BioBeing

I do not believe in Santa, leprechauns, fairies, unicorns, Zeus, horoscopes, Odin, psychics, ghosts, reincarnation, Chthulu, Vishnu, Jahweh etc etc etc - things for which there is no evidence. And, yes, life after death is one of those things.

Bree

Yes, there is.

Jinto

Greetings Tarnaak,

I have never believed in God on the grounds that it is an obvious fairy tale, much like Santa Claus and the Tooth Fiary. There is nothing to suggest that any of these things exist, and a basic understanding of the way the world works reveals that they are all absurd. Actually, until about the age of ten I did not believe that there were people who actually believed this stuff: I was convinced that it was just an outdated social convention from 2000 years ago. Imagine my horror when I learned the truth.

Life after death: this is contradictory - how can you be alive and dead at the same time? So supposing you remain alive after the body dies - exactly how does this work? The same neurons that defined you are no longer firing, so it's safe to say that when you die you no longer exist. To believe otherwise is just absurd.

meritocrat

There simply is no reason to believe in a God.

Nostalgic Pushhead

I was raised "Christian", by that I mean we celebrated Christmas with Santa and Easter with the bunny and never once went to church. I was never told to believe in god... so I never did.
Around 11th grade I started reading online about religion... learned, holy crap, the bible is really dumb... dabbled in Buddhism for a bit (don't buy reincarnation)... and everything I found just reaffirmed my non-belief.

Sarpedon

When I was young, my father told me a story: His grandmother had all kinds of crazy beliefs. 1. Airplanes couldn't fly, they were too heavy. 2. The moon landing was faked. 3. If the children were allowed to walk by the Catholic church, nuns would rush out, drag them in, and convert them into catholics. 4. Electrical cords should not be allowed to touch the floor, or else the electricity would dissapate into the floor. 5. Black people are born with tails, their mothers bite them off shortly afterward. If he ever contradicted her, his father would beat him for disrespecting his elders. Impressionable child as he was, he at first believed some of these things she told him. In time, he went to high school, which was the first integrated school he had yet attended. He met a young black man, and mentioned item #5 to him. The young fellow laughed at him, and then mooned him, showing my father that he had no scar from having a tail bitten off. In time, the two became friends. The lesson that my father learned from this is that wrong ideas are caused by ignorance, and that it was important to educate yourself, and think for yourself rather than accept what you are told by others. Yet he remained a christian, accepting that without question.

Later, I grew to be a young man, and a pious christian. For 3 years, I taught sunday school in my church. then one day, another teacher made some trivial error, which I corrected, and congratulated myself, thinking (in the proud way of a teenager) "if I werent here, these kids would have grown up believing something that was wrong." After a few moments of smug self-congratulation, a thought hit me like a freight train: The only reason I believed what I believed, was that ten years previously, I had sat in the same room and received the same lessons. I had no way of knowing that what I was told was the truth. Previous to this, my friend and I had gone through the history textbooks of our high school, looking for things that the writers had deliberately misreported, or omitted. this was entertainment for us, but I now realized that EVERYTHING I had ever been taught was suspect. After this, I began reading the Bible, for the purpose of becoming a better christian. I never finished it. I became an atheist midway through. It is such nonsense! I had no idea before hand.

As for what happens after death, I ask the questions: What were you before you were born? Why do you assume that you are immortal? You had a beginning, yet you think you will have no end? Wishful thinking.

Sarpedon

beth

I am an atheist simply because I lost faith in a God that has provided no proof in which to base my faith. I have prayed to the god to show me a sign or to restore my blind faith, but to no avail. If your God is real, then he is a cruel god that blinds his devout believers to his existence. I do believe that if a god does in fact exist, he isn't your personal god. I believe that the "force' would best describe that god.

I do not believe in an after life. I wish there was, but it isn't probable. Perhaps if it does, Our thoughts and energy continue to thrive. Maybe one day our minds can be downloaded onto a computer before physical death. That seems like the one way to exist indefinitely.

...

Because I believe in reason, facts, and logic - and all three of those tell me that the God/esses of the various holy books are impossible. That simple.

openeyes

Because it dawned on me at age 17 (I'm now 40-something), that the world made a lot more sense without a god than with one. Everything since has reinforced that thought.

I don't believe we can have a consciousness without brain function, and without consciousness there is no meaningful "life", so when we die, that's all folks, except for whatever changes we caused that continue.

P.S. You may know some atheists. We tend to look just like everyone else. We're not always upfront about our lack of belief because of the negative response so many people have to non-believers.

Rhea

Religion: I grew exhausted by squinting my eyes and furrowing my brow upon reading the bible and attending religious instruction. It has never once seemed believable to me. I recall getting dismissed from sunday school at the age of 10 for squinting and furrowing my brow and asking questions. It makes no sense at all. I can't fathom it. It just doesn't compute. I tried to understand several religions and got the same squinty "huh?" at every turn. (for what it's worth, it is this emotion that keeps me debating christians, astrologists, new-agers and other believers and asking questions of them. I am just trying to figure out what exactly makes them believe, 'cause I certainly don't see it. It's fascinating.)

I concluded that this made me an atheist. Perhaps an agnostic, but for all the evidence of how the world works I am functionally an atheist so I might as well just call myself one.

I believe life after death is EXACTLY like life before birth.