Thoughts on life after death?

[funkydory]

I'm sure this question has been asked many times before but I think it's worth asking again. What do people think about the possibility of an afterlife? It's often assumed that it will be better than this world but do you think it will be? It might be even worse than what people on here already experience.

 

[goodbyeimoutt]

I don't think there's an afterlife, in my opinion it's something that people have created to please themselves with the idea of "yeah my life sucks at this point but at least i'll be rewarded at the end of it".

 

[funkydory]

I don't think there's an afterlife, in my opinion it's something that people have created to please themselves with the idea of "yeah my life sucks at this point but at least i'll be rewarded at the end of it".

I think it's so sad to think it's all going to be over forever one day. My life has been so brutal and I'm trapped in a state I can't get out of so I have no choice but to end it, unless I want to live another 60 years of misery. I'm at peace with the prospect of there being nothing but I am hopeful there is something more, somewhere I can appreciate my existence.

 

[not_a_robot]

I would rather just end than be reincarnated.
I am so afraid that when I die it will turn out this world was just a sadistic computer program or game, and I'll just be rebooted and made to do it all again. Or my bits-and-bytes, the molecules that made up my consciousness, get recycled into another avatar, made to do it again.
I don't even think "winning" the game would make it all worthwhile.

 

[ExitTheDay]

I don't think there's an afterlife, in my opinion it's something that people have created to please themselves with the idea of "yeah my life sucks at this point but at least i'll be rewarded at the end of it".

I agree with this, it seems like they just want to do whatever they want and use religion and the afterlife as a pitiful excuse to redeem themselves

 

[Chalken]

I don't believe in it. I agree with the people here saying that it's just a way for religious people to cope with reality. I think after death we just return to the natural state of non-existence, same as all the billion years before we had been born.

 

[DownInaHole]

In my opinion, God sent me many signs that I can not deny. I fear what may come after my death. I was an atheist most of my life. If there is a God, I hope She goes easy on me. I've had an extremely painful life. I could never bring children into this world.

 

[Alan James]

There is no life after death. Fish, animals, bacteria - all also live after death forever? People consider themselves to be so different from them despite the fact that they also have bodies of meat and bones - it is logical that if there is life after death for people, then it is for fleas, cockroaches, flies, raccoons, worms, and so on. So you believe that there is a place where the souls of fleas and worms live forever?

Life after death if it exists in any case will be incomparably better than this world. Even if hell really existed then it is much better than this reality.

 

[tiredandhuddledmass]

The question is what is it that is supposed to survive? My personality? Personality and mental abilities change a lot during one's lifetime. What would be the personality, for instance, of someone in Heaven who died as an infant? The personality they might have had as an adult is unknown (since it would have been influenced by events that never occurred) and does not exist. Are they condemned to an eternity of happy gurgles and being fascinated by their socks?

Similarly, if one has brain damage, Alzheimer's, dementia etc the personality changes. Does such a person have to live in the afterlife in a state where, e.g. they can't recognize their loved ones? If not, how far does God rewind the tape until He gets to your 'essential' personality?

If you have a personality in the afterlife then it would be rational to commit suicide in your 30's or 40's at the latest, otherwise you're trading a few more decades on Earth against an eternity of life after death with a personality whose abilities have begun to decline.

But if I subtract my personality, what remains of 'me'? Given that aging and degeneration of the brain seems to affect the ability to remember (and of course death is total degeneration of the brain), no body + no personality + no memories = no person. If something survives (an abstract consciousness, a soul), there would be no continuity of experience between that entity and myself, so there is no reason to designate it as 'me'.

The idea of survival after death doesn't really make much rational sense to me. I think it is mostly wishful thinking (holding on to control and to the gratifications of this life) and a defense against certain powerful emotions, such as fear of complete annihilation, the painful feelings of anticipating the loss of all gratification and pain/powerlessness/rage that evil and senseless suffering will never be atoned.

 

[postmortem]

When I tried to CTB last year, I lost consciousness and I remember there being nothing. I was surrounded by nothingness and I understand that it's not the same as actually dying but there was something so very peaceful about the whole thing... I like to believe just as we are born from nothingness, we can go back to it.

 

[tiredandhuddledmass]

@Alan James The question of the souls of different animals reminds me of the Buddhist theory of reincarnation, i.e. getting reborn as a different life form according to your karma. I can understand how someone could be downgraded, how Hitler for example would be reborn as a toilet brush. I don't get the other direction though - what would be the toilet brush's moral deserts that would allow it to progress to a higher life form? How could it, say, distinguish itself in the fight against antisemitism?

I have in fact asked several senior Buddhist scholars this question and they didn't have an answer.

 

[riverstyx]

Imagine the year 1887. You weren't alive yet. Death is exactly the same. Nothingness. You don't exist.

 

[throwaway123]

I don't believe in it. I agree with the people here saying that it's just a way for religious people to cope with reality. I think after death we just return to the natural state of non-existence, same as all the billion years before we had been born.

that's actually the most plausible thing, sad and comforting at the same time. Yet we can't know for sure.

 

[Querry1]

We don't know what's after before we go there, that's the best answer for that. Might be something, might be nothing.

Some people can't live with a thought that life has no purpose and there's nothing above us, and I'm okay with that, in the end we are all going to die - gives chills