To use the approved scientific terminology: absolutely fuck-all.

I believe we exist in a universe of opposites. Happy/sad, short/tall, day/night, hot/cold, good/evil, birth/death etc. therefore in keeping with this observation, the very fact that we exist must mean the opposite is also true; non-existence. Nothing would grant me greater pleasure than to believe in an afterlife and a reunion with all of the loved ones who preceded me in passing. However, based upon my empirical observations, I cannot. I have often wondered where I was before I was born. Is that not the same place we return to when we die? Non-existence. It’s not the most consoling reply, but the universe is not obligated to conform to our wishes.

Personally, I would love to be there in the anteroom to Heaven when some of my old friends from Texas are told they're about to be reunited with all their ex-wives.

0

Well there is one for pets? "The Rainbow Bridge" but otherwise? Pure fantasy.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Just ask my Atheist cat group (who is ok with me being self-deluding in this manner).

There is no "afterlife". When you're dead, you're dead. That's it, there is no more.
Trying to hedge and think "maybe there is", is NO different than saying "maybe there is a god". Neither can be substantiated.
Anything else is just wishful thinking.

It is hard for us humans to think cosmically but IMO the entire chain of organisms can be considered to be a single entity. Time is an illusion—even quantum gravity theory has it so. The concept of an afterlife makes no sense from a cosmic perspective. There’s just life and we are it—right now and forever more. To put it crudely, we are in heaven right now but lack the awareness to fully appreciate our station.

To yearn for immortality as a separate personality is a futile and foolish quest IMO. The sense of self as a particular body is just an illusion anyway. Some bodies are shared by multiple “selves”, all illusory.

Every second of conscious awareness is a heavenly miracle of staggering proportions!

Zero. You might live on in the fond memories of your loved ones, or anyone remembering you what you lived for, stood for, left behind as a legacy, etc. That's it, so do your best in this life, because it is your one shot.

As an agnostic I'll answer in a religious manner (lol)....By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.

That ash, that dust for the most part is oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus. If you want to think it in a spiritual manner or an "reincarnation" manner, how I look at it is that when I'm gone, that dust will provide for the next tree, the blade of grass, the worms....whatever because it's just a constant circle. What you're made of is not destroyed, it's re-used. The Carbon in you at that atomic level could of been part of a T-Rex many many MANY years ago.

Zero. Nada. Nothing. Zip.

Zero percent chance.

The odds of some form of afterlife are much much greater than the odds that a being that created a universe of 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars 13,500,000,000 years ago decided to make a teenage Jewish girl pregnant 2000 years ago.

None!!!

As an atheist, I do not believe in any form of afterlife. However, wanted to share a couple of links here:

1. Just yesterday, I listened to an interesting conversation on the topic on NPR's 1-A broadcast. You can listen to it here: [the1a.org]

2. In another post on this forum, I shared a link about people of the Druze sect who believe in reincarnation. You can read it here: [agnostic.com]

PS: There's a reason we all are atheists. We lay very strong emphasis on reasoning and proof. We don't see any of that for the concept of God. In the same way, we don't see any for the concept of Afterlife. Therefore, there is no good reason why someone would believe in one and not the other. Both share the same human motivation -- a desire to explain the complexities of this world with something simple -- but no proof.

Absolute zero to any kind of an after life. Only religious fools believe in a after life.

I don't believe in any form of afterlife. No heaven, no hell, no reincarnation, no nothing. Death for me is a dreamless sleep for eternity, a one-way trip of our consciousness into oblivion. I believe we are made of matter and energy. Both are eternal, but when we die, they just both scatter away in their separate ways.

Well IDK ? death seems to be permanent so... No way of knowing on this end

I think too many atheist dismiss an afterlife based on shear principle. There is nothing more synonymous with God then afterlife and to accept there is an afterlife would almost be like accepting god. However there is an alternative that is rooted in logic and science. If you take Einstein's famous equation E=mc2 which simply states, we are energy and if you understand the equation, we are alot of energy. Then we look at the first law of thermodynamics which states energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only be changed. So maybe there is an afterlife that we can not even begin to comprehend.

Atheism or theism doesn't involve a position regarding the continuation of consciousness after death. However, as a skeptic and naturalist, the evidence indicates that consciousness is a process which takes place inside a living brain. As the brain dies, these processes break down and eventually cease. Thoughts, memories, and emotions are not "things" in the same way that fire is not a "thing". When the processes and reactions that cause fire stop, the fire doesn't go anywhere, it just stops. So too with consciousness.

The human mind often needs a hope of this world, seeks an illusion for there to be a chance after death. Particularly I do not want to know if there is life after death, I want to live very well in the only life I know I still have. And what I can leave for my future generation.

Since no one has come back there are no odds. Its a question without an answer. So the real question is what is the value of the idea of a afterlife? I suppose only in its effects on your current life. If it helps you deal in a positive way great. If it is a fear based dogma then it is bad. Odds I would think need a base line of some kind of information. As far as I know there is none.

I believe the default position should be that when the brain dies, the thinking mind stops. Any thoughts, senses, and awareness are all gone. Complete oblivion and we cease to exist. It may seem bleak but that's what I have to go with, unless evidence to the contrary comes along

If you believe in an afterlife, you need to redefine yourself from pure atheist to something else. As an atheist, when you're dead, you're dead. Any other belief, you are something else.

Once your dead, your dead! Sic Transit Gloria Mundi! no amount of wishful thinking will make an iota of difference.

The older I get, and the more I’ve seen of life and death, the more utterly idiotic that concept sounds…