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As atheist and agnostics what in your opinion is the odds of there being a afterlife ?

I’m pure atheist however I do think there may be some form of a afterlife . Deffidently not the Christianality version of it or god but perhaps some form of an after life . I don’t think it’s going to be what anybody thinks it is nor do I think any of the religions of today are right about it . But maybe it’s a spiritual world of some sort ? This imo is just wishful thinking on my part but ya never know . Also what do you think are the odds of rebirth ? Reancarntion ? I don’t think here needs to be a god for this to be a possibility. Your thoughts ?

DavidDeLa89 6 Jan 8
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FUNNY post!

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So, I call myself Agnostic. As such, I say that I don't know what happens after death. I don't call myself An Atheist because that would mean I knew what happens after death. So, are you really pure Atheist?

I am a pure, complete, and absolute atheist. There are NO gods.
There aren't any now, and there have never been any.
Unless and until I am presented with credible and verifiable evidence to the contrary, I will maintain this position.

It's not that hard.

There are other definitions of an atheist.

purism is not necessarily a good thing. here is what isaac asimov said about it:

“I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.”

i will add that if you're not sure about god or gods you are equally unsure about the tooth fairy. but the tooth fairy is ridiculous, so of course there is no tooth fairy, but god isn't ridiculous so maybe there's a god, right? wrong. god is every bit as ridiculous as the tooth fairy. the fact that more people believe in a god than in a tooth fairy has no bearing on that fact.

g

If you are going to say that there is a 100% chance that there is no afterlife, you are expected to show proof . Taking a position of pure knowledge, even if it is to the negative, is a positive statement. If you are going to make a positive statement you should be able to supply proof.

@thislife atheism = without theism (belief in god). Atheism means no belief in god. Period.

Maybe atheist is sent the word

@KKGator So. We agree. Thanks

@thislife No. There are not "other definitions" of atheist. An atheist is a person who has no belief in any gods. That's it.

@KKGator @A2Jennifer The difference is subtle.
From Dictionary.com:

  1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
  2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

@thislife That's exactly what I said. With the exception of the word "doctrine". There is no "doctrine". Using "doctrine" is contradictory, so Dictionary.com is incorrect.

I saw a VERY long discussion of the difference between atheist and agnostic. The short version is, you can be agnostic (uncertain) about belief or non-belief, but you are either a theist (has belief in god) or atheist (lacks belief in god.)

An interesting (but too long) look at the atheist/agnostic question - worth a skim
[sillybeliefs.com]

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To 'believe' is to agree without evidence. I need evidence and then i won't just believe but I'll know.

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I personally believe that this is it. Our one chance at experiencing consciousness and the universe that led to us being here. it's a short time so make sure it's a good time if you can.

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my thought is our flesh decays and nourishes the soil. back in the food chain.

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One would have to have a ‘soul’, a neat compartment of our ‘selves’, to be reincarnated or to have an afterlife, no? It doesn’t work like that. Dead is dead, period.

Krsh Level 3 Feb 8, 2019
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Zero chance. I'm in agreement with Sam Harris' logic on this one.
Quote
"What we’re being asked to consider is that you damage one part of the brain, and something about the mind and subjectivity is lost, you damage another and yet more is lost, [but] you damage the whole thing at death, we can rise off the brain with all our faculties in tact, recognizing grandma and speaking English!"

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Zero, nada, nil...

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Mote point until you die or some scientist creates a provable way to travel beyond death if such a thing exists. Odds? How can you define odds for something impossible to measure? People die and as far as we can tell are meat. It is all opinion and personal bias. I agree the Christian heaven is not only vain but boring. But the idea of anything that cannot be proven begs a far more relevant question; what does one do without that information. Do they use it to be a better person? Does it drive one to effort and cause that helps themselves and others? I do not know if there is life after death. On our side of things it is reasonable to say no. And if there is another side? I will deal with that one way or another at that point. Or maybe I won't, we all will just stop. That too me is as sad as heaven is boring and vain etc. I love being alive even when I do not. So for me I do not know but I do, like Mulder, want to believe.

Quarm Level 6 Jan 31, 2019
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The beginning of the tv show The Good Place brings this idea up. All the world religions got about 5% correct and some pot head in the 70’s got around 90%. If there is an afterlife, I think the pot heads are going to be correct about what it all entails.

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Close to none - the concept on its face is...kind of vain when you think about it. It shows how vain we are as a species; like the idea of an all powerful deity that could stop everything, for...YOU

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I articulate that my one "belief" is that I believe that I am more than the three dimensional being standing in front of you, that there is something in me that transcends the physical universe around us. What that looks like? Don't have a clue...except that it may be a higher dimensional existence.

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Isn't that "The Theory of Everything"? I have had three near death experiences and other phenomena that made my hair stand on end. "To sleep, perchance to dream..." We can debate all we want, but won't find out for sure until we are there.

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I think we rot when we die, and that's it.

Orbit Level 7 Jan 20, 2019

I think only your body rots, your body does not define you- consciousness is the matrix of the Universe.

@Lilith no brain, no consciousness....

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The science of cosmology has "hyper inflation" as an answer for:
Why is the observed universe so self-similar when we look anywhere, even at opposite directions, with telescopes?

I wonder if they are actually connected, If everthing is connected?

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Odds? That word won't work because there are no statistics. My take on the subject is that our minds are meat-based. The mind ends when the meat dies.

This does suggest to me that when the brain can be simulated well enough and IF our minds can be parametized accurately enough, then we could come face to face with copies of our minds.

I would define that as an after-life, but wonder if our copies could like or enjoy themselves?

Would your copy envy you? Would it beg to be left on or turned off?

@Knee-jerk Just wait until they can download a human brain "copy" into a computer!

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Zero. ....ask a charcoal that used to be a living tree nugget

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Nothing in nature is eternal. Our personalities are no exception. If you believe our nuerology plays a role in making us us, and you reject the dogma of the soul, there is no reason to believe anything about who we are persists after we die.

Heat dies 2nd law of thermodynamics

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I guess we'll find out when we get there.

Don't bet on it. When you're dead you won't exist anymore.

[amazon.com]

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100 percent. It's already established.

Answers saying zero are the height of human arrogance.

Life is just what separates us from inorganic matter. The existence we know, the dynamic world we live in, will cease to exist for the "person" we see ourselves as (the way our atoms are currently constructed). But many of our organic material will go on to do fun stuff, like fertilize the soil or something, I don't know, there's a lot of possibilities. We'll no longer be conscious, most likely anyway, and some of what made us "us" will separate, but it will go on.

The total amount of energy in a closed system cannot be created nor destroyed. Matter can be changed. We will change, but life will go on.

I don't think that is what is meant by an afterlife. A persons whole personality. memories thinking ability etc is in the brain and once it dies and decays that is gone forever, As you say all that is left is some organic and a little inorganic material.

"The height of human arrogance." Heh --- nice cliche there.

But the rest of that ... I don't understand your argument.

You start with "100 percent. It's already established." so I am assuming that's your thesis, but nothing that follows after seems to support or explain it.

@HankFox Well Hank I'm not too sure how this normally works for you, but when I ask for help I typically don't insult the person I'm asking first.

Have fun, cowboy 😉

@creative51 What stops it from being us? I agree there is no afterlife like what people are picturing. You know, you float into the clouds and your mom is there with baked goods and your high school girlfriend just can't wait to give ya a handy under the bleachers or whatever, but the things that comprised us don't just disappear forever into a magic cloud and you know that.

They move on, they become new things, depending on everything from how you're buried to how you died. I mean, if our atoms aren't us then, when are they ever? When they're briefly (on a cosmic scale) assembled into a pudgy jerkwad named Gerald? (I don't know anyone named Gerald so it seemed safe). I guess at this point we're beyond science anyway, and you're right about singularities but that's a whole different topic that we'd have to wax all philosophical on because there's just not a ton of real, hard evidence.

@Moravian

This stage of our existence has always fascinated me so forgive me. You and others keep saying "well what you're saying is that it's not what they meant when they said afterlife." The poster asked if there was some form of afterlife. I answered yes. We're gone. If life is simply whatever quality separates us from dead things, then there are many living things that we are comprised of that will continue on just fine without us.

Sure it isn't "us" as we think of ourselves, or anything even resembling that. But it is a piece of us living on after our body itself is gone. Even long gone.

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Surely atheists and agnostics believe only in a material world or a world that conforms to material reality. Reincarnation is based on a moral view that one needs to do good to avoid coming back as something undesirable. As such, it's a religious view. A spiritual world is also a religious view unless you mean it has a material reality.

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I personally believe in reincarnation. This doesn't involve any deity, so it does not affect my atheism. I have my own proof, which I will NOT discuss.

Just because I believe in it doesn't mean everyone should.

Proof? that's a strong word, O well. I wish you well on that, might see you there, maybe.

@starwatcher-al I believe they asked for opinions. I gave MY opinion; never said it was yours.

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to me, "spiritual" means "religion light." i am convinced there is no personal afterlife. the brain generates who we think we are. when it dies, we are gone. our bodies decompose. worm food is useful, and we are eventually recycled, somehow, despite all the stuff that's done to preserve us (unless we're king tut) but apart from whatever legacy, large or small, we've left, we're just gone. gone is gone, dead is dead. rebirth, reincarnation, all that, not possible. there would have to be a soul, and while i like aretha franklin as much as the next person, that's not the kind of soul that would make reincarnation possible. it's all fantasy. odds for any of it: zero. unless you're laying the money down on my table, in which case go for it. i need the dough.

g

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non sequitur

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