Question for atheists: What happens when we die?

Jason · Post by **Jason** » 2006-12-02 07:23am

I did a search for this type of topic, but couldn't find it. If there is one that I missed feel free to link to it and lock this.

What I'm curious about is what do atheists think happens when people die? Although I would consider any kind of afterlife to be contradictory to atheism, well, you really never know for sure and I try not to make assumptions about other people. This seemed like a good place to ask given the high percentage of atheists here.

So, what do you think happens when you die? Blink out of existence (I think this is basically what George H. Smith said in his books on atheism)? Something else (I'd really be most interested in hearing from anyone who thinks something else happens)?

This is not intended to be a challenge to atheists or to turn into a big atheism/theism debate, I'm just curious. Thanks.

thejester · Post by **thejester** » 2006-12-02 07:48am

We decompose.

Bounty · Post by **Bounty** » 2006-12-02 07:52am

I will never die. My thoughts live on in the people who knew and loved me, my matter lives on as food for the plants and animals that feed on my corpse.

That's my afterlife.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2006-12-02 08:00am

The final curtain falls, show's over.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2006-12-02 08:08am

Wormfood.

Tasoth · Post by **Tasoth** » 2006-12-02 08:22am

Nothingness. The cessation of all wants, fears, emotion and senses. The final punctuation to the sentence that is your life and then nothing matters. Kinda frightening in a way.

Stark · Post by **Stark** » 2006-12-02 08:32am

Oblivion awaits at the end of all roads.

RedImperator · Post by **RedImperator** » 2006-12-02 08:35am

Lights out, show's over.

Pretty shitty if you used to think you were going to Heaven. On the other hand, if you were afraid you were going to go to Hell (Yay Catholicism!), oblivion isn't a bad deal.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-12-02 08:45am

You go very still and then all the little guys that live throughout your body eat you and you go back to the chemical oblivion from whence you came. Remember what it was like before you were born or even concieved? I didn't think so, that's what awaits at the end of the road. You need senses and a working brain to experience and comprehend and feel and all that is gone, come death.

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2006-12-02 08:51am

RedImperator wrote:Lights out, show's over.

Pretty shitty if you used to think you were going to Heaven. On the other hand, if you were afraid you were going to go to Hell (Yay Catholicism!), oblivion isn't a bad deal.

Not if you were looking forward to hanging out with all those suicide Musicians. You know, and the rest of the cool people. Fucking Atheism.

Master of Cards · Post by **Master of Cards** » 2006-12-02 09:05am

You go to sleep never to wake

Post by **weemadando** » 2006-12-02 09:29am

We get some lovely harpsichord music and a card saying "Fin" superimposed on our vision.

We die. All brain activity ceases... Nothing else happens.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » 2006-12-02 09:30am

Poof nothing.

You are born, you live a little, and then you die. And that's it. Which is why its important to make an impact and make your life count during those brief years you have.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2006-12-02 09:58am

Hello, goodbye, with love from me to you.

The program's over, and I cease to be as a Human. That which made up my matter will be food for the animals and plants which wish to eat my, and in a few hundred years, my atoms, trillions of them, will end up as parts of people again. A little bit of me will end up in everyone, eventually. That's all the Afterlife I need.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-12-02 10:13am

I heard about small children clearly remembering real places they never went to in their short lives and real people that are long dead; when we die, everything about us breaks apart and submerges back into the universe that formed us to begin with; our thoughts, memories and "soul" is pure energy suspended in squashy brain matter and energy has to go somewhere. I believe in reincarnation of a sort and not total oblivion.

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2006-12-02 10:27am

Big Orange wrote:I heard about small children clearly remembering real places they never went to in their short lives and real people that are long dead; when we die, everything about us breaks apart and submerges back into the universe that formed us to begin with; our thoughts, memories and "soul" is pure energy suspended in squashy brain matter and energy has to go somewhere. I believe in reincarnation of a sort and not total oblivion.

Then you are not really an atheist.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2006-12-02 10:30am

Jason wrote:I did a search for this type of topic, but couldn't find it. If there is one that I missed feel free to link to it and lock this.

What I'm curious about is what do atheists think happens when people die? Although I would consider any kind of afterlife to be contradictory to atheism, well, you really never know for sure and I try not to make assumptions about other people. This seemed like a good place to ask given the high percentage of atheists here.

So, what do you think happens when you die? Blink out of existence (I think this is basically what George H. Smith said in his books on atheism)? Something else (I'd really be most interested in hearing from anyone who thinks something else happens)?

This is not intended to be a challenge to atheists or to turn into a big atheism/theism debate, I'm just curious. Thanks.

You must have put very little thought into asking yourself what atheism is about, if the answer to your query is not obvious.

Big Orange · Post by **Big Orange** » 2006-12-02 10:32am

Lord Zentei wrote:
Big Orange wrote:I heard about small children clearly remembering real places they never went to in their short lives and real people that are long dead; when we die, everything about us breaks apart and submerges back into the universe that formed us to begin with; our thoughts, memories and "soul" is pure energy suspended in squashy brain matter and energy has to go somewhere. I believe in reincarnation of a sort and not total oblivion.
Then you are not really an atheist.

I'm more of an agnostic, but I don't really believe in the Abrahamic's idea of an Afterlive.

Rye · Post by **Rye** » 2006-12-02 10:34am

Godless buddhists often believe in reincarnation, as does my mum and a few of my female friends. On my mum's side of the family there was also the idea of the whole family meeting up at some point by a fountain in the afterlife, though they didn't believe in God as far as I'm aware.

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2006-12-02 10:40am

Big Orange wrote:
I'm more of an agnostic, but I don't really believe in the Abrahamic's idea of an Afterlive.

I'll spare you my usual rant against agnosticism, since myself and others have gone on about it plenty of times before. Instead, I'll ask why you feel compelled to believe in the somewhat more appealing, yet no more plausible idea of reincarnation. So why do you? From my experiences with Buddhism, it takes some pretty good living to attain a higher state of being, so more than likely, most people will become slugs or something.

Not everyone can be reincarnated as a cat.

Anyway, it's all superfluous talk. The engrams that make you are in a very much physical domain that once it loses biochemical activity, is prey to entropy and life like everything else.

Molyneux · Post by **Molyneux** » 2006-12-02 10:41am

Either a) rot in the ground,
b) reincarnate,
c) Celestial waiting room a la Beetlejuice,
d) soul/spirit/essence/brain engram/whatever goes flying off through this or another universe,
or e) all of the above.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2006-12-02 10:52am

Shit. Shit. Shit. Man, the knowledge that someday I'm gonna die sucks. Man

Flagg · Post by **Flagg** » 2006-12-02 11:00am

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Shit. Shit. Shit. Man, the knowledge that someday I'm gonna die sucks. Man

Yeah, but with the avergae lifespan being what it is, you'll probably forget you're going to die long before you finally do.

Arthur_Tuxedo · Post by **Arthur_Tuxedo** » 2006-12-02 11:04am

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Shit. Shit. Shit. Man, the knowledge that someday I'm gonna die sucks. Man

I comfort myself by thinking about all the stuff that might be invented before the end of my natural lifespan. My family is pretty long-lived on both sides, and they didn't live healthy like me, so I should be able to make it past 90. At that point, it will be 2072, and I'd like to think that science will have discovered how to grow organs and regenerate neurons to keep our bodies working right, or just to transplant our brains into robot bodies. Of course, this stuff will be reserved for the rich until it becomes cheap decades after invention, so I'll get worried if 20 years goes by and there aren't any major breakthroughs toward that end.

Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba · Post by **Nieztchean Uber-Amoeba** » 2006-12-02 11:05am

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Shit. Shit. Shit. Man, the knowledge that someday I'm gonna die sucks. Man

Everything I ever needed to know about Life & Death I learned from Fight Club.

StarDestroyer.Net BBS

Question for atheists: What happens when we die?

Question for atheists: What happens when we die?

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