Belief in the Afterlife

[Halfcentaur]

I'm an atheist, but I wish there was a way for my mind to continue beyond death. In fact, after a series of panic attacks where I literally felt my mind fading into nothingness as I lost consciousness under the belief I was suffering a stroke, and watching my mother die of a blood clot before my eyes, I'm actually pretty uncomfortable about the awareness you feel while dying. Being aware of your life fading as your body shuts down seems terrifying to me.

As for being dead, I'm not concerned about that. I was dead for an eternity before I was born, and it did not bother me, as Twain once said.

But I've not yet lived long enough to welcome death.

 

[Halfcentaur]

There's more to this than wishful thinking as well. I recall vividly a time when I did consider an afterlife, and it was more than just something I wanted to happen. I've always been skeptical of the afterlife even when I considered it as a religious person because it seemed too good to be true.

But having consciousness and the awareness of a living sentient being, one can also develop the suspicion that "something is going here", there's a sense of agency and purpose humans make the mistake of supposing, I think because we seem to seek out purpose as a behavior naturally. It's a by product of tool making. What can this do, what I can I use it for?

There seems an intuitive sense, however shallow and however founded in the mistake of what things "seem" like to people with identities, that there's something more to our identity than the rest of the natural world. It's an illusion, but it's more than just wishful thinking.

 

[RobDegraves]

Well... I'm best defined as an agnostic but it's a bit more complex than that. Basically, I am often puzzled as to why people have to rush to answer a question without having all the data needed. Theist and atheists often, to me, seem to have an answer when I'm not even sure what the question is exactly.

For example...

Is there a God?

Better question: Define God (s). (Good luck with that one )



Life after death. (More to the point)


Better question: Define life and death. For one thing, it's not life we want after death. It's sentience after death. Does that require life?

Is eternal life even possible. Can we know if it is possible or not?

I think we should answer the little questions leading up to the big questions first. Why people always skip ahead is puzzling to me.

 

[Eric D]

Well... I'm best defined as an agnostic but it's a bit more complex than that. Basically, I am often puzzled as to why people have to rush to answer a question without having all the data needed. Theist and atheists often, to me, seem to have an answer when I'm not even sure what the question is exactly.

For example...

Is there a God?

Better question: Define God (s). (Good luck with that one )



Life after death. (More to the point)


Better question: Define life and death. For one thing, it's not life we want after death. It's sentience after death. Does that require life?

Is eternal life even possible. Can we know if it is possible or not?

I think we should answer the little questions leading up to the big questions first. Why people always skip ahead is puzzling to me.

The position of atheists is that there is not enough data to suggest God or an afterlife exists. That's not really answering a question without all the data, that's acknowledging there is not sufficient data. By default, they don't believe in God or an afterlife. It's not the same as declaring God does not exist, as that would be as useless as declaring unicorns don't exist.

So to the question "Is there a God?" the answer I think most atheists would give is "There is no evidence to suggest he/she/it exists". To the question "Do you believe in God?" the answer would be "No".

 

[Paul2]

If that minority is able to face up to something unwelcome and disturbing when the majority don't have the gumption to do so. Several posters on this thread have doubted that there is any prestige in disbeliving in the Afterlife. Although I'm obviously making a genralization based on my observations of a whole group of people, I don't share their doubts. I think for some Materialists may enjoy this feeling without being able to articulate it. Other's are aware and have the honestly to admit it. For example, Richard Dawkins said in the TV show: Secular Believers: "There's a kind of nobility in knowing that you only have one life..." (See here at 2.32: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkIQz2j4Cb8

Do you have any other evidence besides this? I presume your personal observations are also included in the evidence you're using to reach your conclusion. Anything else?

 

[Paul2]

Better question: Define God (s). (Good luck with that one )

OK, I'll bite, and in two different ways:

1. What the dictionary says.

2. "Define 'define'."

 

[MRC_Hans]

So one could argue, and I do, that not to believe in Life-After-Death is a form of wishful thinking, for the prestige and exclusivity you get from it. This means that if the Afterlife was ever proved to exist that privileged position would all be gone. I'd be interested to know your thoughts.

Without first reading the no doubt excellent answers already here, let me address this. It is a fallacy I have seen in several guises. Believers say things like:

- You don't believe in the afterlife because you don't want to face judgement.
- Do you really prefer to cease to exist?
- etc.

Or like you, - It gives you prestige to show courage (a rather strangely thought out motivation, if you ask me).

However, they/you miss the central point entirely:

What I hold to be reality is not dependent on how I would like things to be.

Of course, we all dream at times, but I am fully (at times painfully) aware that reality does not give a damn about how I would like it to be. Under the right conditions I would certainly like to live forever, I love life, and I find it somewhat scaring that it will just end, but I know that I can't change that by believing something else.

If you believe in the afterlife because you would like it to be true, then it may give you some peace of mind, but you are really only fooling yourself.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

I'd by lying if I said I didn't find the prospect appealing. All I dispute is that we Woo's have a monopoly on wishful-thinking. I think the Materialists have outdone us in that department.

Another example of whishful thinking, I'm afraid. And, I have to say, a very childish form of argumentation: "We may be silly, but you are sillier, nah neh nah!"

- Think again.

Hans

 

[MRC_Hans]

If that minority is able to face up to something unwelcome and disturbing when the majority don't have the gumption to do so. Several posters on this thread have doubted that there is any prestige in disbeliving in the Afterlife. Although I'm obviously making a genralization based on my observations of a whole group of people, I don't share their doubts.

My bolding.

Oh, so you are not here to discuss? Well, why didn't you say so?

Bye!

Hans

ETA: Oh and for your information, we are not a minority. Religious people of all denominations put together may well outnumber atheists, but we certainly don't count as a minirity.

 

[Stomatopoda]

Without first reading the no doubt excellent answers already here...

- Do you really prefer to cease to exist? ...

I'd counter that one with "Do you really prefer not being able to fly like a bird?"

 

[dafydd]

That's remarkable because I dropped out of the 6th Form after 3 months! And as for William Lane Craig, you know I can't abide the man! Did you read my report of the debate he had with Stephen Law in London? I definitely posted it and you replied. I went to his debate at the Sheldonian theatre in Oxford too, the one where he had an empty chair on the stage for Dawkins.
Mock if you will, but I always give reasons for why I think something is true and if you reply I always answer you. If you can find an example where I haven't then let me know. It'll be an oversight on my part.

Please drop the emoticons. This is not a teen site.

 

[dafydd]

I'd by lying if I said I didn't find the prospect appealing. All I dispute is that we Woo's have a monopoly on wishful-thinking. I think the Materialists have outdone us in that department.

Examples please.

 

[Michael C]

The idea of existing forever scares me far more than the idea that my existence is finite.

I agree. If there is an afterlife, I have no reliable information as to what it might be like. Yes, eternal bliss sounds nice, but what about eternal torment? Or maybe just eternal boredom?

 

[MRC_Hans]

I think we should answer the little questions leading up to the big questions first. Why people always skip ahead is puzzling to me.

Already answered, but when did that stop me?

I think you have it upside down.

Why should we bother with the little questions of the big one does not appear to have merit?

Q: Can pigs fly?

A: No.

Do you really think we should start by asking, "would their wings be pink?",
or "define 'fly'"?

Till such time as there is some even remotely credible evidence that an afterlife exists, why should we speculate about the logistics of one?

Hans

 

[Akhenaten]

Afterlife?

Ba humbug.

 

[sphenisc]

Already answered, but when did that stop me?

I think you have it upside down.

Why should we bother with the little questions of the big one does not appear to have merit?

Q: Can pigs fly?

A: No.

Do you really think we should start by asking, "would their wings be pink?",
or "define 'fly'"?

Till such time as there is some even remotely credible evidence that an afterlife exists, why should we speculate about the logistics of one?

Hans

Because without clear definitions people will post stuff like this.

 

[Porterboy]

Do you have any other evidence besides this? I presume your personal observations are also included in the evidence you're using to reach your conclusion. Anything else?

Apart from my personal observations and commentary on what people have said? No. If by evidence you mean we do a controlled psychological study where we profile Skeptics and Materialists, that's not been done so the data is not available. I did suggest it once at a Skeptics conference and the lady on the panel I was speaking to agreed with me that it would be a good idea.

My thoughts come very much from reading between the lines of what Atheo-Skeptics and Materialists say. I reckon that their own judgement of Woo's underlying reasons for believing in an Afterlife is arrived at in a similar way.

 

[Porterboy]

What I hold to be reality is not dependent on how I would like things to be...
...I love life, and I find it somewhat scaring that it will just end, but I know that I can't change that by believing something else.

I know what you mean, and of course ideally most of us would take pride in being rational on this subject, but I suspect that people on both sides of the debate fall short of this ideal. We may well make judgements based on our desires and fool ourselves into incorrect conclusions. My point was that both sides may do this and I've explained that there is an attraction, in social and psychological terms, to both. So when you say here...

If you believe in the afterlife because you would like it to be true, then it may give you some peace of mind, but you are really only fooling yourself.

...I could easily and with just as much justification invert the statement to: If you do not believe in the afterlife because you would like it to be untrue, then it may give you some peace of mind, but you are really only fooling yourself.

 

[Porterboy]

Another example of whishful thinking, I'm afraid. And, I have to say, a very childish form of argumentation: "We may be silly, but you are sillier, nah neh nah!"

Au contraire, I think it's a very mature form of argumentation that can't be undone with perjorative paraphrasing: I've spotted what I see as a double-standard: One side accuses the other of wishful-thinking when there's just as much reason to accuse the side doing the initial accusing of the same thing.

 

[Porterboy]

Examples please.

There is the example I gave above of Richard Dawkins in the TV show Secular Believers. There was a bloke at work, a Porter like me who was also a Theology student (an Atheist one) who said: "We're the only animal species that knows it's going to die, this is why this belief in the Afterlife has arisen!" Another example is a friend of my dad's called Steve who said effectively the same thing, but I can't recall the exact words. However Steve expressed open contempt for those who believe in the Afterlife.

Bascially the reason I've had these thoughts is reading between the lines of what Skeptics and Materialists say. And this "MBA" as I've termed it- "Materialist Bravery Award", has equivalents in other subjects: Like people who boast about the hard life they have to lead etc.

Unlike most of my fellow Woo's I spend a lot of time talking to Skeptics; I go to Skeptic events and conferences etc. I also have a lot of experience of Skeptic forums... perhaps you've already guessed that.