How certain are you of an afterlife?

[warpus]

I have a question for atheists though... What would happen if you died and suddenly found out that "Hey, this stuff was right after all!"? (i.e., you find yourself walking around outside of your body)

I suppose the next step would be to figure out which religion was right and which God I am going to meet (if any).

Imagine the embarassment if I came praising Allah but ran into Zeus instead. You do not want to start off on the wrong foot in the afterlife.

 

[Millman]

Ok, I have to try and make this my last one as I'm not remaining serious enough anymore.

>> To atheists, what if an afterlife existed where you viewed your body externally by being a ghost?

Not summon Beetlejooze to get my home back, try to get way more help from the goth kids especially with chores around the place.

 

[El_Machinae]

I'm a bit startled to find that people think of a NDE as a spiritual event. Why wouldn't one think that it's from the same thing that causes a hallucination?

I have a question for atheists though... What would happen if you died and suddenly found out that "Hey, this stuff was right after all!"? (i.e., you find yourself walking around outside of your body)

I guess I'd have to go with Plan B. Plan A had been 'not dying'

 

[Tekee]

Arn't you afradi of Dying though lol?

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Actually, if there is no afterlife we will never know. Rather we will just stop existing at the point of death, at which point there will be no "us" anyways.

 

[Ayatollah So]

Actually, if there is no afterlife we will never know. Rather we will just stop existing at the point of death, at which point there will be no "us" anyways.

Oh good, I was hoping that someone would point that out.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

This implies, of course, that atheists will never get a "see, I told you so" moment against the believers, and that if atheists are right no one will ever know for sure.

 

[angeleyes]

That's exactly the trick of the profiters of believe. There will never be a pay off day.

 

[Truronian]

A bit like Pascal's wager then... but that assumes there is some inherant advantage to believing in an afterlife once you've gone there.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

That is, to be sure, one of the flaws of Pascal's Wager. But it also means that no dead person is an atheist - either they are good and gone and there is no "them" to speak of, or they are in an afterlife, or have been rencarnated - either way they aren't atheists.

 

[angeleyes]

I have a question for atheists though... What would happen if you died and suddenly found out that "Hey, this stuff was right after all!"? (i.e., you find yourself walking around outside of your body)

I would think: OK, fine, that's a surprise, let's find out what's going on here...

 

[Truronian]

That is, to be sure, one of the flaws of Pascal's Wager. But it also means that no dead person is an atheist - either they are good and gone and there is no "them" to speak of, or they are in an afterlife, or have been rencarnated - either way they aren't atheists.

You could also argue that there are no theists in heaven... as belief is no longer an issue.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

That actually makes sense. I don't "believe" in the things I manifestly know to be true. Thus if I have met God I won't "believe" in Him, like I don't say now I "believe" in my parents.

 

[Anunikoba]

If there's no afterlife, then everybody's life is meaningless. Nothing you do will have mattered because you won't reap any benefit from it, and any good you leave behind for others wouldn't matter to them either since they will endure the same fate.

Eat, drink.. be merry, for tomorrow you die. (but there is another way)

 

[mdwh]

If we get an eternal afterlife, then I'd say that makes this life pretty meaningless.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

Unless what happens here influencs who we are in the next life.

 

[The Tollan]

Somewhat like (not entirely in the same way) what apparently is the case with El_Machinae I consider it critical to not enter a state of non-existence (if ceasing to exist can happen) however I do not think the methods of preserving conscious he has planned will pan out.

There are two arguments that I have seen presented against worrying about ceasing to maintain some post-mortem conscious form. One is the statement, "Since one did not exist before one was born it could not be too bad." The second is that, "If one existed perpetually into the future would not one become very bored or perhaps even go insane?"

I am short on time to post so I will rush. The first argument is negated in my view due to the fact that once someone (or at least to some people) exists they often want to maintain their existence. Prior to their existence they had no concept of existing. Against the second it would seem that things could be done for variety. Also, that seems to pre-suppose that one will always exist in the present physical form in which they currently exist. If someone was freed from the fear of ceasing to exist and/or limited time to do all they wanted then the desire for excessive toil would likely be eliminated (if continued existence did not eliminate toil to begin with).

I have not yet decided how to vote in the poll.

 

[Pyrite]

If there was no afterlife how would we be able to master the combat skills necessary to defeat the Jotun?

Silliness.

 

[Homie]

Did everybody miss what Perf said?

Perf, did you just say that you have had an Out-Of-Body experience?

 

[Adebisi]

0%

The curve has a really nice looking distribution though.