No shit. We ARE all going to die. Hopefully not soon, and I’m holding out for a reprieve, but, I think it’s safe to assume that we are all going to die. I also think I wouldn’t be going out on a limb when I say that most of us don’t think about it much. Sometime, however, we do. What do you think when it comes up? I am just wondering. I myself am not sure WHAT I think. I have absolute (almost) confidence that it CAN’T be the end. That just dosen’t make any logical sense.( or maybe that’s just intelectual conceit.) Y’all who are religious have FAITH that you know what will happen, but I would wager that your faith is no greater than my belief that something comes after. I am just not as sure as you that I know what. Also consider that you can’t all be right. What if you picked the wrong religion? oops!
( reminds me of my favorite after death joke:
A great man dies and goes to heaven. God tells him that because he was such a great man, he’s going to get to see what Heaven is REALLY like. He goes over to a wall and peers over. " See that?", God askes, “those are the Christians”. He leads the man to another wall." Look over there, that’s paradise, those are Muslems." and so on- "over here are jews, here are pagans, "etc… “God”, the man askes, “Why are all these wall keeping them apart?” “SHHHH!” God says “Keep it down! They all think that they’re the only ones here!”)
Actually, that pretty much is how I see the afterlife. How about the rest of y’all?
There’s an afterlife?! Nothing in my atheist handbook says anything about an afterlife! What version of the handbook do you have? I gotta get me one of those.
Actually, I believe it’s all mind over matter and I’ve decided that I’m not going to die. I’m simply not going and that’s that! I’ll let you know how it works out for me in 60 or so years.
I try not to think about it too much because I’m not looking forward to total oblivion. I plan on living my life to the fullest because there is nothing to expect afterwards. It’s a sobering prospect but one that we must all face.
I disagree with those that say that atheists must necessarily live a life of bleak despair. I like to think of life as a fun vacation. When I take my two weeks off to travel, I don’t spend the whole time beating my breast and wailing because I will have to go back to my humdrum daily life eventually, instead I try and squeeze every ounce of enjoyment out of my time off. The same with my few years of consciousness.
Is that really so?? While I admit that the odds of a person dying are * extremely * overwhelming, could it be that someone could "buck the odds. Just because everyone before you has died doesn’t mean that there is a 100% ironclad guarantee that you will too.
Consider…
You beat the odds of being in an accident of any kind.
You beat the odds of major illness.
You beat the odds of dying because of crime.
You even beat the odds and your cells continue reproducing past age 115.
Chances really small that it could happen? Sure. But impossible? I wonder…
I don’t exactly think I picked the right religion; I’m smart, but not that smart. And at sixteen, I certainly wasn’t that wise. Hell, I’m not wise enough now. Rather, my religion picked me.
To be more specific, I experienced what I took to be the presence of God, in a way that strongly suggested to me that all this stuff about Jesus was at the heart of the God stuff.
So here I am in what I have perceived ever since to be an ongoing relationship with and inner link to God. The strength and resilience of that link is such that, by comparison, death seems to be a small thing; that death should interrupt the link seems totally implausible to me.
As far as being ‘right’ about the nature of the afterlife: I don’t have a mental picture of it to be right or wrong about - no clouds, no harps, none of that. I figure I can wait until the afterlife to learn the details. I believe it’ll be good, it’ll be fun, it’ll be more alive than this life, which I have very few complaints about.
I believe humans are such self-centered beings that they cannot imagine an existance that does not include themselves. This is the reason religions created the idea of an afterlife. Or the reason man created religion.
My favorite athiest joke:
What was inscribed on the athiest’s tombstone?
All dressed up and nowhere to go.
Biggirl, while that is one side of the arguement, to say that you know for sure that there is not something more than what is experienced on earth in this consciousness shows the same sort of hubris. And while you believe that this is it on earth, others believe there is more.
Not one person on earth knows for sure, and to say one is right or one is wrong is equivalent to saying your opinion is wrong. It’s your opinion, it’s something you believe based on a combination of factors (family, geographical location, open-mindednes, intelliegence, education, etc.). And while you may try to convince others that your opinion is correct (and some do this ad nauseum) it still comes down to personal belief and faith. You have faith that there is nothing, RTFirely has faith there is more.
And not all religion is centered around an afterlife. There are some that are concerned with living your life now and what ever happens when you die, well, it’s out of your control so why worry about it. Live life, not afterlife.
My idea of the afterlife is, you don’t go to a place called Heaven, where people wander around in some lush paradise. You’re ‘spirit’ becomes part of ‘the collective.’ Your energy melds with the energy of all things. You know everything; you experience everything, all at once, for eternity. And I imagine it’s pretty cool.
This clears up the strange discrepancies about the traditional concept of Heaven that make people squirm. (A guy’s married to a woman for 50 years; she dies; he remarries. When all three die, who is with whom in Heaven?)
I think we are all pieces of one consciousness (God, if you will) experiencing itself through this very weird phenomenon known as life. When this life quirk is over, we return to our regularly scheduled broadcast.
(Is there a religion out there somewhere that espouses a philosophy like this? I kind of came up with this on my own, but I can’t imagine it’s original.)
I feared death at one time in my life, but I don’t anymore. Oddly, the death of my best friend a few years ago (in a car wreck at the age of 29) made me fear death less. I figured, if he can go through it, I can. And if he’s the first one waiting for me “on the other side” if it’s like that, so much the better.
I look at it this way - Think back to what ‘your life’ was like before you were born. Remember anything unpleasant? Anything at all? No? Well, worst-case scenario, that’s what you’re going to be going back to when you die. It apparently wasn’t all that bad before you were born, so don’t sweat it.
I’ve got some bad news for y’all. Each and every one of you is simply a perception on my part. So when I die, not only does everything end for me, it ends for you, too.
Sorry to be the bearer, but it’s better that you know the truth.
"When death overtakes the body, the vital energy enters the cosmic source, the senses dissolve in their cause, and karmas (deeds) and the individual soul are lost in Brahman, the pure, the changeless.
As rivers flow into the sea and in so doing lose name and form, even so the wise man, freed from name and form, attains the Supreme Being, the Self-Luminous, the Infinite."
— Mundaka Upanishad (1st millennium BCE), tr. Swami Prabhavanandana and Frederick Manchester
A friend of mine had a dream like that. He dreamed he was at a party and realized that he was dreaming. He tried to convince the people at the party that they were all just part of his dream, but they wouldn’t believe him. “It’s true,” he said. “If I wake up, you’re all toast.”
I was dreading the day I would have to explain to my son that one day he was going to die. I remember asking my parents when I was eight if I would live forever if I just kept shaving my beard off, and crying when I found out I wouldn’t.
Well, one day, when my son was four, he asked me if he was going to die some day and what would happen when he did. I had hoped he would ask when he was older. I’m an atheist and it’s clear to me that I am nothing without chemistry, but how do you explain this to a four year old in a comforting way?
We had seen “The Lion King” a couple of times, and it clicked in as I was trying to explain this aspect of biology to him. I told him if we lived forever then other creatures wouldn’t have a chance to live because when we die, our bodies become part of the plants needed for other baby animals to be born. So when we die, we become part of other animals. That’s called the Circle of Life.
He accepted this and, though he was still a little bummed out, he was over it the next day. I was pretty darn proud of myself.
Since then, he’s talked to his cousin (whose father is from India), and seems to have reached the conclusion that I was talking about reincarnation. Oh, well. If he asks I’ll explain it again, but until then he’s happy believing that.
I’m an atheist too, but the way I look at it is this:
If there is an afterlife, then cool. Fine with me. In fact, that’d be fun.
If there isn’t, then I’m not exactly going to be caring about it, will I. I’ll be gone.
I generally live my life well, so I can’t believe that I’d be sent to hell by God/gods just because I didn’t believe in him/them/it. So if that is true, that there is a hell and I’d be sent there for simply not believing, or not going to church, then yeah, ok, I’m screwed. But otherwise, I’ll be ok.
Besides, the party’s going to be in hell. It’s just that the beer will be warm.
I see you’re a solipsist, manhattan. Isn’t everyone?
Since there’s been some mention of physical immortality, I’m wondering if there isn’t a sense in which Henrietta Lacks could be said to be immortal. If you are unfamiliar with this woman’s story, do a search on her name in a good search engine for some interesting reading.
Henrietta died when her brain stopped. Her cells can go on doing their business for as long as they want, but Henrietta won’t be around to appreciate it, now will she? If you think continuity of genetic information = immortality, then everyone who reproduces is immortal. Kind of a bad definition, if you ask me. Immortality means watching the Super Bowl in 5000. GO MARS!
A small note to my family gathered around my deathbed
Personally, I don’t believe in an afterlife. I don’t think that I would be at “peace” if you unplugged the life-support system. Consider this, however: If you believe the slightest bit in the existance of an afterlife, believe me when I tell you that if you are right I will haunt you horribly for the rest of your misbegotten life if you even think about pulling that plug!
