I realize i haven't done my home work but, if you're an atheist then do you believe that when you die, You are dead, dead in a box, with no further existence?

"Atheist" means that the person does holds no belief in God. It is not a statement about their thoughts on the afterlife, surprisingly the two are separate and can be considered apart from each other.

There are atheists who believe in an afterlife, some in reincarnation, and other forms of living on.

Personally, I don't think there's anything after the lights go out. I haven't seen any compelling evidence for any alternative so I don't worry about it.

Instead, I try to live my life as best I can now. I live it as if it's the only one I have. I try to leave my legacy in those around me, with my family and friends and I hope to live on in their memories.

Well said. Goes right along with my own beliefs.

I have often thought that we are betrayed by our language into believing that "being dead" is a form of "being" because it contains a form of the verb "to be". In fact, "being dead" is a form of non-being -- specifically, the non-being that follows having once been. When you die, you cease to be. What's in the box isn't "you," it's the physical residue that is left behind when the "you" no longer exists.

That's the main reason I believe that there is at least something after we die. I just would think that "you" have to go somewhere...or maybe you just dissipate into energy and become a part of the universe...But I'm just pretty positive that something must happen to "you" after you die.

As it has been said, energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed. (something like that lol)

What happens to batteries when they are dead? Are they still capable of starting cars in a battery afterlife?

No they are not, but the battery is still in the box.

None of us actually know what happens because no one has ever come back to prove things one way or the other. Of course that leans towards no afterlife but we don't know for sure.

I hope there is an afterlife of some sort, although the longer I live the more I think that when we die the light goes out and that is it.

Yet, perhaps if there is something more it’s most likely not at all what we imagine it to be. I look at it this way, there is living bacteria in my intestines but it has no concept/proof of an existence outside of it’s life in my intestines so when I look at it this way, I think there could possibly be something more but what, I have no idea.

I just wish that I would know when I die one way or the other but if there is nothing I won’t know and I suppose it won’t matter, either.

While the 2 aren't intrinsically linked, there is a correlation.

Atheists tend to believe that death is the end.

This is because atheists tend to lack a belief in god because there is no/insubstantial evidence.
The same dearth of evidence applies to existence after this life.

So while I wouldn't say that most atheists are sure that there is no afterlife, I would say that most of us lack a belief in one.

Best answer right here. Unless, of course, you consider Buddhists to be atheists.

As Finally Free! pointed out, atheism and belief in an afterlife are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Let this serve as your homework: atheism is not a belief system. All atheists do not think the same. There isn't a "what do atheists believe" cheat sheet. :)

That said, my personal belief is that there is no afterlife. No, I do not believe our bodies have spirits or souls. Yes, I do believe that when we die our consciousness ends. I believe this because there is no reason for me to believe otherwise. My default setting is to believe the simplest explanation unless evidence suggests a more complicated one is correct. In my mind, any kind of afterlife is dreadfully complicated.

I once had this discussion with a TBM friend who didn't understand how I could reject the idea that we have souls. I asked her, "Do you believe animals have souls?"

"Yes," she answered without hesitation.

"Dogs? Cats? Giraffes? Sharks? Ostriches? All have souls?"

"Yes."

"What about protozoa?"

"...uh..."

"Bacteria? Viruses? Do they have souls?"

"Of course not."

"So where does the line exist? At what point is something advanced enough to have a soul? Insects?"

"I don't know, but I'm sure Heavenly Father has it all sorted out."

And that right there is why I don't believe in an afterlife. The moment you reach a point in a question where the only answer is "I don't know, but I'm sure Heavenly Father does" it becomes irreconcilably complicated. It makes much more sense to me that when the synapses stop firing in our brains, our consciousness stops. Just like what happens to the spider you squish in the shower or the fish you kill for dinner.

...without bringing the existence of any deities into the picture, from what we can tell through experimentation, the "self" is a product of the mind and body, not a separate something-or-other that uses the body like a meat robot. When the mind and body shut down, there's nothing to create the "self." It's why I don't fear death. My "self" won't exist to be bummed out about not existing.

When we sleep and we're not dreaming, does the spirit also go to sleep? Does it wander in the night? Does it twiddle it's thumbs and check its watch until the body reopens for business? Does it turn itself off? Or is it that the brain just temporarily shuts down the "self" manufacturing department so the body can get some rest?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2013 02:15PM by Stray Mutt.

I believe that after I die, some of the bacteria in my gut will live on. That's as close to immortality that I am going to get.

I'm an atheist and I do not believe in "spirits."

What does a spirit supposedly consist of? It is all your consciousness, personality, and memories, right? But all of these things can be tied exclusively to the human brain! If you have a thought, we can watch it develop and map in on the brain. If you damage part of the brain, the memories in that part will be lost. If you have a lobotomy, your personality is changed.

I don't see any way out of it. There is no spirit. We are what we are. What you see is what you get. No magic. No spirit. Just humans.

^^^ What nickname said-- well put ^^^

Hi,

Not necessarily.

You need to separate religion and religious ideas from philosophy and philosophical ideas. The former is dogmatic. The latter is open to investigation, whether speculative (theoretical) or empirical (measurable).

Religions appeal to people's emotional needs as social animals. Philosophy asks the big questions (among all others).

The question of whether or not we survive death is asked by just about everyone. Religious dogmas tell adherents that the religion has an answer (and usually, with the exception of some forms of Zen, for instance, the answer is yes). Philosophy tells us that we have no way of definitively knowing.

Philosophers can be dogmatic, just like scientists. Emotional desires bias thinking and interpretation, especially under ambiguous circumstances.

As best as I can say, as one philosopher among many who is interested in this question, the answer is this: It is unknown and unknowable. Earlier in my life, I've leaned in the affirmative, based on reports of near-death experiences. Having spent years studying them, I don't believe that we have any way of knowing if they imply that we survive death, or they're some sort of hallucination. So, it comes down to a personal faith.

The NDE'rs may turn out to be right that we survive death, but for the wrong reasons. Or they may be simply wrong. The topic is so complicated and ambiguous that, although it's frustrating that we don't have answers and I can't see how we can ever have answers, I believe that we should treat this life AS IF it were the only one that we'll ever have, but hope for the best--i.e. that we'll survive into a paradise-like heaven after bodily death.

Focus on this life, and wherever you find meaning. Remember that your time here, like everyone else's, is limited. Don't be afraid (if possible). Be *present*. Show up for life, and live it as best you can. You are the co-creator and co-interpreter of your own meaning--in social interaction with those around you.

We're all in this together.

Good Luck,

Steve

Do these spirits break off from a giant blob of collective consciousness, or are they individual blobs with personalities? How do they know where to go, and how do they get in and out of our bodies? Are they all just floating around, randomly connecting and disconnecting? Or is there something like a giant cosmic injection pump that shoots them in at some point before birth and a vacuum that sucks them out at death?

How might it work, without a godly traffic cop?



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I hope to live to be about 90 so I'll tell you in fifty years.

What if there is no God, but one day scientists figure out how to reach back in time and recover all the information to reconstruct our consciousness. We would have a "next life" and the irony of the very people often stigmatized by religion being the ones who delivered the promise of religion.

Theists would just claim that god made that process possible & helped the scientists figure it out so that theists could benefit from it.

Or they would refuse to participate in it, because their heaven is gonna be so much better than scientific reanimation.

There's no winning when conclusion precedes hypothesis.

P.S. Quantum Snapshots are along the lines of what you are proposing, but unfortunately body & mind would need to be snap shotted at the same time, so it would be difficult to have a young body but still have all your previous experiences (I'm actually writing a book where Quantum Snapshots play a central role)

We do not have a plurality of spirits. As I see it, we are made up of body, mind, and spirit. Each has a singular spirit. That, alone, does not answer the question of from whence the spirit part came and where it goes.

I am sure some will doubt even the matter of a single spirit, maintaining it is only part of the mind. Others may argue that we have at least two spirits - being one evil and the other good. Then how about a multitude with varying amounts of principle and constantly fighting each other?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2013 06:05PM by rhgc.

After witnessing the change that occurred with my dads personality after suffering a stroke that only affected a small portion of his brain, it helped me to understand that it's not a spirit that defines who we are, it's all of the connections in our brain that does. Once the electricity is shutoff and those connections cease to exist, then so do we.

Hi Joe,

What you've said is true, within the human context. That context ends at bodily death. What--if anything--happens afterward is anyone's guess. What happens within the human context can neither confirm nor deny the possibility of surviving bodily death. If being human is an illusion, while we're human, the illusion is air-tight.

But. It still might be an illusion.

Best,

Steve

good insights Steve. While we are "human", the illusion may appear airtight, but that doesn't mean it can't be consciously penetrated, comprehended, and dissolved.

I was once under anesthetics for two hours. I didn't dream, I just woke up. It seemed as if no time had passed. Those hours were totally lost to my experience. That's probably what it's like to be dead.

And the same thing happened when I was unconscious after a motorcycle accident. And when I nearly drowned. Total nothingness.

Probably no spirit/no afterlife. Something else might happen, though. I don't know, and I'm proud to say I don't because people who say they do are kidding themselves!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2013 12:29AM by rationalguy.

There is compelling evidence that indicate that conscientiousness continues even after the brain is observed to be completely dead. In all honestly we just don't know. Those that don't believe can only say that don't believe because of lack of evidence. Lack of evidence does not prove that something does not exist.

A couple of years ago TIME magazine published an article of a brain surgeon who found evidence that we can still have conscientiousness after the frontal part of the brain is dead (This is the part of the brain associated with conscientiousness).

Science will never be adequate to resolve the question of life after death since science is based on observable facts, and we can't exactly interview someone who has died. There is evidence for both sides of this argument, so it really boils down to the fact that you can choose to believe in life after death or not. Either way you choose does not affect the outcome of our deaths or the inevitability of death.

I personally believe that there is life after death. And I will continue to believe that until I no longer exist, lol!

"There is compelling evidence that indicate that conscientiousness continues even after the brain is observed to be completely dead."

Really. I would think the opposite would be true. Not buying it.

"Those that don't believe can only say that don't believe because of lack of evidence."

False. There is evidence against the spirit existing, as discussed earlier in this tread. You may disagree with the conclusion, but don't say our position isn't based on any evidence!

Mine has an evil spirit that makes me eat pastries.

No.

Any credible information or evidence to the contrary is, as always, more than welcome.

Timothy