Poll: Afterlife

[Bassman_2]

The way I see it, it's just wishful thinking. BUT, no one can know for certain, and anyone who thinks they do is just silly.
"But when people come back from the brink of death, they all say the same thing!"
Surprising, seeing as how they're all dieing humans.
-_-
That was sarcasm. If you believe in an afterlife that just makes you care less about your current life, making a potentially self destructive person. I just don't see how anyone can think that's a good thing.
*shrug*

for some you can't go to heaven if you are self destructive, which may be bad for those going through tough times unwilling to drink or smoke ( i would do neither). so believing in a better life later usually keep people from destroying themselves

i got cheesy hands

 

[Ekonk]

There is no god, so there is no afterlife.
You die, you rot. Finished.

Wow, and someone called me a depressing shit.

Sad thing is that everything points in the direction of you being right.

 

[ajb924]

I have a really crazy assumption of what happens when you die. But i can explain it pretty well.
Let's assume i get shot in the head right at this instant, since i believe in the multiple dimension theory, i think i would simply resume life not remembering death in some alternate dimension that is almost the same as this one or my memory's are altered to fit it. It's a bit far fetched but i think thats what happens.
It's either that or reincarnation in my opinion.

Right I've been thinking about this as well. It's technically not afterlife, you just keep on living. I believed Terry Pratchett called it the Trousers of Time; for any possible outcome it grows another pipe. In some of those you will get shot, and in some you won't.

But assuming this, do you think there is an universe where you NEVER die?

I've thought about it, but it brings up too many problems. If there is a universe without death then everyone from the past is still alive, there are so many contradictions, maybe one without murder, but without natural death just seems like too much of a stretch, no way to be sure.
Natural death brings up a point i forgot though. If you die of a natural death then you are reborn automatically. That way you don't keep dying of old age or cancer in the other universes.

One of the more pressing problems of this theory is wether the other you's and me's are actually different persons, as in, have a different consciousness. Or is there only one that is transferred over the different universes? Cogito, ergo sum. But how can I be sure of anyone else?

Also; this shit is getting way too philosophical way too fast.

As much as I love getting quoted and having conversations... You are too smart for me DX You lost me there, sorry!

 

[Arsen]

Death = brain ultimately losing the needed fuel to function (oxygen, bioelectrical energy etc.) When the brain stops functioning unconsciousness is the only result. Therefore, death will most likely be a state of permanent unconsciousness.

But it would be nice if there was something else waiting after death. I'd even settle for going to the christian hell, because... Well, at least it would be some sort of continuation than just a permanent end to everything.

Don't settle for hell.

I don't understand hell either.

There is no action in a limited existence that warrants an eternal punishment.

No matter how extreme.

It may warrant a long ass punishment...but nothing...absolutely nothing...warrants an eternal punishment.

Especially considering in theory the people unrightfully killed were sent to the 'beautiful afterlife' early.

If they were sent to hell then someone signing the contracts for eternal afterlife treatment needs to lose their job.

If I ended up in hell because I wasn't willing to use my brain to the fullest of its abilities then so be it. I'd rather be in hell than living in heaven under the gaze of a tyrant.

But that is assuming the whole heaven/hell thing exists, if there is no hell then my tyrant comment is unfounded, if there is, then it works.

It's not the actions that condemn you to Hell, but your inability to want to walk away from them, a lack of acknowledgement to God, and a lack of spiritual growth. Life is technically a test in some form for us all to grow to meet God.

It's not a matter of "this person can believe because of X reason" while applying the stereotype that those who are ignorant human beings are going to believe more, it's a matter of acknowledging the soul and wanting to meet the Creator behind everything.

You wouldn't be cosigned to Hell for using your brain, you'd be sent there for not believing in God. People try to clump the whole "there is science now" thing and combine it with atheism. Science and Christianity are compatible, it just requires one not to get caught up in the mental traps of the faithless.

 

[theultimateend]

*Walks in slowly with a deep raspy voice*

You rang?

Hehe, if it really was personified by an escapist poster than I'd probably kill myself right now. Obviously death wasn't all that scary as I thought, if that was the case. XD

Name dropping aside...

I think the strongest support for why religions exist is the concept of nothingness. Few things can destroy a human mind faster than solitude, few things create fear in a person quicker than the unknown, and there is no situation I can think of that is more alone and unknown than nothingness.

Likewise I think it has to do with cognitive dissonance...but we'll save that for later =3.

Something like that.

It's wishful thinking that makes people hypothesize a continuation after death, because even the concept of a hell isn't quite as scary as just ceasing to exist completely. Religion gives you an unsubstantiated illusion that you won't just cease to be when you die.

They say most living things have a soul. How can that be when we're not really living things, but just biological machines running on different kinds of fuel? Im no more living than a running engine or a switched on light-bulb. Im just a walking chemical reaction with the ability to realize that sooner or later I'll just dissipate into thermal energy.

Thermal energy don't show signs of cognitive thinking. It's just temperature...

While you certainly look at it less romantically than I do we are basically on the same page.

I was more joking at the fact that you said my username in the first post .

I haven't heard someone say "the ultimate end" in quite a while so I got excited.

Death = brain ultimately losing the needed fuel to function (oxygen, bioelectrical energy etc.) When the brain stops functioning unconsciousness is the only result. Therefore, death will most likely be a state of permanent unconsciousness.

But it would be nice if there was something else waiting after death. I'd even settle for going to the christian hell, because... Well, at least it would be some sort of continuation than just a permanent end to everything.

Don't settle for hell.

I don't understand hell either.

There is no action in a limited existence that warrants an eternal punishment.

No matter how extreme.

It may warrant a long ass punishment...but nothing...absolutely nothing...warrants an eternal punishment.

Especially considering in theory the people unrightfully killed were sent to the 'beautiful afterlife' early.

If they were sent to hell then someone signing the contracts for eternal afterlife treatment needs to lose their job.

If I ended up in hell because I wasn't willing to use my brain to the fullest of its abilities then so be it. I'd rather be in hell than living in heaven under the gaze of a tyrant.

But that is assuming the whole heaven/hell thing exists, if there is no hell then my tyrant comment is unfounded, if there is, then it works.

It's not the actions that condemn you to Hell, but your inability to want to walk away from them, a lack of acknowledgement to God, and a lack of spiritual growth. Life is technically a test in some form for us all to grow to meet God.

It's not a matter of "this person can believe because of X reason" while applying the stereotype that those who are ignorant human beings are going to believe more, it's a matter of acknowledging the soul and wanting to meet the Creator behind everything.

You wouldn't be cosigned to Hell for using your brain, you'd be sent there for not believing in God. People try to clump the whole "there is science now" thing and combine it with atheism. Science and Christianity are compatible, it just requires one not to get caught up in the mental traps of the faithless.

In order to recognize god I quite literally have to disavow the scientific theory.

Because there is absolutely no logical way to justify the existence (or at least belief) of god.

So in order to believe in god I have to 'just because'. Which means I am in one fell swoop shitting on all intellectual thought. Because I am deciding that things exists merely because I think they do.

So no...they are not compatible and yes I am abandoning the full use of my brain.

 

[Cakes]

I don't know, and I'm sure as hell not going to spend this life worrying about what might happen after.
Though, the whole concept of "hell" seems a bit silly to me...I dunno.

 

[Arsen]

The near death experience is because your brain shuts down sequentially .

Basically people see the vivid images of the lowest parts of their brain responding frantically as everything around it shuts down.

People who get knocked out for medical procedures tend to have similar discussions about their experiences.

At the lowest level you are basically just dreaming, most of the sensory responses come from the fact that A) paramedics in many nations respond in the same manner with a light to the eyes and various other interactions and B) you have been told what you will experience so much like thinking about something all day then dreaming about it (something I do all the time) you end up dreaming about it when you nearly die since you've been told for years or decades that that is what you would experience.

Self fulfilling prophecies are fantastic .

I think they showed this in Penn and Teller's: Bullshit! once. The whole "light at the end of the tunnel" crap is nothing but symptoms experienced when the brain is rapidly getting de-oxygenated. They illustrated this by telling that fighter pilots doing g-force excercises in g-force simulator experienced the same kind of "near death" experience. Many claimed to see a "light at the end of the tunnel" as their brain was rapidly losing oxygen. But they were nowhere near dying when it happened, so you can't really claim that the soul was thinking that the body was dying and tried to leave.

Sucks doesn't it? XD

People were technically dead dead however. The brain could not produce "hallucinations" if the persons brain is dead. People have been pronounced dead for long periods of extended time in many cases.

 

[Ekonk]

As much as I love getting quoted and having conversations... You are too smart for me DX You lost me there, sorry!

lol, I kinda lost it as well. Let me reiterate. You think that when you get shot in the head you resume life in another dimension. In your version, was that dimension there before, or is it created spontaneously? And if so, is a new dimension created for every thing that happens to you? Getting shot, not getting shot, getting laid, not getting laid? Or just when you die?

 

[Cakes]

i do, because what if I'm wrong. so what if the atheists are right after I die? is science not gonna let me in? (thats a joke, don't come unglued on me.)

Oh, for fuck's sake, don't even bring up Pascal's Wager.

 

[fenrizz]

There is no god, so there is no afterlife.
You die, you rot. Finished.

Wow, and someone called me a depressing shit.

Sad thing is that everything points in the direction of you being right.

It's not depressing, it's just true.
Why worry, in a thousand years no one will even remember that we ever lived.
That is what I find real depressing.
In the long run, it does not even begin to matter what I do, ever.

 

[Adam]

I don't want there to be an afterlife. I would feel cheated if I suddenly woke up after I died in heaven or wherever the hell you go. Basically my entire life would have been wasted and all for naut, like some great test before fuck all. When I die I want to stay dead so my life had meaning.

 

[Supreme Unleaded]

Yeah, cause I'm a Christian, so I believe that when I die, my soul will go up to heaven, I'll see my loved ones, etc. etc.

I'm just hoping we all get our own little version of heaven. I've always pictured a house for everyone, the size they want it to be, and it has whatever they want inside it. There would be some awesome COD4 tournaments up there, if it were up to me.

Since I can't figure out how to edit my post with this quote short of copy/paste and someone else has posted I'll do this.

Good for you believing in something that others don't and some ridicule. I myself am atheist but you are entitled to your opinion. On the internet admitting religion is very rare.

EDIT: can I come to your cod4 tourney's?

I wanna join to.

While I do beleive in some sort of afterlife i do not belong to any religon. I'm a something atheist according to wikapidia but i can't remeber the damn word. But that would be my vision of heaven, you get excacly what you really want.

 

[Ekonk]

There is no god, so there is no afterlife.
You die, you rot. Finished.

Wow, and someone called me a depressing shit.

Sad thing is that everything points in the direction of you being right.

It's not depressing, it's just true.
Why worry, in a thousand years no one will even remember that we ever lived.
That is what I find real depressing.
In the long run, it does not even begin to matter what I do, ever.

It matters to you, now. Have fun while it lasts!

 

[theultimateend]

People were technically dead dead however. The brain could not produce "hallucinations" if the persons brain is dead. People have been pronounced dead for long periods of extended time in many cases.

In the span of 5 minutes you can quite easily have a dream that feels like it lasted for hours. So in the time it takes someone to 'recover from brain dead' (which I assume is what you are eluding to) they can easily experience all the effects of de-oxygenation or 're' oxygenation if you so prefer.

You'd be opening up a whole new can of worms if you were insisting that nonphysical 'spirits' and physical 'bodies' could interact with one another.

Because the mechanics of which would once again have to exist in a manner of 'just because' which just craps all over every ounce of science that not only allows us to have this conversation but may very well have tied into our own mother's surviving our births (or us surviving our earliest of days as infants).

Though to be fair the US does have a pretty damn high infant mortality rate...but for slightly different reasons.

As much as I love getting quoted and having conversations... You are too smart for me DX You lost me there, sorry!

lol, I kinda lost it as well. Let me reiterate. You think that when you get shot in the head you resume life in another dimension. In your version, was that dimension there before, or is it created spontaneously? And if so, is a new dimension created for every thing that happens to you? Getting shot, not getting shot, getting laid, not getting laid? Or just when you die?

*sees you danging that string*

Oh shit. Someone is popping out some seriously deep theory here!

Run before he steals your brain kitten!

 

[twistedmic]

I do believe in an afterlife both a 'heaven' and a 'hell'. The good afterlife, 'heaven', I envision as a place with eternal parties complete with every alcohol and drug known to man (if you want to use them)video game tournaments, movie premiers. A place where you can visit beaches or forests or spend hours/days visiting with loved ones(also in 'heaven) or people you admired. Basically a combination of all the 'heaven' afterlives from all religions past, present or future.
And 'Hell', which is resigned for truly evil people, is spending an eternity pushing a long row of burning hot metal carts across a never-ending Wal-mart/K-mart/Target/etc. parking lot in extreme weather alternating from 120+ degree f. heat waves, to -120 degree f. blizzards, to cat. 5 hurricanes with rain and hailstorms.

 

[theultimateend]

I do believe in an afterlife both a 'heaven' and a 'hell'. The good afterlife, 'heaven', I envision as a place with eternal parties complete with every alcohol and drug known to man (if you want to use them)video game tournaments, movie premiers. A place where you can visit beaches or forests or spend hours/days visiting with loved ones(also in 'heaven) or people you admired. Basically a combination of all the 'heaven' afterlives from all religions past, present or future.
And 'Hell', which is resigned for truly evil people, is spending an eternity pushing a long row of burning hot metal carts across a never-ending Wal-mart/K-mart/Target/etc. parking lot in extreme weather alternating from 120+ degree f. heat waves, to -120 degree f. blizzards, to cat. 5 hurricanes with rain and hailstorms.

Sounds like you'd fit right in to Greek Mythology.

Well at least with your hell, sounds a bit like the punishments for some of the folks in Tartarus .

 

[Chipperz]

*Walks in slowly with a deep raspy voice*

You rang?

Hehe, if it really was personified by an escapist poster than I'd probably kill myself right now. Obviously death wasn't all that scary as I thought, if that was the case. XD

Name dropping aside...

I think the strongest support for why religions exist is the concept of nothingness. Few things can destroy a human mind faster than solitude, few things create fear in a person quicker than the unknown, and there is no situation I can think of that is more alone and unknown than nothingness.

Likewise I think it has to do with cognitive dissonance...but we'll save that for later =3.

Something like that.

It's wishful thinking that makes people hypothesize a continuation after death, because even the concept of a hell isn't quite as scary as just ceasing to exist completely. Religion gives you an unsubstantiated illusion that you won't just cease to be when you die.

They say most living things have a soul. How can that be when we're not really living things, but just biological machines running on different kinds of fuel? Im no more living than a running engine or a switched on light-bulb. Im just a walking chemical reaction with the ability to realize that sooner or later I'll just dissipate into thermal energy.

Thermal energy don't show signs of cognitive thinking. It's just temperature...

While you certainly look at it less romantically than I do we are basically on the same page.

I was more joking at the fact that you said my username in the first post .

I haven't heard someone say "the ultimate end" in quite a while so I got excited.

Death = brain ultimately losing the needed fuel to function (oxygen, bioelectrical energy etc.) When the brain stops functioning unconsciousness is the only result. Therefore, death will most likely be a state of permanent unconsciousness.

But it would be nice if there was something else waiting after death. I'd even settle for going to the christian hell, because... Well, at least it would be some sort of continuation than just a permanent end to everything.

Don't settle for hell.

I don't understand hell either.

There is no action in a limited existence that warrants an eternal punishment.

No matter how extreme.

It may warrant a long ass punishment...but nothing...absolutely nothing...warrants an eternal punishment.

Especially considering in theory the people unrightfully killed were sent to the 'beautiful afterlife' early.

If they were sent to hell then someone signing the contracts for eternal afterlife treatment needs to lose their job.

If I ended up in hell because I wasn't willing to use my brain to the fullest of its abilities then so be it. I'd rather be in hell than living in heaven under the gaze of a tyrant.

But that is assuming the whole heaven/hell thing exists, if there is no hell then my tyrant comment is unfounded, if there is, then it works.

It's not the actions that condemn you to Hell, but your inability to want to walk away from them, a lack of acknowledgement to God, and a lack of spiritual growth. Life is technically a test in some form for us all to grow to meet God.

It's not a matter of "this person can believe because of X reason" while applying the stereotype that those who are ignorant human beings are going to believe more, it's a matter of acknowledging the soul and wanting to meet the Creator behind everything.

You wouldn't be cosigned to Hell for using your brain, you'd be sent there for not believing in God. People try to clump the whole "there is science now" thing and combine it with atheism. Science and Christianity are compatible, it just requires one not to get caught up in the mental traps of the faithless.

In order to recognize god I quite literally have to disavow the scientific theory.

Because there is absolutely no logical way to justify the existence (or at least belief) of god.

So in order to believe in god I have to 'just because'. Which means I am in one fell swoop shitting on all intellectual thought. Because I am deciding that things exists merely because I think they do.

So no...they are not compatible and yes I am abandoning the full use of my brain.

Steven Hawkins is a Christian, he believes in God AND science, in A Brief Hstory of Time, he specifically says there is a point at which science can no longer explain things and must go to "god did it" (I think. My mind shuts down trying to comprehend half the stuff he writes about - a lot of my understanding of the words on the paper comes from a bunch of professors I had in uni) but no, I'm sure you're smarter and more logical than him.

I think that afterlife works the way people want it to - atheists get nothing, christians get heaven, suicide bombers get to play in a 73-man Magic:The Gathering tournament... Personally, as much of a Christian as I am, I like the idea of Valhalla.

 

[101194]

Ahh, I forgot how to do images, Darn it.

 

[twistedmic]

I do believe in an afterlife both a 'heaven' and a 'hell'. The good afterlife, 'heaven', I envision as a place with eternal parties complete with every alcohol and drug known to man (if you want to use them)video game tournaments, movie premiers. A place where you can visit beaches or forests or spend hours/days visiting with loved ones(also in 'heaven) or people you admired. Basically a combination of all the 'heaven' afterlives from all religions past, present or future.
And 'Hell', which is resigned for truly evil people, is spending an eternity pushing a long row of burning hot metal carts across a never-ending Wal-mart/K-mart/Target/etc. parking lot in extreme weather alternating from 120+ degree f. heat waves, to -120 degree f. blizzards, to cat. 5 hurricanes with rain and hailstorms.

Sounds like you'd fit right in to Greek Mythology.

Well at least with your hell, sounds a bit like the punishments for some of the folks in Tartarus .

I am a fan of Greek mythology, it is my favorite of the ancient mythologies.

 

[G1eet]

Death is but the next great adventure. Yea, I quoted him. Deal.