stances.
My apologies for my statement.
Why panic over what simply is the most likely eventuality? Accept what has been dealt you. Yeah, i’d like to live forever, or hang out in heaven (presuming of course I get to join the club). While I’m at it, I wouldn’t mind a million bucks, some wings, and maybe a prehensile tail.
A finite life is better than no life at all. So concentrate on living your life as well as you can. Maybe you’ll get another shot, in heaven or reincarnation, but it is somewhat short of a sure bet. So make sure you don’t piss away the one life that we all pretty much agree we have.
If you want immortality, have some kids.
Jenkinsfan said:
You can conclude anything you want. You’ll be wrong, mind you, but that won’t stop you from concluding it.
I didn’t state it “as fact.” I never said, “The fact is…” I gave an answer to a question of what I thought. Note the OP says, “I have a question for you…” If it was a question of fact, this thread would be in GQ, not GD.
Being a skeptic, in particular, requires no faith. It requires that you question things. If you said “atheist” instead of “skeptic,” we could at least give you points for thinking “atheist” meant what John thought. The way you phrased it, though, you get no points whatsoever.
junebeetle said:
That’s a nice idea, but it doesn’t really help those of us who do want to continue to be around. 
Of course, I know (or at least strongly suspect) that I’m going to wake up. There’s quite a difference.
No; it’s the highest price possible.
Dinsdale said:
As those of us who have related our thoughts indicated, it’s not something we can control. Is it almost certain to happen? Yes. Does that mean we like it? Obviously not.
Who says any of us do anything other than this? It’s not an “either/or” situation. One has nothing to do with the other.
I do. That’s one reason I so dislike the idea of death – I want to be alive to see what happens to them, and their kids, and so on.
Well I consider myself Agnostic. I have many theories, none of them will ever be proven. We will never know until we die, but IMHO I say…If universal energy is always the same, never diminishing or expanding just changing shape. Then wouldn’t it be logical to say the we are all conneted by this energy, and maybe the blue light so many people with near death experiences claim to see is their life energy trying to reconnect with the universal energy that we all are compossed of? In this sense there would be reincarnation but we could come back as any variety of siad energy. Ah, but you say…who created that energy and where did it all start? Well I am certain that the "God of the Bible does not exsist. Nor does the Devil. If there is a “god” that created us would he not then be an inventor? And on that line would he not be working on other inventions. Maybe all we are is an experiment gone bad, fungus on a plant stuffed in the cosmic corner, or down the cosmic trash bin never thought of again.
Although, (and with the upmost respect for DavidB, Gaudere and the others), your definitions do appear to agree with Merriam-Webster.
agnostic
a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and prob. unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
atheist
one who denies the existence of God
No denial of apples, but rather a lack of knowledge (and belief). I guess I would have called that agnostic too.
Regards,
Apollyon (agnostic).
PS: I’d like to put in a vote for the non-existence scares the willies out of me and gives me panic attacks camp – I’m firmly with them.
Hm. Well, since we’re playing the game of competing dictinoaries, http://www.dictionary.com allows disbelief too.
I experienced oblivion for trillions (billions?) of years before I was born, and I remember no pain from all that nothingness. Why should I fear more of the same after I die?
-This is loosely based around a Mark Twain quote, but, as I cannot remember it, I made my own up to get the basic premise across.
Good link Kyberneticist (filing it away for future use), but even with that site’s several definitions it boils down to:
agnostic = lack of knowledge, and believes that we cannot know. Also does not deny the possibility that God/s (or purple unicorns) exist.
atheist = one that disbelieves or denies the existence of God or gods.
Gaudere wrote: you might class me as agnostic… However, this particular lack of belief is very often called “atheism” (sometimes “soft atheism”).
I was merely (in my somewhat pedantic way) noting that the formal definition of atheist is distinct from agnostic and… <pedantry rant> there would be less miscommunication if we used the correct words. <end pendantry rant>
Not that this should in any way be taken to mean that I think Gaudere should not be allowed to claim to be an atheist, a purple unicorn, or the High Priest of Cthulhu, as desired.
It’s really no big deal to me if people wish to call me agnostic, but there tends to be confusion since most assume an agnostic has no strong opinion on the God exists/God does not exist issue, and I do; I think it highly unlikely that God exists, but I’m not about to state for absolutely positively certain that any undisprovable thing does not exist, including purple unicorns on Mars. Since I can say that I lack any belief in God, “agnostic” doesn’t seem a correct fit. Most of us who consider ourselves atheists on this MB do not have “faith” that there is no God, we just think it amazingly unlikely. In fact, the only person I know of who had faith that God does not exist was Sake Samurai (I haven’t seen him around in a while; wonder what he’s up to). Anyhow, alt.faq.atheism says:
"Atheism is characterized by an absence of belief in the existence of gods. This absence of belief generally comes about either through deliberate choice, or from an inherent inability to believe religious teachings which seem literally incredible. It is not a lack of belief born out of simple ignorance of religious teachings.
Some atheists go beyond a mere absence of belief in gods: they actively believe that particular gods, or all gods, do not exist. Just lacking belief in Gods is often referred to as the ‘weak atheist’ position; whereas believing that gods do not (or cannot) exist is known as ‘strong atheism’."
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/intro.html#atheisms
And there is Encyclopedia Britannica:
"What the atheist can reasonably claim is that there is no evidence that there is a God, and against that background he may very well be justified in asserting that there is no God. It has been argued, however, that it is simply dogmatic for an atheist to assert that no possible evidence could ever give one grounds for believing in God. Instead, atheists should justify their unbelief by showing (if they can) how the assertion is well-taken that there is no evidence that would warrant a belief in God. […] …what he should say, as things stand and in the face of the evidence he actually has and is likely to be able to get, is that it is false that God exists. (Every time one legitimately asserts that a proposition is false one need not be certain that it is false. “Knowing with certainty” is not a pleonasm.) The claim is that this tentative posture is the reasonable position for the atheist to take.
[…]
There may, after all, be such transcendent facts, such metaphysical realities. It is not that such a fallibilistic atheist is really an agnostic who believes that he is not justified in either asserting that God exists or denying that he exists and that what he must reasonably do is suspend belief. On the contrary, such an atheist believes that he has very good grounds indeed, as things stand, for denying the existence of God. But he will, on the second conceptualization of what it is to be an atheist, not deny that things could be otherwise and that, if they were, he would be justified in believing in God or at least would no longer be justified in asserting that it is false that there is a God. Using reliable empirical techniques, proven methods for establishing matters of fact, the fallibilistic atheist has found nothing in the universe to make a belief that God exists justifiable or even, everything considered, the most rational option of the various options. He therefore draws the atheistical conclusion (also keeping in mind his burden-of-proof argument) that God does not exist. But he does not dogmatically in a priori fashion deny the existence of God. He remains a thorough and consistent fallibilist."
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/4/0,5716,117394+2+109479,00.html
I find the more in-depth discussions of what “atheism” is to be more accurate than dictionary definitions, which have to simplify a great deal. And steering back to the OP: the thought of dying, while extremely disappointing, does not really frighten me. Perhaps because I am young and think it a long ways off. At least I won’t be around to be miserable about all that I’m missing when I’m dead–'cause, well, I won’t be anymore.
Oh… that is very close to my own feelings. Thank you for the in-depth definition Gaudere, it makes more sense.
Kind Regards,
Apollyon (agnostic/weak atheist/soft atheist/humbled).
when it’s all over, it’s just that. over.
you anser yourself with the question. whatever you believe, or don’t believe, the end is always the end.
if you believe there is another beginning afterwards, perhaps there is, but none of us can tell you, at least with any proof, what it might be. as those that have gotten to the point where they’ve found out, have yet to come back with the factual documentation to tell us. so it’s either so freaking good afterwards they don’t want to, or there’s nothing to come back from.
that’s my objective opinion.
my personal opinion is that of course the body is recycled by the earth, decomposes and turns most likely into someone elses lunch at some point. yum huh? my “self”, that is, the part that isn’t physical, i believe becomes absorbed somehow as well, recycled, the way the body does, whatever energies there are, turn into other energies type of thing.
Derleth said :
I don’t think that anyone who has spoken so-far fears pain after their death ( unless of course you believe in the tradition version of hell ) .
The fear or very strong frustration I feel stems from the fact that I wont be around anymore . I like experiencing things and don’t look forward to the time when it all will end .
This feeling by no means rules my life and as I’ve said before it is only fleeting .
It is also one of the reasons that I have envied people with a true fate in a afterlife .
I also would like to add that I think this fear is one of the main reasons why religions/after-life beliefs sprung up in the first place .
Isn’t it strange that people who believe in a literal, traditional Hell aren’t afraid that they, personally, might wind up there?
I’ve seen many people die. In almost every case, death was a release from intolerable pain and suffering. When a terrible illness finally ends in death, the person’s face no longer wears a grimace of pain. The end is peaceful and painless, even beautiful.
Young people view death much differently than the elderly. Of course you fear death, David; you’re young (but older than me, ha ha!) and you have a lot left to do here. I work with almost exclusively old people. By the time you hit eighty, you stop worrying about dying. You accept it as inevitable. As time goes on from there, you begin to yearn for it.
Death is NOT the worst thing that can happen to a person.
no, my mother is. and some of her cooking as well.
Tabeitha said:
The problem begins here. I don’t know where this idea came from, but it’s not true.
Sorry, but, no, that wouldn’t be logical at all. That would be a massive leap of faith without any evidence whatsoever.