Is there life after death?

but...what if there is an afterlife?

I know you don't, just saying.

Everyone goes to Heaven. That's the only thing that makes any sense to me.

Having researched the subject extensively, and learning that
1: the concept of the 'soul' being responsible for ones actions and self, the soul being a separate entity from the body, was founded in a time before there was any real knowledge of the physical brain.
2:It has been conclusively proven that nothing mental happens without a physical process in the brain preceding it.
Has left me with no rational conclusion other than the mind can't exist without the body, which leaves the idea of 'afterlife' untenable.

My idea of Heaven is nothing like the Christian idea. It isn't a place. There are no souls or spirits hangin' out. Nothing at all but pure consciousness.

Doktor.....if you are a god, then what is satan to you? Wouldn't he be your Lord and master?


Wanda

No.
Satan is the essense of rebellion against stupidity. Satan is the dark uncaring carnal energy that permeates the universe. Satan is the adversarial spirit.

oh, ok then.

Hey Dok--

What would you say is the main purpose, or goal, of an autotheist? You know, like do you seek peace with other people? Is it mainly about self-protection? How does an autotheist view other people? Are they real, etc?

Purely dependant on the individual. The only common goals are ration self interest, intellectual, physical and emotional well being as well as stratification , survival of the fittest, and responsibility to the responsible..

Peace? Only so far as I don't wish to personally be fighting battles 27/7, but conflict is what brings forth progress. Peace has only ever brought stagnation.
Self protection?That is everyones 'goal'.
People real? Sure, all evidence points to yes. Existant, but not inherantly valuable.

Soren Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Jaspers, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Paul Edwards contributed to the interesting theory about how it would feel when we cease to exist. The world [to us] would become nothing. Our emotions, our problems, and civilization would become nothing to us. To better illustrate this concept, death is deemed as this: I remember many times when I come home at night, extremely tired from work. After taking a shower and eating a warm dinner, I go to bed. When I close my eyes for a little while (it seems like little while to me), I open them and find out that it's already morning. According to this theory, death is just like going to sleep, when we close our eyes and lose the concept of time and space, where the subconscious isn't active. The only difference is that when we die, we won't be waking up the next morning. We would only experience nothingness.

Quite so!

I don't know why people are always assuming anyone who believes in evolution is an atheist.

For me, considering evolution brings me so much closer to God than the fable in the bible.

Afterlife. I hope so.

People who have "died" and seen the light, etc.
I was upset when it was showed this experience can be reproduced in the lab.

Like boom said, we are energy, we cannot be destroyed, just become a different form.

Even if our energy is converted into loam for a blade of plant life, we still exist.

But, as I said, I hope for more.

That book sounds interesting, will have to keep it in mind.

I do.
ignorance
Most of these same people will be quick to ask you 'so you think we came from monkeys? well why are there still monkeys, then?' and 'you think we came from a rock' (by rock I assume they mean organic soup, and that isn't even a theory posited by evolution anyway, that theory is call abiogenesis and is completely separate)

well, yeah, you're right in the ignorance part...they are the same people who somehow think that there is some type of game plan as far as evolution, as in .....

ok duckbill platypussy, we're well on the way to perfecting that bill, but could you try to have offspring who's nostrils are just a little bit higher? The plan is to get you into deeper water.

Or, the notion, that all evolution somehow ends with us. "Well, here we are human, 2006 edition, no place to go from here. Lester, stop the evo machine. Let's go to lunch, I'll treat."

I think we both can agree that the problem generally lies in the 'creationists' misunderstanding of what evolution is, in some facet or another, no?

Jason Proudmoore, do you think we could--in our "state of death"--experience nothingness?
Wouldn't that suggest that there is--after dying--a SUBJECT (an "I" or "we") to have the experience of a non-existent OBJECT-of-experience; in this case nothingness?
To me, it is most likely--at least based on my experience--that once dead there is no subject to be in a "state of death." We are, after death, what we were before birth, and that I cannot begin to relate to because there was no "me" to be not-yet-born.

According to this theory, death is not a state; death is a permanent condition of not being. While dead, we won't be conscious of our own existence. We'll experience nothingness, the same as when we're asleep.

Jason, you missed my point COMPLETELY. You say that death is not a state, it's a permanent condition (of not being). Can you tell me what is the difference between a "state" and a "condition?"
You also insist on the existence of an experiencer after death: "we'll experience nothingness". I grant that you are trapped by language, by its insistence on a subject-predicate structure. But you fall into the trap too willingly.

One of these philosophers said that death isn't a state; it's a condition. I can't remember who said it.
I just have to go back to my notes when I get back to the US. You may be right. I fall too willingly into the "trap." But I can't help it.

The following isn't an exact explanation of the definition between "state"and "condition" that you're looking for. But it gives an idea of what I meant (or not).

If death is a state of nonexistence, then it cannot be a state in which we are sentient or aware, and so, it cannot be a state in which we feel any sort of pain (including, any sort of mental anguish like remorse, regret, longing, or a feeling of being left out). But then, if there is no pain, then death holds nothing bad for us, and if there is nothing bad for us, then there is nothing to fear. The main argument (lines 860-866) is this:
(1) Death is a permanent condition of non-existence.
(2) In the condition of non-existence, one is not a subject having experiences and, hence, one feels no pain.
(3) A condition is to be feared only if one is there to experience it (e.g., only if there is some probability of feeling pain in that condition or as a result of that condition).
Therefore,
(4) Death is not to be feared

I agree with that position, and it is good news, indeed. It means that we do not have to sell our minds (what theists call souls), our freedom of thought and intellectual honesty while IN THIS WORLD to any fantastical "faith" that promises immortality in ANOTHER WORLD (I'm thinking of the temptation posed by Pascal's Wager).

It is interesting to note that this "condition" of non-existence must be the condition of something that DOES exist like the "Universe", the "Cosmos," True Reality, etc. (whatever it is that the terms are intended to stand for). When you die, the Universe will in the condition of not having a live Jason Proudmoore. But YOU will not be in the condition (or state) of not existing.
It is my intuition, right or wrong, that I AM my experience. I do not HAVE experiences, since the "I" that supposedly HAS experience is only another experience, not something outside of experience (i.e., a transcendental SUBJECT of experience). Therefore upon my death (see how I am also trapped by my language), all "my" objects of experience go "with me", including the experience, the illusion, of "me."

I reached the same conclusion. The soul/spirit/mind is a projection of the brain and has no independent existence, much like a movie shown on a theater screen or the images on my computer. The movie does exist outside of the storage media (film/tape/DVD) and the projection system. "I" am nothing more than the experience of neurological systems continully processing sensory data and accessing memories. "I" cease to exist when the brain is inactive, and cannot exist in any sense without it.