I have been thinking the possibility of an afterlife in a different context but i am not sure where to discuss the idea. what if the afterlife that the theists are promoting is a super advanced planet from a far away galaxy? where our consciousness or so called souls end up? a planet where we do not need to eat, drink or sleep. where one can exist without the need for a physical body but exists in an everlasting consciousness. what if the light at the end of a tunnel people see in near death experience is a worm hole where out consciousness/soul pass through going into another universe that i have mentioned? I am afraid to discuss this with normal friends as i am scared to be branded as crazy.
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From my perspective, this lends itself to interesting science fiction and nothing more... unless of course you have any evidence, or a way to demonstrate the veracity of the ideas? My best guess however (based on the fact that you preface your statements with "what if") is that you do not have such evidence to share. And as such, your claims are no better than those of any theistically-based afterlife. There isn't even a shred of good, credible evidence to the claim that consciousness outlives the material body. I'd think you'd need to prove that before you could go asking "where" said consciousness ends up taking up residence.
i am not implying that this idea is true and i have no intention to prove it hence no evidence is needed. it just crossed my mind and just had the urge to share it here as i do believe that more open minded individuals exists in this group
Howdy, Evil. Welcome aboard the good ship AR. If I may echo what a few others have already said, I believe your idea would make for a pretty good story. At the very least, it is a fairly fun sounding "thought game" to ponder. Rather like our consciousness is taken from our physical body and downloaded into some type of "alien" super-computer in another galaxy... *chuckle*... Hmmm.... Wonder if we would be allowed to choose/customize our avatar?
Might make a good science fiction story.
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rmfr
It would really be pretty good... it'd definitely highlight the sheer unrealisticness of the theistic afterlife that they literally believe in... they'd either go "but I thought teh Atheists don't believe in an afterlife and don't want us to... hehe what hypocrites" (like what some clueless ones actually thought of the FSM thing) or they'd be so embarassed... someone seriously should make this a meme (like the FSM) or a scifi novel or something.
Nyar summed up my thoughts exactly. Seriously you should write this stuff down. It's intriguing.
@ Original post by Evil Darkside
Nah you are not crazy for sharing such ideas, so long as you do not try to push your particular idea as true onto others, you are just fine.
For instance I have had the idea that when we die, a "game over" screen pops up in our vision, as a floating text. And a program that removes the blocks in memory of our real "super advanced" lives lets us in a slow and steady and calming way, allow us to recall our actual lives as super advanced beings. Where we then decide, if we want to play another "game" or even go back to an old "save point" and see if we can live longer. In this massively complex VR like world. Or we can load up a different scenario.
Why? Because these super advanced beings conquered death long ago, but we bored super advanced beings like to load up scenarios that blocks their memories for a time being and pass time in a make believe world where we are tricked into thinking we can still die and hurt etc.
Obviously I do not think the above is a very likely scenario and can in no way be proven one way or another, but it is kind of a fun thought to share. Where did this idea come from? Probably from playing to many video games as a kid.
On a side note I played way to much diablo 1,2 and 3 years ago, fun games, kill and reward, kill and reward :)
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I have a hard time rationalizing the concept of a soul as something that is immaterial but has thinking ability.
We know that people suffer from mental illness resulting from brain damages, and old people lose their memory.
So when someone dies, would his/her soul suddenly recover from such mental illness and memory loss?
When people start thinking about things like this and apply it only to human beings, I lose interest.
So, in this no-body world, is there every being with a nervous system? Souls of snakes, spiders etc.? Its now starting to sound Rickdiculous, isn't it?
@Rikdiculous So true. Back when I was religious, I was always stumped by the "Yee-soos's favorite species only" thing for heaven. Yet another example of special-pleading.
Well, it seems to me that the possible "afterlife" you brought up isn't at all different from the religious one, because they both imply that after you die, your consciousness magically goes away to a different place, which I think is ridiculous in any case because consciousness is really all electric nerve impulses within the living brain. It doesn't "go" anywhere when the brain stops living any more than non-backed up files on a hard drive "go" anywhere if said drive is damaged or corrupted... but anyway, don't worry about what might, by some off-chance, come after (as it would eventually become boring and tedious anyway); just try to make the most of this life, the only one that you know for sure that you'll have.
And also, about the near-death-experience thing... in an NDE, you see whatever you really want to see deep down; be it a flashback of your life so far, a hallucination of [deity XYZ] if you believe in that stuff, etc. In short, it's just your on-the-verge-of-death mind playing tricks on you, and what you see depends on the type of person you are.
Sounds a lot like Mormon Heaven or Scientology..so yeh a good SF story indeed....
So...….. You wanna be a Mormon. *Damn it Old Man, I thought I was first with that one....
Some time back I read about a study in India where people who were approaching death were asked about their experiences. It was found that religious people often experienced "visitations" from spiritual entities associated with their religious beliefs whereas those who were atheists had similar experiences involving deceased family members. My father, who was a lifelong, out and out atheist, reported being "visited" by his deceased twin brother a couple of days before he died.
Maybe there's an atheist "afterlife"?
I have read it and it is Rickdiculous.
Here's the link for others: https://www.scientificexploration.org/docs/9/jse_09_1_pasricha.pdf
It would have been exciting if these guys were visited by spirits of people they never met and they could later describe their physical appearance. That would be some really interesting evidence. Seeing people who are part of your brain memory says a lot about why you are seeing those specific people.
As I explained in an earlier reply, NDEs are really just hallucinations; your on-the-verge mind playing tricks on you when you're close to death.
An atheist dies and, much to his surprise, finds himself in heaven. As he wanders around the place he comes across an empty throne. He asks why the throne is there and is told: "That's where God used to sit …"
I've found a lot of science fiction is just magic/religious stories retold with science sounding words. Is a dimensions shifting intelligent life form any different from a 'spirit'? Half the stuff in Star Trek is basically 'magic'
Not that this is a bad thing. Throughout human history there have been tales of fantasy, amazing things happening outside the normal world. Flights of imagination like that help to restructure our world view.
@NeverHappened True. As long as it's not presented as "fact", fiction is okay.
Nah. A simple, minimalistic reincarnation hypothesis (that we are reborn in different bodies, inhabiting different minds, across different species etc. over the course of many thousand years) would be more believable, because at least that gives us something tangible to work with and try to falsify, but the notion that there exists some paradise planet out there specifically catering to our preconceived notions of a paradise or afterlife seems very dubious.
I think the whole reason I'm hung up between atheism and agnosticism is there are a lot of things we DON'T know and I'm sort of non-committal because of that. We know energy can change forms, we know time and space bends. That leaves a lot of interpretation about life - does it end or does energy change form and travel? I get where you're coming from - it's certainly good for pondering while drinking! haha But mostly I think after I die is pretty much like before I was born. Depressing somewhat, but likely the real answer.
@SpecialK
I am atheist, I am agnostic, I am anti theist.
Reworded:
I do not believe in god(s), I do not know everything, and I am against religion.
You do not have to know everything to not believe in gods.
I do know enough that based on the evidence available to me (99% of the evidence being god is a human created idea.) I am as confident in there is no god as I am confident the sun will rise from the direction we call east instead of the west tomorrow. It is not absolute 100% knowledge but I absolutely operate very confidently there is no god.
I also think there is nothing after our consciousness is starved of oxygen to an irreversible state of decay. I do not consider it depressing though. I instead marvel in my window of being alive. How amazing it is, how rare it is. I have survived for 36 years in this form. I have done a lot more than just survive. I have flourished.
Out of the 10^80-90 atoms in the known universe, the tiniest fraction of them have organized in a way that leads to me.. something that can actually even ponder it's own existence.
Out of all the living things that ever lived and died I am again a part of the tiniest minority that has flourished and is capable of pondering my existence and what it all means.
Out of the ~100 billion people that have lived and died, I have been given the education, the means, the possibility, the time spent freed up from just surviving to being able to ponder and communicate deeper thoughts to my existence, bolstered by the ability to communicate with others so I do not have to start from scratch, but freed from the burden of incorrect distracting answers like "religion" I am one of a tiny tiny minority of those 100 billion people that can write this and continue to learn and ponder, create and build, with the ability and freedom to do so. Truly amazing. Every day I spend alive is a monumental victory, a triumph over simple nothing, we humans with all our flaws are the most advanced, complex thing around for incomprehensible distances. We are the grain of sand in the largest all sand desert in the world, a grain of sand that is actually self aware.
I am not depressed by thoughts of my eventual death, I am instead ecstatic to be alive and able to do all this, with knowledge, tools and ability like none before me. My collection of atoms and the forces that holds it together is 1 in a trillion trillion. Even better, so are you, so is everyone that visit these boards atheist, theist or otherwise.
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▮I am an atheist that always likes a good debate
▮Please include @LogicFTW for responses to me
▮Tips on forum use. ▮ A.R. Member since 2016.
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@Logic
....*standing ovation*.... BRAVO!... BRAVO!...
@LogicFTW I'm also an agnostic antitheistic atheist- and also a secular humanist.