Is there Life after Death?

[Diogenes]

Irrespective of one's religious beliefs there are powerful reasons to believe our consciousness will continue after our bodies die. I suggest even atheists may find it difficult to believe death results in absolute non existence, that we, our sense of self, our consciousness, our sense of being is completely extinguished. On a personal note, intellectually I believe we the 'soul,' our consciousness, is absolutely extinguished when the body dies; however, I confess this is hard to accept... and terrifying.

Mark Twain wrote,
"I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
I agree with Sam Clemens, yet....

So... that is the question for debate, "Is there life after death?

[Miles]

Irrespective of one's religious beliefs there are powerful reasons to believe our consciousness will continue after our bodies die.

Reasons don't count where evidence is needed. Got any? And I don't mean religious tales and fables.

I suggest even atheists may find it difficult to believe death results in absolute non existence, that we, our sense of self, our consciousness, our sense of being is completely extinguished.

Obviously a suggestion born of incredulity, but OK. And speaking as an atheist, I don't recall any atheist ever saying there's anything after death.

So... that is the question for debate, "Is there life after death?

Because there's no reasonable evidence for it, I'm saying NO.

.

[Diogenes]

Irrespective of one's religious beliefs there are powerful reasons to believe our consciousness will continue after our bodies die.

Reasons don't count where evidence is needed. Got any? And I don't mean religious tales and fables.

I suggest even atheists may find it difficult to believe death results in absolute non existence, that we, our sense of self, our consciousness, our sense of being is completely extinguished.

Obviously a suggestion born of incredulity, but OK. And speaking as an atheist, I don't recall any atheist ever saying there's anything after death.

So... that is the question for debate, "Is there life after death?

Because there's no reasonable evidence for it, I'm saying NO.

.

Thanks! I should have realized "...there are powerful reasons to believe our consciousness will continue...." was at best ambiguous.
I should have written "...powerful emotional reasons to believe our consciousness will continue...."
I completely agree there is no evidence consciousness would continue, AND there isn't even a theory as to how this could happen, absent belief in magic.

[TRANSPONDER]

Emotional desire (explicable in terms of survival instincts) is not good evidence. Anecdotal tales (which includes NDEs) are not really good evidence, either. There are just too many rasons to think they happen in the head, despite strenuous efforts to prove it must happen outside the head I have not seen any really good reason to think so.

Discussion of afterlifes as a feasible hypothesis, ranging from heaven and hell through bubbles of bliss bouncing through the bosom of Abraham to sentient web of electrons drifting through space, thinking stuff and trying not get bored after two billion years, amounts to nothing persuasive, let alone convincing and, tempting though a bespoke personal aferlife might be, thanks, but I'll take oblivion, or Nirvana, as the Buddhists call it, not realising that atheism offers it for free without having to tie your legs in knots.

[William]

[Replying to Diogenes in post #1]

It is unusual to read an atheist doubting that death is the end of the individual personality.

However, one does not have to lack such belief in order to be an atheist, so one shouldn't be surprised at the unusual though I will admit at never having met someone calling themselves an atheist who also thinks that there is more to experience as a personality after their body has died.

Christian mythology varies so I find it serves me well to invstigate the subject without resorting to belief in supernaturalism which is prevalent in much religious mythology, so i study ndes and oobes and have found that if we do survive the body death, we enter into the realm of mind and that mind doesn't need to be thought of as supernatural...it appears to be a very natural experience which has attracted religious mythology as part of the reaction to such experience.

I think there is more to experience when my body finally dies. But I view it as life after life...as I think of myself as a Ghost having a teporsry experience as a human.

[Purple Knight]

It is unusual to read an atheist doubting that death is the end of the individual personality.

It's not unusual at all, and all those ambiguous people in surveys who statisticmongers use to distort the facts, usually actually believe in some sort of spirit or afterlife, but not any gods. I think they have reservations about calling themselves atheists, though.

I became an atheist because I think it's silly that we all float around after we die, but this is the more unusual case because I'm unusually pessimistic. Your average human errs on the positive side and finds it easier to believe in the idea that we don't actually die, than the idea that something up there is judging us.

[William]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #6]

It is unusual to read an atheist doubting that death is the end of the individual personality.

It's not unusual at all, and all those ambiguous people in surveys who statisticmongers use to distort the facts, usually actually believe in some sort of spirit or afterlife, but not any gods. I think they have reservations about calling themselves atheists, though.

Are you suggesting that those who doubt that death is the end of the individual personality, hesitate to call themselves "Atheists"?

[Purple Knight]

Are you suggesting that those who doubt that death is the end of the individual personality, hesitate to call themselves "Atheists"?

Yes. I think there's a stigma that atheists don't believe in the supernatural, mainly because prominent atheists adopt that belief set because it is stronger.

New age spiritualists could be asked, "Well, if you believe in souls, then why can't god exist?" and they'd have nothing to say. The one or two I've interacted with don't want to debate like that, but can't really believe there's a mean bearded man up there being judgy, either.

[William]

[Replying to Purple Knight in post #8]

Are you suggesting that those who doubt that death is the end of the individual personality, hesitate to call themselves "Atheists"?
Yes. I think there's a stigma that atheists don't believe in the supernatural, mainly because prominent atheists adopt that belief set because it is stronger.

I am not referring to any form of Supernaturalism when I write that I think there is more to experience when my body finally dies.
I view it as life after life...as I think of myself as a Ghost having a temporary experience being human.

Further to that, I don't think of it in that we all "float around after the container reaches it's use-by date..." as if doing so would be any more silly than "floating around" as we currently are.

Or as Bob said it.
"People don't live of die - people just float."

I take that to mean "people" are ghosts/minds.

By all accounts, there is more to it than simply aimlessly floating - if that is what you are implying because, yes...that would be silly - in this or any other situation we may find our"selves" further floating in.

[Diogenes]

I am not referring to any form of Supernaturalism when I write that I think there is more to experience when my body finally dies.
I view it as life after life...as I think of myself as a Ghost having a temporary experience being human.

I do not understand the distinction between belief in gods vs ghosts. Belief in either requires subscribing to some supernatural process, likely the same one for each imagined entity.

I believe in neither because I see no evidence of either.
~~~
Regarding the fact we have an emotional or psychic reflex to believe our consciousness will continue, I see that impulse as an argument against the idea of gods and an afterlife; i.e. the feeling that life will continue is an argument against the idea that gods, ghosts, and consciousness continuing after the body is destroyed. Our need to believe explains why we believe. It does not justify rational belief.

As mentioned, I see no theory or explanation of how gods and ghosts exist. I've never heard of one. No one has ever even suggested the barest framework upon which to build such a theory... unless you stoop to using those frequent and vacuous claims of "cosmic energy" and "mystery."
Just as we can understand (in general) how AI can appear to reproduce (or improve upon) the product of human consciousness, we can understand how conscious emerges from the trillions of interactions between the billions of neurons of the human brain.
But we have no theory to explain how such organic consciousness continues after the destruction of those neurons.

Not that there's a connection, but...