We all die, mannn

Discussion in 'Agnosticism and Atheism' started by Disarm, Jan 29, 2005.

  1. Disarm

    Disarm Member

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    I was wondering what you think will happen when we die. Some kind of paradise/heaven/hell type thing? Total lack of anything? Reincarnation?
     
  2. The World of Dan

    The World of Dan FSMFTW

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    Nothing... Your body returns to the soil, nourishng it, allowing it to spawn new life... (the circle of life, things need to die so that new things can live) and your soul (for want of a better word) returns to the cosmic collection of energy that we're all made of (energy and matter are the same), before being converted into something else (maybe a new life, though more likely, just the light emitting from a light bulb.)

    .. but that's just one idea, who knows?

    Personally I can't wait until death to find out for myself, mind you, that does not mean I'm going to make my death come prematurly, after all, if I am right about death, about there being nothing, then I would have wasted my life...
     
  3. Hikaru Zero

    Hikaru Zero Sylvan Paladin

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    Personally, I don't believe that anything in particular happens when we die. I'm agnostic about it, in a sense. It'd be nice if there was an afterlife, but if there isn't one, I'm not particularly depressed about it or anything.

    The way I see it, my existance is defined as human. That is, I am a HUMAN. I don't necessarily have a spirit or soul (though I believe that I do), and I don't necessarily have any place in particular in the state of affairs between the material and the ethereal realms. That is, if there is a god (or any numinous figure), I don't necessarily matter in the grand scheme of things.

    Since my existance IS human, I don't find it necessary to worry about what's "out there" in terms of a god or an afterlife. I am quite happy to have my human existance, even if it is pretty shitty at times.

    This is MY life, it is the only life that I KNOW that I have. And with my life, I'm going to do whatever I see fit. That is, I'm going to be the best person I can. I'm going to accumulate knowledge over my lifetime; I'm going to accumulate experience over my lifetime. I am going to go out and do all the things I want to do, while being the best person I can, to everyone.

    And you know what?

    That's good enough for me. =) I'm happy with just that.

    But, since this thread is about what we THINK will happen when we die ...

    I would like to think that when we die, our bodies are no longer capable of sustaining the link to our souls. Therefore, or souls are unlinked, in a sense, from their existance in the material realm. After that, it very well may be that we are absorbed back into a universal consciousness, and used as that consciousness sees fit. We may ALSO be allowed to keep our spiritual existances and do with them whatever we decide; we might be allowed to re-enter this world, or perhaps even another; perhaps we'll even be promoted to a numen status and be allowed to create our OWN universes and such!

    The possibilites, in my mind, are endless, and even though they are endless, they shouldn't affect what we do and how we live our lives in this world. As Ghandi's saying goes, "Live as if you will die tomorrow. Learn as if you will live forever."
     
  4. Duck

    Duck quack. Lifetime Supporter

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    I don't know. The one that makes most sense is: You stop existing. It's a really hard concept to accept, but it is prbaly what happens.
     
  5. Disarm

    Disarm Member

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    Yeah, I'm finding it kinda hard to accept that we would just stop existing. I don't believe in an afterlife, I believe we're stuck on this plane of existence (we don't become angels or anything), so I believe our souls would..well..

    thats pretty much exactly what I believe..
     
  6. Occam

    Occam Old bag of dreams

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    Disarm.

    Occam finds it kind of hard to to accept that we would just keep existing.

    This existance is a grand adventure. To exist as a reasoning being in this
    titanic universe of wonder..is the greatest gift their is.

    Yes...most want more of it...and humans will believe WHAT THEY WANT.

    Occam
     
  7. LuMpYtRiChOmEy

    LuMpYtRiChOmEy Member

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    --Hey Howdy! -Clasical discusion. -Your not your flesh. -You whats behind the flesh. -Light dont stop when ya shut off a flashlight and "you" dont stop when your flesh stops "living". --When your alive and a doctor sticks them electrodes an shit on your head, li'l impulses that can be mesured right threw your skull are detected. Do ya think they stop at the electrode? -Naaaa... -They go farther than light. -Thats you there, your "being" yourself while your alive and you'l keep "being" yourslf after your dead. -Your already skatered threw the stars, you never left them. -This is only where our feet touch the ground.
     
  8. BlackGuardXIII

    BlackGuardXIII fera festiva

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    1. I don't blame you, logically, it appears that protozoa die, and sequioa trees, goldfish, lions, fungus, so it follows that we would too. I feel (not anything more than feel, I am not certain at all), matter changes state continuously, the atoms in my bum might have been in Ghengis Khan's eyebrow....Therefore, material things like trees, cows, mountains, quarks and quasars, are illusory. Spirit is the only really eternally unchanging thing, and so to me, it is the reality. The rest is transient.
    2. How amazingly unlikely is your birth, and pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space, cuz there's bugger all down hear on earth. what a gift indeed.
    3. I agree, more life is good. And also that we all will so believe what we want, and to me, exercising restraint, and not trying to change anothers mind mine moman
     
  9. The World of Dan

    The World of Dan FSMFTW

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    I find it very hard to think there is anything after this life... we exist only so that we may die... very much like a chemical reaction, only this reaction can last for up to 100 years or so before it ends. Death is very much required for life, but a lot of people can't accept that - so like the idea that there is something more after death... but I highly doubt there is.

    However, I believe that part of us lives on - matter and energy are the same, and it's imposable to destroy energy, only convert it, so as BlackGuardXIII said, what is now is bum might at one point have been Ghengis Khan's eyebrow (or a tree, or a bit of snot, or a smell :p)

    I believe we have a soul, however I'm not sure that my definition is the same as everyone else's... our soul is what makes us alive... it's like the electricity that flows though the energiser bunny, making it active... remove that electricity from the bunny, and you kill it... remove the soul from a human, and you kill it. There is something more to us than just the body we inhabit, but I don't believe it's anything spiritual..

    PS, This is why I find I it very hard to comfort someone, if someone has died (which has been happening quite a lot just recently).. I can't say "they have gone to a better place" because I honestly don't believe they haveā€¦ the best I can do is "their death will allow new things to live" (which I doubt is very comforting), "as long as you remember them, they'll never be gone" (which seems to work, but does not sound as good as going to heaven) and "at least they are not suffering anymore" (which only works if they had some type of illness).
     
  10. redie*

    redie* Member

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    i definetaly will go to heaven. its only 2: heaven or hell :)
     
  11. BlackGuardXIII

    BlackGuardXIII fera festiva

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    Everyone sounds so certain that they know what death entails....I am curious, I am betting on a reincarnation system of some kind. But who knows? I don't like the idea of only two choices, what if Satan can't put up with me, and I can't defeat the security on the pearly gates? I need more choices. It will be an eye opener for sure. I have seen evidence of an afterlife, when my friends wife died, and also a couple of other times.
    Even the title of this thread, we all die.........do we? I can't even say that I am totally sold on that. What if there are those among us who have been here all along? St. Germain allegedly lived a couple hundred years.

    Gertrude Stein used three words to sum up her take on it. "Dead is dead."

    I like this one, "Everybody wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die."

    Or Woody Allen, "I don't mind dying, I just don't want to be there when it happens."

    I used to work with a fellow who's wife died of lung cancer, though she was a nurse who never smoked. It was less than a year from diagnosis till she was gone. Around a month before she passed on she told him that she was going to send him some kind of a sign. He is a very honest, family-oriented, devout Catholic. Then, from her hospital bed a week before she passed on, she told him she knew what the sign would be....lightning.
    I have only been to one funeral in my life, hers, and it was at 1PM at St. Anne's Church. As we arrived it was pouring out, really hard, the sky was low overcast thick clouds, and it was dark like twilight. We sat down, and got settled in, and then boom, thunder, and the lights in the church went out for a couple of minutes. Kelvin told me that when the thunder struck, he looked at his watch and it was 1 o'clock on the dot.
    After the funeral, we came outside to find that there was not a cloud in the sky, I swear. Everything was soaking wet, and dripping, and the sun was shining in a clear blue sky.
     
  12. LuMpYtRiChOmEy

    LuMpYtRiChOmEy Member

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    She fallowed threw.
     
  13. TARABELLE

    TARABELLE on the road less traveled

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    So glad to have you back WOD!!![​IMG] I believe similarly but the end outcome being another life (reicarnation) or a passing to a higher plane (Avalon? - new idea for me).
     
  14. BlackGuardXIII

    BlackGuardXIII fera festiva

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    Okay, you got my curiosity going......huh?
     
  15. LuMpYtRiChOmEy

    LuMpYtRiChOmEy Member

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    --Hey BG! :) -I just ment that when she said that she would give him a sighn and that it would be lightning, she did. -Love is strong, he musta needed that sighn, or she mighta just needed to give it to him but it shure came threw!
     
  16. Mr MiGu

    Mr MiGu King of the Zombies

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    Most likely, you are either put in a furnace to burn, or left in a box underground to rot

    Either way, all of the energy that is still with you from what you have consumed during your lifetime is going to waste.
     
  17. Sera Michele

    Sera Michele Senior Member

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    IF there is any sort of "afterlife" I would place my bet on reincarnation. I am just not so sure there is one. I think you die, decompose into the earth, and blend back into the cycle of life that way. It may sound depressing, but you wont really care if you don't exist, now will ya?
     
  18. gnrm23

    gnrm23 Senior Member

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    when the buddha was asked this very question, "he maintained a noble silence"...

    ymmv...
     
  19. The World of Dan

    The World of Dan FSMFTW

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    I thought that buddism was based around reincarnation? About living a good life, and then coming back as something better than you was before... or was that hindus? (or maybe both?)...
     
  20. gnrm23

    gnrm23 Senior Member

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    but ol' shakyamuni was often prone to deliver "a noble silence" when asked ummmmm "useless" questions...

    and buddhism sprang out of hinduism, but hindus & buddhists might have a basic disagreement at to exactly what it is that is being reincarnated...
    (hint: atman vs. anatta...)

    ~
    i like the view of afterlife unveiled in heinlein's scifi classic cream pulp fiction, _stranger in a strange land_ (pretty much: all human beliefs in "the afterlife" are true except the belief that we die - dead & stay that way...)
    heh...
    ymmv...
     

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