If there is, you shouldn't think about it and live the life you know you have right now. What comes next is only worth talking about when you get there.

What matters is how we improve life In the now.

There is no proof. No reason and no logic to a life after this one. The mere suggestion of reward or punishment for a finite lifespan is really unfair and highly irresponsible. We, me and you, are infinitely more outstanding than any force outside ourselves. Multiverses are mere conjecture and sci-fi. Observing these ideas is not only impossible, it will change absolutely nothing about the life you have right now. You know nothing about an afterlife, nobody does. It's all guess work to somehow impress a sense of importance to our lives and give 'meaning'.

Here's your meaning of life: be alive, help others forget their human condition for a short time and impress the importance of living in the now and not in a perpetual state of fear they don't deserve to be happy in a life after this one. Or worse, they get an ego and proclaim they deserve it because they think they accepted the correct ideology and are one step ahead of everyone else.

People have wasted their entire lives because of ideologies they've been convinced are really true. Anybody who accepts one and denies the rest is just a step away from realising life in the now is more important. Although I have accepted this world view, I shamelessly waste countless hours and months, knowing full well there is no going back and fixing the precious seconds and moments in life. It's not a nice view, but it is the honest one. If there is a god, it will know my lack of religion was for good reasons and not just pandering to save my 'soul. I will be respected for who I am and not who I'm expected to be to please an ideology. This includes the assertions of science fiction. Being honest about what we really know is the only way we can make sure others can't manipulate the vulnerable in our societies. Current religions praised science until they were challenged successfully to a point they could no longer endorse science for what it is. Thier mistake was thinking thier knowledge would remain a secret. Now people are educated and can read, religion is dying and becoming obsolete. Now it's just a vague notion with a few assertions. They have dropped a lot of their stories from 'fact' to 'moral guides' and even then it's questionable. When science learns a new fact, religions and ideologies adopt it to fit their already flawed positions.

Afterlife or not. It has no effect on the life we have for certain right this moment. Focusing on the unknowable is pointless. Until we know empirically, I advise against making such certain conclusions. If you want to consider such things I would like to remind you the original ideology is long dead and long forgotten. For all we know there is a definite afterlife, a definite deity, a definite continuation of existence. For all we know, choosing a deity or making a decision o the afterlife will result in punishment. I'd rather admit ignorance than to feign knowledge in the hopes I will get favourable treatment. There are too many failed ideologies based on what happens when we die to make an informed decision which doesn't impair any chance of a preferable outcome in any afterlife.

I may have carried on a little but once I start typing, I just sort of keep going. Pretty sure I stayed on point.

I accept near death experiences, chemical reactions in the brain as it winds down, but nothing the other side of the fact.

I have seen no evidence in support of life after death.

There is no evidence and much wishful thinking.

I don't believe in an afterlife of any sort, though I don't claim it couldn't be the case. It's just that all evidence points to mind/consciousness being a product of the brain. That seems to be the most straightforward explanation, and I consider it the most likely. But if strong evidence to the contrary is ever forthcoming, I'd be willing to re-evaluate my position.

They are all pipedreams.

three times i experienced appearances with my sober senses that left me with one explanation only: energy may retain in a place after the death of a person or persons.

i was never into ghost stories or even faintly interested in the so-called occult. but as it happened i twice ended up on an ancient battle field, once in france, the other in australia.

we were five travellers in france, waking up in the middle of the night, all at the same time, all from the same gory dreams, to stand clueless & slightly shaken under the moonlight. in australia someone played tricks on me, mainly with electrical appliances, like the ceiling fan turning on while i was standing in the middle of the room, not touching any switch. the tenant before me had kept a machete under the bed, that he accidentally left when moving out. the third time i witnessed the glowing shape of a woman moving past the window of a house she had lived in 45 years. she suffered from depressions after she had to move out of the place, & subsequently came back to hang herself in the barn. my friend found her. a few weeks later we celebrated his 50. birthday in the house, when i saw her moving past the window.

so, yeah, i feel a bit awkward with this, but have to admit that this is almost evidence for the possibility of life - energy - staying active on this planet even after death.

There is definitely something

I certainly do believe in such things because I believe in Einstein; all matter is a form of energy, so since energy can neither be created nor destroyed, we have always existed and will always exist in some energy form.

Besides, "For us believing physicists, the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion." -Einstein

For now, I believe in physics, that we are participating in creating our own universes/reality.

“I regard consciousness as fundamental and matter as derivative from consciousness." – Max Planck, theoretical physicist who originated quantum theory, 1918 Nobel Prize in Physics

Yes, I believe in reincarnation; specifically, I am a student of the Michael Teachings.

I don't but the most common belief with humanists is Karma and being given transitional lives. Has its definite faults, as: always deserving bad things that happen to you.

Nope. No evidence for it, and plenty of evidence for the fact that we decompose and go back to the earth from whence we came. I know we as humans have a tough time accepting that this is all there is. But chances are, this is all there is. Make the most of it.

Reading the responses here, and thinking about this subject generally, I suspect there is a bigger number of people in the non religious community that keep in the back of their minds some post life possibility of some kind. Not saying that they don't genuinely reject religion and it's fantasies about heaven and God, but just a corner in their thinking that says, well, who knows what all this universe is really about anyway. Maybe something else goes on, well beyond religious thinking. I'm not criticising that, I just think it's an interesting aspect of the nonbeliever community. As for me, like some others here, if there's no evidence for it, then it's just speculation.

I like to speculate about it in discussions but there's just no reason to think that there would be any kind of after life experience.

Of course. But the tricky part is that no matter what we theorize, it will all be speculation in the end. The afterlife is unknowable.

clutching at straws

People can believe anything they want. I may believe that every time a it rains, there is a leprechaun that materializes and urinate. His pee is the rainbow that appears, and at the end of that rainbow the liquid from his pee turns into a pot of gold. The gold is only visible and accessible for only a few minutes. Now prove me right or wrong. Unless someone dies and comes back with proof about the afterlife, we can believe anything we want. I, on the other hand want facts and proof.

The universe , I think , goes on forever . Therefore by the law of averages , you must exist an infinite number of times ..... Trouble is you probably won't know after you've shuffled off .

Why would I spend any time from my precious life wondering about something I can neither know or control?

All of us were in a non-existent state before we were born. Do you remember what it was like before you were conceived and began to exist? If you do then you certainly know what it is like to be in a static nonexistence with the dead. What I remember from the time before I was born is ..... absolutely nothing. Non-existing and nothingness are one in the same evidently. When you die you return to the nothingness that you came from, which is the same place you were at before you were born, and you will be non-existing once again. You have to exist to have thought. When you don't exist you can't have a single thought because there is no container to hold a thought and no mechanism to create thought. To be non-existent is to be static and unchanging, dead, nonthinking and senseless. It's not the transcending of life or the transformation of it , death is simply the end of life. Please make the best of your time now while you're still in existence because there is no such thing as time or thought when you're not in existence. Is there life after death? Is there thought after your brain has rotted? Absolutely not. If there is something after death it won't be life, it would have to be something else entirely that is completely removed from reality. And keep in mind that our reality is completely tied to our sanity. Without our reality checks there would be no sanity for humans in any world.

My thoughts on this are so bizarre to most people I hesitate sharing. It has nothing to do with religion or a reward system. I hesitate to explain but someday maybe I will try. I'm still working on a hypothesis, and I got my idea from an issue of Scientific American called "Beyond Science". Thats all I'll say for now.

I think its fun to entertain those things. As a writer, and since I write ghost stories, I think about that a lot. Of course I don't "believe" that there's anything beyond this, and I assume that once I'm gone, it's over. BUT... it's still fun to play around with all the various myths and stories that have been told over our lifetime as a species.

Have seen no evidence, or nothing credible, at least. I doubt it but will withhold final judgment 'til more research is done.

I meant before to post a link about Robert Lanza's book, should anyone be interested about that. ( I previously noted I don't believe his conclusion).

[independent.co.uk]

[amazon.com]