Do you believe in an afterlife?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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. 

someone_else wrote: I'll know it when I will have passed away, so I'd say yea. I cannot imagine I am no longer when my body stops performing its vital functions. Some things are too hard to believe. 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.

Of course you won't know it if you cease to exist when you die. If you don't exist you cannot know.

Many things are hard to imagine, but a lack of imagination does not make it true. I can't imagine not existing as how I do I imagine that nothingness? If I try, then I'm observing it and so it's not nothing (I just imagine darkness, but darkness is a quality), but that's a side-point. Nether-the-less I feel comfortable rationally accepting the concept that I will cease to exist. Can you imagine not existing before you were born?

As for such platitudes as RIP, it's just used as an expression by many irregardless of belief or lack there-of. People employ such idioms. I'm sure to some it means that that person is no more as an entity. Death is often regarded as the deepest of slumbers, even if it's not sleep, in an analogous to sleep fashion. It relates again to what one can imagine. Imagining nothing, even the nothing of not having the imaginer to imagine it, would present a challenge.

I still say things like "Bless you", and even "God damn you!" at times despite being an atheist.

Such idioms persist long after we do, I would say, and we absorb such terms (inculcation, learned behaviors, ritualistic language).

Edited by Logan - July 24 2020 at 10:17

Catcher10 wrote: The real question is......If you have no evidence to prove otherwise, because nobody knows the answer, why do you chose to say No? Fear....?

I say "no" because I'm an not convinced that there is an afterlife. As I said, it does not require certainty, and knowing something is not synonymous to me as believing something. What is the fear thing? I wish there were an afterlife, at least a nice one. I do not believe in fairies, is that fear, no? If we discover fairies then my belief will change. I believe that which I feel I have sufficient reason to believe. That doesn't mean that what I believe is is necessarily true, of course. My beliefs are subject to change as new evidence presents itself, and I am ignorant when it comes to most things. And as aside-note, though I thought this would be obvious from what I've said: Someone saying "No, I don't believe in the afterlife" does not necessitate that person to conclude "I believe that there is no afterlife". That presents a false equivalence fallacy.

Maybe you would expand on your thoughts to present an argument. Why would one assume that it's fear, or that that is the "real" question?

Edited by Logan - July 24 2020 at 10:42

Yes, wholeheartedly