Current Events > Atheists think that after you die, that's it.

(+) Yeah! (+)

You only live for eighty or ninety years, then you just blink out.

What do you think about this?

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I think therefore I am.

About the same way I think about 1876.

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Do they think that?

I'd be more inclined to believe that many of them don't know, are unsure, may believe in reincarnation, etc

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some believe that your consciousness persists after death.

just because you don't believe in a higher power, it doesn't mean that you don't believe in an afterlife.

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Our bodies decompose and become nutrients in the soil, which we give to plants.
So we become plants when we die :V

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I believe in fossils and echoes

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g0ldie posted...

some believe that your consciousness persists after death.

If you believe in a higher immaterial consciousness, why not believe in a supreme higher consciousness? Doesn't make sense to me.

I agree with them. More motivation to make this life count, and find meaning within it.

Live like it's all you've got, because it just might be.

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75%: You are just a brain and when it stops, so do you.

25%: Something no living person would know so it doesnt matter til you die

0%: Any religion

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MeIon Bread posted...

You only live for eighty or ninety years, then you just blink out.

What do you think about this?

Most religious people have no problem with this idea when they apply it to animals such as dogs for example. Suddenly its seen as a crazy thought when applying it to humans as well

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Zano posted...

Most religious people have no problem with this idea when they apply it to animals such as dogs for example. Suddenly its seen as a crazy thought when applying it to humans as well

Religion has many many many glaring holes. Many many many.

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ButteryMales posted...

If you believe in a higher immaterial consciousness, why not believe in a supreme higher consciousness? Doesn't make sense to me.

people don't make sense, tbh.

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I believe I turn into that spirit thing from Driver San Francisco, except I can go into bodies, instead of cars.

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Makes sense to me.
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Smashingpmkns posted...

Makes sense to me.

Me? Thank you.

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There is no scientific evidence that suggests otherwise.
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Endgame posted...

There is no scientific evidence that suggests otherwise.

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I like to believe it'll be like before I was born.

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in my opinion, when you die it will feel exactly the same as before you were born

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Relevant: https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/400-current-events/78986413

SolidShadow3 posted...

I like to believe it'll be like before I was born.

I honestly believe we only move forward, it's much more likely we become a God, we essentially are tiny gods but trapped in a physical body, we're limited, when we die we become the universe or our own universe and are a universal being, much like guardians of the galaxy 2 where the guy is a planet and he creates himself on the planet to conquer the universe, except instead of a planet you are the whole universe.

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"much more likely" huh

feels like you're not great at generating odds

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MeIon Bread posted...

You only live for eighty or ninety years, then you just blink out.

What do you think about this?

When you die, it will be exactly like before you were born. Do you have any memory of what it was like before you were alive? Why would it be any different after you die?

I hope I'm wrong and there is something afterwards but I think I'm more likely to win the Powerball 3 times in a row than that being real.

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g0ldie posted...

some believe that your consciousness persists after death.

just because you don't believe in a higher power, it doesn't mean that you don't believe in an afterlife.

I have this belief depending on how you die, your consciousness does persist for a couple hours after you die. You won't be "you", but some degraded echo of you would be experiencing thoughts and the occasional sensory response like an Alzheimer patient. Eventually, more and more of you are lost as memories disappear until you just vanish.

So yah, passing from consciousness to unconsciousness is a relatively drawn out affair unless your brain was immediately destroyed.

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Atheism is an answer to one question, do you believe God/Gods exist or not? That's it, everything else is up to the individual because there is no dogma to follow. So no, not all atheist think like this. You can be atheist but still be spiritual like Buddhist for instance.

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Is there any evidence that an afterlife exists? If not, then why would I think there is anything more than this life? Death absolutely terrifies me, but I see no reason to believe there has to be more to it.

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i'm skeptical as to whether consciousness - at least in some most rudimentary form - really ends after death

not to be misunderstood, a lot of human perception comes as a result of the structure and activity of the brain, which is dynamic and the result of multiple processes in symphony for lack of better words, and that obviously ends with brain death

but if you'll take into consideration that consciousness is a byproduct of electrochemical processes, this leads me to wonder whether there is a peculiar "consciousness" to electrical activity, but which in the absence of neurological structures doesn't really "act" as such (again for lack of better words)

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For people bothered by the idea that they could stop existing upon death, are you also bothered by the first fourteen billion years where you didn't exist as well?

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Lights out till the universe reboots and we do it again

Or just lights out

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dr_strangelove posted...

i wonder the same thing and whether one day we will grow neurons in a petri dish and create new consciousnesses

i wouldn't rule out the possibility.

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I believe that it's impossible for us to discover the truth of the afterlife while we're alive, so there's no need to worry about the afterlife. We should try to have a good life and be a good person while we're actually alive. Unfortunately, religious people often use their supposed afterlife as motivation to justify their hatred and bigotry. Stuff like "I'm going to heaven for being a good Christian and gay people are going to hell, so it's okay to hate them" and other similarly twisted justifications.

Whether there's heaven, hell, or nothing after life shouldn't have any influence on how we live and treat people while we're alive. We don't know, we have no way of finding out until we actually die, so we shouldn't care about it while we're alive.
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Bertrand Russell put forth a pretty convincing argument that we do not survive our death. Here, from his book Why I Am Not a Christian

http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/deathFinalEvent.htm

It is not rational arguments but emotions that cause belief in a future life.


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MeIon Bread posted...

You only live for eighty or ninety years, then you just blink out.

What do you think about this?

I'm an atheist, and approve this message.

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The23rdMagus posted...

I agree with them. More motivation to make this life count, and find meaning within it.

Live like it's all you've got, because it just might be.

Right on.

*Turn out the lights
The paaaarty's oooover*

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AloneIBreak posted...

Bertrand Russell put forth a pretty convincing argument that we do not survive our death. Here, from his book Why I Am Not a Christian

http://www.personal.kent.edu/~rmuhamma/Philosophy/RBwritings/deathFinalEvent.htm

It is not rational arguments but emotions that cause belief in a future life.

i'm not denying that the self ends with death, as self-conception is a product of the state of the brain, which inevitably changes, degrades, dies - and along with it, the brain's conception of self.

the phenomenon of consciousness, however, is not restricted to a particular "self".

the normal brain fosters the illusion that a multitude of independent components operating together form a single coherent "entity" of self. i would not call this "self" consciousness except colloquially; rather, i'd label the most atomic components of this perceived operation to be consciousness.

think of the self as a sandcastle, consciousness as grains of sand.

with respect to religions, i think the dharmic systems have a better grasp of this than the abrahamics.

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TheMikh posted...

i'm not denying that the self ends with death, as self-conception is a product of the state of the brain, which inevitably changes, degrades, dies - and along with it, the brain's conception of self.

the phenomenon of consciousness, however, is not restricted to a particular "self".

the normal brain fosters the illusion that a multitude of independent components operating together form a single coherent "entity" of self. i would not call this "self" consciousness except colloquially; rather, i'd label the most atomic components of this perceived operation to be consciousness.

think of the self as a sandcastle, consciousness as grains of sand.

with respect to religions, i think the dharmic systems have a better grasp of this than the abrahamics.

The closest I can meet with you on this is that, in theory, you could separate every cell of the brain and have them function individually, then put them back together in the same form, and you'd have the person again. The self is literally a hive mind.

Where you lose me is separating consciousness from material.

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K181 posted...

For people bothered by the idea that they could stop existing upon death, are you also bothered by the first fourteen billion years where you didn't exist as well?

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Guide posted...

The closest I can meet with you on this is that, in theory, you could separate every cell of the brain and have them function individually, then put them back together in the same form, and you'd have the person again. The self is literally a hive mind.

Where you lose me is separating consciousness from material.

i may have worded something oddly, but i try not to separate consciousness from the material, as it is a physical phenomenon.

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It's more likely that I assumed such, my bad. I'm not seeing the retention of consciousness in dead brain matter, is my thing.

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K181 posted...

For people bothered by the idea that they could stop existing upon death, are you also bothered by the first fourteen billion years where you didn't exist as well?

Yes.

K181 posted...

For people bothered by the idea that they could stop existing upon death, are you also bothered by the first fourteen billion years where you didn't exist as well?

I think this is slightly misguided, as someone who used to use it as small comfort. I only care about existing because I exist now. I won't be able to care when I'm dead, sure, but while I'm alive, I'm going to want to keep living. I don't want to cease being. I do not deny that I will cease (frankly, self-dishonesty disgusts me), but I am bothered by it.

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TheMikh posted...

the phenomenon of consciousness, however, is not restricted to a particular "self".

the normal brain fosters the illusion that a multitude of independent components operating together form a single coherent "entity" of self. i would not call this "self" consciousness except colloquially; rather, i'd label the most atomic components of this perceived operation to be consciousness.

think of the self as a sandcastle, consciousness as grains of sand.

with respect to religions, i think the dharmic systems have a better grasp of this than the abrahamics.

I'm not sure what you're arguing here. Consciousness is pretty clearly bound of up with mental processes, which cease at death.

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Crono99 posted...

From a different angle, you can say that someone who died on May 5th will always be alive on May 4th.

You need a year.

Guide posted...

It's more likely that I assumed such, my bad. I'm not seeing the retention of consciousness in dead brain matter, is my thing.

i mentioned earlier that consciousness is a byproduct of an electrochemical process, and hypothesized it may be associated with electricity itself. dead brain matter wouldn't have consciousness.

as for what becomes of brain electricity, i'd imagine it's converted to thermal energy. i suppose that may help answer my inquiry from earlier.

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I've read a theory that your releases an immense amount of DMT when you die, and it basically means you dream for what is to you an eternity.

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