Share your worldview?

[Whateverist]

1) I assume that I will cease to exist after death, but I don't know for sure. Nobody does. Sure, people claim to know, but people claim a lot of things. People claim to have knowledge that we will be reincarnated after death. I don't assume that they know what they are talking about. How could they know? Same deal with heaven/hell. Nobody knows what happens after death. Nobody.

Speak for yourself, lol.  

Yeah I once witnessed what happens after death first hand.  Walking home the mile from the bus stop after middle school I passed this dead black cat every day and saw exactly what happens.  Decay.  Complete and thorough dissolution.  

Now some hold that our subjective experience will just wing away to a supernatural happy place once our bodies are not needed.  Just like when you smash a television screen the image that it was showing goes on .. oh wait, it doesn't.  But of course all the unbroken screens can continue to carry the signal .. just as all the still living humans after me will continue to carry on after me.  C'est la vie.

[The Grand Nudger]

A refusal to face the reality of our own death has..ironically, lead to more death than would have otherwise occurred..and a shitty experience of life for millions upon millions up until the moment of their death.  It causes us to fail ourselves and others at the moment of greatest need...and all for naught, because all still die.

[Whateverist]

Okay 1% is a little strong, and I chose it arbitrarily. The DC universe example is even better than my lottery example. I am exactly as certain about the real DC universe as I am about any afterlife. (Hopefully that clarifies what I am saying here.) We are talking 0.00000X% with many more zeroes than shown. 

I hope you realize that my pushing the agnostic position was an attempt to get a theist to reconsider his/her position, and not something that drives my consideration of possibilities when contemplating the afterlife.

Let me put it like this: Which is a more reasonable position? Certainty of heaven/hell or agnosticism?

b-mine

And just in time for Valentine's day.  Are you going to accept, Vulcan?

[The Grand Nudger]

Vulcan knows I love him.  We're going to have brainbabies someday for all the unprotected thoughtsexes. 

[vulcanlogician]

Certainty would be the more reasonable position..but it's not always the most useful, as your explanation for offering agnosticsm in this regard, in bold, suggests.  You negotiated with the truth, by way of nonexistent probabilities and math you have not done and cannot show, in order to sway a person with a contravening opinion to reconsider their own fanciful beliefs.

That act of negotiation is what lends fairy tales the patina of credibility required to persist as they are in the first place.

I agree with the bold (my use of math and/or numbers was not the most accurate tool to demonstrate my point). I disagree with everything else, especially that certainty would be the most reasonable position, and here's why: agnosticism is where all investigations begin. I think you agree with this, right? You can't begin an investigation with a conclusion... a hypothesis, yes, but if you already have a conclusion, you won't investigate further. But after you find a reasonable conclusion, if you do not end with some degree of uncertainty, you cut yourself off from further discovery.

Ptolemy had a model of the universe. Earth in the middle, sun circles around etc. etc.-- Then came along Copernicus who debunked the Ptolemaic model. But here's the thing: Copernicus was wrong. He thought the sun was the center of the universe. It's not. He thought all the stars revolved around the sun. They don't. Certainty in the Copernican model is not the most reasonable position, nor is complete certainty in any position ever advisable. I'm sure we all appreciate what Copernicus clarified for us. But the fact is, certainty in his assertion that the stars revolve around the sun would have inhibited further discovery. Even in cases where we have very good information/evidence, we need to be willing to subject our conclusions (however well-founded they may be) to further scrutiny.

[The Grand Nudger]

I agree with the bold (my use of math and/or numbers was not the most accurate tool to demonstrate my point). I disagree with everything else, especially that certainty would be the most reasonable position, and here's why: agnosticism is where all investigations begin. I think you agree with this, right? You can't begin an investigation with a conclusion... a hypothesis, yes, but if you already have a conclusion, you won't investigate further. But after you find a reasonable conclusion, if you do not end with some degree of uncertainty, you cut yourself off from further discovery.

This "investigation" hasn't begun, it's been concluded.  Afterlives are fairy tales..explicitly, demonstrably..and self-establishingly so.  Nothing that we will one day learn will ever confirm those fairy tales because they were simply wrong...even if we are also, meaningfully, wrong...about something..not that you have any suggestions as to what that might be.  

Ptolemy had a model of the universe. Earth in the middle, sun circles around etc. etc.-- Then came along Copernicus who debunked the Ptolemaic model. But here's the thing: Copernicus was wrong. He thought the sun was the center of the universe. It's not. He thought all the stars revolved around the sun. They don't. Certainty in the Copernican model is not the most reasonable position, nor is complete certainty in any position ever advisable. I'm sure we all appreciate what Copernicus clarified for us. But the fact is, certainty in his assertion that the stars revolve around the sun would have inhibited further discovery. Even in cases where we have very good information/evidence, we need to be willing to subject our conclusions (however well-founded they may be) to further scrutiny.

If you'd like to consider fairy tales as legitimate as investigation into our universe be my guest.  At least there's a universe to look at and be wrong about. I fear that we're no longer being even remotely rational in the comparison, even if we feel that we're being generous and ecumenical with knowledge and certainty, or that such an approach has utility when dealing with the afflicted.

In instances in which there is anything, or more of anything, to learn, for any of the things you reference above to be relevant...as true as they may be, you'd have to establish that this thing we're talking about is in that set.

I think it's counterproductive and a-rational, at best.

[Whateverist]

Besides, by owning our uncertainty we set a good example for the impressionable theists who may stop in.

[DLJ]

...
Origin
How do you think we got here - how did humans originate?

There was no first human.  We have been retrospectively categorised into existence.

I, for one, think this was a mistake.

Where did the universe/world come from? Big Bang, God, other?

In the beginning was the ... Equilibrium.

Harmony was everywhere and nowhere. Matter played with anti-matter cancelling themselves out and gods played with anti-gods in the same non-physical, pre-physics kinda way.

Then an improbable, post-human descendant of Min the powerful™ travelled back in time and farted.

Yes, that's right, you heard it here first ... the universe was created by the gaseous disturbance emitted from the bowels of a temporally-challenged descendant of Min The Almighty!

In an infinitely small container (the proto-universe) the vibrations caused by the fart created an interference pattern as the infinitely small fart particles (farticles) reverberated ... bumping, binding, bounding and rebounding against each other. But in a boundless and boundaryless container the farticles stretched and stretched and stretched like strings ... rippling strings that grew into waves ... and like ripples on a pond or the waves of the ocean, the peaks and troughs multiplied and overlapped ... creating the space-time fabric as we know it and the laws of physics were born.

F=MA

Farticle = Min the Almighty!

You know it makes sense.

Meaning
What do you think the purpose of life is?

Other than proper sentence construction, see signature... it's to pass on our DNA.

Does human life have meaning? If so, what gives that meaning?

Again, see signature... the meaning of life is the experience of living.

Are humans more significant than other creatures? Are we special? Why?

Thinking tools.  We got 'em and they are our legacy.

Morality
Why do we have moral ethics?

We don't.

Why do some things ‘seem’ bad (like murder)?

Chemical alerts.

Do good and bad exist?

Yes.  I had a power cut earlier.  My food is now bad.

How do you determine what is good or bad?

The smell coming from my fridge.

Are good and evil subjective or universal/absolute?

No, they're not.

If you don't believe in sin, do you ever feel guilty?

Guilt is relative.  Just ask my catholic flatmate who didn't tell me that they hadn't paid the electricity bill for a friggin' year and now won't answer my calls.

I doubt I'll feel guilty about what I'll do when I catch up with her!

Destiny
What happens to us after death?

Cremation, burial, your choice.  Some onlookers might cry a bit.

Is there a heaven / hell? 

In literature, yes.  I've seen pictures in books at the library.

If so, how do you get there?

Take the No. 27 bus to Hammersmith.  They have a good library.

Is there anything specific you have to do?

You need to be member.  There's some kind of form-completion ritual and you have to be quiet.

Oh and don't pee in the fire bucket.  That's bad.

...
1) How do you deal with the idea of ceasing to exist after death - or doesn't it bother you?
...

I've been looking forward to it all my life.

...
2) How do you explain what could be considered evidence of intelligent design (such as DNA)
...

I would explain it by recognising that the considerer was a poor judge of evidence.

I teach intelligent design and DNA is not in that category.

...
2)  - or the statistical improbability we could have happened by random occurrence.
...

Any alternative current state has the self same statistical improbability.  Sharp-shooter's fallacy.

...
Another is - Can you explain why you became an atheist? But that could easily be a topic for another thread.

I got lucky.  The app didn't load and I remained unprogrammed.

[brewer]

Great responses - very helpful and well argued! I appreciate it.

All in all, quite interesting and a lot of similarities. I need to do some deeper thinking on a lot of what was said, but a couple questions do jump out -

1) How do you deal with the idea of ceasing to exist after death - or doesn't it bother you?
2) How do you explain what could be considered evidence of intelligent design (such as DNA) - or the statistical improbability we could have happened by random occurrence.

Another is - Can you explain why you became an atheist? But that could easily be a topic for another thread.

1. Why should humans get an eternal life when all other mammal species do not? Just because humans were smart enough to have imagined a god and that promise? Every mammal life form to date dies, except for some cancer cell lines. (at least so far)

2. DNA does not require intelligent design. If intelligent, why does an onion have more DNA than a human? Next, what does abiogenesis have to do with random? That is a fallacy. God is the statistical improbability within reality, however as a fantasy completely probable. 

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/creationism/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis

Me/Atheist: Our youth preacher out of frustration told me to stop asking questions (painting him in a corner) and just do as your told and believe. Not immediate but that was the start.

[vulcanlogician]

I'm not pushing fairytales or giving any gnostic position more credit than it's due. Simply saying that an unknown is an unknown. And just to use up the rest of my daily Socrates quote allotment, I will add that Socrates said "The only thing I know is I know nothing."

Obviously, Socrates knew something, but he kept his mind open--not to give fairytales consideration--but to ensure that he didn't cut himself off from the truth by forming prejudices.