Do atheists think if you don't accept god as a real entity...?

Question

Do atheists think if you don't accept god as a reality then you can't believe in some sort of existence or reincarnation after death too? Why do so many of you give TDs to answers that differ from, "No. You die, you're dead, end of story. You get buried and you're worm food, or you get baked and thrown into the wind to coat the forest floor with your memory."

I'm an atheist and I'm fascinated by studies neurologists are doing concerning brain waves when people are sleeping or in a coma. The physical body can't function without sleep and recharging itself, but the brain waves keep snapping away. And our brain is just a physical vessel that manages memories, emotions and functions but doctors and researchers are not certain where dreams originate from and play themselves out.

Do you see the possibility where, when our bodies finally die, our conscious energies might remain active and intact as they do when we sleep or are unconscious?

Answer 1

I'm surprised at the ones that are insinuating that energy just ends... That when you die, somehow the energy in your body is destroyed/dies too. It was my understanding that energy can not be created or destroyed in that manner. And you are right, neurologists are constantly searching for answers as to what happens when our physical body dies... as well as how dreams are formed and why. Of course psychologists also try to answer that, but in a more philosophical way, rather than a physical evidence of chemical reactions.



Eh, most people are rude on here. It's easy to do when all you are doing is looking at words on a screen. And some people simply do not give a **** (yet still try to appear to be peaceful, humanist, etc...) Considering most people think this place is a cesspoll, I guess we can't expect much out of others.

Answer 2

There is absolutely no contradiction between being an atheist and believing in life after death, or reincarnation.



Atheism is simply not believing in a god. This has nothing to do with either of these concepts and it is perfectly possible to believe in god and not believe in either live after death, or reincarnation.



Given the potentially Infinite nature of the universe, there is no problem in imagining a situation in which a universe existed in which both of these might apply. For example, it might be that our entire experience of the world is actually taking place within a simulation, and that we are actually brains in vats, in some alternate highly advanced universe, who will automatically be replugged into this universe when we die.



Belief in God clearly has no relevance here.

Answer 3

No. Neuroscience is pretty clear that our consciousness exists exclusively as a result of brain function. When the brain dies the "snapping brain waves" cease to exist.



Our conscious energies only remain active and intact when we sleep or are unconscious because our brain is alive. I have seen no evidence of their ability to be sustained by anything else. Once the brain is gone, so are "we".

Answer 4

I've never thought about it until now.

You bring up a very good point. What actually causes the brain's waves to stop? Maybe we just go into a permanent unconscious state, where our brain waves become undetectable. Maybe Heaven or Hell only exists in our subconscious ideas of what those places may be.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to die, and then come back to tell everyone what you saw and what it was like?

That would answer a lot of humanities questions.

Answer 5

My theory involves DMT, a chemical the brain produces when you dream. Have you ever woken up, hit snooze, gone back to sleep and had a dream that seemed to last hours, only to wake up and realise barely 5 minutes have passed? When we dream, our sense of time is distorted. Now, scientists have found that when a person dies, their brain dumps out huge amounts of DMT. I think this might cause a period of dreaming which only lasts seconds, but feels like much longer. Years, maybe. This would explain a lot of peoples near-death experiences. But we won't know until we go!

Answer 6

The idea of a "god" and the idea of reincarnation have no relation. It's just that quite a number of atheists are also rationalists and/or skeptics, and frankly, the idea of reincarnation is equally as silly and pseudoscientific as the idea of a "god". So we tend to dismiss it.



When you can present some actual evidence for it, then we can talk.



"our conscious energies"

There's no such thing. Consciousness is a function of physical processes in the brain. Without the brain, there is no consciousness.



Feel free to prove me wrong and earn a Nobel prize in physics.

Answer 7

You are describing many different philosophies.



Atheist is defined as one who believes there is no such thing as gods.



If you believe gods can exist, you are Agnostic, not Atheist.



3 votes down... apparently the 'atheists' here don't understand what the word means.



Final Notes:



As long as this is still a hotbed of debate, here I am:



Think of a spherical object like a basketball. It's three dimensional, it has length, width, and height (ok maybe it has four, if we add time).



Now take a cross section of it. You have a circle. It suggests the actual object but does not approximate it.



I think we are possibly similar. We may have other dimensions to this life that we just don't see. Not until we're cut in half, and realize we're still suggesting the possibility of something after death. The problem is we can't ever suggest those properties until after we've been cut down.



Can there be a life after death? Yes.

Can we know anything about it until it happens? No.



Does this have anything to do with atheism? NO!

Answer 8

I think its highly unlikely that anything analogous to a soul - which is basically what you're describing there - could continue to exist outside of the body it resided in. There's just no mechanism I can see within the laws of physics that would allow that to happen.



I dislike it too when people thumbs down answers simply for having a different view from one's own, which is why I try not to.

Answer 9

Okay, you're into neurology... check me on the following points:



1) personality (conscious energies, if you must) is the result of brain structure and environment

2) the brain is active so long as metabolic activity powers it

3) once that metabolic activity stops, the brain ceases to function

4) doesn't that mean that the personality is lost?



If that's not correct, where exactly does the personality exist?

Answer 10

Some atheists (like buddhists) believe in reincarnation or another sort of afterlife, but most atheists don't.



It seems to me that you just speculate and mix up scientific terms (for example "energy"). Conscious and unconscious activities of our brain, including dreams, are purely physical and end with our physical existence.

Answer 11

Sleep is actually thought to be short term memory being down-regulated to long term memory. This might explain why you experience dreams.



Just remember, all physical laws help us to explain the basic fundamentals of molecules and interactions between them and we're all just made up of molecules as well. Our brains can be described, rather extensively and complexly, as molecular actions playing out their roles as well.

Answer 12

You're Buddhist, you just don't know it. Buddhism is atheistic reincarnation. Well... the gods are "there" but there stuck on the same wheel of life we are.



So, yes, some atheists believe in reincarnation and similar ideas. ...though, not me personally.

Answer 13

All the energy you speak of is biological in origin and entirely contained within our physiological structure.



When that biological structure ceases to function then so does consciousness.



Any talk of "energies" and "spirits" and "souls" is merely magical thinking, and the universe makes it plainly evident that there is no such thing as magic.

Answer 14

The reason y our bodies dont get eaten is because our immune system is still running bcs we are still alive, the immune system is what prevents us from being "worm food." and as far as i no, its not that atheist think you just die, its that we just do not know, no one does. no one can tell you what happens when you die. Its the one question that cannot be answered.

Answer 15

Looks like we have two options here...either lots of scientific research yet to be done, or lots of religious research to be done. hmmm, gee. I wonder which will provide us with more and better information.

Answer 16

You're making sh!t up, much like the religious people. Enjoy your afterlife fantasies prompted by fear of non-existence but don't ask me to agree, and please don't pretend there is some kind of scientific basis for them.

Answer 17

no, i beleive in many other spiritual possiblities



how do you know its atheists giving thumbs down?

you dont