I'm not religious, but I do believe in an afterlife of some kind. If I lost somebody, and somebody said "They're with God now" I would accept their condolences, even though I don't believe it myself. They mean well and it's how they express it. That's seriously all it is, unless they say more they aren't pushing it on me and I couldn't care less.

Seriously, if you get offended or anything by that then you need to harden up.

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Well theres some 'science' going for the happy feely the mind is not the brain but rather the various quantum existance that goes on there.

and if your mind isn't your brain then its somewhat possible that it continues to exist in some fashion after you die.

However your memories most certainly ARE in your brain, and most of what makes you YOU are in your brain and that doesn't get brought with you if you DO go anywhere.

the only hope would be to imprint the whatever so deep on your mind that it retains it post losing the container of the brain.

So Is there an after life? certainly, energy is conserved, life goes on, your body is recycled and your energy of your mind goes SOMEWHERE.

will you be able to enjoy it? Without a mechanism to record memories how would you?

i'm an atheist. when my dad died when i was 14, what i found disturbing was when people would say things like "he's looking down on you from heaven". i know they thought these words would make me feel better, like i was safe or protected, but it made me feel like i was being spied on or something. at the time he died i wasn't telling my family that i was atheist, because they're Christian and I knew it would cause problems. a couple years later when i did tell them i don't believe in Christianity one of the questions i got asked is "well where do you think your dad is? don't you think he's in heaven?". well, no i don't think he's in heaven because i don't believe in heaven. he's dead. i think the way i handle his death was just knowing that one day everyone dies. death is a part of life, so yeah you're going to be sad but life keeps going and eventually you have to move on.

also, for people who are religious, just believing that your loved one is in heaven or with God doesn't necessarily make things any easier. my mom still struggles with my dad being gone, and i know that she would prefer that he was still alive rather than "being in a better place".

the immortality of the soul is the main theme of what you're talking about
well materialism denies the existence of the soul let alone it's existence independently from a body
well Ed Fredkin made a suggestion (in On The Soul that the soul is similar to an operating system for the body and thus you're soul with your memories can be saved(no pun intended) on another support (pendrive,DVD,mortuary tablet) or sent to heaven (cloud) wirelessly/ether(net)
and in the same vein Digital philosophy say that the universe is more information than matter
witch isn't strange since quantum physics already showed that matter isn't what we thought it to be
and that conservation of matter was falsified
after that came the conservation of energy but even this one is no longer absolute because of
Hawking paradox
now scientists say that we have only "Conservation of informations"
and last the plank scale,plank time, and plank energy show that the space is discrete and maybe digital
some philosophers say that we are living in a simulated reality inside an universal Turing machine and that there is no distinction between simulation and reality (simulation is as real to its entities as reality)
thus maybe really after all the soul is immortal and saved (uploaded) in heaven (cloud) ?

Last edited by jasperv at 2:53 pm, Oct 23 2011

that's sort of along the lines when people sneeze, and you say "bless you" (obviously short for god, bless you) I've known many atheists and buddhists who appreciate it. And some who take offense to it.

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I don't use "bad" words, I use SENTENCE ENHANCERS.

lol, I was going to ask the same thing.
According to the Catholic Church, a small child who died before recieving babtism goes to heaven now.
Back in the Middle Ages (before the plague) it was believed those children were sent to hell, but then came the plague, and many children died without having recieved babtism. So, during those years it was decided that those children should not go to hell, since they couldn't have done anything wrong, and Limbo was instated. Now they are believed to go straight to heaven.

I am not religious, but everyone from my father's side of the family is Catholic. When my grandmother (my father's mother) died, I must say I did find some comfort in attending the funeral; for me the fixed order of events has a therapeutic effect, and being able to share your grief with others kind of gives a feeling of catharsis.

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The only similar thing I can think of is from one of those weird Japanese folklore-buddhist hybrid traditions where kids who die before their parents have to sit at the edge of the... I think Sanzu river until their parents die before they're allowed to cross over. This is one of those irritating "because shinto isn't a true, unified religion (rather it's just any native Japanese beliefs from anywhere that were utterly disparate and needed a common designation to separate terminology from 9th century Chinese religion) it's really difficult to tell where this comes from" moments.

On the bible- stories from that era were written metaphorically. If you take it metaphorically, as was intended by the writer, then I think it's a fine tool. Religion in general is a fine tool, it's just a means to examine how you live your life and your place in the universe. It's comforting because that's precisely what it exists for. And there's not really anything wrong with that, whether you disagree with religion or not, people still have a right to try to seek comfort where they can get it, and I do say that as a firm agnostic.

On the afterlife: I shudder to think that something like that actually exists. Honestly reincarnation is more appealing to me, and even that seems... unfortunate. The afterlife devalues life in reality, and the sheer immensity of a place that every person that has died throughout all of history resides in staggers me.

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I BELIEVE IN GOD. but i am not religious it actually has been a long time, since the last time i attended church. i religion i think is just a name. i have faith so.. yeah. i feel good. death is a mystery, bible, quran, theyre just books, they tell you stuff and its up to you to make meaning out of all that stuff.

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The sweeter the apple, the higher the branch. The quieter the fart, the nastier the smell.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PiZSFIVFiU

Around 1 minute part and onwards.
3:30 in fact.

Yeah I guess it's better to live with the happy denial that your love one is in some better place when really they're body just rotting underground.

What ever works for you I guess.

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You don't want to think that even if you're not religious...I think it's better just not to think of what really goes on after they've been buried...or at least not dwell on it...it'll drive anyone crazy....who rea;;y wants to think of decomposition?

In that case,I think cremation might make some things better