Have you ever Considerd eternity?

[Threesan]

My concept of the afterlife is of reincarnation. I believe that as you die, you are reborn, as an animal, or even as something not from earth. You don't have the memories of your previous life, but your "Spiritual makeup" is the same.

To me, eternity is but a cycle.

If you allowed that parts of you could constitute parts of various living things, and perhaps, but not necessarily, include nonliving things; This is continuity as is observed in the natural world, without any metaphysicals. The question is, Is the spirit constructed of the energy and matter that creates the self? Maybe this won't jive with you, but I guess I'm trying to get at that naturalism does not necessarily preclude some form of spiritual fulfillment.

Or, you might say that the beauty of a living thing is not the atoms that go into it, but the way those atoms are put together [http://www.symphonyofscience.com/]. And more than a few other things. If anyone's missed the two three! works of Symphony of Science, take a peek.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

I don't believe in an afterlife. I think that whole concept of Eternity and an afterlife is just fevered dream conjured up by people who were unable to accept their own mortality.

Now, common sense and human logic do dictate this but we are imperfect beings in an entire Universe that we will never fully understand. We are mortal beings who have come to be from seemingly nothing. Our conscience born from our cells as they multiply over and over again. But who are YOU to say that there is nothing after death? Who am I to say there IS?

People believe in God or Karma, Spirits and Ghosts. In my everyday life I feel connected to something that is much larger than I am. I have felt forces that I cannot comprehend.

What I am getting at, is how you put what you believe is very accusing of those of us who do believe in an afterlife. I am fully aware of the possibility that this may be all there is to life and existence but I also would like to believe that there is something more. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you rather think that this is just the beginning of a journey or that you are part of something more? I say be more open minded to different possibilities and not just corner yourself to just one. Stubbornly believing that death is the end of it and not considering the possibility of an afterlife is just as ignorant as the people who follow faiths blindly and believe with all their hearts that they will stand next to God.

You're right that neither atheists nor theists can be certain, though both sides frequently claim it. This is what I find so spectacular about reading Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion, is that instead of saying there absolutely can't be a God, he spends his time pointing out how improbable a God is. Even though we can't absolutely say there isn't a God, we can point out that his/her/its existence is highly improbable. Adherants to new atheism, like myself, can technically be agnostics, but in practice we can act like atheists, because we don't view the question in terms of absolutes, instead we view it in terms of probabilities.

 

[wrecker77]

What do you Consider eternity to be like?

Time is long...

Spoiler

I knew it! When I wrote this thred I said " I bet that xkcd thing is gunna come up. Also regarding the comic, if your not smart and in that situation, your fucked.

 

[skywalkerlion]

Ehh, this kinda belongs in the religion forum.

But anyway, eternity scares me. Alot.

 

[auronvi]

You don't need to worry bout eternity, after death your brain does not function, and what you think of as "you" (your consciousness) will no longer exist, and never will again, so you will not be around to perceive anything.

I don't want to sound like I'm bashing your beleif but come on. Their has to be something! How can you not perceive anything? So what happens to your conciousness. I'm not smart I don't understand.

Consider it like this, from a scientific perspective the relative terminus of the universe is the "big bang" or something like it. This event folds space time, creating vibration/energy, energy is combined into matter. Various forms of matter (created by combining energy in various ways) condense into planets, and because the universe is so big, it is inevitible that on some of these planets the forms into which this matter condenses will be self-replicators. These primitive life forms utilize certain types of matter in their immediate environment to create copies of themselves, and with accidential mutations certain self-replicators evolve which are better at copying themselves than their predecessors. This is the beginning of the evolutionary process.

Skip forward in time to now. Human beings are a product of this evolutionary process, but if you follow it backwards, the implications are simple, human beings are made of matter and energy combined in highly specific patterns. The most unique of these patterns is the brain, a bio-electrical wonder capable of self awareness, feeling, and complex thought. But when a human being dies, these patterns fall appart, condensed matter and energy are allowed to break away, and the pattern which creates being is gone. All the same matter and energy still exists, but because it isn't put together, it can't act as a functional mind. This is how consciousness can end, is because consciousness isn't some tangible thing, it's a pattern created from organized tangible things, it starts when matter and energy are ordered right, and when they cease to be ordered it ends. And it is possible that ultimately the entire universe could end, so that all matter would be broken into energy, which would be unfolded into space time, and this could dissappear into nothingness. But the beautiful thing about nothingness is that, because it is not subject to the rules of causality, it can create again.

This is a beautiful thought of how our entire Universe may work. This of coarse is based on human thought and logic and limited by only what we know as a species. I agree that we have learned a lot about our Universe but there is a lot we don't and I believe we will never know. I live by a motto, "Question everything."

A lot of what you said reminds me of the rubber band theory. Our universe exploded and released all this energy but one day it will contract only to explode again going back and forth for an "eternity." But it's only a theory and there are many more like it. No one will ever be able to say which is how it works.

 

[auronvi]

I don't believe in an afterlife. I think that whole concept of Eternity and an afterlife is just fevered dream conjured up by people who were unable to accept their own mortality.

SNIP

You're right that neither atheists nor theists can be certain, though both sides frequently claim it. This is what I find so spectacular about reading Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion, is that instead of saying there absolutely can't be a God, he spends his time pointing out how improbable a God is. Even though we can't absolutely say there isn't a God, we can point out that his/her/its existence is highly improbable. Adherants to new atheism, like myself, can technically be agnostics, but in practice we can act like atheists, because we don't view the question in terms of absolutes, instead we view it in terms of probabilities.

Now I can see where this lies along the lines of my thought but the flaw for me, though I have not read The God Delusion, I can be fairly certain the the evidence he provides is speculative and based on known knowledge and human logic. I may take the time to ready that book and I thank you for mentioning it. I am not much of a book reader but I am very inquisitive and my brain soaks stuff up like a sponge!

The thought of an afterlife/God is purely faith driven since there is no hard evidence to support it just as there is no real hard evidence to disprove it.

EDIT*Sorry, should have just made it a single post*

 

[heyheysg]

This is in the wrong forum I think.

Back to the topic, I think most religious people have no concept of eternity. Imagine you blinking your eye, divide that time by a 100. Take that period and compare it with the entire human race's time of existence. Eternity is longer than that.

For example
- Christians think that what they do on this Earth for 70 years will affect their fates for Eternity. It's less than a fraction of a blink of an eye compared to the time of the universe, much less eternity.

-They cry at funerals and feel every emotion in between sadness and happiness. If you blink, it's impossible to feel anything for that blink. It's just your eyelids moving up and down.

- They think a 2000 year old book holds the secrets to the universe, which is also part of human history for about 7000 years, also part of human evolution for 1.2 million years, also part of Earth which is a few billion years and the universe, which is even more zeros behind.

2000/ 600000000000 = 0

On the other hand, Buddhism recognises Eternity in a pretty cool way, basically it's all the same shit over and over again until you get over the concept of time itself.

 

[Fniff]

Here is what I believe.

When you die,you still live on.

No,really.

When you rot,your atoms slowly go away,and become part of something else. Thus,you never die. You just switch to something else.

I think this is the scientific afterlife.

 

[Guitarmasterx7]

Well if I cease to exist there will be nothing to perceive eternity with, considering when my body dies my brain dies as well. The atheist view of afterlife isn't just "pitch black forever," it simply is to not be.

Also, I dunno, the religious concept of eternal happiness/suffering is kind of moot in my opinion. Not in the sense of its existence, but more in the sense of its reality in its own respect. Like the example that you gave. "This persons punishment was to be put on a cross, be spun upside down, and be set on fire.
This is the fate of this person day...after day...after day...after day... after day etc."
I figure after a few years, if not maybe a few hundred or thousand years, being spun and set on fire would just be sort of the norm. I mean, yeah, it would probably still HURT assuming in this hypothetical that souls have nerve endings and whatnot, but after a few thousand years you might not even remember what it's like to not feel pain. Same thing with heaven. After your hundred gazillionth orgy it would probably become just as dull and monotonous as the alternative, though it would probably take a lot longer.

 

[ReincarnatedFTP]

Eternity doesn't exist as anyone's lifetime or concept.
Now you do have eternal presence in the sense that my body will become dirt, and a flower might grow out of it, or an animal could eat it along with their food, and so a human eats them and the matter that made me up just gets passed around forever. We're made up of the same matter that made up our ancestors in that sense.

As for what happens in the afterlife, or after death, I believe it's sheer oblivion. Remember what you felt or experienced before you were born? That's what you'll experience after you die.
No wait, no blackness, no darkness. Just nothing.
Some atheists find this depressing and some find it relieving.It depends on how they view it as an individual I guess. I find it kind of soothing honestly, as I won't have to spend eternity getting tortured or living in a little cookie cutter neighborhood where nobody does anything but kneels and praises Jesus.And at the end of all this I get to "rest forever" as it were.

 

[Xanadu84]

Given a finite amount of matter in the Big Bang, accompanied by infinite time, it only makes sense that eventually the universe will reach a state it has been in in the past. At this point, the universe will be cyclical. Therefore, time repeats itself in one giant loop.

 

[Nmil-ek]

Eternity is a far, far worse fate than losing consciousness, any being with a sentient mind if given enough time will go completely and utterly mad I mean what would you do with an eternity I get bored as it is an I have only been on this planet near 21 years. And what would an afterlife offer that would make an eternity worthwhile, eternal bliss well that would be fucking boring and even the greatest of pleasures become dull when you indulge in them enough, strife, war, politics, debate, trying to just get by day by day these are things that make life well interesting.

Speaking hypothetically of course, personally quite clearly I believe we die get shoved down a hole and that?s it and that?s fine by me I intend to get as many miles out of this life as I can and still allot to do/look forward to.

 

[Kpt._Rob]

This is a beautiful thought of how our entire Universe may work. This of coarse is based on human thought and logic and limited by only what we know as a species. I agree that we have learned a lot about our Universe but there is a lot we don't and I believe we will never know. I live by a motto, "Question everything."

A lot of what you said reminds me of the rubber band theory. Our universe exploded and released all this energy but one day it will contract only to explode again going back and forth for an "eternity." But it's only a theory and there are many more like it. No one will ever be able to say which is how it works.

I don't believe in an afterlife. I think that whole concept of Eternity and an afterlife is just fevered dream conjured up by people who were unable to accept their own mortality.

SNIP

You're right that neither atheists nor theists can be certain, though both sides frequently claim it. This is what I find so spectacular about reading Richard Dawkin's book The God Delusion, is that instead of saying there absolutely can't be a God, he spends his time pointing out how improbable a God is. Even though we can't absolutely say there isn't a God, we can point out that his/her/its existence is highly improbable. Adherants to new atheism, like myself, can technically be agnostics, but in practice we can act like atheists, because we don't view the question in terms of absolutes, instead we view it in terms of probabilities.

Now I can see where this lies along the lines of my thought but the flaw for me, though I have not read The God Delusion, I can be fairly certain the the evidence he provides is speculative and based on known knowledge and human logic. I may take the time to ready that book and I thank you for mentioning it. I am not much of a book reader but I am very inquisitive and my brain soaks stuff up like a sponge!

The thought of an afterlife/God is purely faith driven since there is no hard evidence to support it just as there is no real hard evidence to disprove it.

EDIT*Sorry, should have just made it a single post*

It is true that my arguments are based on human knowledge, but they're also based on scientific principles, which have proven to be fairly reliable. To get to the meat of the issue though, my claim is that there are two hypotheses as to why the universe exists (okay, there are a lot more than two, but we need only examine two for the purposes of this exercise). One is that the universe was created by God and its rules have been dictated by him, the other is that the universe began with something like the big bang, and works similarly to the process that I described. The process I described is indeed complex, but it is far less complex than the hypothesis that the universe was created by God. This is because God is a highly complex ordered entity capable of creating, but we only know of one process capable of creating such a being, evolution, so in order for a God to have created a universe either a)there would have to be a universe preceeding ours and God would be one of its evolutionary products or b)the complex pattern of being recognized as God would have to have emerged out of thin air, an event similar in probability to a tornadoe blowing through a junkyard and leaving in its wake a fully assembled boeing 747 (an argument actually stolen from young earth creationists who didn't understand evolution and refitted for the purposes of my argument).

From here I use Occam's Razor, a scientific precept that states that for any given problem, the best solution is the theory that explains the most while assuming the least, in other words, the simpler solution is the best solution. We can then see that both possibilities for the God hypothesis are more complex than the process I described, because one entails the entirety of the process I described plus more, while the other entails a highly improbable event.

We can use Occam's Razor even further, and ask ourselves if the world we live in looks like the type of world a God would create, or at the very least, if it looks like the sort of world a loving God we would want to worship might create. That is, of course, a debatable point, but to quote Sam Harris's book Letter to a Christian Nation "An atheist is a person who believes that the murder of a single little girl-even once in a million years-casts doubt upon the idea of a benevolent God." Needless to say, far more horrible attrocities have occured on this world than the murder of a single little girl, so for people taking my perspective, not only is the God hypothesis more complex, but it also fails to explain all the data, meaning it fails both parts of Occam's Razor. This is why I feel safe declaring the hypothesis highly improbable.

 

[recoverytwo]

I myself know it will never be boring.
i know i will find ways to entertain myself, by roller scating with Ringo Star , or just meeting the Billions of people there. conversation will keep me happy.

 

[eels05]

The idea of eternal torment is blatent scare-mongering.Anyone can see it for what it is.

I've been informed by some learned Christians that Hell is nothing more than a holding area for souls destined for permanent destruction.SO even a portion of the God fearing out there dont believe in eternal punishment.

Just like everything to do with religious belief based on written words,nobody can ever agree on interpretation,and the differences in interpretation can be as dramatic as black and white.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't believe in an afterlife. I think that whole concept of Eternity and an afterlife is just fevered dream conjured up by people who were unable to accept their own mortality.

Now, common sense and human logic do dictate this but we are imperfect beings in an entire Universe that we will never fully understand. We are mortal beings who have come to be from seemingly nothing. Our conscience born from our cells as they multiply over and over again. But who are YOU to say that there is nothing after death? Who am I to say there IS?

People believe in God or Karma, Spirits and Ghosts. In my everyday life I feel connected to something that is much larger than I am. I have felt forces that I cannot comprehend.

What I am getting at, is how you put what you believe is very accusing of those of us who do believe in an afterlife. I am fully aware of the possibility that this may be all there is to life and existence but I also would like to believe that there is something more. Wouldn't you? Wouldn't you rather think that this is just the beginning of a journey or that you are part of something more? I say be more open minded to different possibilities and not just corner yourself to just one. Stubbornly believing that death is the end of it and not considering the possibility of an afterlife is just as ignorant as the people who follow faiths blindly and believe with all their hearts that they will stand next to God.

And I thought I worded that carefully so that it WOULDN'T sound like I was accusing anyone who believed in an afterlife of anything. That's why I put it in past tense, implying that the origin of that belief was a bunch of guys who feared their own death; and not accusing anyone who currently believes that of anything.
In answer to your question, no I wouldn't rather think of this as just the beginning of a journey. Mostly because I've already grown quite weary of this journey. And to be frank, I find the possibility of an afterlife far more terrifying then the idea the death is the end of it.

 

[E-mantheseeker]

I'm Agnostic personally, I just can't imagine eternity either way, heaven or hell, if it's a constant changing world sort of like ours now and everyone seems to be immortal, I could deal with that in heaven. Constant punishment in hell forever, I just wouldn't want to deal with that, although I don't believe hell would actually be like that if it indeed exists. Also, during the time when I was being forced to be Christian, I'm pretty sure I heard part of heavenly eternity involves bowing and praising God...for eternity?!? Ugh...


For those who can't imagine what no consciousness is like, think of it like this: Have you ever slept without dreaming? My theory is that it's just like that forever, you don't really notice when it happens during sleep, so it shouldn't be a problem in death. You don't exist... you just aren't.

 

[IceStar100]

My god reading this stuff makes me think the escapist sign up should come with a life time supply of anti-depressiont. I think of it often to be honest. To me logic says anything but a soul is just not possible. Maybe A group conscience who knows but the everything is abunch of electric currents sounds like the big bang theory. Someone trying to make sense of something that just way beyond there understand.

Now that said watch me get flamed like a gas, cotten, and match factory.

 

[mokey91]

I don't believe the human mind is capable of truly comprehending the concept of Eternity. I know I can't comprehend being tortured forever in Hell or floating on a cloud forever in Heaven...

But I'm Taoist & Buddhist. lulz

And ironically "Eternity" is one of the lyrics in the song I'm listening to right now.

 

[Godavari]

Eternity is something no human can imagine. We are medium-sized beings. We can percieve times from a fraction of a second to a lifetime, but there are timescales magnitudes larger and smaller than those. Our brains simply don't have the capacity to know what eternity entails.
And to answer your question, most atheists believe that you won't percieve anything after you die. The notion of "eternal blackness" is wrong because it makes it sound like we will still have our senses: sight, passage of time, etc. The death experience is probably more like falling asleep. You just don't experience anything, even self-awareness.