Afterlife

Right now I'm assuming that when you die, you simply stop existing. Simple as that. Your conscience simply dies, so there is no void, heaven or hell to experience.

Death is a very hard thing to grasp for humans, which is why people clamp on to things like heaven. And if that brings them comfort then fine. Death is probably the scariest thing in your life.

I'll find out when I get there, it's counterproductive to dwell on it.

If people were experiencing a near-death experience, they weren't dead. Therefore, what they observed was not the afterlife. Q.E.D.

I don't believe there's an afterlife. There's no logical reason why humans would be more entitled to an afterlife than, say, headlice, and headlice going to heaven is just plain crazy.

Why is it crazy? You're speaking from a strict "humans are more entitled to an afterlife than headlice" point of view.

I like to think that when you die, you got to a place. A non descript place, really. Not heaven, hell, or limbo. It's just a place.

And you're only there long enough to pull the handle on a gigantic slot machine, which tells you whether you'll be rotting, haunting, reincarnating, or reaching some sort of state of enlightenment.

So, you pull the handle and yeah yeah yeah.

The only people who know what it's like to die cannot tell us what it's like to die

I hope to fuck there is no afterlife, the thought of having to live again for an unknowing amount of years would be hell. Sweet, eternal, unthinking bliss would be fantastic.

I would find it pretty disturbing to be in a dark place for eternity. Nothing there, nowhere to go, just you and darkness.

HINT: IF YOUR POST CONTAINS THE INSTRUCTION "DISCUSS", IT SHOULD PROBABLY BE A DISCUSSION AND NOT A BLOG.

Do people genuinely struggle with this distinction, or are you all orchestrating a co-ordinated push to erode my sanity and respect for humanity till there's nothing left of me but a hollow shell of contempt?

Good point. I didn't actually read the blog, just the comments.

Stop going off topic Max, we're having a discussion here.

Sorry, Max.

I'll remember that in the future.

Yeh there's probably a Heaven but dear Lord I'm not talking about it or the heathens here will eat my knee caps and spit them in my face. Seriously, conforming is fun.

(I love you all really, your not heathens.)

Actually, I am. Religious scum.

i'm with Ench. fucking trees and goats is fun.

I don't deny its fun...I just don't partake, it is my social and moral obligation. Nyah.

When people have near death experiences they get a rush of Dimethyltryptamine (or the equivalent that our pineal gland naturally produces) in their brain; just like dreaming. I have come to think that maybe that chemical response in the brain is what the afterlife is for us, even if it only lasts for a while, as people near death.

Nothing is currently more terrifying to me than the thought of an afterlife. I mean, really. This has got to stop.

I wouldn't mind a state of permanent existence but only if I had someone to interact with, wandering Earth as a ghost would be so very dull. Apparently scientists can 'prove' the existence of a soul leaving the body now. I am skeptical that this is the case, no way God made it that easy.

Well, I don't see why many people are scarred of afterlife, it's atleast better than eternal darkness, silence, and lonliness, from my (that is not so Islamic nor personal but rather a mixture of both) P.O.V., Hell is like what i mentioned above except add endless torture...or not, it maybe torture for a while and the you get out and go to heaven (cause if you are not in hell you're in heaven and vice versa) and maybe no torture at all and straight to heaven.
As for heaven, it's Infinite happiness, In an Infinite and Endless life in an Endless world were all people are not old and not young and perfect.

Oh and from the more Islamic side of it, not only Muslims go to heaven and not only non-believers go to hell, because two people who did the exact same actions will have different chances of going to heaven or hell because actions are not the only things that count, health conditions, money, and all kinds of other stuff count too.

EDIT:
And IMO, near death is not the same as death, nobody knows for sure until they die.

when i'm dead i just want to rot or burn. i don't want to be fucking around somewhere else.

Are these the same scientists who 'prove' that global warming is a sham and that Adam and Eve had pet dinosaurs?

Like the guy that reckoned dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden and were vegetarian?

So both Abe619 and Dynamithix seem to miss the point of a non-afterlife death. You don't sit in darkness on your own for eternity. You don't even get that.

You cease to be. You don't get to think anything and you don't care because you don't get to think anything. It's fucking terrifying.

It sounds fucking beautiful.

How is that terrifying? To me it sounds... I dunno... neutral. Neither scary nor pleasing.

Fucking this. Whenever someone tells you that they died, were "technically dead" or to have otherwise experienced death, you have bloody good cause to doubt their claims.

A few weeks ago my mum saw a blog page open on my computer and saw the topic was atheism. She asked if I was an atheist, which was odd because I thought she knew, and by any definition of the word she is as well, whatever she might put down on the census. Not the most sceptical of atheists, though, it has to be said. Anyway, she then asked me if I believe in ghosts, as she does (she claims to have seen them as a child), and I answered to the negative. Finally, she asked me where I believe we go when we die, to which I replied: "where does the image on a television screen go when you turn it off?"

The I've always thought that that analogy was a good one. All the evidence tells us that the mind is not merely the product of the brain, but an activity of it. A verb. When it stops doing it, no essence continues on, any more than an essence of "the act of stirring tea" continues when you stop to drink it. It's utterly absurd.

@Abe619, you reckon we go to the same Heaven? We have the same God...just under a different name.

yes, the same.