Atheism

No dust dirt and worms for us after we die.

We won't experience that or ANYTHING.


Are you distressed by your condition before you were conceived?

Seed asks:

Do I care? Nope. But I don't want to give a flip answer to your important question, so :

What matters is this life and how I live it. I seek to live joyfully, open and giving when it comes to love, fair and thoughtful when it comes to justice and curious, always curious, about this complex existence.

What happens after death is the living grieve for the dead, for the dead were part of us in ways we don't always understand at first. I hope to live my life so that when I die, people grieve over the loss, as I do, and have done for so many who were in my life.

What I hope they miss most is my laughter.

Seed: There is no such thing as asking too many questions. There are flip and contrived answers or answers which are full of fear. Ignore the people offering them.

Joe(It would be better if they would just say 'I don't know.')Nation

I'm not talking to Spurious, i never do, get off my goddamned back.

Seed, when people ask a question about the afterlife, my response is--although i should better by now--always to be amazed that anyone takes the idea of surviving death seriously. Now, it might be possible that some manifestation of the psyche survives death--although i doubt it, and if it did the question of energy suggests it wouldn't last too damned long--but there is no reason to assume so on a basis of superstition. It such a thing did occur, it would be potentially describable in naturalistic terms, even if we cannot now explain such a thing.

I think the human brain is incapable of constructing a thought which represents its own non-existence (because only the absence of such thought would accurately represent the condition, and the brain can't produce an absence of thought). Because of this, most people fill in the void with the only representations they are capable of forming (other versions of their own consciousness). The only other option is to simply accept that you can't know what it's like to not exist, and to not even attempt to model it or anticipate it.

I like the answers so far, especially dlowan's and Joe's. I think this life is it, and so I want to make the most of it.

I very much care about dying -- I don't want to. Nor do I want the people I love to die. But I simply don't think that there's anything afterwards, so "caring" doesn't really come into it. The idea of an afterlife is a nice one, but if I don't believe in it, I don't believe in it -- I can't will myself to believe in it simply because it would be nicer if it were true.

The very thought of ceasing to exist makes my blood run cold. I know that
there has already been a time when I did not exist, but I can't draw much
comfort from that. This bubble of consciousness that is me exists now and it
doesn't want to pop.

So I embrace the wonder of this conscious existence and, as others here have
said, try to make the most of this life. "To love that well which thou must
leave ere long."

Every night I go to sleep with no guarantee I will wake, but I go to sleep
anyway. It's funny, I have no idea why I find that thought comforting, but I do.

I'm a little confused here, because of something which another member told me, so please excuse my asking you outright, George.

Are you atheist, or would others describe you that way?

I'm not an atheist, but this topic interests me so I am trying to contribute in a
positive way without bringing in the God thing.

Think of me as not enrolled, but auditing the class.

I don't believe in God... but this does not make me an atheist.

The points being raised are superficial in that they refer to individual ideas which have an importance commensurate with the proportion of the individual in relation to the aggregate of individuals.

The question is how to organise a society of atheists. It is as easy to be an atheist in a religious society as it is to enter a social function naked or to bring off any other effect which will cause a stir.

One might choose to sit quietly in one's room naked but to go into society in that state is to encourage others to do the same. Just so, the proselytizing of atheism.

Hence the question arises of whether the promoters of atheism wish everyone to become atheists, as they must do, and they need to then present the advantages of that over the arrangements currently in operation. If they are not prepared to offer arguments in that direction it is reasonable to suppose that creating a stir is their only motive.

We can then get on with some serious business and discuss a USA containing 301 million atheists and what we think will be the consequences.

Setanta has neatly pre-empted the question by simply pretending it has not been asked and smearing the questioner in advance by giving him a name of his own choosing and which he has been using for the same purpose for years. That he then comes on here whinging and whining about being insulted is a matter for consideration.

We can only conclude that anyone who disagrees with him can also be labelled in a similar fashion, as he has done to others, even Jesus.

Why not?

A recent quote from A2K's esteemed creator regarding Setanta-



And there is more of a similar nature on the What the Bloody Hell thread.

Not me (but am I a promoter? who knows).



Of course not.



Consequences? Mostly cosmetic. Probably a bit less public praying and Goddiness (Pledge of Allegiance et al). Nothing too deep/ consequential.

I'm atheist/ agnostic (and I say both because I think that's what ebrown may be getting at -- atheist can mean "without religion" or "anti-religion," I'm the former), and am sickeningly moral. Religion is simply not necessary for morality to exist and flourish even.

That doesn't mean anything soz. What morality? Who for?

What would life be like in America if everyone were an atheist? What an interesting question and the questioner ought start his own thread to ask it. So it could be fleshed out.

Meanwhile, a warm welcome to George.

Joe(George is my friend.)Nation

I think not. The consequences would be dramatic.

Yes--it is an interesting question and I am not going to fall for an invitation to ask it in a back room. This is a perfectly reasonable place to bring the matter into the light.

Thank you.
Now get out there and do some mileage.

It's fair question. I'll offer my thoughts.

I do care. I care no less than the theist. In recent years, I've become much more fatalistic. I less and less am romanticized by the notion of living on in some form forever. I say, let me have 80 years of life. Let me get in as much love and friendship as I can fit in there, and anything over that will just be showing off.


I spend a great deal of time thinking about the possibilities. I tend to look at one counter example the most.

At what point in an afterlife, would you cease to exist?

In 1910, Ted dies at the age of 85. The year is now 2010, if Ted continues to exist, they will have now existed in the ethereal longer than they ever did in the corporeal. At this point, the majority of Ted's existence has been while being dead. We're not even talking eternity yet, we are talking one century. Now imagine the year is 102,010 AD. Ted's living existence at this point is virtually negligible. What Ted is, is now shapeless in my opinion. If there is some meaningful experience in Ted's afterlife, at this point what value was his existence while he was alive? I can't imagine that 100 billion years after I die, I'm going to focus on the 80 years I'm alive. If we don't focus on the time we were alive and the relationships, the names we had, our residual self image we created, then how is it that what Ted is will still exist?

I simply have no desire to live forever. I feel that living as much as possible now, is the only way I'll ever exist. I feel like the idea of an afterlife robs us of our existence. If existence is a rental, I'm cool with that. I feel like we're all renting, and some of us are saving to buy a house that isn't built or for sale.


Yes. Let nature reclaim me.

T
K
O