LucidLight

This is the quick but logical reasoning why there is no afterlife. And if there is one, why it does not matter.

1. We are experiences and memories. Without them we are a blank slate. We are conditioned from the moment of birth to present day. We react to the environment based on our previous encounters with it. Our memories contain our hopes and dreams are what we use to forge ahead in life. Without the ability to learn and store memories we would be mindless animals with nothing but genetic instinct to guide us. An afterlife would be meaningless to us.

2. Our experiences and memories are stored in our brain. Once it is gone they are gone. This can be due to head injury, disease, and eventually death. Old people who are unlucky enough to make it point where Alzheimer’s sets in become nothing but shells of themselves till they are granted the mercy of death. Their brains have destroyed what memories they have. If you argue that are memories converted and carried with our soul to the afterlife through some magical means, then you better off yourself now while you are still capable of rational thought.

3. So in the afterlife if we have no memories and no body with it's genetic instinct to guide us, we could be described as nothing more than energy. And by some crazy happenstance we are still conscious in that form, we would have no clue who we were and why we there. If we were being punished in hell or happy in heaven we would have no memory why. We don't even send people to jail if they can not remember the crime they committed; they go off to the crazy ward. It would be inhuman to punish someone for something they could not recall doing.

Side note: If you ever have been put under for an operation, you know that one minute they are prepping you and the next they are done. That whole time period is completely gone your higher functions of your brain were out of commission. In all intents purposes you were DEAD to the world. The world did not exist. Death is the same way but no doctor is going to wake you up.

So just be excellent to each other while you can still remember it. And stop worrying about what the next life will be like. Heck this could be the next life, I know I don't remember one before it!

"One atheist can make a difference."

BuffaloBill

How would you answer the person who questioned your knowledge of the soul's conditions, such as how you know the brain would function in certain way?

CaptainOfOuterSpace

(I fully agree) But there's always the argument that the brain is just a sort of antenna for a "soul" that really exists elsewhere. So when your physical brain becomes damaged, the "soul" remains intact, but the antenna's reception becomes worse (say, two bars instead of five).

Heathen Dawn

And there’s also a belief in afterlife without belief in souls. Where the vehicle of life after physical death is the duplicate body, the astral body, that is attached to the physical body during life absorbs its cognitive experiences but is never physically damaged (can’t be—it’s made of supernatural matter), and when the physical body ceases to function, it takes over. That’s the Spiritualist doctrine of life after death and it’s what I believe too.

Krosis

Heh.. I'm getting an amusing picture here..

"Can you hear me now?"

-K

biomed0101

There was a time that I believed there was a "spirit" in every living being, and that after death this "spirit" would divide. When a new life was born, parts of divided "spirits" would form a new one and the new "spirit" would put itself into this new being.

Still I find this thought very interesting.

But I don't believe in an "afterlife" as stated by many theist beliefs.

LucidLight

A nice belief, but has no more evidence to support it than heaven or hell. When I tell people I am atheist, I usually get asked "where do you think you go when you die?" I reply "I believe there is nothing after death, but hey If I am wrong I will be pleasently surprised" True wisdom is not in having the answer but is in realizing what you don't actually know and continue looking for answers. You may placate yourself with a nice belief, but if you stop looking for answers you might miss the opputunity to learn the real truth. Hey maybe you will be right!

Heathen Dawn

I have the evidence to convince myself. It is not open to debate.

A nice (?) belief, but has no more evidence to support it than heaven or hell.

I disagree.

Hedshaker

Good advice LucidLight but don't waste your time. You are dealing with a self confesed closed mind.

:huh:

Orbit

LucidLight

Yes I agree! It is when you advertise your belief as fact, that you lock youself from exploring other options. My beliefs are just that, beliefs based on the evidence (or lack of in this case). Like any good scienist my belief or theory is up for testing if and when that is possible. I am full and ready to switch to a religion that can scientifically prove it's case. Now if I were to say there is no afterlife and not be willing to change once the scientific method has run it's course then I would be as bad as any fundy out there. As soon as you stop questioning you stop learning.


I am dumbfounded. All I can say is read up on your Aristotle.