Do you believe in an afterlife?

someone_else wrote: By the way, why do all those who don't believe in an afterlife post RIP's in the RIP thread ? Someone who is no more does not rest either.

I use all the vocabulary and phrases I know whenever/wherever I see fit. Sometimes out of courtesy, sometimes for wishing condolences etc. 

"I think that when you die your soul goes to a garage in Buffalo." -- George Carlin

Why wasn't "possibly" a choice? I don't know anything as a fact, either way.

Edited by SteveG - July 24 2020 at 09:39

No, I don't believe there's life after ProgArchives, and on the subject of "resting in peace", I don't believe Oliver Reed, Richard Harris, Richard Burton & Peter O'Toole are resting in peace, given their reputations for hell-raising during their boisterous and rambunctious lifetime's.

I do not.  I would like to think that the heaven depicted in Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey and other movies could exist, but realistically I don't believe that anything like that exists.  And I know that with that attitude after I die I will be reincarnated and come back as a dung beetle.

I don't feel the need to include an "unsure" or "other" option, though I expect that some would like to have that option. I;m me interested in what people have to say than poll results anyway. Answering yes or no does not require certainty. I don't believe that I can be certain of anything, and I am ultimately agnostic on all matters, which does not mean that I don't believe or am not convinced when it comes to many things.

While I don't believe in an after life, that there is something positive "post death" would please me, perhaps not so much an after-life, more a sort of après-vie (to reference Douglas Adams).

Often people say rest in peace, but I don't want to want to rest in peace. I'd rather raise a little hell if it comes down to it. I would rather celebritas ad maximus (party to the max) than requiescat in pace.

Or generally be dead and loving it.



I have had various experiences that have swayed me into the there is something more camp at various times (I mean there is something more in some sense, but it depends upon what one means by something more). At times I have believed that our consciousness, or some such thing, spirit some would call it or a coherent energy, does continue in some form. Ultimately I don't know, but I do not believe so nor am I convinced that it does not. I see consciousness and personality as a product of the brain, and when the brain dies, I would not see why it would continue, but in another sense when thinking of the concept of energy of mind -- at least we need energy for the brain to function even if the energy is not mind itself -- there is the law of conservation of energy. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but transformed. A sea change into something rich and strange to go all Shakespeare. I don;t feel that I have good reason to believe that the pattern that make us us in a meaningful way continue after brain death. Some take it as a matter of faith,which can simply mean that I believe this despite having good or sufficient evidence to support my conviction. Or as described in the Bible, "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

And to go with more Shakespeare, "There are more things in heaven and Earth ... than are dreamt of in your philosophy."



Sorry, I know that I haven't posed this as well as I could. With yet another mostly sleepless night, I do so wish that I could rest peacefully. Insomnia is a drag and I get it to the extreme. At least it gives me very long days and more time to waste.