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Anonymous #1
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 I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. 
#13561232 - 11/30/10 05:50 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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I don't believe in the afterlife anymore. I hate it, but it's what I've honestly come to believe. I think all you guys that think any kind of consciousness exists after death are fooling yourselves. I honestly believe the brain is nothing but an organic machine and that when it shuts off for good, no part of you survives. I don't believe you have some soul inside you that continues on to travel the universe and carry your memories and awareness with it. You just die and you are conscious of nothing ever again.
Why is this a problem?
I don't want to fucking die. I don't want to stop existing. I LIKE existing.
All you guys that are atheists, too, but say you're not scared of death? I say it's because you haven't really accepted that you're going to die. Oh, everyone knows, intellectually, that they're going to die. But most people don't really get it, down deep, the notion of what non-existence will really mean. It's not a disparagement of other people. It's just human nature. We've existed all our lives, as long as we can remember. The idea of not existing isn't something that's easy to contemplate: How can I exist now? Why am I aware of anything if I'm going to stop being aware someday? It sounds easy to think about, but it's hard to actually understand. Everyone, atheists just as much as anyone else, against common sense, really believes down in their core that their existence is special and somehow won't end.
I work in a job where I see dead people literally every day, in various states of damage. It's slowly but surely driven into me the cold understanding that I'm just another animal who could get splattered out of existence at any moment, that everything I am could just STOP at any moment. That, just like those corpses I see, I will be asleep and never wake up again.
And I hate it. And in those moments where I really "get it," I get so unsettled and freaked out that I have to distract myself immediately. I don't think human beings are wired to understand, down deep, their own mortality. It would've been a bad evolutionary trait.
Point being, I hate believing there's no afterlife. I envy Christians and other religious people so much, even if they're wrong. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to this.
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Anonymous #2
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 Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #1]
#13561279 - 11/30/10 06:21 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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on the bright side, once you die it wont matter.
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Anonymous #3
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #1]
#13561280 - 11/30/10 06:23 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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I'm not scared to die when I'm supposed to, just early. I like existing too but when you die you no longer have an ability to care, so I might as well enjoy the short ride I have. Live your life like you want while you can or you'll spend the whole time worrying about this kinda stuff.
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Anonymous #4
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #1]
#13561559 - 11/30/10 09:42 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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"most people don't get it" guess what pal, you don't get it either. You're intellectually grasping at it just like everyone else.
My advice would be to stop looking to the afterlife all together and start focusing on what is here in front of you.
One of the common miconceptions thrown upon almost all spiritual individuals is one of an assumption of immortality in the traditional sense. (Traditional sense being chronological time and the concept of a superfluous lifeline after we die.)
However, let me just say that MANY spiritual people recognize spiritual texts as guidelines for the CURRENT REALITY and NOT an after-life. "Hell" and "heaven" are metaphors for states of being that result from different experience while living. The metaphor exists the way it does because we are experiencing the SAME REALITY either way, and it is a matter of perspective whether one experiences heaven or hell in any given moment.
Whether or not there is an after-life does not concern me, because if there is, there's really no reason to believe it "operates" fundamentally differently than the one I am in now. We are the experience of interacting with a reality... and certain things become apparent as we progress, such as the concept of defining our reality through our thoughts. (ie, people who lament and suffer about everything are generally unhappy people.)
So I might as well be training myself to handle THIS reality and all it's very complex ins and outs rather than even worry about what happens after death. Death is, by it's very essence, that which exists outside of our perceivable range. Nothing more, nothing less. Fear it, or take some psychedelics and swim in it. It doesn't matter.
The point is, where you go from here is to start making some peace with the fact that things are the way they are. For the record, "There is no afterlife" is just as ignorant a statement as to claim there is one. Only agnostic perspective can see it clearly as an unknown variable.
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Anonymous #4
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #4]
#13561569 - 11/30/10 09:46 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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To elaborate on immortality:
The concept of immortality, to me, is a non-traditional one. I believe immortality to be true, but only in the sense that time as a chronological construct is an illusive property of our limited perceptions. (Science supports this, btw.
So if time is actually a dimension of time-space and is not a chronological progression, then it exists all at once simultaneously as part of a sort of fabric that makes up the larger dimensional map when one is not limited by our chronological perspective.
If all time is just part of time-space and exists simultaneously, then so does everything occurring "within" the boundaries we perceive as being reality.
That is immortality.
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Anonymous #1
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #4]
#13561585 - 11/30/10 09:53 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous #4 said:
For the record, "There is no afterlife" is just as ignorant a statement as to claim there is one.
I never said that and was careful to couch everything as my opinion.
But for the record, no it's not as ignorant a statement.
Reason being, it's logical to think that if some part of us survives death, we'd be able to detect that somehow. Information, energy, it doesn't just get transmitted without being detected. Yes, there's always the possibility that we don't have the technology to detect it yet, but this isn't very likely.
So, that's a logical reason to lean toward the belief that there's no afterlife (although it's not even close to proof), but the fact remains that there is NO logical reason to believe in the afterlife at all. Therefore, it's slightly less illogical to believe there's no afterlife.
And also for the record, it's not so much that I think I "get it," about dying. I don't even think I do. But I do think I have more moments of clarity where I do momentarily "get it" because of being around mutilated corpses all the time. Trust me--that shit gets in you.
Edited by Anonymous (11/30/10 09:54 AM)
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Anonymous #4
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #1]
#13561596 - 11/30/10 09:57 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Reason being, it's logical to think that if some part of us survives death, we'd be able to detect that somehow. Information, energy, it doesn't just get transmitted without being detected. Yes, there's always the possibility that we don't have the technology to detect it yet, but this isn't very likely.
So, that's a logical reason to lean toward the belief that there's no afterlife (although it's not even close to proof), but the fact remains that there is NO logical reason to believe in the afterlife at all. Therefore, it's slightly less illogical to believe there's no afterlife.
Your logic here seems circular and unclear. First you say it's logical to believe in an afterlife, then you immediately say there is no logical reason to believe in one.  You're not making much sense there.
I will agree that being around corpses is probably a reality check.
But... none the less, the central point of my post was to give you an easy out: science declares that time does not function linearly as we perceive it. If time is non-linear, than it is simultaneously occurring, which strongly alludes to the idea that we are eternally and simultaneously experiencing the "now-ness" of our every waking moment.
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Anonymous #1
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #4]
#13561660 - 11/30/10 10:27 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous #4 said:
But... none the less, the central point of my post was to give you an easy out: science declares that time does not function linearly as we perceive it. If time is non-linear, than it is simultaneously occurring, which strongly alludes to the idea that we are eternally and simultaneously experiencing the "now-ness" of our every waking moment.
Eh, I don't see how that gives an out. We only perceive anything because of our brains, as electricity moves through our gray matter and electrons arrive at their destination.
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Anonymous #5
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #1]
#13561940 - 11/30/10 11:51 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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He's saying that time is a figment of consciousness, so to speak. So in some sense, we're immortal.
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Anonymous #6
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #1]
#13561963 - 11/30/10 11:55 AM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous #1 said:
I don't believe in the afterlife anymore. I hate it, but it's what I've honestly come to believe. I think all you guys that think any kind of consciousness exists after death are fooling yourselves. I honestly believe the brain is nothing but an organic machine and that when it shuts off for good, no part of you survives. I don't believe you have some soul inside you that continues on to travel the universe and carry your memories and awareness with it. You just die and you are conscious of nothing ever again.
Why is this a problem?
I don't want to fucking die. I don't want to stop existing. I LIKE existing.
All you guys that are atheists, too, but say you're not scared of death? I say it's because you haven't really accepted that you're going to die. Oh, everyone knows, intellectually, that they're going to die. But most people don't really get it, down deep, the notion of what non-existence will really mean. It's not a disparagement of other people. It's just human nature. We've existed all our lives, as long as we can remember. The idea of not existing isn't something that's easy to contemplate: How can I exist now? Why am I aware of anything if I'm going to stop being aware someday? It sounds easy to think about, but it's hard to actually understand. Everyone, atheists just as much as anyone else, against common sense, really believes down in their core that their existence is special and somehow won't end.
I work in a job where I see dead people literally every day, in various states of damage. It's slowly but surely driven into me the cold understanding that I'm just another animal who could get splattered out of existence at any moment, that everything I am could just STOP at any moment. That, just like those corpses I see, I will be asleep and never wake up again.
And I hate it. And in those moments where I really "get it," I get so unsettled and freaked out that I have to distract myself immediately. I don't think human beings are wired to understand, down deep, their own mortality. It would've been a bad evolutionary trait.
Point being, I hate believing there's no afterlife. I envy Christians and other religious people so much, even if they're wrong. Ignorance is bliss when it comes to this.
Get over it, you lose consciousness every night, wont be much different than that.
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Anonymous #7
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #1]
#13562003 - 11/30/10 12:02 PM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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I didn't read the thread but being an atheist is not mutually exclusive with believing in an afterlife.
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Anonymous #6
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #7]
#13562090 - 11/30/10 12:16 PM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous #7 said:
I didn't read the thread but being an atheist is not mutually exclusive with believing in an afterlife.
I am a rational agnostic with no set views and I will tell you now that I think there is a strong chance that there is some form of an afterlife, but without my brain and it's chemicals and functioning I am not me. Basically an ironically atheist death.
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Anonymous #4
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Re: I don't want to be an atheist because I don't want to stop existing. [Re: Anonymous #1]
#13562147 - 11/30/10 12:28 PM (2 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Anonymous #7 said:
I didn't read the thread but being an atheist is not mutually exclusive with believing in an afterlife.
Yeah, that.
Quote:
Anonymous #1 said:
Quote:
Anonymous #4 said:
But... none the less, the central point of my post was to give you an easy out: science declares that time does not function linearly as we perceive it. If time is non-linear, than it is simultaneously occurring, which strongly alludes to the idea that we are eternally and simultaneously experiencing the "now-ness" of our every waking moment.
Eh, I don't see how that gives an out. We only perceive anything because of our brains, as electricity moves through our gray matter and electrons arrive at their destination.
Can you explain how your provided instance disproves my point?
How we perceive everything doesn't seem to have a lot to do with whether or not immortality is possible. Perception is relative to it's own field of awareness. Perception and it's technical mechanisms are, if anything, a GIVEN that supports my point.
Are you aware that you exist when you are not perceiving your existence? You don't have to die to lose perceptive awareness... happens when you sleep, play video games, all sorts of shit can lead to loss of perceptive awareness.
In this sense, the fact that we live on in lieu of perceptive awareness is self evident to those who live life and observe it's aspects.
You present the idea that all perception is an extrapolation of physical and chemical occurrences in the brain, presumably in an attempt to undermine one of the prerequisited premises of my statement.
However, since all perceptions of reality occur within the sphere of perceived reality, (or the field of perception) your statement is tantamount to saying "apples are apples" when posed with the question of how to shoot an apple off someone's head safely. Great, we know apples are apples. We had to accept that to get to the point where we could have a conversation about an action that is superfluous to defining the apple.
If you can explain how your assessment of the nature of perception somehow trumps or purports irrelevance upon an assessment of the illusion of chronology being implicitly and necessarily indicative of a sort of immortality, I am all ears.
The thing is, when you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. In this instance, it's important to note that the concept of "immortality" is being interpreted from a perspective that sees time as a "physical" dimension and not a linear chronology. Within that context, immortality is achieved instantly, because the very concept depends on linearity in order to hold it's default semantic value.
Edited by Anonymous (11/30/10 01:41 PM)
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