First, before any of your points, atheism and agnosticism are not one-size-fits-all ideologies, unlike organized religion. Atheism and religions have "leaders", but atheism does not have moral and social dictums imposed by one or a select few person: no popes, no priest, no enclaves, nothing. Morality and ethical choice come from the individual, not the group, unlike theists.
Now, speaking strictly for myself since I don't speak for - or dictate to - anyone else:
] 1. Do you believe there is a 'hereafter' another life yet to come after death?
No. None has been demonstrated to exist. And aside from that, the idea of infinite existence would be obscene and drive anyone to insanity if they experienced it.
] 2. Is there such a place as heaven?
If you mean an intangible and unprovable supernatural place, no. If I were to use such a term for an idealized place on Earth, it would be Nirvana, not "heaven" (and it's not a grunge thing).
] 3. Is there such a place as hell?
If you mean an intangible and unprovable supernatural place, no. If I were to use such a term for an idealized place on Earth, it would be a gulag, not "hell". The only "hell" is suffering without end, such as being locked in a coffin-shaped box for the rest of my life.
"Hell is other people." - Jean-Paul Sartre
] 4. Is this present day as good as it is going to get?- Have mankind's best days been lived?
I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and guess that you're a yank. The saying, "May you live in interesting times" is actually not a Chinese proverb, but it is what we are in: a time of upheaval a time where a fading empire, like a giant, is about to crash and fall. That's what's happenning to the US.
Every empire, every society that hit a height of power, of technology, of social growth, always thought it would last forever: the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Minoans, the Greeks, the Phonecians, the Romans, the Mongols, the Ottomans, the christians, the Dutch, the Spanish, the Portugues, the French, the English, the Germans, the Italians, the US.
They were always wrong, and there was always a society that followed it through the same rise and fall. Just because your empire is at an end doesn't mean the world is coming to an end. The only reason the US and USSR fading from the world stage differs from any other is the threat of nuclear weapons which *could* end the world.
There will be revolution and change, and a new status quo will appear where everyone will think theirs is a new panacea and better than the last or any before it.
] 5. Will there ever be an actual end of the world? If so, will nothing else ever happen again or will evolution just start all over?
If you mean the _world_, the Earth, you won't be around to see it, so why worry? If you mean the end of humans, that will come long before then. All animal species fail or adapt; eventually, evolution will change us or wipe us out. By the time the Earth burns in a supernova, we will be long gone whether by our own hands or not, by natural means or man-made disasters (nuclear war, pollution, etc.).
] 6.Was there such a person as Jesus as described in the Bible?
There are forty writers whose works survive from nearly 2000 years ago and NONE make any mention of a "jewish troublemaker" named "Yeshua ben Nazareb" (as the name would have actually been). There is no historical record of any sort to back up the claims of christians.
There was no such person.
There are, however, more than a dozen religious myths which predate christianity and whose stories were borrowed when the early catholic church met in the fourth century to compile their book and invent the story. The christian fable borrows heavily from Heracles, Osiris, Mithras, Buddha, Krishna (the origin of the word "christ" - in Greek, "christos" or "saviour") among many others. The virgin birth and three wise men story of christianity is borrowed almost entirely from Mithraism.
(Hell, there wasn't even an "Exodus", the jews were never in Egypt! The Moses fable is patchwork as well: Ramses was found by the pharaoh's wife, adopted by the king and grew to be the king of Egypt and builder of the pyramid. Sound familiar? Also familiar is the story of Gilgamesh standing on a mountain and Marduk shining light, carving a moral code into stone, except that happened a thousand years before the alleged "Exodus" and "god" giving the "Ten Condiments" to Moses.)
] 7. Do you believe in other life forms such as life on some far away planet?
It is possible that there is life on other planets, but unproven.
You're probably thinking of life as self-aware sentient beings like humans; I and many atheists don't. Single celled amoeba are life, but they don't talk. For all we know, there are millions of planets (some even speculate Mars and Jupiter's or Saturn's planets) which contain primitive bacteria. Just because it can't talk or use radio signals for us to detect doesn't mean it's not alive.
And even if there is sentient life out there, who says that we aren't the first, and that we will never hear them but they will hear our radio and TV signals? People have given up worshipping "gods" and started worshipping "E.T.". 9_9
] 8. Do you believe in reincarnation?..if so, why?
Not you again. 9_9
The notion of reincarnation requires that learned events, memorized by synapses in the brain, survive death. Memories don't even survive a baseball bat to the head that causes brain damage, and that brain has never rotted away and been eaten by worms. How could any thought or idea survive with no physical means to transmit it to another place? The idea is ludicrous.
] 9. What is the single one greatest thing you have that prevents you from believing in God?
Intelligence. If I couldn't think for myself and realize that fanciful notions of the supernatural were nonsense, I might believe them too.
It's one thing to believe, for you to say, "I believe there is a god", but to assume that something is absolutely true without a shred of evidence to sustain the belief is farcical. The "6000 year old Earth" twaddle is as ludicrous as saying the moon is made of green cheese. I'm not fan of catholicism, but their willingness to admit to the big bang and evolution is at least tolerable.
] I know this is a lot to reply to but I am just trying to gain some understanding. Thank You
If you _really_ want to gain some understanding, you will need the ability to accept that you could be or are wrong, and the ability to think from the basis that you ARE wrong. (I would be willing to believe in a "god" or something supernatural if I saw with my own eyes a decapitated body reach out, grab its head, and put it back on its neck and act like nothing ever happened.)
If you are unwilling to put aside your own notions and preconceptions about an argument, you will never be able to grasp what someone else is thinking.
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