Did you ever stop to think that if there is an afterlife, all the people who have ever lived and

[raccoon]

died are in it? And they will be forever.

So, not only is John Lennon in it, but Abraham Lincoln, St. Francis of Assisi, Julius Caesar, all the people who ever lived in
slavery, in the US and anywhere else....

Forever is a long, long time.

(I personally don't believe in an afterlife.)

[cbayer]

1. I don't personally believe in it either, but I would sure like to meet St. Francis.

[Maedhros]

64. I was brought up in the Franciscan Catholic tradition.

St. Francis, if he really was as depicted in the legend, must have been an extraordinary individual.

[cbayer]

67. I have really enjoyed and been enlightened by learning more about him here.

I think he was truly extraordinary. A rebel of the very, very peaceful type. The sanctuaries where he spent much of his time are imbued with something that is hard to describe.

And they are in some of the most beautiful places I have ever seen.

[notadmblnd]

2. Atilla the Hun, Vlad the Impaler, Nero

[Warren Stupidity]

3. I have yet to hear an explanation for this alleged afterlife that isn't just plain silly.

[In_The_Wind]

4. Yes.

[underpants]

5. I've been thinking about the afterlife a lot recently

I bought really kickass pair of flip flops a month ago and I think I want to be buried in them along my favorite pair if shorts. I mean, who wants to spend eternity in a suit?

[BlueCaliDem]

6. I don't believe in the afterlife, either. And I'm a Christian! But careful reading of the

Bible tells me that there is no afterlife. There is a Resurrection, but no afterlife once we pass.

Eccl. 9:5, "For the living know they will die; but the dead do not know anything, nor have they any longer a reward, for their memory is forgotten."

In order to believe that, of course, one must believe that we don't "have" a soul but that we are a soul. Because only then will the following verse make sense:

Eccl. 12 , "then the dust (that would be the body) will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit (that what animates the body; you; all your personal experiences) will return to God who gave it." (italics and parentheses mine)

So, as a Christian, personally, I can't believe that when I die, I'll go to Heaven (or Hell). I believe, that when I die, I simply cease to exist until the Day of Resurrection.

[Still Blue in PDX]

7. Personally, I think people are reincarnated/recycled.

Maybe King Arthur and Winston Churchill were the same guy.

Life is both the afterlife and the beforelife.

[upaloopa]

8. I believe in reincarnation

I am not sure what life form we might take or have lived in the past.
It could be my dog is Napolean.

[MissDeeds]

28. I had a dog named Napoleon

j/k

[femmocrat]

9. Not only the people, but their animals!

Wonder if it is getting crowded "up there"?

[TlalocW]

10. I'm not sure what I believe

But whenever I read the Rainbow Bridge, I tear up a little and think, "If nothing else, THAT should be true."

TlalocW

[AtheistCrusader]

11. Hitchens summed it up best.

It will happen to all of us, that at some point you get tapped on the shoulder and told, not just that the party’s over, but slightly worse: the party’s going on — but you have to leave. And it’s going on without you. That’s the reflection that I think most upsets people about their demise. All right, then, because it might make us feel better, let’s pretend the opposite. Instead, you’ll get tapped on the shoulder and told, Great news: this party’s going on forever – and you can’t leave. You’ve got to stay; the boss says so. And he also insists that you have a good time.

[rug]

12. He had a poor concept of infinity.

[Starboard Tack]

23. Bingo!

Someone may leave the party, but maybe they are still at the party, only in a different room. And if there are an infinite number of parties and rooms and individuals and spheres of existence, then it is all infinitely subjective.

[AtheistCrusader]

31. AKA; fear-driven wishful thinking.

The afterlife as painted by the source documentation of the dominant faiths around the world, do not reflect what you just said.

[Starboard Tack]

35. Not at all! What fear-driven?

I have no interest in the "source documentation" of any faiths, dominant or not on this subject. I don't look outwards when seeking questions to important answers.
Fear stems from a finite mind.

[AtheistCrusader]

37. Fear of death.

I don't fear death.

I do fear living and dying badly. But death itself has no sting.

[Starboard Tack]

45. I doubt anyone fears death

What's to fear about it? As you say, it's the dying part that is fearful, which is purely natural, as we are all imbued with the instinct for survival. That's why it is so difficult for us to wrap our heads around things like suicide and celibacy. And yet, as a race, we are slowly committing suicide daily. Ah, the irony!

[AtheistCrusader]

46. Not what I meant by dying badly.

More along the lines of not wanting to die some idiotic youtube sensation; look at this moron! Or for a bad cause. That sort of thing.

[rug]

13. Forever is not a straight line.

There is neither time nor past, present and future in a supernatural afterlife.

[AtheistCrusader]

14. Another reason to skip it presents itself.

[rug]

15. Your choice.

[AtheistCrusader]

16. Apparently not, if the evangelicals are to be believed.

I'm repeatedly told that hell isn't optional.

[rug]

17. You might be thinking of Calvinists.

I can't imagine it would truly be heaven if there were Calvinists there.

(For the archivists out there, that's a joke.)

[AtheistCrusader]

18. I'm concerned that I understood that joke.

[rug]

19. There is help for us.

[MisterP]

20. that's the whole point of the Book of Job: eternal/infinite have nothing to do with time/space

eternal isn't "a really, really, really long time"

[rug]

21. Exactly right.

[Starboard Tack]

24. I'll third that!

[AtheistCrusader]

32. There is no mainstream definition of 'eternal' that isn't horrifying in this sense.

Definition of eternal (adj)

Bing Dictionary
e·ter·nal
[ i túrn'l ]


1.existing through all time: lasting for all time without beginning or end
2.unchanging: unaffected by the passage of time
3.seemingly everlasting: seeming to go on forever or recur incessantly


1. No thank you. For the same reason I wouldn't want to be immortal.
2. That's horrible, there are brain injuries that operate under that mechanism.
3. Torture.

[rug]

34. There is another, not colloquial, definition.

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/05551b.htm

[AtheistCrusader]

36. Wordier but still problematic.

"We hope that our own life shall be endless; and materialists have accustomed us to the notion of a series stretching backward without limit in time, to the notion of a material universe that never came into being but was always there. The Divine existence is that and much more; excluding all succession, past and future time-indeed all time, which is succession-and to be conceived as an ever-enduring and unchanging "now". "

I assume that is the royal 'we'? Not all humans hope that, because some of us have considered the implications. Would you invest much time playing a game at which you could not possibly lose?

"materialists have accustomed us to the notion of a series stretching backward without limit in time, to the notion of a material universe that never came into being but was always there."

This specific bit is a look through a time-travel portal to the 80's or earlier understanding of cosmology. It no longer applies.

I don't see anything better about this description.

Edit, this sounds like the movie 'groundhog day' on a 1 second loop, and no funny bits.

[rug]

38. Here are two less wordy questions.

Can you conceive no past, present or future?

Can you conceive the past, present and future, in being, simultaneously?

[AtheistCrusader]

39. Yes and no.

The former is what I assume will occur as soon as I experience neuron death. fully ceasing to be.

The latter, no. Indistinguishable from nothingness. You don't assume your god to be nothingness, do you?

[rug]

40. No, in the former, there is nothing, nothing at all.

The difference, in the classic view, is that in eternity is being, all being, without limit, definition, time or space.

It's a concept that's hard to grasp absent LSD.

[AtheistCrusader]

41. Its a possibility within a range of possibilities.

I don't see any evidence for it though.

[rug]

42. And what kind of evidence would reveal that?

[AtheistCrusader]

43. The sort that supposedly led people to think it a possibility in the first place.

[rug]

48. Which is?

[AtheistCrusader]

49. Non-existent.

[rug]

54. You've rebutted the statement you made in 43.

[AtheistCrusader]

55. How so? Would you prefer 'imaginary'?

[rug]

58. You said, use the same evidence today that people used when they came up with the notion.

Clearly you thought there was some reason or evidence to consider the concept.

Now you say that evidence is nonexistent.

If that is your position, you're opening the door to revelation.

[AtheistCrusader]

60. No, not really.

Imagined evidence isn't really real. For instance, one could sacrifice someone every morning in hopes of making the sun rise, but the fact the sun rose isn't really evidence the sacrifice was accepted, appreciated, and did anything at all, besides just murder someone.

[rug]

61. Then what is the imagined evidence?

In other words, what was the basis for the beliefs?

[AtheistCrusader]

62. I'm trying to select inoffensive adjectives from a superset of very not nice adjectives to describe

such source....

Hmm.

[rug]

63. Don't worry about offense. Worry about the source.

I understand all the arguments about man-made beliefs, fear of death, weak-minded weaklings, etc., etc.

This is a serious question. Do try to avoid that.

[AtheistCrusader]

65. Well, the source appears to be randomly made up shit.

There is a POSSIBILITY of divine revelation, but no evidence of it. I can't rule that out. But as evidence of absence, I would offer the fact that such ideas of a 'beyond' vary greatly between various geographically isolated groups of humans that have some sort of concept for it. There does not appear to be a common source.

[rug]

68. Well, fwiw, the fact that human beings can conceive of things so much larger than themselves,

the edges (if it indeed has edges) of the universe, not to mention what is beyond the universe, is a topic worthy of discussion. It suggests many things and proves none of them. Maybe one day it can be discussed in this group without snark and soundbites.

[phil89]

30. Based on what? There's no evidence for any such thing.

Wouldn't we need to examine a supernatural afterlife before we start ascribing it properties?

[rug]

33. First you have to understand the difference between natural and supernatural.

How would we naturally (the only means we have) examine the supernatural, yet alone ascribe properties to it that can only be described in natural terms? It's more a matter of philosophy than science.

[AtheistCrusader]

44. Why do we need to postulate a supernatural to consider at all?

[rug]

47. It has already been postulated, for milennia.

The pertinent question is, how do you critique it?

"No evidence" is a sophomoric diversion which becomes in the end simply a conversation about what is evidence and how it is used.

[AtheistCrusader]

50. So was ether theory.

Lack of evidence torpedoed it for the same reason.

[rug]

51. The ether theory asserted material and conductive properties.

Try again.

[AtheistCrusader]

52. That's not an acceptable excuse to me.

[rug]

53. That's not an excuse. It's a dismissal of your example.

[AtheistCrusader]

56. Uh huh

[rug]

57. Glad you agree.

[DavidDvorkin]

22. Riverworld

By Philip Jose Farmer. A fascinating series of novels that explores that idea in a science-fictional setting.

[Warpy]

25. Buddhists and Hindus considered the crowding

and thought reincarnation was the most likely answer, although complete dissolution of consciousness into a sort of primordial goo of incipient consciousness was the best idea of all. In other words, an eternal afterlife was seen as a pretty revolting proposition since even bliss can be boring if it lasts too long.

[unblock]

26. the closest thing to an afterlife i'll buy is humanity's collective memory.

this works pretty neatly, good people are remembered as good people and forever admired and remembered fondly (heaven) and bad people are remembered as evil and horrible monsters, whose memories are forever cursed (hell).

[carolinayellowdog]

27. There may be something special that occurs in the last moments of life

While I don't find the parapsychological evidence of afterlife communication at all persuasive, the dying-- as opposed to the dead-- seem much better attested at somehow making themselves known to their loved ones. Apparitions at/near the moment of death were the most frequently reported "psychic" experience to the Rhine researchers at Duke years ago, and this business of somehow "knowing" when a loved one dies at a distance is eerily well-attested. Anecdotally, of course, but when it happens to you it's not just someone's anecdote. Combining that with NDE reports, I wonder if we somehow can be "reunited" in imagination with all our dead loved ones in our final moments. (And if time is an illusion, those last moments ARE "eternity" for us?)

[cbayer]

29. Fascinating take on this.

There is so much debate about what happens at the time of death or as one approaches death.

As a skeptic, I tend to think of this as neurochemical, but it is rather intriguing to hear people talk about their experiences.

I don't think we know or will ever know.

[still_one]

59. Actually we might know. Even you just speculated it as being neurochemical. Knowledge is slowly

being accumulated, especially in regard to the human genome project. The way information is transferred at the cellular level, and the decoding of that information is slowly being unravelled

[cbayer]

66. You are right and it is logical to speculate that we could

someday know everything the could be known….

but I'm skeptical about that.

[WhiteTara]

69. The Dalai Lama says that we have been doing this so

long that everyone one the planet has been our mother at one time. By seeing our mother in everyone, we can have a bit more grace with them. I'm still having trouble with Dick Cheney. Still can't get over his evil to think of his as having once been my mother.

[cbayer]

70. Lol, Dick Cheney as your mother.

Now there is a nightmare.

But I do like the concept of looking at everyone as if they might be your mother.

I was having a very difficult time with a person in my life at one point. The situation was, in fact, resolved when I made the decision to see her as my mother-in-law.

[lumpy]

71. Been thinking about the "afterlife" lately because I will be approaching that big question quite

soon. Really I feel ready to go sometimes, because it will be a relief from pain. I don't know what will happen and neither does anyone else, that's all I know for sure. I always have had a feeling that there is something more on the horizon, if not, it might just be a peacefull sleep without dreams. Perhaps we are on a dream state now. We appear to live in a huge universe with unlimited possibilities. Who knows ?

[rug]

72. Hope it's not for a while yet.

"He who does not want to die should not want to live. For life is tendered to us with the proviso of death. Life is the way to this destination." - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

[cbayer]

74. Thanks for sharing this.

I hope that your end is easy and that you are surrounded by love and kindness.

Whatever awaits you, I hope it is as you have imagined.

But most of all, I hope you stick around as long as you wish to.

[goldent]

73. I guess I don't see what the problem is

Of all the questions that arise from the idea of an afterlife, this one seems pretty mild.