The idea of an afterlife is just a human emotional response for our ultimate fear, the fear of dying. There is no reason to believe in an afterlife, reincarnation, eternal reward or punishment for anyone. Everyone who ever lived on this earth is dead or will die. Their specific thoughts, feelings, pain, misery, love, hate does not and will not ever exist anymore, and neither will yours when you eventually die.

You're welcome ^_^.

So, doesn't this realization make you feel better now?

If not, then why?

No it doesn't.

I'm suicidal... that is both a cause and a symptom of this possibility.

CaptainOctopus:
The idea of an afterlife is just a human emotional response for our ultimate fear, the fear of dying. There is no reason to believe in an afterlife, reincarnation, eternal reward or punishment for anyone. Everyone who ever lived on this earth is dead or will die. Their specific thoughts, feelings, pain, misery, love, hate does not and will not ever exist anymore, and neither will yours when you eventually die.

You're welcome ^_^.

So, doesn't this realization make you feel better now?

If not, then why?

Then there's no point in life and we should all kill ourselves. I'll begin gathering other for the mass suicide. See you in hel.. oh, wait......

Sure does, there is great freedom and satisfaction in knowing that there is no fixed purpose to life, and that you are hence free to choose your own.

Only arrogant cowards would fear a death that comes after a long live anyway. Such is arrogance because they hope for/expect/demand better than what everyone else have always received, and cowardice because it is fear of something natural that was a basic premise/cost of being granted life in the first place.

Now, premature death (i.e. death inflicted upon you by anything than old age), that is something to fear.

No, baseless, authoritatively spoken claims about unknowable subjects don't make me feel better. Goodbye useless thread.

Bassik:
Don't worry, we will live on through our children.

And by that I mean we swap bodies with them at our deathbed. Body after body, generation after generation... we can live for ever!

You were not supposed to reveal to them that we have that technology. Bassik, you will be removed from the program, your memory wiped, and three quarters of your brain removed in order to prevent any sort of leak. All the people in this thread will submit to voluntary decapitation.

Nothing to see here folks! Move on!

tstorm823:
No, baseless, authoritatively spoken claims about unknowable subjects don't make me feel better. Goodbye useless thread.

I bet you're a barrel of laughs in Church.

Came in expecting trolling.

Got trolling.

Anyways, since I'm a idiot sometimes, I'll bite. I already knew all this. Thank you for wasting thirty seconds of my time.

Batou667:

I bet you're a barrel of laughs in Church.

Based on the traditions of the church in question is still based on something, whether or not you give that something any credibility. A priest doesn't say something is true just because he says so, he bases the authority of his statements on organization he's meant to represent.

This user is not representing anything, he is not speaking from and stable perspective. He is just vomiting statements based completely and entirely on what he thinks.

tstorm823:
Based on the traditions of the church in question is still based on something, whether or not you give that something any credibility. A priest doesn't say something is true just because he says so, he bases the authority of his statements on organization he's meant to represent.

This user is not representing anything, he is not speaking from and stable perspective. He is just vomiting statements based completely and entirely on what he thinks.

All that proves is that people have been believing a potentially untrue thing for a long time. The statement "When you die, that's the end" has a lot more plausibility to it because it fits in with everything we know about what life as a process entails, how the brain works, and so on... and perhaps most convincingly, the fact that we've never reliably recorded anybody coming back to life or communicating with the dead.

It's an unpleasant reminder of our mortality, but is it so contraversial?

No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no!

Fuck, no afterlife scares me. I'm gonna be up all night now, scared that I'm wrong and that at any moment I could just stop existing. And don't say "Well, it won't bother you, you won't exist!"

It bothers me. A lot.

Imperator_DK:
Only arrogant cowards would fear a death that comes after a long live anyway. Such is arrogance because they hope for/expect/demand better than what everyone else have always received, and cowardice because it is fear of something natural that was a basic premise/cost of being granted life in the first place.

Now, premature death (i.e. death inflicted upon you by anything than old age), that is something to fear.

In practical terms though, what constitutes a premature death is highly dependent on the time and place you live in. Seems a bit much to start saying people are being arrogant just because they were born into an era or region with a better life expectancy, and maybe want to improve it.

Well just because its a convenient concept it doesn't rule it out:

There's an entire universe out there, maybe more beyond that, and stuff that the human mind cannot even begin to comprehend, maybe even beyond all comprehension requiring some other type of thought..

Of course I would put the typical after life of heaven/hell as a chance of 1 / Infinity but think of the possibilities of anything happening..

Believing in very specific circumstances I could find a problem with since humans could not know what lies beyond death and considering its unlikely to have anything to do with humans we probably never will.

TL:DR Humans know about as much as life after death as I do about the North Pole 50 million years ago, I know there was SOMETHING there, only I don't know anything beyond that..

Even shorter TL:DR Life is subjective, what you think does not apply to others.

EDIT: Wouldn't it be funny if the afterlife was based on what you though the afterlife would be like, better get working on my imagination...

classy atheist trolling, can't say I'm surprised

Imperator_DK:

Now, premature death (i.e. death inflicted upon you by anything than old age), that is something to fear.

not really, I live my life knowing that every day i have the possibility to die. to fear death of any kind premature or of old age is childish. simply because life is random and we only have limited control over the world, just ourself basically. would it be nice to live to an old age? sure. but if i die "early" i have no fears of that.

Blablahb:
Uhm, all evidence points to the OP being right.

Unless you're going to be the first human in thousands of years, with millions of people failing, who is going to present us empirical evidence of an afterlife. Call me a cynic, but I'm going to say you'll fail at that, and you're the one arguing baseless claims.

Excuse me, sir, the only claim I've made is that the OP's statements are unbased.

Batou667:

All that proves is that people have been believing a potentially untrue thing for a long time. The statement "When you die, that's the end" has a lot more plausibility to it because it fits in with everything we know about what life as a process entails, how the brain works, and so on... and perhaps most convincingly, the fact that we've never reliably recorded anybody coming back to life or communicating with the dead.

1) You added in all that reasoning yourself. The OP does nothing like that. It has no premise to start with, it just said things and left it at that. If the thread was "Death is likely the end because that seems to be how the brain works" there'd atlest be discussion value. It doesn't do that, it just tells you things as though accepting them is obvious and gives a little smiley face to double the troll points.

2) You've chosen to not believe in an afterlife or rising from the dead because there's no evidence of it... but I'm willing to bet you don't believe the stories of Jesus' resurrection because you don't believe in the afterlife or rising from the dead. You discount what would be the evidence because you don't think it possible, and you don't think it's possible because there's no evidence you haven't discounted. It's a tautological stance.

tstorm823:
but I'm willing to bet you don't believe the stories of Jesus' resurrection because you don't believe in the afterlife or rising from the dead. You discount what would be the evidence because you don't think it possible, and you don't think it's possible because there's no evidence you haven't discounted. It's a tautological stance.

So first you invent his stance, then call it tautological?

Oirish_Martin:

So first you invent his stance, then call it tautological?

I said "I'm willing to bet." I qualified my statement, and we'll have to wait for his response to test my gambit.

CaptainOctopus:
The idea of an afterlife is just a human emotional response for our ultimate fear, the fear of dying. There is no reason to believe in an afterlife, reincarnation, eternal reward or punishment for anyone. Everyone who ever lived on this earth is dead or will die. Their specific thoughts, feelings, pain, misery, love, hate does not and will not ever exist anymore, and neither will yours when you eventually die.

You're welcome ^_^.

So, doesn't this realization make you feel better now?

If not, then why?

Think of it this way:
When you die, your body will decompose, various microorganisms, worms, bugs etc. will slowly devour you, making you live through them. Then, those things will die and they will become part of the soil. Thanks to that, plants will be able to grow in that soil. After a while, maybe some animal will eat those plants, then maybe some other animal will eat that animal... and so on.
So in fact, you will live forever :)

Tanner The Monotone:
Then there's no point in life and we should all kill ourselves.

You go first. I'll do it right after you, I promise.

It's a slow day at work and it's always funny to see people making absolute, sure statements on things that they are incapable of knowing about, so I guess the OP did make me feel a little better - although not in the way it was intended.

Blablahb:

Except it's based on evidence for 100% and there's nothing to contradict it, seeing as no evidence for the existance of an afterlife exists.

Where's his evidence? I don't see any evidence in that post.

keiskay:
...
not really, I live my life knowing that every day i have the possibility to die. to fear death of any kind premature or of old age is childish. simply because life is random and we only have limited control over the world, just ourself basically. would it be nice to live to an old age? sure. but if i die "early" i have no fears of that.

Sure, in everyday life the risk is neglectable enough (if ever present), but if somebody held a gun to your head, or diagnosed you with a potentially fatal illness, you'd have good reason to fear premature death. You'd never have good reason to fear death from old age.

Oirish_Martin:
...
In practical terms though, what constitutes a premature death is highly dependent on the time and place you live in. Seems a bit much to start saying people are being arrogant just because they were born into an era or region with a better life expectancy, and maybe want to improve it.

Each era has its life expectancy. What I'm saying is that it's both arrogance and cowardice to not accept that this is the case, that natural death will eventually come. Including by seeking refuge in pointless delusions on an afterlife for oneself and others who are deemed "worthy" by some power that be.

tstorm823:

Where's his evidence? I don't see any evidence in that post.

For one thing, it's a proven fact that physical trauma to the brain can severely alter personality and impact the mind, proving that vital aspects of what the religious would generally call "soul" is tied to and dependant on our physical bodies.

I suppose this doesn't rule out some Buddhist style reincarnation-as-something-else-entirely construct or something, but the idea that our personality and mind persists after the brain is gone is irreconcilable with such empirical observations.

So not only is the idea of an afterlife as oneself an unwarranted assumption no more likely than an infinity of other delusions, it clashes with things which have been empirically observed.

Imperator_DK:

keiskay:
...
not really, I live my life knowing that every day i have the possibility to die. to fear death of any kind premature or of old age is childish. simply because life is random and we only have limited control over the world, just ourself basically. would it be nice to live to an old age? sure. but if i die "early" i have no fears of that.

Sure, in everyday life the risk is neglectable enough (if ever present), but if somebody held a gun to your head, or diagnosed you with a potentially fatal illness, you'd have good reason to fear premature death. You'd never have good reason to fear death from old age.

the only time I've seen people fear premature death is when they feel they have not had a satisfying impact in the world. now if someone held a gun to my head my natural self preservation instincts would kick in and i might be afraid or might become irrational and try to kill the man. i would like to think i would be fine with being diagnosed with a fatal illness, since at that point there wouldnt be much i could do accept it and live the remainder of time as best as possible.

but.... i was looking foward to showing the devil how to do his job properly

Blablahb:
Except it's based on evidence for 100% and there's nothing to contradict it, seeing as no evidence for the existance of an afterlife exists.

As we can't speak to the dead then there is no evidence for an afterlife but equally there is no evidence against it. The concept is a big black hole of unknown that will either be discovered when we die... Or won't be discovered as we our consciousness is as it was before birth. Either way... No evidence for anyone.

The closest things we have are near death experiences but we have evidence that before we die the brain becomes incredibly active and therefore... something happens in our mind, go towards the light etc.
We can look at this activity to exclude the idea of going to the afterlife then coming back as all this activity is you rapidly imagining at a rate, most humans will never achieve twice in their life (or never if it's a bullet to the head).

Comando96:

The closest things we have are near death experiences but we have evidence that before we die the brain becomes incredibly active and therefore... something happens in our mind, go towards the light etc.

It's a natural drug trip. Our brain says "Oh shit, fuck, fuck, fuck!" and floods itself with some yummy chemicals that you usually have to suck a dick or two to get.