Who believes that when we die, our mind, and "soul" simply cease to exist?

It's incredibly sad, but I'm afraid that's the truth that nobody likes to face.

is is even more sad to think that there are people that have such a limited view of reality that they anthropomorphize all their thoughts.

What does that mean? Nobody is endowing a cat with human personality traits here.

all of your words and ideas about an "afterlife" are an anthropomorphizing of reality.

We have no clue - we most likely are not structured to ever get a clue

Questions like your are mental jackoffs and any conclusons - answers to jack off questions - are at best delusional

Explain time to me - NO NO - lets start with the simple stuff - What is matter?

After you give me a good explaination of matter the we will venture off into the world of real speculation andthen you can with GREAT certitude tell me all about existence and what if anything come next

anthropomorphize (v.) to ascribe human form or attributes to (an animal, plant, material object or the like)

I am not anthropomorphizing anything. The "mind" and "soul" are convenient words for our consciousness, which undoubtedly does exist.

"We have no clue - we most likely are not structured to ever get a clue"

I agree - but that hasn't stopped millions from inventing religions.

"Questions like your are mental jackoffs and any conclusons - answers to jack off questions - are at best delusional"

Maybe so, but what does that make your reply? Thought provoking?

"Explain time to me - NO NO - lets start with the simple stuff - What is matter?"

What does my knowledge or lack thereof, of physics have to do with what happens to our consciousness after the body ceases to function?

"After you give me a good explaination of matter the we will venture off into the world of real speculation andthen you can with GREAT certitude tell me all about existence and what if anything come next"

I could bone up on all of Einstein's theorem, and I would be able to speak with no more certitude than I am now (and that's none at all) Because I think that I will cease to be after death doesn't mean that I'm "sure" about anything.

and that is my point

you are talking about constructs of our mind - and stating beliefs about them

I find that strange

I see little difference between someone talking about afterlife (pro or con) and someone talking purple shit-eaters that don't fart.


The questions about time, space, matter - if we ever figure out the things that we see, touch, have our existence in - then we might be able to talk about god, afterlife, reality

you seem to be jumping the gun -

The reason that try to make this point is that i "believe" that the interplay of our thinking and believing is important. Your beliefs affect your thinking.

MAKE IT CLEAN. don't clutter your mind with wierd beliefs - you don't need them

maybe not . . . either way, I think it's wise to heed Albert Einstein's words:

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."

One of the greatest collections of thoughts I have ever experienced. His writing is almost perfect.

See, the thing is, if I hypothetically go to an afterlife, there will be visual and MAYBE tangible surroundings for me to percieve in some sort of an afterworld. Same thing goes if hypothetically I'm reincarnated. I'd live another actual, tangible life. But if everything about my soul and perception of things around me just suddenly STOPS and blacks out, am I just going to a blank sleep forever??? And how in the BLOODY HELL can my "soul's" perception of the things around it just cease to exist after I die??? Some part of me HAS to continue to percieve some sort of a surrounding after I die, whichever type of post-death proccess that might be. My perception of my surroundings can't just shut down and go black for eternity. It's ludicrous. I can't understand why a lot of folks believe this. THIS is why I'm Muslim and not an Atheist.

That which we call "our soul", our conciousness, is housed within our bodies- within our brains actually- and when our brains die- it dies too.
How hard is that to understand?

Our brains and other organs stop functioning.

But surely you already know this.

I suppose to some, it might be. But in reality, death is the end. Period. There's nothing after. You go, others come. But as you say, nobody really wants to face FACTS. It's how Dubya got elected. It's how he will be re-elected. Fact is...when you die--that's it. Nothing else. No "afterlife", etc. It's all over.

simple. But our way of thinking won't allow us to face the facts. So we create religion (whatever) to make you feel better about it.

...and that's all there is to it.

But that's because I love my life. I'm well aware that I will not be sad, or happy, or anything after I'm dead. I simply will not be.

I love the people who name hospital wings and shit after themselves, like they'll be able to look down on them posthumously or something. Hell, if it gets more hospitals built, fine, but you're NOT going to get to see it from heaven.

You live in other people or part of who you were. People keep bringing you up in their minds. And it goes down in history. Sure it my be a small group but so be it. It is like the reason for you to get the body so you can put it someplace. It is not for the dead but for the living. The stone is for the living. The name on the building is for the here and now. That mans ego or his friends.

How one thinks that their "soul's" perception of surroundings can just "shut off" and go into black (actually, NOT black, because in order to recognize the color black, you must have some sort of perception) nothingness. That you are nothing, your entity is nothing, and your perception is nothing. Frankly, that is something I don't want happening to ME after I die. That freaks me out and depresses me at the same time. Actually, on further thought, that notion right there is the one (maybe true/maybe not true) thing in life that I am the most afraid of.

what do you mean by "soul"?

Consciousness is a state of being. Nothing about it is eternal.

You just forget most or all of them when you wake up. Medical Science has proven that. The closest in actual life I can think of to your post-life notion is if a person is in a coma. The brain waves are paralyzed, and the brain cannot proccess any perception of dreams, hallucinations, etc. A fucking coma. Look, you live your actual life for 80 years, maybe 90 or 100 years if you're lucky. ANYTHING GOES in terms of the human debate of what happens after that. But to think that you will spend eternity in something like a COMA, being nothing, percieving nothing and thinking nothing... Well, that's frankly something that depresses me to the deepest extent of my emotions. Yeah. 70 more years, and I'm nothing. That's REALLY the way to go, right???:eyes:

for one thing- You're dead.
You cease to exist, as does your "soul"

... of one's own death. It was created to ease the grief of losing a loved one.

Many people are falsely comforted by believing the myth that their life won't really end. They are also falsely comforted with the myth that their loved ones still exist... somewhere... watching over them.

You know what? --- I think that those people don't enjoy life NOW as much as they should. They kind of stroll through... half-hearted... wasting time... because they are "waiting" for something better the next go-round.

Pity for them.

-- Allen

people spend so much time thinking about how great "the next ride" will be, that they don't get to enjoy the one they're on.

And then, as the ride comes to an end, they realize too late that the amusement park is closing, for the day, the summer, and forever and there won't be a "next ride" after all...

and the regret sets in when they realize how much fun they missed.

This is it folks- enjoy the ride!

I personally feel that I have no choice but to believe in an absolute end, but your experiences may have led you to a different conclusion.

Let's say my theory is right, and we just end.

Will my having been "right" about it improve my life? Not really.

Will your belief in an afterlife have given you comfort to the end? Probably so.

So I certainly don't begrudge anyone their belief in an afterlife. On the contrary, religious folks often seem very threatened by topics like this, like their faith is so fragile, and easily shaken.

Weird.

I'll defend my view in believing in an afterlife the same way as defending my views on being a liberal.

In my view, the "afterlife" would be exactly identical to the period before conception; ie: non-existence. Whether you or I or anyone choose to believe it or not has no relevance as to it's veracity. It's either correct or it's not. But if I die, and I turn out to be correct, I will no longer exist in any way, and will thus be unable to tell you so, or even to realize it myself. It is different from an unconscious state - it is not a state at all The chemicals and receptors in my brain that I call a "mind" will cease to be anything other than dead flesh and chemicals.

If you die, and it turns out you are correct, I'm sure you will be very happy about it, but you'll be unable to come and tell me, since none of the billions of dead have ever told me anything so far.

That's the funny thing about death. It doesn't give a damn how we perceive it, and it comes to us whether we accept it or not. Our belief in what it represents has no effect on what it actually is.

If it makes people happy to think any other way I am all for it, but I tend to go along with you. I was brought up in a church but I am not deep into that, but I do feel you have missed something. I will recall you and you will be in my life and mind just because you wrote this. You leave something for someone, even if you die tomorrow.

Is how someone cannot comprehend the fact that our "souls" our completely self-contained within us, a product of how our brains are wired together- and that when our bodies die, it goes too.
There is no "eternal spirit" that lingers on. Without a brain to house memories and emotions, how would a "soul" function? how would it percieve? make decisions, etc...?
Face facts- when you die YOU dies too.

During my loss of faith, I went through months of adrenalin-pumping fear when I realized that this life is all there is. See my very popular I'm-an-atheist-ask-me-anything thread. ;)

Then you might want to mosey on over to my I'm-a-36-year-old-virgin-ask-me-anything thread.

Hmmm, I think I just might have made a case for belief in god. :D

is the crux of the matter.

We have no way to demonstrate whether or not the soul, or consciousness, exists before or after death. There are a few prior life tales and ghost stories, but these are apochryphal at best. We don't really know much about the soul, or whether it exists, either. And we're not all that sure about consciousness.

So, we have used our unique abilities of rationalization and self-awareness to speculate on all manner of things involving life and death and the human condition. The thought that there is an afterlife in which all injustices will be dealt with is a comforting one, and we don't quite know how it all came about. The thought of reincarnation, where we will get a second chance, is perhaps even more comforting. We don't know exactly where that came from, either.

They could simply be the inventions of a priestly class trying to calm the population and give them hope while instilling fear and obedience.

Or, they could be true. We just don't know.

My own particular brand of Christianity simply avoids questions like these. This may appear cowardly to some, but we simply agree that these are mysteries which will be solved some day for each of us.

Nothing ceases to exist when we die. Death doesn't deal with "things" in the first place. Words like life and consciousness describe processes, not things, and like any other process they can be disrupted. Like any other process, they don't exist so much as they happen. "I" am just something this collection of cells is doing right now. When the temporary system breaks down, they will starve, and die. I'm not a thing which will disappear, I'm a process who will stop.

when you die, your consciousness and perception ceases. simple enough.

but the memory of who you were and what you did and meant survives in the collection memories of the people who you touched in life.

heaven is being remembered well.

the interesting thing is that we are not "designed" to conceive positively of death. Although our bodies wind down eventually and croak, our minds and consciousness don't really want to give up. This is the starting point of all religion. Our horror at ending our consciousness when we die causes us to believe in various religions which each promise us some sort of continuity past death.

the concept of an afterlife plays a very minor role in judaism. it's just not the focus the way it is in christianity, e.g.

Doesn't it seem as though we are all Agnostic whether we like it or not? (In a certain sense)

The definition of agnostic, at least as I understand it, is that the nature of afterlife/what happens after you die/and the spiritual nature of everything, etc.. CANNOT BE KNOWN.. while a person is still alive in this current manner of existence..

Since nobody ever comes back from death to tell the story, I think it's a fair assesment that it truly cannot be known.

The fact is nobody can be 100 percent sure, no matter how strong their beliefs either way, what will become of them after they die.

I am fine with admitting that I truly don't know... however I do lean towards the belief that the death of an earth-bound human is not the end of the story...The more I have learned in alot of the books I've been reading recently and doing alot of thinking on my own...I am really starting to lean towards there being some divine design for everything.... what that is I couldn't tell ya.

-An

Wish I could though sometimes, since the thought of coming back here and going through life all over again is not too pleasant (samsara is, I believe, what the Buddhists call it).

Truth seems to be in the eye of the beholder. If you believe that the mind/soul is simply the result of a bunch of neurons firing in the brain, then I can see how the ceasing to exist idea would make sense, but if you beleive that the mind/soul is something else and the physical world is merey perception, then afterlife/reincarnation/whatever would make more sense.

And either way, all we remember is this time around (thank god, or lack thereof for that). My advise is try to find some joy in the time you've got.

We are all the product of a sexual union between two seperate people, our mother and father- How could our soul have existed prior to that particular conjugation in which the person we are was created?
Is there some invisible ether all around us, teeming with non-corporeal souls, waiting for the creation of a zygote they can catch a ride on?
or are the complete souls already in the egg? or the sperm?

BTW- I believe that's the point you were making, right? whatever it is that defines our "soul" wasn't there before our birth, and won't be there after death.