how can atheists think nothing happens after you die?

Question

*NOT TRYING TO OFFEND ANYONE!*
So I'm a Christian and I think heaven comes after you die. Muslims think something else. Other religions thinks other things. Most Atheists think nothing happens. I don't get that. What do you think happens to your mind. like everything just shuts down and life is over. I guess thats "logical" but what happens to your thinking and your spirit? It just shuts off and thats the end of Johny or something? I don't know. I guess things like this just boggle my mind. Ya know how you talk to yourself and think to yourself right? What happens to that? I know people might say "it just stops thinking" and once again thats "logical" but I don't get how anyone's mind can just stop. And even if there is no after life and I'm wrong, I'm glad I believe in heaven now so that when loved ones die I can think that they are in a better place and that all will be well and I will see them again. I'm glad I believe in heaven because I know that eventually in a long long long time that after I have lived out my life, I will get to go to that wonderful place and see everyone I've lost. It gives me hope.

BONUS QUESTION: What do you as an atheist/or what do you think atheists, think people are for? Religions believe people on this earth for a reason, so what do atheists think. I'm not sure if I've worded this how I want, oh well

Answer 1

"how can atheists think nothing happens after you die?

*NOT TRYING TO OFFEND ANYONE!*"



Too late. Surely you could have worded your question is a less accusatory tone. But christians never seem to notice how rude they are to others - and yet are so quick to take offence when it bounces back.



"So I'm a Christian and I think heaven comes after you die. Muslims think something else. Other religions thinks other things."



And they can't all be right. But they can all be wrong.



" Most Atheists think nothing happens. I don't get that."



By which I assume you mean "I don't like that". I assume you don't mean that the concept that "nothing happens" is diffcult to understand. What did your existence feel like ten years before you were born? Like that.





" What do you think happens to your mind. like everything just shuts down and life is over. I guess thats "logical" "



It is indeed, logical, it follows directly from not assuming that there's anything supernatural going on, just because it's comforting to do so.



"but what happens to your thinking and your spirit? It just shuts off and thats the end of Johny or something? I don't know."



Correct, your brain (the thing you think with) stops working, and you don't think any more. Exactly as you experience with sufficient general anaesthetic, even your sense of the passage of time is gone.





"I guess things like this just boggle my mind. Ya know how you talk to yourself and think to yourself right? What happens to that? I know people might say "it just stops thinking" and once again thats "logical" but I don't get how anyone's mind can just stop."



So your lack of imagination is an argument for an afterlife?



[If you unplug a fridge, how can it just "stop"? Have you never experienced general anaesthetic?]



What you have to this point is called "argument from personal incredulity". It is a well-known logical fallacy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance#Argument_from_personal_incredulity





" And even if there is no after life and I'm wrong, I'm glad I believe in heaven now so that when loved ones die I can think that they are in a better place and that all will be well and I will see them again."



WHAT? "even if I'm wrong, I am glad that I can pretend something that won't happen if I am wrong will happen anyway"



So rather than believe in what's plausible, you'd rather believe what's comforting. If you find a strange lump one day, you'd choose to believe it's not cancer, because that's disquieting, and it'd be much nicer if it wasn't?? I'd get myself to a doctor and get it checked out - because maybe, if I deal with reality, I can do something about it that I can't do if I pretend that what's making me uncomfortable is isn't there.



I prefer to believe things because they're believable, not because they're comforting.



People that believe false-but-comforting things often do HORRIBLE things to other people in order to maintain their "comfort".



Excuse me if I don't find that respectable. In fact, to be honest, I think that's downright evil.



The "belief in something because it's comforting" is another logical fallacy ...



- arguement from emotion (specifically, wishful thinking)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_emotion



and also, since you find the alternative unpalatable, this related fallacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisdom_of_repugnance



"It gives me hope."



So false hope is better than making the best of the actual situation?



Sheesh, I hope I'm never on the Titanic with you, you might do, well, *anything* to feel comfortable rather than deal with the sinking ship.



Oh wait, I am, only it's called the Earth.





I'm sure the thought of Paradise was comforting to the 9/11 hijackers, too. But I doubt they found it.



Are you really so sure that believing something because it's *comforting* is actually a good idea?

Answer 2

All right, I'm an atheist, but I don't think nothing happens to you after you die. Rather, all the particles that make up your body go back into the earth. It's possible that the atoms that make up the computer you are looking at right now were once part of a human being. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, so the pieces that make you up will continue to exist for all eternity. I find hope in that, and comfort, for it is immortality of a sort. You do not need to believe in a soul. Also, humans are no diffferent structurally from other living things, so the same can be said for plants, animals, etc.

Sorry for my spiritual rant. Anyway, death and prebirth are no different in terms of conscious experience. You didn't exist before you were born, and you don't exist after you die. We've all been dead before--its nothing new, really.



People have no inherent purpose that I know of, though of course I can't know for sure.



Note: This is just what I believe, not all atheists.



And all you rude people up there, come on. She aksed a perfeclty reasonable question. I'm not arguing with your theories, just the way you phrased them.

Answer 3

If you read your bible more carefully, you will see that it says in Ecclesiastes 9:5 that the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no further reward, and even the memory of them is forgotten.



Depending on what branch of Christianity you subscribe to...no one will go to Heaven until Judgement day when Christ returns as Saviour to gather the righteous and take them to heaven. So according to some Christian faiths, those loved ones you mentioned, aren't in heaven yet and won't be for some time.



So even in your own faith, everything does indeed "shut off" as you put it until the one you call Jesus returns to take you to heaven and who knows exactly how long that will be? It's right there in your bible, unless you're in a faith that edited the bible to align with it's own doctrine...some Christian religions have done that.



Personally I think that some atheists have declined to accept religion because it's so full of contradictions that you can't figure out what any of the writings means and also in some faiths, there's just no "wiggle room" for a person's individuality. You either conform or you go to hell...sounds more like a threat to me than a faith.



I'm not an atheist, more of an agnostic (which to some means I don't know what the heck I believe! lol). You're entitled to your beliefs but there are a lot of people out there whose minds boggle that you believe what you do. That there's some happy place in the sky that you go to when you die where everything is perfect and those who went before you are waiting for you.

Answer 4

Alright. To understand, you have to understand my reasoning of how we think. I do not believe that we have a spirit. I am quite sure that our consciousness is nothing more than electricity firing in our neural brain matter. In other words, our thoughts are just a series of reroutes of electricity, much like in a computer.



As a side note, the reason we can learn and computers cannot is because our brains are living, and therefore able to reorganize themselves, whereas a computer is internally static.



So, when we die, our neurons rot, and there are no electrical impulses. We simply stop thinking. We are, as far as I can tell, nothing more than lumps of matter, some of which happens to be fairly conductive. We are turned back into dust, and I no longer have thoughts, I stop existing.





Bonus Answer: As far as I'm concerned, we don't have a purpose. There is no reason that we are here. We are simply here as a byproduct of the universe existing. Why does the universe exist? Again, I don't think there is any actual meaning in it, it simply exists without reason.

Answer 5

no one has spirit, its just the portrayal of the abstract concept of thought. in reality thought is all based out of chemical reactions and electrical signals, when they quit, so does the mind, and the "spirit"(as you call it) ends. The bible says that you will not recognize anyone for your worldly life but you will know you knew them, so in reality you wont get to see anyone. and living for eternity to infinity would be torture. it is likely people today that are under the age of 30 will live to be 150 years old or more. medical research are unanimous on the fact the people will to be 150 at least and those people are alive today, some think people that are already in their 50's will do it and others think its more likely the first people to do so are in their teens today. 150 years is pretty good. and if i dont get to do everything i wanted i will enlist in a cryogenics program that will bring me back during a time that i can achieve those goals.

Answer 6

what did you think about before you where born? don't you think thats what it will be like after you die? don't you think eternity would be boring? you would have time to experience every thing imaginable. you could live billions of lives and after you've done everything you ever wanted to do. After you've experienced everything you never wanted to do. fifty times each, you still have time, time to sit or stand or lay down or count to a google. and after thats all accomplished you will be bored. bored so long that your will do all of it again. but it won't be the same the 11234th time as it was your first go around.



live like this is all there is.



why do people have to be for anything. can you just not enjoy being. do you have to worry about what comes next.

Answer 7

You didn't exist before you were born, you won't exist after you die. Nothing scary there.



Think of it this way: People who take care of people with Alzheimer disease will tell you that their relatives have been "gone" for some time. The mind is physical, end of story.



This goes against what religion will tell you but that's all just stories to get your loyalty and your money. There is nothing real there.

Answer 8

"We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient. The witnesses have been dead for nearly two thousand years."



~ Robert Green Ingersoll, "The Gods" (1872)



Bonus:

The purpose of life is what you make it. There exists no cosmic agenda or influence. We can destroy our humanity or expand upon it; it does not matter - not to a creator. For me, there is real poetry and freedom in that revelation.

Answer 9

That is simply your assumption! Where do you think christianity got it's ideas of a soul and afterlife from for goodness sake?



They stole it from the pagan tribes and peoples which existed hundreds and thousands of years before christianity!!



From the stone age through vikings, Egyptians, Maoris, Aborigines, American Indians and especially the chinese, they all had elaborate funerals and grave goods to speed the soul into the next life with comfort!!

Answer 10

You have a good question,

I think everyone has thought or asked that same thing. We all know we are going to die but then WHAT, its a mystery. We hope life goes on and we cant fathom a world with out ME. Our coping methods are varied religion being one... achieving notoriety, making a difference to just one person. <3

Hoping to be reborn.

Answer 11

There is no spirit, and your consciousness ends.

When you die, you stop thinking.

It is hard to imagine, since you have never been dead.



Unto each their own, but I believe that truth is more important than hope.



BQ: People do not exist for a purpose. Thus, I decide what to make of my life.

Answer 12

What do you think happens to dogs when they die?



Cats?



Birds?



Elephants?



Whales?



Trees?



Carrots?



Why do you think you're different? Life is just an accident of chemistry, when it ends, it ends.



On the "bonus question" - this particular atheist doesn't think people are "for" anything particularly. Life has no inherent meaning, it simply occurs. What you do with it is entirely up to you.

Answer 13

No one knows, why bother yourself with it? Let whoever believe what they want to. This is one of those things that starts arguments that doesn't even need to be brought up. I know that wasn't your intention but it happens regardless of whether you want it to or not. Everyone thinks they're right. Let 'em. It involves a lot less violence. :P

Answer 14

How can theists think that what is stated in their scriptures happen after they die? On what basis do they think so.The atheists at least can say that no one who died , ever came back and told anybody in any part of the world for millions of years, about what happened to him/ her after death

Answer 15

What you happen to think is neither here nor there. If we're expected to go along with you, you need evidence.



Why don't you believe that when you die, you're ferried across the River Styx to Hades? Millions of people believed this - why are you right, and they wrong.



Whatever your reasons for disbelieving them are the reasons I disbelieve you.



And what do I think people are for? I don't think we're "for" anything. We just are.

Answer 16

Yep. When we die we just shut down. Thought is a product of our brain. Brain dead, no thought. We switch off and the system decays.



We have no intrinsic purpose. We simply are. We find our own purpose, defined by us.

Answer 17

Live it up, because this is the only fly ball your getting. Humans have this very conceded idea that we are soooooo important that we can spend eternity in awesomeness after we die. Life is a fluke, dont waste it.

Answer 18

Of course they think something happens when you die, they think you rot, have you never seen a dead animal that's been left by the road?

Answer 19

Wow you take rambling to the next level

Yes our brains die kind of like the rest of our body



BQ: We are here because we evolved into what we are now

Answer 20

It will probably be like before I was born. I wasn't too worried about not being able to think back then.

Answer 21

most atheist will just admit to not having answers we tend to stay away from ideas that do not have evidence.



I admit I do not know and neither do you, nothing exists that contradicts this.

Answer 22

Possibly the true definition of an atheist is someone who's not afraid of death. someone who has accepted that there is no afterlife. We only have one life, live it now because there is no second chance.

Answer 23

I believe nothing happens in the same way you don't believe in reincarnation.

Answer 24

easy, it's true, that how we can think it.



we do, of course rot and become part of nature's great web of life, unless you get cremated

and random mutations got us here

Answer 25

What Redrum said.

Answer 26

I never said nothing happens after you die.



You do rot.

Answer 27

It's great that you believe in a heaven. It feels nice when you blind yourself from reality doesn't it?

Answer 28

NO ONE KNOWS.



So why sweat it?