What happens when you die?

brian30721
Theist
Posts: 1
Joined: 2007-05-29
User is offlineOffline
What happens when you die?

Forgive me if this has been discussed here before...I'm new here.As a Christian, I know what I believe will happen to me at the moment of death.If you are an Atheist, I would like to hear what you think happens when you draw your last breath.Also, if you believe that you will simply cease to exist, do you give any credibility to any of the "near death experiences" that we've all heard about, where people have supposedly died and then been revived, and then told of all sorts of things they saw and experienced while they were dead?Thanks,Brian


RationalSchema
RationalSchema's picture
Posts: 358
Joined: 2007-02-12
User is offlineOffline
I do think we just cease to

I do think we just cease to exist. As far as the near death experiences, they can be equated to dreams. It seems real, but it is just the mind playing tricks on us. The fact that some of them are religious in nature is not suprising, given the prevalence of religion in society and the expectation that there is something in the afterlife. If most people believed that we meet the great pumpkin when we die you would probably hear more reports of people walking in Pumpkin patches.

"Those who think they know don't know. Those that know they don't know, know."


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16422
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
brian30721 wrote: Forgive

brian30721 wrote:
Forgive me if this has been discussed here before...I'm new here.As a Christian, I know what I believe will happen to me at the moment of death.If you are an Atheist, I would like to hear what you think happens when you draw your last breath.Also, if you believe that you will simply cease to exist, do you give any credibility to any of the "near death experiences" that we've all heard about, where people have supposedly died and then been revived, and then told of all sorts of things they saw and experienced while they were dead?Thanks,Brian

We rot and become worm food. If we are cremated our atoms are converted into heat energy.

As far as NDE it is just a mind trick. In times of extreem stress the brain activity can produce false immages so intense that they feel real. The same effect can be felt on halucenagenic drugs.

I did acid and once talked to a picture of Jerry Luis on a bubble gum machine. At the time it happened it realy felt real. But yet you wouldnt buy it if I litterally thought it was real.

People dont understand how the brain works and how it can fool us and give us false immages. That is all NDE is. 

The point is, that these claims that you hear are just emotional reactions people have to their intense brain activity that produce false feelings that feel real.

FOR EXAMPLE ONLY: If these same  people were shot in the head with a shotgun and their brains were shattered like a pumpkin  they would not have the phyisical capability in their brains to have that same "experiance". 

This is just another hocus pocus claim that people make out of lack of understanding of the human brain. Once the brain permanatly dies the neruons perminantly die and that is it. No magic daddy or devil with a pitchfork needed to understand normal human biology. 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16422
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Let me add. NDE is not

Let me add.

NDE is not magical, but quite understandable considering that people are not educated on human phycology or biology.

When we die naturally without sudden severe head tramma it is much like a dimmer switch on a light. NDE is simply comming close to turning the swich off. Or not turning the swich off long enough for perminant erreversable death.

In mundain phycological terms it is nothing more than the person assigning a false meaning based on a intense false feeling.

"I saw my grandmother" or "I felt comfort and warmth". It is a combo of prior indoctrination without the understanding that if we want something to be real so badly we will see what we want to see.

Now, even when I die I am quite sure I will "See people" or "things" from my past. That is nothing more than my filing cabinate dumping all its files at once.

I wouldnt even be suprised after hearing "hell" for so long that I would have immages of that as well. But armed with what I do know, I think I have a better objectivity to say to myself in that situation, "Hey, this is normal, but it isnt real".

 

 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


deludedgod
Rational VIP!ScientistDeluded God
deludedgod's picture
Posts: 3221
Joined: 2007-01-28
User is offlineOffline
What happens after death is

What happens after death is unknown. When asked, I replied "excellent question. It would be interesting to find out".

As I have studied quantum computing, it can shed interesting light on the notion of infinite/eternal consciousness in the universe, and its possible implications for what occurs after death. I was having a discussion with Captain Pineapple on the subject and here is what I wrote:

The concept of sentience presupposes the concept of information. This is reasonable enough. Sentience is merely a higher form of information processing, or computation. Think of God, a maximally intelligent entity, as maximally sentient. For this a tremendous amount of computational power would be required. The information gradient which feeds computation is based on thermal inequality, or the transfer of energy packets between molecules. These energy packets contain data, which then becomes information when a conscious entity assigns meaning to it. In quantum computing this is called "It from bit" which says the universe exists when it has the capacity to observe itself. This does not mean that there are conscious entities reflecting on the universe, but rather that the universe now contains data, which is stored, ultimately in the fundamental particles of it's composition. In humans this information is shuttled between firing neurons by calcium, magnesium and potassium ions, which create an electrochemical voltage gradient inequality, holding the information. In a computer it is created by electrical pulses representing one of two choices at the atomic level traveling between silicon imprinted circuits, in a quantum computer it is stored as six states known as superpositions.

We can therefore conclude that data is expressed through inequalities in energy, and to that end, a near-infinite level of information resounds throughout the universe. An atom is essentially an organized packet of energy, a photon is the same, except that it is a massless wave. The fantastic variety of ways for energy inequalities to be expressed is born out in the existence of different atoms and different molecular structures into which they might array themselves, in addition, of course, to the different wavelengths for electromagnetic radiation in the photon packet to be expressed. For instance, the information in DNA is stored as four  bases transcribed via codon grouping into amino acids, thus dictating the order of proteins.

Anyone studying matter has a small problem to overcome, namely what is it that gives it it's, well, physicalness (I apologize, there is no better word for it). It's substance. The Greeks thought that you could reduce something by an infinite number of steps. Quantum physics says no. When we shatter the atom below the level of the quark (and all those other particles that stream out when we smash them together like W-bosons etc) we find that we cannot reduce it anymore. I shall go into this into detail in a moment. Well, presumably, when people mean the unique property of matter giving it its substance, they mean its mass. Mass is the mysterious force which gives inertia to an object in motion. The answer is the Higg's boson particle, which physicists now confirm, will almost certainly be discovered when the LHC magnet is turned on underneath Geneva at the CERN institute. If you feel the need to go into why the Higg's Boson causes matter to resist a force applied to it in motion (otherwise known as mass) you can ask me, otherwise I shall skip electroweak gauge theory (the science behind it) and move on.

There is definitely a lot of human perceptive prejudice with the atom. We imagine it as a little ball, a solid sphere of substance inside which are more little balls called protons and neutrons, with smaller little balls called electrons zooming around it. In reality, this is not what an atom is like. That is absurd. Presumably I don't need to point that out. Nonetheless, (I promise all of this will have a point, bear with me) an atom does behave as though it had a fixed radius due to the strong repulsions caused by interacting electron clouds and the very tiny dipole that results. This is called the van der Waals radius. An atom therefore, behaves as if it had a specific boundary, whereby anything within the boundary (the protons, neutrons and electrons) belong to it. And for all intents and purposes, it does. Nonetheless, an atom is not a little ball. It is not physical the way we understand it.

An atom is made up of protons, neutrons and electrons. Inside each of the large particles are several groups of quarks. The particles can be grouped into three generations. The first of which contains the electron, if you are interested. Inside the generations are all six colors of quarks as well as several strange particles like tau and neutrinos. All these particles are called fermions, and they make up all the familiar matter that makes the trees, the mountains, the dog, you, me etc. None of these particles has a mass the way we understand the term. It does not have a physical quality giving it "substance". Rather all are created by different spins on electromagnetic interactions with the other type of particles, bosons (which make up photons, gluons Higg's Bosons and all the other particles or waves responsible for interaction with the fermions to create matter). At this level, matter then, has no physical substance, rather it is comprised of organized packets of energy, the arrangement of which gives the illusion of fixed entities we call atoms.

If you, like me, are a String theorist, you believe that the fundamental, the end of reductionism, comes at the string, a vibrating eleven dimensional membranous string whose size relative to the atom compares to an atoms size with a galaxy (This should not surprise you. After all, the nucleus of an atom compared with the whole atom is roughly comparable with a sand grain placed in the middle of a football field). The different vibration of the string causes the different fundamental particles to switch spin charge. If I pluck a string thusly, I get particle such-and-such. The universe, then, is a symphony of strings, the organization of which into energy packets, and the exchanges and grouping of these packets creates data and thusly, information.

Regardless of which Grand Unifying Theory you subscribe to, you accept this fact. Data is created by inequalities in energy, and the exchange of these inequalities by grouping organized packets of this energy together. The packets of energy are organized in such a way that they are defined entities, which, of course, is the "physicalness" which we were trying to understand earlier.

There can be no doubt in your mind now. Whichever way this information is expressed, there is no doubt that it is fed by matter, physical substance which makes up the universe. The universe then, can be viewed as a stream of data fed by changes in energy, conscious entities in this universe can perceive small chinks of this data as information.

Perhaps this is the best equivocation of God. Not some ethereal spirit, but rather a physical substance. Due to the nature of the energy gradient, there is theoretically, infinite conscious experience in the universe, with the flow of ideas never ceasing, except when it comes the day that the universe reaches maximal entropy, but fear not, for new universes, according to hyperinflation, are constantly being born for all eternity.

One of his responses, which struck me particularly, was:

I do think that there is no consciousness after death is non sequiter. Life doesn't bring conciousness, conciousness brings life.

 

And on the subject, I posted this interesting video:

You should watch this video, it is exactly what you and I have been talking about. It is called Surviving the Singularity, and is supposedly about Kurzweil and the AI singularity, but in reality, it is entirely about consciousness and evolution. It is the inspiration from which I drew for my work:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDqaMFHGEZ8

Ignore the politics in the last few minutes

 

One could deduce that since our consciousness is created by a biochemical stream, it ends at death. But if this is merely a spot on a spectrum of infnite consciousness, the notion of death is incoherent. In quantum paradoxes regarding multiverse, there are other important views on the matter, which were expressed best, I believe by David Deustche in The Fabric of Reality. 

"Physical reality” isn’t some arbitrary demarcation. It is defined in terms of what we can systematically investigate, directly or not, by means of our senses. It is preposterous to assert that the process of systematic scientific reasoning arbitrarily excludes “non-physical explanations” because the very notion of “non-physical explanation” is contradictory.

-Me

Books about atheism


BGH
BGH's picture
Posts: 2772
Joined: 2006-09-28
User is offlineOffline
brian30721 wrote: If you

brian30721 wrote:
If you are an Atheist, I would like to hear what you think happens when you draw your last breath.

You expire shortly thereafter.
 
Hopefully, the people who knew you are thankful they did, and think of the impact you had on their lives.
 
Hopefully, friends and family will miss you but be thankful for the chance to love you.
 
Hopefully, you will have led a life where you were good to the ones you loved and you did your best to be good to those you did not know (mankind).
 
Hopefully, you will have led a fulfilling life full of joy and happiness and not much sadness or pain.
 
Hopefully, you will have accomplished things you wished to achieve and felt a sense of satisfaction.
 
Hopefully, you will have lived a life free from regret and fear all the while making the most of your short time on this planet.
 
Hopefully, you will have not squandered this life waiting for something hereafter but lived as though this is the only life you will ever have.
 
 
brian30721 wrote:
Also, if you believe that you will simply cease to exist, do you give any credibility to any of the "near death experiences" that we've all heard about, where people have supposedly died and then been revived, and then told of all sorts of things they saw and experienced while they were dead?
Thanks,
Brian

All of these affects of NDE's can be attributed to chemical changes in the brain and lack of oxygen. It is a hallucingenic state and whatever you believe in life is expressed in this state. People around the world experience different things depending on their faith system in life. There is no universal NDE and this illustrates that is not the TRUE unknown but a manifestation of ones brain functions at a time of great stress on the body.


Nero
Rational VIP!
Nero's picture
Posts: 1142
Joined: 2007-05-22
User is offlineOffline
I don't know what happens

I don't know what happens when one dies. I have never been dead. Best to ask a dead person and see what they think. The silence one has in response would seem to indicate the direction in which one goes.

"Tis better to rule in Hell than to serve in Heaven." -Lucifer


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16422
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Nero wrote:

Nero wrote:
I don't know what happens when one dies. I have never been dead. Best to ask a dead person and see what they think. The silence one has in response would seem to indicate the direction in which one goes.

I

SELF EDIT:

I JUST REALIZED WHAT CATIGORY I WAS IN, I am moving this post to another thread.

sorry folks. 

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Textom
Textom's picture
Posts: 551
Joined: 2007-05-10
User is offlineOffline
Mary Roach has a book out

Mary Roach has a book out now called "Spook" that's about different, non-Christian/religious efforts to pin down what happens after death. She examines, for example, the experiments in which scientists tried to measure a change in mass of a person who just died to see if the soul has physical mass, the whole culture of assumed reincarnation in India, and some of the quantum/energy/information theories that Deludedgod refers to.

It's a good read, not too technical, very engaging, and gives a good non-theistic perspective on the question.

"After Jesus was born, the Old Testament basically became a way for Bible publishers to keep their word count up." -Stephen Colbert


Jacob Cordingley
SuperfanBronze Member
Jacob Cordingley's picture
Posts: 1484
Joined: 2007-03-18
User is offlineOffline
Is it so hard to believe

Is it so hard to believe that nothing happens when we die? We've all been dead before, before we were born. I plan to live this life as it's the only one I can really know I'll ever have. I do not believe in an afterlife for the same reason I don't believe in God, no evidence, furthermore there is plenty of evidence to say both are figments of human imagination.

Death itself scares me, not the fact that I won't get to live again but simply because I can't imagine what nothing is like. At the end of the day I want to live. This fear however is irrational. Nothing isn't like anything. It isn't like it will all go black, silent and without sense, because I won't have consciousness to notice the lack of senses. Hopefully its 70-80 years away (assuming I get to live to a nice 90-100 years old). If not, and if I have a sudden, unexpected early death I won't care because I'll cease to exist as anything but physical remains on the exact moment I die. I care now because I don't want my family/friends/future spouse(?) to miss me and I want to have the chance to do all the things I want. I want to die old, tucked up in bed, quietly, painlessly slipping away.

 


TrickyNikki
TrickyNikki's picture
Posts: 35
Joined: 2007-05-23
User is offlineOffline
I echo the statement of most

I echo the statement of most people who have responded...I believe we simply exist to be conscious, somewhat like an endless dreamless sleep. Of course, nobody can know for certain, but that seems to be the most logical and plausible explanation, at least in my opinion. I don't believe in a soul, so when you're brain stops functioning, you stop existing as anything more than an unanimated body. I don't find this idea at all distressing. I like the idea of knowing that the end is just...the end. 


Tarpan
Special Agent
Posts: 26
Joined: 2006-06-06
User is offlineOffline
I disagree slightly with

I disagree slightly with the rest of the people here.

When I die, I think I'll fall over.

I'll still exist.  I'll be the big lump of corpse that's laying where ever I fell.  It'll be a pain in the ass to move me too.  Hopefully not too messy.

Near death experiences are just imagination. 


Eight Foot Manchild
Eight Foot Manchild's picture
Posts: 144
Joined: 2007-05-12
User is offlineOffline
I'd like to be embalmed,

I'd like to be embalmed, dismembered and systematically distributed throughout the rides and attractions at Disneyland.


Jacob Cordingley
SuperfanBronze Member
Jacob Cordingley's picture
Posts: 1484
Joined: 2007-03-18
User is offlineOffline
I'd like a secular funeral,

I'd like a secular funeral, no clergymen, no big crosses, no prayers. I want the people I love to celebrate my life, my achievements, perhaps feel a little bit sad at my passing, but be happy for the memories and the legacy that my existence might create. Of course at the time, I won't give a fuck because I'll be dead, but we all want to be remembered a certain way. Call me young and idealistic but I really want to change the world for the better before I die.


stuntgibbon
Moderator
stuntgibbon's picture
Posts: 699
Joined: 2007-05-17
User is offlineOffline
Billions of years passed

Billions of years passed before I came into being, none of which I can remember. I have very little evidence to expect any other outcome than this again when I die.

I can't picture what would be left for me to process anything with. Without eyes and a brain, I cannot see. Without ears/eyes and a brain I cannon sense or process languages or meaning. If there was any manner of "being" left without these rather important processes attached to it, I doesn't seem like I'd have enough tools left to be aware of it.

 


tlc1723 (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
 Dude - I have no idea how

 Dude - I have no idea how I even got to this webpage or what I was originally doing...what you said is awesome! Go quantum hologram!


Jeffrick
High Level DonorRational VIP!SuperfanGold Member
Jeffrick's picture
Posts: 2446
Joined: 2008-03-25
User is offlineOffline
tic1723

tlc1723 wrote:

 Dude - I have no idea how I even got to this webpage or what I was originally doing...what you said is awesome! Go quantum hologram!

 

 

 

                          Come and join us.   Or ELSE  we will track you down and drag you here!!!

"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."

VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"

If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?


JesusNEVERexisted
Superfan
JesusNEVERexisted's picture
Posts: 725
Joined: 2010-01-03
User is offlineOffline
Considering the theist in

Considering the theist in the OP posted in 2007 and didn't post again in this thread do many theists hang out at RR anymore?

How would they find out about it and why would they come to a vipers' den anyway??

Click here to find out why Christianity is the biggest fairy tale ever created!! www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm www.JesusNEVERexisted.com


harleysportster
atheist
harleysportster's picture
Posts: 3359
Joined: 2010-10-17
User is offlineOffline
Coincidentally enough

Coincidentally enough, I just posted a link to an article from Vic Stenger (God the Failed Hypothesis) that answers the questions of what we do know about the possibility of life after death.

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno


JesusNEVERexisted
Superfan
JesusNEVERexisted's picture
Posts: 725
Joined: 2010-01-03
User is offlineOffline
harleysportster

harleysportster wrote:

Coincidentally enough, I just posted a link to an article from Vic Stenger (God the Failed Hypothesis) that answers the questions of what we do know about the possibility of life after death.

Link please?

LOL..how could he discuss the possiblity when 100% of the BILLIONS of people who have died have never come back to even give us a clue as to any kind of afterlife?  I know you hear those crazy stories of near death experiences or people who are dead for a few minutes but those can be explained by the inhibitor response in the brain and other chemical changes like Brian37 said.

Click here to find out why Christianity is the biggest fairy tale ever created!! www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm www.JesusNEVERexisted.com


harleysportster
atheist
harleysportster's picture
Posts: 3359
Joined: 2010-10-17
User is offlineOffline
The Link

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:

Link please?

LOL..how could he discuss the possiblity when 100% of the BILLIONS of people who have died have never come back to even give us a clue as to any kind of afterlife?  I know you hear those crazy stories of near death experiences or people who are dead for a few minutes but those can be explained by the inhibitor response in the brain and other chemical changes like Brian37 said.

Hehehe

Stenger is refuting all of the claims made by people on near death experiences, out of body experiences and all the so-called "proof" that people have tried to submit as evidence.

It's really just a detailed page on how the claims of afterlife are all contradictory in religion, how the mind can fabricate all sorts of fanciful stuff, how NONE of the claims have ever been backed by any scientific study. Umm the link is on another page, but here it goes, it is a bit detailed and lengthy, but pretty much refutes the afterlife notion thus far.

http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy/vstenger/RelSci/LAD.pdf

 

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno


ex-minister
atheistHigh Level Moderator
ex-minister's picture
Posts: 1711
Joined: 2010-01-29
User is offlineOffline
knock, knock, knocking

 I remember when I was young death used to scare me. Then it hit me one night I was alive and that freaked me out even more.

I read some Buddhist literature on this subject and it gave me some satisfying imagery. Life is like a mighty river that crests over a waterfall. The individual droplets are persons feeling separate from life but are not. When they hit the bottom fold back into the mighty river again. Nothing before, nothing after.

It is hard to imagine being at death's door and even welcoming it but when there it will make sense. I saw that with my father who died last year.

Being alive now is what makes sense now, so live.

Religion Kills !!!

Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/


JesusNEVERexisted
Superfan
JesusNEVERexisted's picture
Posts: 725
Joined: 2010-01-03
User is offlineOffline
ex-minister wrote: I

ex-minister wrote:

 I remember when I was young death used to scare me. Then it hit me one night I was alive and that freaked me out even more.

I read some Buddhist literature on this subject and it gave me some satisfying imagery. Life is like a mighty river that crests over a waterfall. The individual droplets are persons feeling separate from life but are not. When they hit the bottom fold back into the mighty river again. Nothing before, nothing after.

It is hard to imagine being at death's door and even welcoming it but when there it will make sense. I saw that with my father who died last year.

Being alive now is what makes sense now, so live.

I see you are an ex-minister.  Have you heard of the book "Losing Faith in Faith: Going from Preacher to Atheist".  Now THAT'S a catch title!  Did you write that? LOL!

Click here to find out why Christianity is the biggest fairy tale ever created!! www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm www.JesusNEVERexisted.com


ex-minister
atheistHigh Level Moderator
ex-minister's picture
Posts: 1711
Joined: 2010-01-29
User is offlineOffline
Not me

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:

ex-minister wrote:

 I remember when I was young death used to scare me. Then it hit me one night I was alive and that freaked me out even more.

I read some Buddhist literature on this subject and it gave me some satisfying imagery. Life is like a mighty river that crests over a waterfall. The individual droplets are persons feeling separate from life but are not. When they hit the bottom fold back into the mighty river again. Nothing before, nothing after.

It is hard to imagine being at death's door and even welcoming it but when there it will make sense. I saw that with my father who died last year.

Being alive now is what makes sense now, so live.

I see you are an ex-minister.  Have you heard of the book "Losing Faith in Faith: Going from Preacher to Atheist".  Now THAT'S a catch title!  Did you write that? LOL!

I hadn't heard of the book. Spent a lot of years just living with guilt/shame. Only in the past few years have I really made an effort to understand why I left. The fundamentalist training I had so colored my thinking I couldn't read the Bible with an open mind.

Read a little of the book on Amazon. "My heart couldn't accept what my mind rejected".  Right on!

Religion Kills !!!

Numbers 31:17-18 - Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

http://jesus-needs-money.blogspot.com/


harleysportster
atheist
harleysportster's picture
Posts: 3359
Joined: 2010-10-17
User is offlineOffline
ex-minister

ex-minister wrote:

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:

 are an ex-minister.  Have you heard of the book "Losing Faith in Faith: Going from Preacher to Atheist".  Now THAT'S a catch title!  Did you write that? LOL!

I hadn't heard of the book. Spent a lot of years just living with guilt/shame. Only in the past few years have I really made an effort to understand why I left. The fundamentalist training I had so colored my thinking I couldn't read the Bible with an open mind.

Read a little of the book on Amazon. "My heart couldn't accept what my mind rejected".  Right on!

You have heard of Godless  by Dan Barker right ? The evangelical preacher that now heads the Freedom from Religion Foundation ?

 

http://www.amazon.com/Godless-Evangelical-Preacher-Americas-Atheists/dp/1569756775

 

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno


Luminon
SuperfanTheist
Luminon's picture
Posts: 2455
Joined: 2008-02-17
User is offlineOffline
I don't care what people

I don't care what people think when they die, as long as they die correctly. Dying correctly is quite an achievement, according to occultism.

What is religion good for, when even believers are afraid of death? They are afraid of Hell and not worthy of entering Heaven, so their ghosts sometimes stay where they are, littering the astral world for decades.
The same goes for closed-minded materialists, they expect NOTHING after death, and so they fervently maintain it, they deliberately stay in apathy for decades or centuries, to show how dead they are. Another astral trash.
Even worse are victims of strong passions and addictions. Instead just passively contaminating the astral world, they keep last bits of contact with physical world and use it to gather where their object of passion is. Typically, it is a pub full of alcoholics to which they readily attach and encourage them to drink more. They're after experiencing the alcohol through a proxy. Similar it is with simple people who did not want to leave their house behind. I have a similar case near my home. The house is haunted, everyone who moves in there has a bad, weird feeling since the old farmer couple died. Even people who were used to move frequently from apartment to apartment can't settle down in there.

So dear materialists, in the moment of your death pay a good attention and keep really widely open mind. Don't dumb yourself with narcotics, it's your big day! Don't you want to observe your brain parts shutting down, like stars blinking out of existence?
It is possible that a part of yourself is made of dark matter and this part will remain yourself after your dense-material body dies and rots. There will be a couple more of body-layers to shed, but that will not harm you. And leave the new house tenants in peace, mind your own ghostly astral business. Which is, getting rid of desires. The more desires you have, the more time you lose with their illusory astral satisfying. Even lust for knowledge has a honorable astral place.
In case that sort of thing happens, remember which kind of particular crazy folks were right (my kind) and then try to follow the instructions. Do not insist on the nothingness of your existence without checking first if there is an existence. If there is an existence, lots of other people of many kinds went ahead and they surely prepared a comfortable place for you, so keep searching.

 

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.


JesusNEVERexisted
Superfan
JesusNEVERexisted's picture
Posts: 725
Joined: 2010-01-03
User is offlineOffline
Q: What happens when you

Q: What happens when you die?

A: NOTHING

 

Like Terry Bradshaw said, KISS i.e. Keep it simple stupid. 

Click here to find out why Christianity is the biggest fairy tale ever created!! www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm www.JesusNEVERexisted.com


Luminon
SuperfanTheist
Luminon's picture
Posts: 2455
Joined: 2008-02-17
User is offlineOffline
JesusNEVERexisted wrote:Q:

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:

Q: What happens when you die?

A: NOTHING

 

Like Terry Bradshaw said, KISS i.e. Keep it simple stupid. 

It is good to stay open-minded during life, including death.

Considering that as close you can get to "nothing" is vacuum, and vacuum is full of energy and particles emerging on quantum level and is much more massive than our matter itself, then "nothing" means hell a lot going on Smiling

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.


Abu Lahab
Superfan
Abu Lahab's picture
Posts: 628
Joined: 2008-02-29
User is offlineOffline
.......

Remember what it was like before you were born? That's what it feels like to be dead.


steve_r_w (not verified)
Posts: 4294964976
Joined: 1969-12-31
User is offlineOffline
What happens when a person dies

Hi Brian,

The evidence that is in seems pretty uncontroversial and straightforward.

When a person dies they lose conciousness, and their bodies cease to function - heart, breathing, brain activity, eventually all stop.  Local stores of energy and oxygen in blood, organs and cells mean that we continue to live, while unconscious, for a time after our basic 'life support' systems fail.

This is why it is possible to resuscitate people.  Brain cells begin to die in large numbers as this energy and oxygen are used up - a process that can take minutes to hours.  As a first aider I was told that fifteen minutes is usually considered the maximum time that a person's brain can survive while CPR is performed.  Death is a process - it is not a on/off switch.

After a little while the bacteria that live in us all - all the time - have nothing to feed on, so they begin to feed on the body.  Thus begins the process of breaking down our bodies into it's chemical constituents.  With time the atoms that made up the live person find their way into other places - earth, air, plants, animals and some will go to make new people.  In a few cases some parts of the dead body may be preserved  by some natural process for a long period.  Bog bodies are an example.

No, I don't give any credibility to any of the, so-called, 'near death experiences' that are sometimes bandied about.  When people say they 'died' and then describe things they saw and experienced while they were 'dead' they are talking from a point of major weakness - they are alive!  Clearly; they didn't get that close to death.

It may be that such people can talk truthfully about their bodies having gone through some of the symptoms of dying - perhaps their heart stopped for example.  But they clearly didn't actually die because, well, there they are talking about it.

People who experience cardiac arrest show all the three main symptoms of death (as above) and a few (my understanding is about 1 in 5) of the survivors will have common experiences like white lights, looking down a tunnel, or gazing down on themselves in an operating theatre or hospital bed.

Scientists continue to study why people have these experiences and have so far concluded that it has something to do with individual neurological set up - people who readily dream seem most likely to have these experiences.  There are also theories from neurobiologists that the arousal system may play a role as sleep paralysis and sleep-related visual and auditory hallucinations are substantially more common in subjects who have near death experiences.

We all know, of course, that our concious thoughts are directly linked to our physical brains - medical conditions such as stroke, Alzheimer's disease, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and many others establish this beyond doubt.  In addition, we know that our brains can suffer hallucination from a variety of causes.

Many of those causes will be present in situations where people have near death experiences; anoxia, drugs, stress, illness, etc..  The wonder is that people take near death experiences to be anything other than hallucinations.  Have these people never heard of science?


Peace.

 


JesusNEVERexisted
Superfan
JesusNEVERexisted's picture
Posts: 725
Joined: 2010-01-03
User is offlineOffline
Luminon

Luminon wrote:

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:

Q: What happens when you die?

A: NOTHING

 

Like Terry Bradshaw said, KISS i.e. Keep it simple stupid. 

It is good to stay open-minded during life, including death.

Considering that as close you can get to "nothing" is vacuum, and vacuum is full of energy and particles emerging on quantum level and is much more massive than our matter itself, then "nothing" means hell a lot going on Smiling

Yeah but your brain and thus all your sensory abilities will be gone and wasted away so you can't expereince or sense anything in that vacuum or anywhere else! So to us it is NOTHING!  You can speculate all you want but there have been over 10 BILLION humans that have died and NOT A SINGLE ONE has come back to tell us of an afterlife. 

You can't give obscure cases where crackpots make unsubstantiated claims.  Have the dead person present himself to ALL of us if there really is an afterlife.

Click here to find out why Christianity is the biggest fairy tale ever created!! www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm www.JesusNEVERexisted.com


JesusNEVERexisted
Superfan
JesusNEVERexisted's picture
Posts: 725
Joined: 2010-01-03
User is offlineOffline
Abu Lahab wrote:Remember

Abu Lahab wrote:

Remember what it was like before you were born? That's what it feels like to be dead.

Yes, that is an excellent way to look at it and I've thought about that too.  If reincarnation were real we WOULD remember from before we were born since we lived before!  I know they say in Hinduism and Buddhism it's hidden from you and they call it Maya or whatever but just like the crazy Christians they have no evidence. 

But at least the entire concept of KARMA makes a LOT MORE sense than this "dying for your sins" bullshit which makes NO sense AT ALL!! If he's dead there's no way he can help you and you see that played out among Christians every day!!

Click here to find out why Christianity is the biggest fairy tale ever created!! www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm www.JesusNEVERexisted.com


Luminon
SuperfanTheist
Luminon's picture
Posts: 2455
Joined: 2008-02-17
User is offlineOffline
JesusNEVERexisted wrote:Yeah

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:

Yeah but your brain and thus all your sensory abilities will be gone and wasted away so you can't expereince or sense anything in that vacuum or anywhere else! So to us it is NOTHING!  You can speculate all you want but there have been over 10 BILLION humans that have died and NOT A SINGLE ONE has come back to tell us of an afterlife.

Robert Allan Monroe, Raymond Moody, Edgar Cayce's patients and many more gave us quite a clear idea of what happens when we die.
Our sensoric abilities to perceive this world will be of course lost by death of the physical vehicle. But that is only a part of our existence. There is a great unseen part of the world, unseen matter, unseen energy, invisible electromagnetic wave frequencies, and so on, maybe even other dimensions predicted by M-theory. There is a lot of space for etheric body, astral body and other vehicles of consciousness after death.

The experiences show that this phase is equivalent to our sleep. Sleep activity of a common and advanced person is very different, in the sense that their astral vehicle is very different. A commoner's astral vehicle has a volatile, formless, amoeboid shape of ill colors and misplaced centers. Such an astral body does not go far from a sleeping physical body. An advanced person's astral vehicle takes on more humanoid form, is more impervious, colourful and shining, and is able and willing to go out into the astral world to experience adventures that have nothing to do with his waking life. In this way, people see things they never would have seen or thought of in their life, and so these cannot be a by-product of their brain. Specially people they meet there and greet them like old friends, never having seen them in real.
Laws of this world are somewhat different from ours, to understand what we were doing in the dream is like for a grandma to come to television in the middle of Matrix trying to understand what the film is about. So while common people usually stay near their sleeping body and dream of brain processing their daytime memories, astrally advanced people experience the astral life and are also more likely to remember something of what they were doing in there. Some are even able of lucid dreaming.

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:
You can't give obscure cases where crackpots make unsubstantiated claims.  Have the dead person present himself to ALL of us if there really is an afterlife.

You'd love to hang out with early 20th century Theosophists like Helena P. Blavatsky, Annie Besant, colonel Olcott, and so on. For example, in HPB's biography there's not uncommon case how they spent a weeked on Olcott's farm and observed straight 19 ghost materializations... If you want to see things, you've got to hang out with the right people.

 

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:

Yes, that is an excellent way to look at it and I've thought about that too.  If reincarnation were real we WOULD remember from before we were born since we lived before!  I know they say in Hinduism and Buddhism it's hidden from you and they call it Maya or whatever but just like the crazy Christians they have no evidence.

How can you remember past lives, when you don't even remember yesterday's dream? If yes, consider all these dreams you had and then forgot. Hell, people even forget almost all of their waking time. That is Maya, illusion of the solid non-transparent world, while most of the world is invisible and permeating our so-called solid matter.
Yes, there are some cases of saints or children describing their past lives and sometimes it is even confirmed by investigation that such a person existed. 
Think of how many children were told to not make up stories about their past lives and invisible friends. How many past lives and ghost observations were lost in this way. The only good thing is, that there will be still more people born with clairvoyance of some sort, so eventually it will be impossible for scientists to ignore.

JesusNEVERexisted wrote:
But at least the entire concept of KARMA makes a LOT MORE sense than this "dying for your sins" bullshit which makes NO sense AT ALL!! If he's dead there's no way he can help you and you see that played out among Christians every day!!

Riiight.

There are of course many misinterpretations and folk superstitions about karma, eastern theologians did no better than the western when they misinterpreted the virgin birth of Jesus or salvation.
Karma is one of natural laws like gravity is, and just like gravity it can be circumvented by right conditions and knowledge. Teaching of eastern theologians to accept our karma passively as inescapable suffering is wrong.

Beings who deserve worship don't demand it. Beings who demand worship don't deserve it.


Marty Hamrick
atheist
Marty Hamrick's picture
Posts: 227
Joined: 2010-12-31
User is offlineOffline
I don't have a clue what

I don't have a clue what happens after you die and niether does anyone else, despite how dogmatically they make a claim to the contrary. As for NDE's, I had one once back in the 90's. At the time, you may have convinced me that I glimpsed the spirit realm, but now, almost 20 years later, I look back on it like a dream.

 

Experts have categorized NDE's into 4 types and they seem to fit a person's psychology and belief system, thus fitting the individual like a Freudian glove. Furthermore, they can't really be called NDE's since there is obviously brain activity going on and a person really isn't dead until their brain's EEG flatlines. The heart, lungs and other involuntry systems can shut down, but it still takes a few minutes for brain death, which IS the final state of death to occur. "Near Death Experience" does NOT mean "dead and come back".

"Science flies you to the moon. Religion flies you into buildings."


Jean Chauvin
Theistard
Jean Chauvin's picture
Posts: 1211
Joined: 2010-11-19
User is offlineOffline
Hi Brian

Hi Brian,

In your case, you wake up in hell.

That's the kindest way to put it.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).

A Rational Christian of Intelligence (rare)with a valid and sound justification for my epistemology and a logical refutation for those with logical fallacies and false worldviews upon their normative of thinking in retrospect to objective normative(s). This is only understood via the imago dei in which we all are.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).


BobSpence
High Level DonorRational VIP!ScientistWebsite Admin
BobSpence's picture
Posts: 5939
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Jean Chauvin wrote:Hi

Jean Chauvin wrote:

Hi Brian,

In your case, you wake up in hell.

That's the kindest way to put it.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).

Hey, Mr Calvin, is that because he is predestined to go there anyway, regardless of what he says, or are those who are going to Hell those who are foreseen to be the kind of person who will ultimately bad-mouth God?

And what makes you so sure you are in the select?

BTW, 'nice' to see you back, disrespectfully parading your ignorant arrogance, giving Christianity a bad name.

Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality

"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris

The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me

From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology


harleysportster
atheist
harleysportster's picture
Posts: 3359
Joined: 2010-10-17
User is offlineOffline
BobSpence1 wrote:Hey, Mr

BobSpence1 wrote:

Hey, Mr Calvin, is that because he is predestined to go there anyway, regardless of what he says, or are those who are going to Hell those who are foreseen to be the kind of person who will ultimately bad-mouth God?

And what makes you so sure you are in the select?

BTW, 'nice' to see you back, disrespectfully parading your ignorant arrogance, giving Christianity a bad name.

Perhaps he is relying on the "infinite reference point" for his information. Which could be ok, if it were not for the fact that the infinite reference point just happens to not exist.

“It is proof of a base and low mind for one to wish to think with the masses or majority, merely because the majority is the majority. Truth does not change because it is, or is not, believed by a majority of the people.”
― Giordano Bruno


Jean Chauvin
Theistard
Jean Chauvin's picture
Posts: 1211
Joined: 2010-11-19
User is offlineOffline
Hi Brian

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the welcome back.

He does have a choice. He simply chooses to hate God and to be a liar, murder, lustful pervert like the rest of atheists (Galatians 5:21).

That's what the Bible says, not me.

Also, it's all His choice. Though you are right, God MAY have allowed him to be a Vessel of Wrath (Romans 9:21-22) such as yourself, but we don't know. God may still pull him from death to life just as He may do to you Brian.

Harleysportster, I'm glad you have been paying attention.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3) .

A Rational Christian of Intelligence (rare)with a valid and sound justification for my epistemology and a logical refutation for those with logical fallacies and false worldviews upon their normative of thinking in retrospect to objective normative(s). This is only understood via the imago dei in which we all are.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).


butterbattle
ModeratorSuperfan
butterbattle's picture
Posts: 3945
Joined: 2008-09-12
User is offlineOffline
Jean Chauvin wrote:He does

Jean Chauvin wrote:
He does have a choice. He simply chooses to hate God and to be a liar, murder, lustful pervert like the rest of atheists (Galatians 5:21).

That's what the Bible says, not me.

O.o

I'm a murderer. I hope the cops don't get me.

 

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare


Gawdzilla
atheist
Posts: 69
Joined: 2011-01-01
User is offlineOffline
What If You're

What If You're Wrong?(tm)

(Link from AtheismResource.com)


Indeterminate
Posts: 89
Joined: 2009-12-18
User is offlineOffline
Jean Chauvin wrote:He simply

Jean Chauvin wrote:

He simply chooses to hate God and to be a liar, murder, lustful pervert like the rest of atheists (Galatians 5:21).

I'm only a lustful pervert part time, what are my chances?

God: "Thou Must Go from This Place Lest I Visit Thee with Boils!"
Man: "Really? Most people would bring a bottle of wine"


Sapient
High Level DonorRRS CO-FOUNDERRRS Core MemberWebsite Admin
Posts: 7587
Joined: 2006-04-18
User is offlineOffline
brian30721 wrote:Forgive me

brian30721 wrote:

Forgive me if this has been discussed here before...I'm new here.As a Christian, I know what I believe will happen to me at the moment of death.If you are an Atheist, I would like to hear what you think happens when you draw your last breath.Also, if you believe that you will simply cease to exist, do you give any credibility to any of the "near death experiences" that we've all heard about, where people have supposedly died and then been revived, and then told of all sorts of things they saw and experienced while they were dead?Thanks,Brian

I know this was asked a long time ago but I wanted to give my simple take.  After I die I will be just like I was before I was born.  Do you remember life before you were born?  No.  That's what death is like.

 


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16422
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Jean Chauvin wrote:That's

Jean Chauvin wrote:
That's what the Bible says, not me.

Right, and thats what they all say. "Don't blame me, my god told me this."

Yea, so why don't you get out of the way and let us deal with him. Why would you need to defend him? Is he too weak to handle us himself? He needs you to protect him?

That's like West Side Story when the minions hide behind the gang leader and shout, "WHAT HE SAID".

When believers of any label say, "Dont pick on my god", I get the image of a midget standing spread eagle in front of the Terminator shouting, "Don't hit my god, you might hurt him".

"The bible says"

So what?

"The Koran says"

"The Torah and Talmud say"

"The Rig Vedas say"

And all their minions have as much evidence to justify saying, "Don't blame me, I'm just the messenger" as you do for your pet god.

It is called circular reasoning.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


Brian37
atheistSuperfan
Brian37's picture
Posts: 16422
Joined: 2006-02-14
User is offlineOffline
Jean Chauvin wrote:Hi

Jean Chauvin wrote:

Hi Brian,

In your case, you wake up in hell.

That's the kindest way to put it.

Respectfully,

Jean Chauvin (Jude 3).

That makes your god more evil than Hitler. At least when he killed the Jews Hitler couldn't torture them forever.

MY POINT IS, "hell" is not a corrective concept, but one of revenge. In real life, even with the worst of the worst, when the bad guys like Hitler and Mussolini died we didn't torture them forever. In civil societies the we lock the bad guys up for life, or we put them on death row. What we don't do is torture our enemies once we have them contained, much less forever.

"Hell" is not a corrective measure AS THE CLAIMED CONCEPT people claim, like you. It is like a jilted lover who stalks the person who tries to leave them. "I am a jealous God"

Your god concept is the same as Hitler's "my way or the highway" rule and anyone who dissents even if the person isnt dissenting out of hate, but "it's not my thing". Both your God and Hitler hunt you down and do horrible things to you. At least the Jews had an end to their suffering, according to you, I will be treated far worse than what Hitler did to the Jews.

"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog


JesusNEVERexisted
Superfan
JesusNEVERexisted's picture
Posts: 725
Joined: 2010-01-03
User is offlineOffline
Can we ban Jean Chauvin for

Can we ban Jean Chauvin for committing the sin of being a Christian? If not then for being French?

Click here to find out why Christianity is the biggest fairy tale ever created!! www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm www.JesusNEVERexisted.com