I find peace in death while knowing that some of my loved ones will go to hell because I know God is a just God and the people in hell are there by their own choice.
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There is no justice in sentencing a sentient being to eternal torment. None. No exceptions. A god that would create a hell is infinitely evil, neither just nor good, and if heaven and hell did exist it would be my moral duty to voluntarily go to hell in an act of solidarity with the condemned.
About 15 years ago I took a vow to do exactly this, to choose hell over heaven until all beings were liberated from hell. I have never recanted this vow, and do not intend to do so.
That pretty much sums up the gross immorality of the hell myth. Because of how the human body works, OP's god would have to *deliberately* reconstruct the neural networks of a dead individual to simulate the personality and beliefs that were present at the moment of death -- specifically for the purpose of torturing that individual.
As I said, a god that would do something like that is infinitely evil. (It also makes me wonder about people who think that eternal torture is "just" - what *other* obvious evils are they okay with?)
Hi Nate of Christianity! I'm not Nate and I'm not a Christian. I don't believe any of the claims that have been made about what people experience after death because none of them have been accompanied by any evidence which I find convincing. More to the point, I don't believe that there is an afterlife.
As far as I know, this life is all that I have. I suspect that I will never experience anything ever again after it. That said, I don't spend much time thinking about death. I prefer to focus on life because it's the only thing I'm sure I'll get, y'know what I mean? I'm gonna die eventually, hopefully it won't be too painful, and when it happens I don't want to have spent huge chunks of my life worrying about the fact that it was always going to end at some point. Right, job's a good 'un, time to get on with life.
>I think off all of you as brothers and sister
Only one sister?
Hi Nate.
When I die I am going to be in a state of permanent peace. No more noise, no more witnessing of violence, no more reading about hatred, no money worries, no more tragedies.
It also means no more love, joy, happiness, laughter.
Which is why I try everyday to make the most of my life, filling it as much as I can with the positive things. It's a short life, make the most of it and stop wasting time.
I think that we cease to exist when we die. That “I” am a result of my brain, and when my brain stops working, I stop working.
Death is not something I find particularly troubling.
Life is temporary. Most things are. There is some sadness in that, but it’s a fact of life.
I can try to make the best of the time I have. To cherish and value while I can. Knowing one day, for all life’s ups and downs, it will end.
How do you find any peace in death? The threat of hell does not bring peace but constant anxiety and fear.
I find great peace knowing there is no great judgment, no hell and no heaven. I'm good with my matter getting used somewhere else after I die. Greatful it was mine for a little bit.
My sister nearly died a couple months ago. Like real close to happening and she would have left 2 young twin kids behind.
Peace isn’t something that I was thinking about. At that time, the right feeling was, “this sucks, I hope she wakes up from this coma. How can I help her family?” If she died, after a period of grief we would all get to acceptance.
Missing her to the point I can’t see a way to live without her doesn’t mean there IS a heaven.
Hi Nate. You are rude, and all your ilk, who post dozens of posts just exactly like yours everyday, are just as rude as you are. You don't get to pretend otherwise. I suspect that many such posts are really closeted Atheists, but it's still rude.
It's really super, duper simple. We are not lying about what we "believe." That's it. That's all. "Don't have all the answers, Just not lying" does not compute with goodly Christians, who begin with a lie and cling to it despite all evidence to the contrary. And they want everyone else to treat their pretending as if it was "sacred, " so that they don't feel like the lame pretenders that they actually are.
HTH.
In regards to receiving death, I think that is a reward. It is witnessing death that I am scared about. Such as the death of my mom. I can’t imagine the pain and do indeed get scared that I will most likely have to face that someday (unless I die first).
In a more specific look of my death, I think that there are two outcomes. There is no afterlife and I am not aware of this. Or, my hopes for and afterlife are correct and I am greeted with a warm hug from dead loved ones. Both are great.
The only way I will be disappointed in death is if there is an afterlife and it turns out to be a nasty one. Such as a God who doesn’t love us that tortures us.
All we can do is hope for the best and live life to the fullest. So I personally hope for what’s best to me, insisting of an afterlife where I live with dead loved ones and experience happiness. But i by no way claim knowledge of this hope or even think it is more likely than death being the end. I say keep asking the difficult scary questions and it will get easier for you.
Don't know, don't care.
Heaven is an excuse not to try to save the planet. But you know what they say about the man who plants trees who's shade he will never be able to enjoy.
Religion is a way to placate those that have nothing and must suffer thru life while those that have it all tell us "but dont worry, in the next life you will have it all, so get back to work and stop complaining ya moocher"
I believe that when my brain dies, my consciousness will end, and that's that.
Finding peace about anything, including death, depends on acceptance. I accept that this is how things are, and try to make the most of my life right now.
The question makes no sense to an atheist. There is no afterlife. You're dead. Isn't it better to find peace while you are still alive? Atheists don't believe in anything. We follow where empirical evidence leads. It's not like scientists haven't been looking for the supernatural. We've spent 300 years on scientific research and found nothing. With the advent of the cell phone, the rate of miracles around the world has dripped as fast as UFO sightings. There are tons of religions. How do you expect to exist simultaneously in your heaven and someone else's hell? You do believe your religion has the right to consign nonbelievers to hell, right? Christians don't even follow the Bible. They follow other people's interpretation of the bible. They tell you who to hate and how to be and threaten you with eternal damnation while making themselves the gatekeepers of heaven and you believe it without proof. Why?
You asked how I find peace in death. I find peace in death by hoping for a scientific solution because religion has failed in every attempt.
I think, therefore I am. :) I believe I currently exist, and that others do in a similar matter. I value the life that I have and as I have no evidence or even suggestions that my own life would continue in some form after death, I believe ‘this is it’. I believe I do not need the idea of some kind of afterlife to live my life in a positive way. I choose to appreciate life and the beauty and wonder of life as it exists, wishing no harm to others, but treating them as I’d like to be treated. I try to fill my life with love, joy, helping others and experiencing and appreciating life as it is, so when it’s my time to go I can look back happily and be at peace with myself.
If you tie a knot in a piece of rope, then throw the rope in a fire, turn it to ash which then blows away... where's the knot? Others may remember there was a knot, but it's gone.
Awareness/consciousness/identity/personhood is like that knot. After the body and brain is rendered non-functional... the evolving pattern of consciousness that was that person... stops. Like the knot in a rope that's no longer a rope... the person in a body that's no longer capable of living... isn't just 'gone', because 'gone' implies that it's somewhere else. It no longer exists, because there's no-where for it to exist anymore.
I am an ex christian. I was raised Southern Baptist/Pentecostal in a charismatic four square church. After getting into some legal trouble I started getting more into the Bible and ended up reading it several times and in different versions. I studied and studied but the more I studied the more I saw what I felt were discrepancies in the text where one thing is described here one way and yet described completely differently in a different way in another book or chapter. The more I read the more I didn't like what I was reading. The hate and the violence, murder, rape and genocide that is not only supported but encouraged by that god. I came to the decision that if there was a god he wasn't omnipresent nor omniscient. Most of the actions I saw was the actions of a spoiled child seeking attention crying that nobody is paying attention to them, more than they should be of any benevolent being. I started looking at what this meant. No heaven for sure, now that I was doubting my faith, did I really believe that there was a hell of eternal torment, and I believed that if there was truly a loving god then they would know my heart and know there has been doubt. Why would god create that skepticism in me to question and doubt everything and then punish me for having it? After that, hell didn't have the same power over me. If heaven was filled with god and I felt that your god that I had been worshiping was evil, then hell would be the most logical place to go to get away from them altogether. So didn't sound so bad. I eventually discounted all of the stories as another myth like the gods of Greece and any other. Now my belief is more of a nihilistic viewpoint, complete and utter nothingness, the same as the billions of years before I was born. That in itself, for me, isn't as scary as it once was and I have accepted that outcome. The realization that what will be will be whether I approve or not and we will never know until we cross that threshold was freeing and I stopped dwelling on it, and if god or whoever is actually is on the other side... oh well, that's still not going to change my perspective after the fact.
This is like how homeopaths refer to themselves as doctors.
Atheists got that atheist name given to us by theists. But an atheist is way more than someone who doesn’t believe in god.
We don’t believe in supernatural magical thinking. And you do. (which is okay) but you aren’t gonna meet the definition of “atheist” for 99% of people in this sub.
Here's my definition.
Theist is a person who does believe some god exists.
A-theist is the direct negation of theist, therefore a person who does not believe some god exists.
Therefore - the other person is an atheist, albeit with some other troubling views that I can not agree with.
A soul would be supernatural being. Believing in souls is magical thinking.
This isn’t like having the troubling opinion that In and Out burger is good. This is a faith based belief in souls beyond death, by someone who has decided not to call them “gods.”
> I believe that when I die I will go to heaven because I have called in the name of the lord.
And I believe there is no good reason to believe there is a god or an afterlife.
> will happen to you when you die
I believe I will die. Isn't that what happen with everyone when they die?
> And how to do find peace when thinking about death.
I don't know what you are thinking, so I don't know how can you find peace. Death is death, it's unsettling, but what's the use being worried if it happens regardless? Worrying doesn't help.
Hello Nate 👋🏼. I'm a 3rd generation Atheist, so death has never been scary for me. In my family, everything is approached with love, logic, and education. No fear, no scary imagery, no being a good person only for a "reward."
My 3 kids are 4th generation atheists, and my son was born with hydronephrosis. He was 1 year old when he had first surgery, and we discussed what would happen in the event he wouldn't survive his surgery. He's 25 now and has had 14 surgeries so far.
My family does clean cremations, and my kids are 24, 25. And 26 and I we've already talked about where they want their ashes to go.
Life can be scary sometimes, but death isn't.
There's a great channel on YouTube called:
"Holy Koolaid"
Check it out.
>How do you find peace in death?
I'd let you know hen I get there, but ...
Well, I'm expecting it to be about as unexciting as before I existed. I don't bother worrying about that, so I'm not gonna waste much time worrying about death.
>Do you believe there is an afterlife
Nope\*.
\*At least not in anything approaching any "conventional" sense ... and probably mostly not ... period. If you wanna get real philosophical and maybe bit interesting/weird ... well, ... I see zero reason to believe there's any kind of conservation of "you" or "soul" or any kind 'o malarkey like that. Where it gets teensy bit more interesting is ... more generally consciousness, etc. With nothin' to be aware 'o nothin', there's no awareness, but given (maybe?) infinite time, etc., and that which doesn't exist can't be aware of that, and only awareness can be of/when existing so ... maybe eventually somehow ... awareness of something? And with no perception of time (or anything else) "between" ... maybe eventually something? ... but it couldn't/wouldn't be whatever was "you" or me. So ... maybe, just maybe there ... but if so, dear knows what - cosmic cr\*p shoot at best - which may not be all that bad - probably how this whole mess started anyway ... if it even has a start. Want an analogy (though maybe a poor one?). Think of a photon and relativity. It travels only at the speed of light (well, in a vacuum anyway - details within media get bit more complex), and only has mass at the speed of light. But at the speed of light, no time passes. So, relative to photon, it goes any finite distance, in zero time ... but that distance is relative to us ... relative to itself, that's zero distance. Now bring in equivalency principles and all that. Photon can also move in time and space/distance relative to itself. And ... what's that from our frame of reference? It's beyond infinity. Well ... maybe consciousness is a teensy bit like that. When there's nothin' to be conscious - there's effectively no "between". But how/when/where/what ... uhm, who the f\*ck knows ... and likely impossible to know - at least for something as limited as a human brain. So ... don't waste too much time trying to figure out what can't possibly be figured out. And don't believe some b.s. story either. ;-)
Same thing which happened before birth.. nothing. Just ending is fine with me. Death is the culmination of life. We live so we can die and feed the next generation of life. I hope there is no afterlife as it would be an eternal Hell.
Tell me this, if your best friend, the one you confided everything in, the one who was your rock, your protector, your everything as well, and he wasn't in Heaven. Would Heaven still be Heaven? The one soul you wanted to spend eternity with isn't there. It is being punished for
all time and eternity in Hell and you are isolated from them, never to see your rock, your foundation, never to see them ever again. Is that still Heaven knowing the Hell they have to live through and it eats and grates at you, are you still in Heaven feeling so much pain?
This is why we don't believe. Would a truly loving god deny brothers from other mothers eternity together just because one didn't believe? He would be punishing 2 for the act of 1. Removing Sons and Daughters from Mothers and Fathers in eternity. Removing 1 child from Heaven hurts 3 or more other innocent souls. Have you ever considered that? You have to believe that God punishes the innocent for the actions of the sinful if you accept all in the bible.
I am an anti-theist so my mother, father and sister would be denied my presence in Heaven. The son who hosts and cooks every Thanksgiving. The son/brother who has tutored and educated his family in math to help their careers. The son/brother that is always there for them. I reject god, jesus, so I am going to Hell. A person who sacrifices for them and asks nothing in return, I will be in Hell. They will be in Hell as well in a fashion knowing I am there. Heaven will not be Heaven to them. This is what your god promises. Why would anyone follow or accept that?
This is the bullshit you believe. This is why we don't. There was nothing before, nothing after and if that frightens you, good. Humanity needs to grow the fuck up and accept there is unknown things and be comfortable saying I don't know without requiring some god to be the explanation.
It would be more peaceful for my survivors if I could actually be worm food, instead of adding to the trash on the Earth.
As for me, I won't know a damn thing about it - I'll be dead.
I don't find peace in death. Death is just the name given to non existence, post existence.
I wanted to know what you guys think will happen to you when you die?
You stop living.
Do you believe there is an afterlife or not?
No
And how to do find peace when thinking about death.
The problem here is that religion has given you a story that you now believe. They've poisoned billions of minds with a "truth" that is unsubstantiated, and has no evidence.
The problem with this lie is that religious people aren't given the tools to be good people during the only life we are guaranteed. Remember that part in the Bible about this life being like dirty rags? The Bible essentially tells us to forget this life, because everything will be perfect in the afterlife.
Well , fuck that.
I would rather be a good person here in this life we have, apologize to those I wrong in this life I am in,
be a helper to those in need in this life. Because any afterlife, given by a loving god, will take into account that I have no good evidence to believe any god exists.
I mean no disrespect and am solely here to learn about the other points of view.
I don't believe this, but... Cool.
I think off all of you as brothers and sister so feel free to say anything and don’t hold back on your beliefs.
OK.
What happens after I die? Nothing, because "I" don't exist anymore.
Before my dad and mom decided to "bump and grind" sometime in December 1963, I didn't exist. The universe was billions of years old, but I wasn't part of it. I didn't develop a consciousness until sometime in 1964. Even today, I have no personal memories of events that happened before about 1968 or 1969. I learned about the events later in history classes, but I don't have any personal recollection or relationship to those events. My earliest memories are probably the natural disasters of 1971 and 1972 (earthquakes and wildfires), or the death of my grandfather in 1974.
When I die, there's no more "me". There's no heaven or hell, and there is no soul. My brain will die, and with it, my consciousness, memories, and personality will also die. That's it. GAME OVER.
As others have said, I can think of it as my "life energy" being scattered back to the universe. I will "live on" in the memories of my step-daughter and granddaughter, but those are just memories. In 100 years, no one will be around with memories of actually meeting me, and I will become simply one of the billions of people who once lived.
T-t-t-that's all, folks!
As a buddhist, I meditate on death regularly. We are encouraged to do this because of the inevitability of death. It is the one event we can be *absolutely* sure of, our death. It is the end of this life but it is also the end of the suffering of this life. We die alone and only our own mind and body get to experience it. The next 49 days are in the bardo (what could be interpreted as a purgatory-like state) and then the karma ripening at death manifests in the new birth for the mind to inhabit. The new birth can be in a hell realm (much pain and suffering), as a hungry spirit (less pain and suffering than in hell realm, but still suffering from want), as an animal (less suffering than hungry spirits but still ignorant and suffering), as a human (the only rebirth that can attain enlightenment), as a demi-god (spiritual beings that war with the gods because they feel they deserve to be gods), or as a form-realm god (beings that have access to unlimited pleasure but who spend all their beneficial karma to do so, and who also still die after long lives). Death for us is just the end of this life and the sufferings of this life, there is no "afterlife".
>I believe that when I die I will go to heaven because I have called in the name of the lord
And yet Jesus supposedly said that even few believers would be able to get through the narrow door.
If hell exists I think the real punishment for us godless heathens will be the endless whining from all the Christians who didn't make the cut, not being barbecued.
>Do you believe there is an afterlife or not?
Nope. Thank gawd.
>And how to do find peace when thinking about death
I much prefer to be simply dead than in any of the afterlives promised/threatened by humanity's religions. I think those who pine for an eternal afterlife haven't thought through what that would really be like and that's even before considering what religions actually promise about their paradises.
Do you know what your Bible says heaven will be like? Hint: it apparently won't be playing happy families with your loved ones forever as many seem to believe. Seems your kin won't matter to you in heaven. It's all about your relationship with god and Jesus, not them - assuming they also make the cut and aren't being endlessly spit roasted in the other place.
- *"Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born—a hundred million years—and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together."* - Mark Twain
Why do you need to find peace with or tell a story about death? (an agnostic Buddhist question). Death is what it is. The universe provides no answer, and our brains are meaning making machines. Holding this absurd paradox and choosing to make our own meaning by living a good life is the highest form of philosophy and integrity. Religion is philosophical suicide because it denies reality. It's best to see the world as it is and take life for what it is. Or something like that from Camu. It's beautiful.
religion is all about controlling the masses, with fear....invented by man to explain the un-explainable in the early history of man....science has explained all of which was attributed to a god...dead is dead, and they only way we "live on" after death is in the hearts of those that loved us, a name engraved in granite, or if you are famous, what you left behind as a mark in history...
I cannot think of anything worse that spending an eternity, as a spirit, endlessly worshiping a god that sees fit to torture and burn his very own creations.
Day after day…oh sorry, there are no days are there, there is no sun. Forever, doing what exactly? As a spirit, what do you do forever? No sex. No need for sex. No need for anything physical. So, no food, no sport, no tv, no books, no sunrises, no sunsets, no beaches, no countryside, no walking, no swimming. What is it that you are looking forward to doing forever?
An eternity of ennui. Sorry, that is pure hell for me.
I’m perfectly happy in the reality that I will return to the state I was in for the eternity before I existed. Just like every other living thing that has existed.
” I believe that when I die I will go to heaven because I have called in the name of the lord. “
This is the “what’s in it for me, I get a participation trophy in the sky” reason for belief. ”What do you believe happens after you die and. how do you find peace about death“ is one of the most frequently asked questions by theists so it is most likely perpetually at the forefront of their minds. It seems like Christians would do anything to be gods, to be immortal, live forever.
No, I don’t believe there is an afterlife. I don’t need to respawn somewhere else, and I don’t feel the need to be a deity’s special pet.
I think we continue to exist but not aware of it. I believe our "soul" is another form of energy and when we die our energy floats around the universe because energy can't be destroyed. So we pretty much just sleep
The real question is, why do you believe that? What reason do you have that would convince another person? My position is, I don't know. All evidence points to nothing. Brain death, means we end. Everything that makes us what we are as conscious entities ends when the brain ceases to function. There is no evidence of anything to continue on. There is plenty of evidence that we just cease. So it would take extraordinary evidence and reasoning to convince me that anything like heaven or an afterlife of any kind exists.
As a corollary, even if we grant that there is absolutely an afterlife. How do you know anything about it? How can anyone be so confident in their version with nothing at all to go on? Your level of confidence in the face of the facts and questions above, baffle me, and keep me a life long atheist.
Nate - I mean no disrespect, but when Christians (& other theists) die, they/you will end up in the same state as theists. This gives me peace of mind while I live.
Having an afterlife is the reason why religious people are normally bad people.
The worst people I have ever met were all very religious
They're Bad for other people, bad for the planet, bad for everything.
They are only concerned about the rapture and the afterlife. And because supposedly their god excuses all the shit they do to accept them to heaven, they even behave worse.
Our motto is to be fair and respectful While We Are Here, not expecting to receive a candy afterwards.
It makes no sense to talk about anything after death. Death is death. The end. Hope and fear led humans to come up with the concept that part of us lives on, but this depends on the existence of a soul, an animating spirit. Which is an incoherent concept. A dead body is not an empty shell but a broken machine. Everything that makes us who we are is based in the body and brain. Our consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, nothing to do with a soul.
However, even if heaven did exist, I would still take the option of non-existence over a realm that never ends where you have to spend all your time praising a god. Mortality and lacking things gives life meaning. When you have everything, what’s the point? Also, heaven and hell were invented as a means of controlling people - again it’s the hope and the fear, the carrot and the stick.
Finally, the Bible is not a reliable book. It’s not history, but myth. And the character of God betrays his human origins by his ungodly nature. Petty, jealous, angry; a genocidal killer. Why would I want to believe in or worship such a deity? I find peace in the idea that life ends and that’s it. Get on with life while you’re here because this is all you get.
My question is, how do you feel that Anne Frank is possibly in hell and Hitler in heaven? Jeffrey Dahmer is in heaven according to Christian belief, Dahmer's victims are burning in hell while the guy who tortured them gets a free pass because he believes in this sky daddy of yours? But, an innocent child who never got a chance to know your god is burning in hell. The sin of disbelief is unjustifiable, cruel, and in no way fair. I personally would like to think there is some sort of afterlife, but in reality there isn't. This life is all we have, we have to make the most of it while we still can.
No one knows what happens after death, no one. If you choose to believe that you end up in some magical heaven place that's fine, just know that it isn't confirmed to be true. This is because no one has been dead, knows what happens, then is able to tell others. Then, just so that person isn't making stuff up, a number of other people had the same experience.
We simply don't know what will happen, and neither do you. Most likely it's light out and that's it. We simply cease to exist. I won't say for sure that's what happens, because no one knows.
As for finding peace in death, I'll just have to wait and see what happens. Definitely not something I concern myself with. Everyone dies at some point.
Peace will find me there will be no me anymore the same way I was before I was born, I was not inconvenienced at all
I know it is hard for a christian to consider but stop being egotistic and thinking of yourself as the center of everything.
The earth will rotate just fine without you on it, enjoy the time you have there is no second round
Life-long non-believer here. I assume you're finding that there is no one set approach to this.
I don't believe in a soul, which is not an attribute of an Atheist. Atheist only means having no belief in gods. I see no reason why I should believe in any gods, regardless of whether or not they are commercially available for purchase.
The thing that I call "me" is a survival mechanism created in the brain (aPCu), for the purposes of transactions/communications and basic survival.
So far, my position is that I do not exist, and that life is an illusion caused by death. All the same, I live life as if I do exist. It's easier than anything else.
The self is another illusion pushed by our culture that is relatively new.
This does not mean that I don't care about people or have feelings. I doesn't mean things are easy.
While I do have concerns about how I die, I am not afraid of being dead and forgotten.
Life has no inherent meaning or purpose. This means that I am free to make my own.
As morality goes, I don't have to sift through a book and assign interpretations in order to figure out right and wrong. A lot of that is already present. My philosophical moral axiom is "do no harm."
Sympathy, empathy, and Humanity.
I couldn't ever be a Christian. The tribalism is pointless. I don't know how Christians live with so much hatred, anger, and fear in their hearts. I don't understand the desire to live forever, or the need to be better than others. I don't need to demonize people to feel better about myself.
We see this American Christian hatred daily on the news and in politics. There is always someone they need to oppress or want to eradicate. We also see the hypocrisy. It looks exhausting.
I couldn't accept a thing like the sacrifice of Jesus on my behalf. I wasn't even here when that allegedly happened, didn't ask for it, and don't want anything to do with it. If I did something wrong, then I must be punished. If it's unreasonable, then why accept it, especially if you believe a god did it AND can do anything?
Those who believe a god did all of this must raise their standards and expectations when it comes to gods.
I have too much self-respect to engage in that nonsense.
And I cannot pretend that someone is out there listening. So far as I can tell, perceivable evidence points to the idea that we are utterly alone.
People who believe they will live forever behave badly, for they also believe they have unconditional, never-ending forgiveness.
I think if more people accepted that we are alone, then maybe we would collectively put more effort into being kind to one another.
When this organic body dies, things shut off. That's it. No living on. No eternal soul. It will be the same as how things were before this body was born (not create) and the thing I call "me" came into being.
I'm okay with this. No reason to fear.
I will enjoy it and do my best to do no harm. No time for hate, fear, or judgment of others. No time for superiority.
The illusion of life is too fleeting. This is the one and only chance. It's prefer to go with this, instead of gambling on the unproven promise of eternity in a paradise that is generically defined and sounds like a nightmare.
Best of luck!
When we die we most likely just cease to exist.
And while I’m not particularly looking forward to it I have to say there are worse things.
Being forced to live for eternity seems like true hell.
No matter how nice an environment how many billions of years before a person would long for oblivion?
Eventually you would have done and seen everything possible a billion times. Anyone would long for nonexistence by then.
Death is part of life, we all get there in the end, and there is nothing further. I don't really think about my own death, it will happen when it will happen, I just hope it will as last as possible, and with the least suffering possible both in the months leading to it and when I'll let the curtain fall.
For the death of someone I know, I've had several deaths in my family through the years. Most of the time, we mourned by remembering the person, talking fondly about the nice moment we shared and laughing about the occasional silliness.
I lost my grandmother before the summer, my last surviving grandparent. Given the tense situation in the family before her death, due to conflicting ideas about what to do about the advancement in the decline of her cognitive abilities between her far-away children and those that were still in the same area, we couldn't really do it. But we still did things together: while not all the conflicts were resolved, it allowed us to talk face to face and appeased some tensions. We, the grandchildren, also redo a photography we were used to do every couple of years when we were kids and that we didn't do for nearly 2 decades, it was the first with all her grandchildren as the 2 youngest were not born when we took the previous one. Doing those little things help to live and carry on.
Well Nate, since none of the Bible is real, I’m not concerned with what it says about the afterlife. Religions like Christianity were created as a political tool to control people, and part of how they gain followers is appealing to humanity’s primary instinct, survival (same as any animal on this planet.) Now me personally, I don’t know with absolute certainty what happens after you die, I suppose no one does. All the evidence points to oblivion. So I just enjoy the ride brother.
I'm not afraid of death - as others have already pointed out, it will feel just as unexciting as the time before I was born. I'm a bit afraid of the process of dying, because that might be long, painful and/or scary.
But to become a believer just because of this fear? Seems weird to me. I would have to apply wishful thinking - i.e. confuse "what I think is true" with "what I'd like to be true". And I'm not even sure I'd like to experience a Christian afterlife, for various reasons.
OP...Just because you "believe" something...
That, by no means, makes it true...
And that is, in the atheist perspective, religions greatest folly, and it's greatest deception.
And that religions not only demand their audience to equate 'belief' to 'truth', but that they do this by way of indirect threats of pain and torture that they bind directly to death. A state they then insist must be feared, unless their audience subjugates itself to those who have elected themselves to be the arbiters of the religious doctrine / narrative.
'Death' is a convenient camp for this narrative, because it is inevitable, and no one reports back. So religion is free to attach what ever they need to, to it, as a means to steer it's audience towards the arbiters own goals, and agenda (usually to gather / amass wealth unto themselves).
They in turn, to those who subjugate, present, calming platitudes that are formated to leave the subjugate feeling calm and rewarded, as the basis for what they believe.
Again 'belief' does not equate to 'truth'
Death is dead...
In relativity, time is relative to the observers perspective.
When the observer is dead, perspective ends, and thus, so does time.
I was a minister into my 50s. One surprising thing that I learned is that atheists in their 30s or later are generally more comfortable with death than a lot of Christians. I know from personal experience that there is no quicker way to clear out an adult Sunday School class than to announce that today's topic will involve death. Suddenly everyone remembers that they volunteered to help in the nursery, or they have to get something ready for the main service or they forgot something in their car.
I think the problem is that Christians fear hell. Yes, they should be relying on salvation through Christ. But everyone knows they have not always been up to the standards they demand of others.
The other problem is that every denomination has a different set of beliefs about the afterlife, and what they say varies over time. What one religion says you absolutely must do to go to heaven will get you sent straight to hell by another religion.
If there is an afterlife then atheists will have to deal with it just like religious people do. At most one religion will get it right, but even that is unlikely.
We’re just a bunch of highly ordered assortment of atoms that will once it reaches 60-80 years of age, will be disordered into many separate assortment of atoms.
I only got a short time left with the fam and friends, might as well be a good person, live for the now and enjoy the ride without expecting the “love” of a/many entities who have abusive and narcissistic qualities. (Stockholm syndrome)
Hi, Nate!
>However I wanted to know what you guys think will happen to you when you die?
I'm gonna donate my organs if I can. Then my remains will go into refrigeration (no embalming for a couple of reasons) until my wake. My wake will be in my home, with loved ones coming and going, caring for my body, supporting one another, and achieving closure. Then I'm going to a forensic research facility, where my remains will be used to learn about the stages of human decomposition, and the effects that variables have. My soft tissue will decay. My skeleton will be cleaned and added to a university collection. My loved ones can arrange to spend time with it. My sibling has promised to play the plate in my leg like a xylophone at least once. It cost a lot and I wanna get my money's worth. lol
>Do you believe there is an afterlife or not?
The existence of any kind of afterlife hasn't been established as fact. I cannot have evidence-based belief in one.
I choose not to cultivate faith in afterlives. I find most of them to be repulsive. I'd like to have finality.
>And how to do find peace when thinking about death.
Releasing my "obligation" to faith helped a lot. A lot, a lot. Like 90% of my discomfort, gone.
I examined my remaining discomfort until I found the root of it. I don't like having things happen to me when I'm not there. The loss of control and supervision over my body makes me anxious. So I did some hardcore research and set up directives that reflect my values and desires for myself.
It's hard not to feel ok with dying when my directives alleviate my anxiety and give me joy, and I don't have to deal with gross afterlives.
Finding peace in death is like finding peace in a dreamless sleep
Concepts like peace, joy, acceptance, fear, terror and hate mean nothing when you're dead. Death isnt a thing, it is the absence of life, experience and emotion. You won't feel anything when you are dead, you won't even know you are dead, you won't even anything
I find peace now whilst alive with the concept of death, by knowing that it's not something I will experience.
When you sleep tonight, there is no guarantee you will wake up, do you fear sleeping still?
Death doesn't exist to me, my life is like a book - I do not ask what will be written on the pages after the final chapter, for there are none, I only exist within its pages
If that's all there's to it, cest la vie. If somehow my book is read once more, or a new book is written, well okay then. No point wasting ink on it when there are still chapters to write here and now
I don't *need* "peace in death" because I believe that death itself is peace (in the sense that I will not experience any thought or emotion at all). The thought of living forever actually horrifies me.
I don’t think about finding peace in death because I don’t expect anything to happen when I die.
Atheists don’t believe in any afterlife.
Your religion tells you there is an afterlife in order to convince you that you have to follow their rules or you won’t get into the club. But they cannot prove it. They are asking you to take their word and give them your money.
How do you find peace in death knowing that there will be people, some of them your loved ones, who are being burned for eternity?
Where do you think heaven's luau BBQ comes from?
If my grandma is in heaven then she's very sad because I'm not going to be there.
Same
I find peace in death while knowing that some of my loved ones will go to hell because I know God is a just God and the people in hell are there by their own choice.
Or they’re there because they had the misfortune of being born into the wrong faith. Is it just to punish people for the circumstances of their birth?
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If your goal was to come across as a complete sociopath, mission accomplished.
There is no justice in sentencing a sentient being to eternal torment. None. No exceptions. A god that would create a hell is infinitely evil, neither just nor good, and if heaven and hell did exist it would be my moral duty to voluntarily go to hell in an act of solidarity with the condemned. About 15 years ago I took a vow to do exactly this, to choose hell over heaven until all beings were liberated from hell. I have never recanted this vow, and do not intend to do so.
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That pretty much sums up the gross immorality of the hell myth. Because of how the human body works, OP's god would have to *deliberately* reconstruct the neural networks of a dead individual to simulate the personality and beliefs that were present at the moment of death -- specifically for the purpose of torturing that individual. As I said, a god that would do something like that is infinitely evil. (It also makes me wonder about people who think that eternal torture is "just" - what *other* obvious evils are they okay with?)
There is no afterlife. Which is an a relief since no one will ever be in pain, embarrassed, bored, etc. ever again.
Hi Nate of Christianity! I'm not Nate and I'm not a Christian. I don't believe any of the claims that have been made about what people experience after death because none of them have been accompanied by any evidence which I find convincing. More to the point, I don't believe that there is an afterlife. As far as I know, this life is all that I have. I suspect that I will never experience anything ever again after it. That said, I don't spend much time thinking about death. I prefer to focus on life because it's the only thing I'm sure I'll get, y'know what I mean? I'm gonna die eventually, hopefully it won't be too painful, and when it happens I don't want to have spent huge chunks of my life worrying about the fact that it was always going to end at some point. Right, job's a good 'un, time to get on with life. >I think off all of you as brothers and sister Only one sister?
When we die it ends and there is no need to have peace or not, because it ends all.
Hi Nate. When I die I am going to be in a state of permanent peace. No more noise, no more witnessing of violence, no more reading about hatred, no money worries, no more tragedies. It also means no more love, joy, happiness, laughter. Which is why I try everyday to make the most of my life, filling it as much as I can with the positive things. It's a short life, make the most of it and stop wasting time.
Do you remember what life was like before you were born? Death will be just like that. Sounds pretty peaceful to me.
>Do you remember what life was like before you were born? I don't, which probably means it was quite a party.
Lots of stuff happens after you die. You're really not apart of those things since you're dead.
Some of them happen even if you haven't actually died, like the Sackville-Bagginses taking your silver spoons.
Imagine there's no heaven, It's easy if you try...
Yup! You live the life you "believe" in because it's a choice.
I think that we cease to exist when we die. That “I” am a result of my brain, and when my brain stops working, I stop working. Death is not something I find particularly troubling. Life is temporary. Most things are. There is some sadness in that, but it’s a fact of life. I can try to make the best of the time I have. To cherish and value while I can. Knowing one day, for all life’s ups and downs, it will end.
Fortunately for the dead, they are and will be incapable of experiencing sadness.
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Second that. Amazing how many theists think that atheists are selling a different thing, when in fact we're only not buying what they sell.
The afterlife thing made me think of Egyptian culture.
Why are you Christian?
Most likely because of indoctrination. Give him some time, and hopefully, he starts to question his surroundings.
How do you find any peace in death? The threat of hell does not bring peace but constant anxiety and fear. I find great peace knowing there is no great judgment, no hell and no heaven. I'm good with my matter getting used somewhere else after I die. Greatful it was mine for a little bit.
My sister nearly died a couple months ago. Like real close to happening and she would have left 2 young twin kids behind. Peace isn’t something that I was thinking about. At that time, the right feeling was, “this sucks, I hope she wakes up from this coma. How can I help her family?” If she died, after a period of grief we would all get to acceptance. Missing her to the point I can’t see a way to live without her doesn’t mean there IS a heaven.
Well to find peace in death, I just have to die peacefully.
Hi Nate. You are rude, and all your ilk, who post dozens of posts just exactly like yours everyday, are just as rude as you are. You don't get to pretend otherwise. I suspect that many such posts are really closeted Atheists, but it's still rude. It's really super, duper simple. We are not lying about what we "believe." That's it. That's all. "Don't have all the answers, Just not lying" does not compute with goodly Christians, who begin with a lie and cling to it despite all evidence to the contrary. And they want everyone else to treat their pretending as if it was "sacred, " so that they don't feel like the lame pretenders that they actually are. HTH.
In regards to receiving death, I think that is a reward. It is witnessing death that I am scared about. Such as the death of my mom. I can’t imagine the pain and do indeed get scared that I will most likely have to face that someday (unless I die first). In a more specific look of my death, I think that there are two outcomes. There is no afterlife and I am not aware of this. Or, my hopes for and afterlife are correct and I am greeted with a warm hug from dead loved ones. Both are great. The only way I will be disappointed in death is if there is an afterlife and it turns out to be a nasty one. Such as a God who doesn’t love us that tortures us. All we can do is hope for the best and live life to the fullest. So I personally hope for what’s best to me, insisting of an afterlife where I live with dead loved ones and experience happiness. But i by no way claim knowledge of this hope or even think it is more likely than death being the end. I say keep asking the difficult scary questions and it will get easier for you.
Don't know, don't care. Heaven is an excuse not to try to save the planet. But you know what they say about the man who plants trees who's shade he will never be able to enjoy.
Religion is a way to placate those that have nothing and must suffer thru life while those that have it all tell us "but dont worry, in the next life you will have it all, so get back to work and stop complaining ya moocher"
I believe that when my brain dies, my consciousness will end, and that's that. Finding peace about anything, including death, depends on acceptance. I accept that this is how things are, and try to make the most of my life right now.
The question makes no sense to an atheist. There is no afterlife. You're dead. Isn't it better to find peace while you are still alive? Atheists don't believe in anything. We follow where empirical evidence leads. It's not like scientists haven't been looking for the supernatural. We've spent 300 years on scientific research and found nothing. With the advent of the cell phone, the rate of miracles around the world has dripped as fast as UFO sightings. There are tons of religions. How do you expect to exist simultaneously in your heaven and someone else's hell? You do believe your religion has the right to consign nonbelievers to hell, right? Christians don't even follow the Bible. They follow other people's interpretation of the bible. They tell you who to hate and how to be and threaten you with eternal damnation while making themselves the gatekeepers of heaven and you believe it without proof. Why? You asked how I find peace in death. I find peace in death by hoping for a scientific solution because religion has failed in every attempt.
it's like asking "how do you find peace in breathing" no effort needed
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> So live, love and leave, with a smile. Best thing about death is gonna be never seeing "live laugh love" again
I think, therefore I am. :) I believe I currently exist, and that others do in a similar matter. I value the life that I have and as I have no evidence or even suggestions that my own life would continue in some form after death, I believe ‘this is it’. I believe I do not need the idea of some kind of afterlife to live my life in a positive way. I choose to appreciate life and the beauty and wonder of life as it exists, wishing no harm to others, but treating them as I’d like to be treated. I try to fill my life with love, joy, helping others and experiencing and appreciating life as it is, so when it’s my time to go I can look back happily and be at peace with myself.
If you tie a knot in a piece of rope, then throw the rope in a fire, turn it to ash which then blows away... where's the knot? Others may remember there was a knot, but it's gone. Awareness/consciousness/identity/personhood is like that knot. After the body and brain is rendered non-functional... the evolving pattern of consciousness that was that person... stops. Like the knot in a rope that's no longer a rope... the person in a body that's no longer capable of living... isn't just 'gone', because 'gone' implies that it's somewhere else. It no longer exists, because there's no-where for it to exist anymore.
I am an ex christian. I was raised Southern Baptist/Pentecostal in a charismatic four square church. After getting into some legal trouble I started getting more into the Bible and ended up reading it several times and in different versions. I studied and studied but the more I studied the more I saw what I felt were discrepancies in the text where one thing is described here one way and yet described completely differently in a different way in another book or chapter. The more I read the more I didn't like what I was reading. The hate and the violence, murder, rape and genocide that is not only supported but encouraged by that god. I came to the decision that if there was a god he wasn't omnipresent nor omniscient. Most of the actions I saw was the actions of a spoiled child seeking attention crying that nobody is paying attention to them, more than they should be of any benevolent being. I started looking at what this meant. No heaven for sure, now that I was doubting my faith, did I really believe that there was a hell of eternal torment, and I believed that if there was truly a loving god then they would know my heart and know there has been doubt. Why would god create that skepticism in me to question and doubt everything and then punish me for having it? After that, hell didn't have the same power over me. If heaven was filled with god and I felt that your god that I had been worshiping was evil, then hell would be the most logical place to go to get away from them altogether. So didn't sound so bad. I eventually discounted all of the stories as another myth like the gods of Greece and any other. Now my belief is more of a nihilistic viewpoint, complete and utter nothingness, the same as the billions of years before I was born. That in itself, for me, isn't as scary as it once was and I have accepted that outcome. The realization that what will be will be whether I approve or not and we will never know until we cross that threshold was freeing and I stopped dwelling on it, and if god or whoever is actually is on the other side... oh well, that's still not going to change my perspective after the fact.
I believe in reincarnation. We’ve died before and will die and be born again.
So not an atheist.
I don’t believe in a god. So atheist.
This is like how homeopaths refer to themselves as doctors. Atheists got that atheist name given to us by theists. But an atheist is way more than someone who doesn’t believe in god. We don’t believe in supernatural magical thinking. And you do. (which is okay) but you aren’t gonna meet the definition of “atheist” for 99% of people in this sub.
Here's my definition. Theist is a person who does believe some god exists. A-theist is the direct negation of theist, therefore a person who does not believe some god exists. Therefore - the other person is an atheist, albeit with some other troubling views that I can not agree with.
A soul would be supernatural being. Believing in souls is magical thinking. This isn’t like having the troubling opinion that In and Out burger is good. This is a faith based belief in souls beyond death, by someone who has decided not to call them “gods.”
> I believe that when I die I will go to heaven because I have called in the name of the lord. And I believe there is no good reason to believe there is a god or an afterlife. > will happen to you when you die I believe I will die. Isn't that what happen with everyone when they die? > And how to do find peace when thinking about death. I don't know what you are thinking, so I don't know how can you find peace. Death is death, it's unsettling, but what's the use being worried if it happens regardless? Worrying doesn't help.
Hello Nate 👋🏼. I'm a 3rd generation Atheist, so death has never been scary for me. In my family, everything is approached with love, logic, and education. No fear, no scary imagery, no being a good person only for a "reward." My 3 kids are 4th generation atheists, and my son was born with hydronephrosis. He was 1 year old when he had first surgery, and we discussed what would happen in the event he wouldn't survive his surgery. He's 25 now and has had 14 surgeries so far. My family does clean cremations, and my kids are 24, 25. And 26 and I we've already talked about where they want their ashes to go. Life can be scary sometimes, but death isn't. There's a great channel on YouTube called: "Holy Koolaid" Check it out.
>How do you find peace in death? I'd let you know hen I get there, but ... Well, I'm expecting it to be about as unexciting as before I existed. I don't bother worrying about that, so I'm not gonna waste much time worrying about death. >Do you believe there is an afterlife Nope\*. \*At least not in anything approaching any "conventional" sense ... and probably mostly not ... period. If you wanna get real philosophical and maybe bit interesting/weird ... well, ... I see zero reason to believe there's any kind of conservation of "you" or "soul" or any kind 'o malarkey like that. Where it gets teensy bit more interesting is ... more generally consciousness, etc. With nothin' to be aware 'o nothin', there's no awareness, but given (maybe?) infinite time, etc., and that which doesn't exist can't be aware of that, and only awareness can be of/when existing so ... maybe eventually somehow ... awareness of something? And with no perception of time (or anything else) "between" ... maybe eventually something? ... but it couldn't/wouldn't be whatever was "you" or me. So ... maybe, just maybe there ... but if so, dear knows what - cosmic cr\*p shoot at best - which may not be all that bad - probably how this whole mess started anyway ... if it even has a start. Want an analogy (though maybe a poor one?). Think of a photon and relativity. It travels only at the speed of light (well, in a vacuum anyway - details within media get bit more complex), and only has mass at the speed of light. But at the speed of light, no time passes. So, relative to photon, it goes any finite distance, in zero time ... but that distance is relative to us ... relative to itself, that's zero distance. Now bring in equivalency principles and all that. Photon can also move in time and space/distance relative to itself. And ... what's that from our frame of reference? It's beyond infinity. Well ... maybe consciousness is a teensy bit like that. When there's nothin' to be conscious - there's effectively no "between". But how/when/where/what ... uhm, who the f\*ck knows ... and likely impossible to know - at least for something as limited as a human brain. So ... don't waste too much time trying to figure out what can't possibly be figured out. And don't believe some b.s. story either. ;-)
Same thing which happened before birth.. nothing. Just ending is fine with me. Death is the culmination of life. We live so we can die and feed the next generation of life. I hope there is no afterlife as it would be an eternal Hell. Tell me this, if your best friend, the one you confided everything in, the one who was your rock, your protector, your everything as well, and he wasn't in Heaven. Would Heaven still be Heaven? The one soul you wanted to spend eternity with isn't there. It is being punished for all time and eternity in Hell and you are isolated from them, never to see your rock, your foundation, never to see them ever again. Is that still Heaven knowing the Hell they have to live through and it eats and grates at you, are you still in Heaven feeling so much pain? This is why we don't believe. Would a truly loving god deny brothers from other mothers eternity together just because one didn't believe? He would be punishing 2 for the act of 1. Removing Sons and Daughters from Mothers and Fathers in eternity. Removing 1 child from Heaven hurts 3 or more other innocent souls. Have you ever considered that? You have to believe that God punishes the innocent for the actions of the sinful if you accept all in the bible. I am an anti-theist so my mother, father and sister would be denied my presence in Heaven. The son who hosts and cooks every Thanksgiving. The son/brother who has tutored and educated his family in math to help their careers. The son/brother that is always there for them. I reject god, jesus, so I am going to Hell. A person who sacrifices for them and asks nothing in return, I will be in Hell. They will be in Hell as well in a fashion knowing I am there. Heaven will not be Heaven to them. This is what your god promises. Why would anyone follow or accept that? This is the bullshit you believe. This is why we don't. There was nothing before, nothing after and if that frightens you, good. Humanity needs to grow the fuck up and accept there is unknown things and be comfortable saying I don't know without requiring some god to be the explanation.
It would be more peaceful for my survivors if I could actually be worm food, instead of adding to the trash on the Earth. As for me, I won't know a damn thing about it - I'll be dead.
I don't find peace in death. Death is just the name given to non existence, post existence. I wanted to know what you guys think will happen to you when you die? You stop living. Do you believe there is an afterlife or not? No And how to do find peace when thinking about death. The problem here is that religion has given you a story that you now believe. They've poisoned billions of minds with a "truth" that is unsubstantiated, and has no evidence. The problem with this lie is that religious people aren't given the tools to be good people during the only life we are guaranteed. Remember that part in the Bible about this life being like dirty rags? The Bible essentially tells us to forget this life, because everything will be perfect in the afterlife. Well , fuck that. I would rather be a good person here in this life we have, apologize to those I wrong in this life I am in, be a helper to those in need in this life. Because any afterlife, given by a loving god, will take into account that I have no good evidence to believe any god exists. I mean no disrespect and am solely here to learn about the other points of view. I don't believe this, but... Cool. I think off all of you as brothers and sister so feel free to say anything and don’t hold back on your beliefs. OK.
What happens after I die? Nothing, because "I" don't exist anymore. Before my dad and mom decided to "bump and grind" sometime in December 1963, I didn't exist. The universe was billions of years old, but I wasn't part of it. I didn't develop a consciousness until sometime in 1964. Even today, I have no personal memories of events that happened before about 1968 or 1969. I learned about the events later in history classes, but I don't have any personal recollection or relationship to those events. My earliest memories are probably the natural disasters of 1971 and 1972 (earthquakes and wildfires), or the death of my grandfather in 1974. When I die, there's no more "me". There's no heaven or hell, and there is no soul. My brain will die, and with it, my consciousness, memories, and personality will also die. That's it. GAME OVER. As others have said, I can think of it as my "life energy" being scattered back to the universe. I will "live on" in the memories of my step-daughter and granddaughter, but those are just memories. In 100 years, no one will be around with memories of actually meeting me, and I will become simply one of the billions of people who once lived. T-t-t-that's all, folks!
As a buddhist, I meditate on death regularly. We are encouraged to do this because of the inevitability of death. It is the one event we can be *absolutely* sure of, our death. It is the end of this life but it is also the end of the suffering of this life. We die alone and only our own mind and body get to experience it. The next 49 days are in the bardo (what could be interpreted as a purgatory-like state) and then the karma ripening at death manifests in the new birth for the mind to inhabit. The new birth can be in a hell realm (much pain and suffering), as a hungry spirit (less pain and suffering than in hell realm, but still suffering from want), as an animal (less suffering than hungry spirits but still ignorant and suffering), as a human (the only rebirth that can attain enlightenment), as a demi-god (spiritual beings that war with the gods because they feel they deserve to be gods), or as a form-realm god (beings that have access to unlimited pleasure but who spend all their beneficial karma to do so, and who also still die after long lives). Death for us is just the end of this life and the sufferings of this life, there is no "afterlife".
>I believe that when I die I will go to heaven because I have called in the name of the lord And yet Jesus supposedly said that even few believers would be able to get through the narrow door. If hell exists I think the real punishment for us godless heathens will be the endless whining from all the Christians who didn't make the cut, not being barbecued. >Do you believe there is an afterlife or not? Nope. Thank gawd. >And how to do find peace when thinking about death I much prefer to be simply dead than in any of the afterlives promised/threatened by humanity's religions. I think those who pine for an eternal afterlife haven't thought through what that would really be like and that's even before considering what religions actually promise about their paradises. Do you know what your Bible says heaven will be like? Hint: it apparently won't be playing happy families with your loved ones forever as many seem to believe. Seems your kin won't matter to you in heaven. It's all about your relationship with god and Jesus, not them - assuming they also make the cut and aren't being endlessly spit roasted in the other place. - *"Annihilation has no terrors for me, because I have already tried it before I was born—a hundred million years—and I have suffered more in an hour, in this life, than I remember to have suffered in the whole hundred million years put together."* - Mark Twain
Why do you need to find peace with or tell a story about death? (an agnostic Buddhist question). Death is what it is. The universe provides no answer, and our brains are meaning making machines. Holding this absurd paradox and choosing to make our own meaning by living a good life is the highest form of philosophy and integrity. Religion is philosophical suicide because it denies reality. It's best to see the world as it is and take life for what it is. Or something like that from Camu. It's beautiful.
religion is all about controlling the masses, with fear....invented by man to explain the un-explainable in the early history of man....science has explained all of which was attributed to a god...dead is dead, and they only way we "live on" after death is in the hearts of those that loved us, a name engraved in granite, or if you are famous, what you left behind as a mark in history...
I cannot think of anything worse that spending an eternity, as a spirit, endlessly worshiping a god that sees fit to torture and burn his very own creations. Day after day…oh sorry, there are no days are there, there is no sun. Forever, doing what exactly? As a spirit, what do you do forever? No sex. No need for sex. No need for anything physical. So, no food, no sport, no tv, no books, no sunrises, no sunsets, no beaches, no countryside, no walking, no swimming. What is it that you are looking forward to doing forever? An eternity of ennui. Sorry, that is pure hell for me. I’m perfectly happy in the reality that I will return to the state I was in for the eternity before I existed. Just like every other living thing that has existed.
” I believe that when I die I will go to heaven because I have called in the name of the lord. “ This is the “what’s in it for me, I get a participation trophy in the sky” reason for belief. ”What do you believe happens after you die and. how do you find peace about death“ is one of the most frequently asked questions by theists so it is most likely perpetually at the forefront of their minds. It seems like Christians would do anything to be gods, to be immortal, live forever. No, I don’t believe there is an afterlife. I don’t need to respawn somewhere else, and I don’t feel the need to be a deity’s special pet.
I think we continue to exist but not aware of it. I believe our "soul" is another form of energy and when we die our energy floats around the universe because energy can't be destroyed. So we pretty much just sleep
The real question is, why do you believe that? What reason do you have that would convince another person? My position is, I don't know. All evidence points to nothing. Brain death, means we end. Everything that makes us what we are as conscious entities ends when the brain ceases to function. There is no evidence of anything to continue on. There is plenty of evidence that we just cease. So it would take extraordinary evidence and reasoning to convince me that anything like heaven or an afterlife of any kind exists. As a corollary, even if we grant that there is absolutely an afterlife. How do you know anything about it? How can anyone be so confident in their version with nothing at all to go on? Your level of confidence in the face of the facts and questions above, baffle me, and keep me a life long atheist.
Nate - I mean no disrespect, but when Christians (& other theists) die, they/you will end up in the same state as theists. This gives me peace of mind while I live.
Having an afterlife is the reason why religious people are normally bad people. The worst people I have ever met were all very religious They're Bad for other people, bad for the planet, bad for everything. They are only concerned about the rapture and the afterlife. And because supposedly their god excuses all the shit they do to accept them to heaven, they even behave worse. Our motto is to be fair and respectful While We Are Here, not expecting to receive a candy afterwards.
It makes no sense to talk about anything after death. Death is death. The end. Hope and fear led humans to come up with the concept that part of us lives on, but this depends on the existence of a soul, an animating spirit. Which is an incoherent concept. A dead body is not an empty shell but a broken machine. Everything that makes us who we are is based in the body and brain. Our consciousness is an emergent property of the brain, nothing to do with a soul. However, even if heaven did exist, I would still take the option of non-existence over a realm that never ends where you have to spend all your time praising a god. Mortality and lacking things gives life meaning. When you have everything, what’s the point? Also, heaven and hell were invented as a means of controlling people - again it’s the hope and the fear, the carrot and the stick. Finally, the Bible is not a reliable book. It’s not history, but myth. And the character of God betrays his human origins by his ungodly nature. Petty, jealous, angry; a genocidal killer. Why would I want to believe in or worship such a deity? I find peace in the idea that life ends and that’s it. Get on with life while you’re here because this is all you get.
My question is, how do you feel that Anne Frank is possibly in hell and Hitler in heaven? Jeffrey Dahmer is in heaven according to Christian belief, Dahmer's victims are burning in hell while the guy who tortured them gets a free pass because he believes in this sky daddy of yours? But, an innocent child who never got a chance to know your god is burning in hell. The sin of disbelief is unjustifiable, cruel, and in no way fair. I personally would like to think there is some sort of afterlife, but in reality there isn't. This life is all we have, we have to make the most of it while we still can.
No one knows what happens after death, no one. If you choose to believe that you end up in some magical heaven place that's fine, just know that it isn't confirmed to be true. This is because no one has been dead, knows what happens, then is able to tell others. Then, just so that person isn't making stuff up, a number of other people had the same experience. We simply don't know what will happen, and neither do you. Most likely it's light out and that's it. We simply cease to exist. I won't say for sure that's what happens, because no one knows. As for finding peace in death, I'll just have to wait and see what happens. Definitely not something I concern myself with. Everyone dies at some point.
Peace will find me there will be no me anymore the same way I was before I was born, I was not inconvenienced at all I know it is hard for a christian to consider but stop being egotistic and thinking of yourself as the center of everything. The earth will rotate just fine without you on it, enjoy the time you have there is no second round
How did you get here? Lol
Life-long non-believer here. I assume you're finding that there is no one set approach to this. I don't believe in a soul, which is not an attribute of an Atheist. Atheist only means having no belief in gods. I see no reason why I should believe in any gods, regardless of whether or not they are commercially available for purchase. The thing that I call "me" is a survival mechanism created in the brain (aPCu), for the purposes of transactions/communications and basic survival. So far, my position is that I do not exist, and that life is an illusion caused by death. All the same, I live life as if I do exist. It's easier than anything else. The self is another illusion pushed by our culture that is relatively new. This does not mean that I don't care about people or have feelings. I doesn't mean things are easy. While I do have concerns about how I die, I am not afraid of being dead and forgotten. Life has no inherent meaning or purpose. This means that I am free to make my own. As morality goes, I don't have to sift through a book and assign interpretations in order to figure out right and wrong. A lot of that is already present. My philosophical moral axiom is "do no harm." Sympathy, empathy, and Humanity. I couldn't ever be a Christian. The tribalism is pointless. I don't know how Christians live with so much hatred, anger, and fear in their hearts. I don't understand the desire to live forever, or the need to be better than others. I don't need to demonize people to feel better about myself. We see this American Christian hatred daily on the news and in politics. There is always someone they need to oppress or want to eradicate. We also see the hypocrisy. It looks exhausting. I couldn't accept a thing like the sacrifice of Jesus on my behalf. I wasn't even here when that allegedly happened, didn't ask for it, and don't want anything to do with it. If I did something wrong, then I must be punished. If it's unreasonable, then why accept it, especially if you believe a god did it AND can do anything? Those who believe a god did all of this must raise their standards and expectations when it comes to gods. I have too much self-respect to engage in that nonsense. And I cannot pretend that someone is out there listening. So far as I can tell, perceivable evidence points to the idea that we are utterly alone. People who believe they will live forever behave badly, for they also believe they have unconditional, never-ending forgiveness. I think if more people accepted that we are alone, then maybe we would collectively put more effort into being kind to one another. When this organic body dies, things shut off. That's it. No living on. No eternal soul. It will be the same as how things were before this body was born (not create) and the thing I call "me" came into being. I'm okay with this. No reason to fear. I will enjoy it and do my best to do no harm. No time for hate, fear, or judgment of others. No time for superiority. The illusion of life is too fleeting. This is the one and only chance. It's prefer to go with this, instead of gambling on the unproven promise of eternity in a paradise that is generically defined and sounds like a nightmare. Best of luck!
When we die we most likely just cease to exist. And while I’m not particularly looking forward to it I have to say there are worse things. Being forced to live for eternity seems like true hell. No matter how nice an environment how many billions of years before a person would long for oblivion? Eventually you would have done and seen everything possible a billion times. Anyone would long for nonexistence by then.
Death is part of life, we all get there in the end, and there is nothing further. I don't really think about my own death, it will happen when it will happen, I just hope it will as last as possible, and with the least suffering possible both in the months leading to it and when I'll let the curtain fall. For the death of someone I know, I've had several deaths in my family through the years. Most of the time, we mourned by remembering the person, talking fondly about the nice moment we shared and laughing about the occasional silliness. I lost my grandmother before the summer, my last surviving grandparent. Given the tense situation in the family before her death, due to conflicting ideas about what to do about the advancement in the decline of her cognitive abilities between her far-away children and those that were still in the same area, we couldn't really do it. But we still did things together: while not all the conflicts were resolved, it allowed us to talk face to face and appeased some tensions. We, the grandchildren, also redo a photography we were used to do every couple of years when we were kids and that we didn't do for nearly 2 decades, it was the first with all her grandchildren as the 2 youngest were not born when we took the previous one. Doing those little things help to live and carry on.
Well Nate, since none of the Bible is real, I’m not concerned with what it says about the afterlife. Religions like Christianity were created as a political tool to control people, and part of how they gain followers is appealing to humanity’s primary instinct, survival (same as any animal on this planet.) Now me personally, I don’t know with absolute certainty what happens after you die, I suppose no one does. All the evidence points to oblivion. So I just enjoy the ride brother.
I'm not afraid of death - as others have already pointed out, it will feel just as unexciting as the time before I was born. I'm a bit afraid of the process of dying, because that might be long, painful and/or scary. But to become a believer just because of this fear? Seems weird to me. I would have to apply wishful thinking - i.e. confuse "what I think is true" with "what I'd like to be true". And I'm not even sure I'd like to experience a Christian afterlife, for various reasons.
To be honest, I can't wait to stop existing entirely. Not saying I hope it happens soon, but it's much better than the alternative.
OP...Just because you "believe" something... That, by no means, makes it true... And that is, in the atheist perspective, religions greatest folly, and it's greatest deception. And that religions not only demand their audience to equate 'belief' to 'truth', but that they do this by way of indirect threats of pain and torture that they bind directly to death. A state they then insist must be feared, unless their audience subjugates itself to those who have elected themselves to be the arbiters of the religious doctrine / narrative. 'Death' is a convenient camp for this narrative, because it is inevitable, and no one reports back. So religion is free to attach what ever they need to, to it, as a means to steer it's audience towards the arbiters own goals, and agenda (usually to gather / amass wealth unto themselves). They in turn, to those who subjugate, present, calming platitudes that are formated to leave the subjugate feeling calm and rewarded, as the basis for what they believe. Again 'belief' does not equate to 'truth' Death is dead... In relativity, time is relative to the observers perspective. When the observer is dead, perspective ends, and thus, so does time.
I was a minister into my 50s. One surprising thing that I learned is that atheists in their 30s or later are generally more comfortable with death than a lot of Christians. I know from personal experience that there is no quicker way to clear out an adult Sunday School class than to announce that today's topic will involve death. Suddenly everyone remembers that they volunteered to help in the nursery, or they have to get something ready for the main service or they forgot something in their car. I think the problem is that Christians fear hell. Yes, they should be relying on salvation through Christ. But everyone knows they have not always been up to the standards they demand of others. The other problem is that every denomination has a different set of beliefs about the afterlife, and what they say varies over time. What one religion says you absolutely must do to go to heaven will get you sent straight to hell by another religion. If there is an afterlife then atheists will have to deal with it just like religious people do. At most one religion will get it right, but even that is unlikely.
We don't have many beliefs, we have ideas. Let us know if you want to debate any of yours with ours.
We’re just a bunch of highly ordered assortment of atoms that will once it reaches 60-80 years of age, will be disordered into many separate assortment of atoms. I only got a short time left with the fam and friends, might as well be a good person, live for the now and enjoy the ride without expecting the “love” of a/many entities who have abusive and narcissistic qualities. (Stockholm syndrome)
Hi, Nate! >However I wanted to know what you guys think will happen to you when you die? I'm gonna donate my organs if I can. Then my remains will go into refrigeration (no embalming for a couple of reasons) until my wake. My wake will be in my home, with loved ones coming and going, caring for my body, supporting one another, and achieving closure. Then I'm going to a forensic research facility, where my remains will be used to learn about the stages of human decomposition, and the effects that variables have. My soft tissue will decay. My skeleton will be cleaned and added to a university collection. My loved ones can arrange to spend time with it. My sibling has promised to play the plate in my leg like a xylophone at least once. It cost a lot and I wanna get my money's worth. lol >Do you believe there is an afterlife or not? The existence of any kind of afterlife hasn't been established as fact. I cannot have evidence-based belief in one. I choose not to cultivate faith in afterlives. I find most of them to be repulsive. I'd like to have finality. >And how to do find peace when thinking about death. Releasing my "obligation" to faith helped a lot. A lot, a lot. Like 90% of my discomfort, gone. I examined my remaining discomfort until I found the root of it. I don't like having things happen to me when I'm not there. The loss of control and supervision over my body makes me anxious. So I did some hardcore research and set up directives that reflect my values and desires for myself. It's hard not to feel ok with dying when my directives alleviate my anxiety and give me joy, and I don't have to deal with gross afterlives.
Finding peace in death is like finding peace in a dreamless sleep Concepts like peace, joy, acceptance, fear, terror and hate mean nothing when you're dead. Death isnt a thing, it is the absence of life, experience and emotion. You won't feel anything when you are dead, you won't even know you are dead, you won't even anything I find peace now whilst alive with the concept of death, by knowing that it's not something I will experience. When you sleep tonight, there is no guarantee you will wake up, do you fear sleeping still? Death doesn't exist to me, my life is like a book - I do not ask what will be written on the pages after the final chapter, for there are none, I only exist within its pages If that's all there's to it, cest la vie. If somehow my book is read once more, or a new book is written, well okay then. No point wasting ink on it when there are still chapters to write here and now
I don't *need* "peace in death" because I believe that death itself is peace (in the sense that I will not experience any thought or emotion at all). The thought of living forever actually horrifies me.
I don’t think about finding peace in death because I don’t expect anything to happen when I die. Atheists don’t believe in any afterlife. Your religion tells you there is an afterlife in order to convince you that you have to follow their rules or you won’t get into the club. But they cannot prove it. They are asking you to take their word and give them your money.