Life after death?

[GrandizerII]

My point is that the intangible truth that every dead person did exist and affected others is in no way different that what other things that existed in the universe did. The only difference between what people do and what a comet does, is that people place value what other people do. That's a good thing, but it doesn't have any lasting value beyond people's memories. For all practical purposes it will disappear when there is no one to remember it.

Whether or not something is true does not depend on whether or not someone knows about it.
The occurence past event can not stop being true.

If I wanted to go all out philosophical, I could argue otherwise. The past may linger in our memories, but it is no longer true.

Actually, our memories aren't even accurate in recording past events. We pretty much reconstruct these events every time we recall them.

[Ravenshire]

Why should they constitute some soul that exists forever? They are easily explicable in terms of monism. Why add extra unnecessary features/entities?

I didn't add anything.
When a friend says your name, I'd assume that they think about more than your organs. When you give to a charity, I wouldn't guess that you think about the electrical charges in the neural systems of the less fortunate.
I, and others, just take what makes one an intrinsically valuable person and give it a name.

[emphasis is mine]

"Soul" is already taken, by the church. Besides, there are other, better names. "Personality" is a good one. "Character" is another. Using one that's religiously charged in general terms is kind of counter productive.

[Purplundy]

The past may linger in our memories, but it is no longer true.

By that logic, the Sun did not rise this morning.

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"Soul" is already taken, by the church. Besides, there are other, better names. "Personality" is a good one. "Character" is another. Using one that's religiously charged in general terms is kind of counter productive.

Of course, throwing around the word "soul" with atheists is never a good idea for an actual discussion.
But neither religious nor anti-religious sentiment changes the word's definiton.

[GrandizerII]

The past may linger in our memories, but it is no longer true.

By that logic, the Sun did not rise this morning.

It did not according to such a philosophy. We just recall it did.

EDIT: Now that I think about it, it doesn't make much sense to me now.

[KichigaiNeko]

Some how, some way... I would like to think my atoms are out there annoying the fuck out of you.
Beyond that?
I'm fucking dead! Why should I give a shit about you?

[MountainsWinAgain]

I found this article today from a site I follow. It's nonreligious and pertains to 8 things that happen after we die. I don't necessarily believe it's true - it would be nice for sure, but once I left my religion, all thoughts of an afterlife were, put to rest. However, I would still be interested in what other atheists think about this subject.

http://thespiritscience.net/2014/06/28/8...out-death/

Death is certain, replacing both the siren-song of Paradise and the dread of Hell. Life on this earth, with all its mystery and beauty and pain, is then to be lived far more intensely: we stumble and get up, we are sad, confident, insecure, feel loneliness and joy and love. There is nothing more; but I want nothing more.”

-Christopher


This is article seems like some teenage diary on what happens after death.

The "soul" and the body co-exist. When our body dies the "soul" dies with it. And we enter a state before we were born,no big deal,because when we will be dead we won't be there to face death or any other punishment from gods because we won't exists. So why are people still afraid of death and they make up this stories what happens when we pass away? Can't they be grateful that they were even born in the first place.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

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Whether or not something is true does not depend on whether or not someone knows about it.
The occurence past event can not stop being true.

If I wanted to go all out philosophical, I could argue otherwise. The past may linger in our memories, but it is no longer true.

Actually, our memories aren't even accurate in recording past events. We pretty much reconstruct these events every time we recall them.

We live in the past because everything we think or do is based on what happened, even if it was just a second ago. The present is gone in a nanosecond and we can't live in the future because it hasn't arrived.

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The past may linger in our memories, but it is no longer true.

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By that logic, the Sun did not rise this morning.

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"Soul" is already taken, by the church. Besides, there are other, better names. "Personality" is a good one. "Character" is another. Using one that's religiously charged in general terms is kind of counter productive.

Of course, throwing around the word "soul" with atheists is never a good idea for an actual discussion.
But neither religious nor anti-religious sentiment changes the word's definiton.

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[Mystical]

I wanted to share, and the thread title seemed to fit this story. It seems there IS a rational explanation for things that seem out of this world.

Brain scans of a self-reported out-of-body experience



Read Here.

To be clear, this was a type of hallucination. This was not a bona fide out-of-body experience the likes of paranormal activity or the astral projection powers of Shannen Doherty’s character on Charmed. But it’s still cool because it’s the first attempt to scientifically analyze and document a non-pathological, self-elicited out-of-body experience.

Using an fMRI, which images blood flow to detect brain activity, researchers from the University of Ottawa scanned the brain of a woman who claims that she can produce, at will, extra-corporeal experiences -- during one of her self-reported experiences. They write in their case study:

She was able to see herself rotating in the air above her body, lying flat, and rolling along with the horizontal plane. She reported sometimes watching herself move from above but remained aware of her unmoving “real” body.

Crazy, yes? But according to the researchers, something was happening in her brain that was consistent with her report. Gizmodo explains:

The fMRI showed a "strong deactivation of the visual cortex" while "activating the left side of several areas associated with kinesthetic imagery," which includes mental imagery of bodily movement. This is the part of the brain that makes it possible for us to interact with the world. It's what makes you feel where your body is in relation to the world.

In other words, the brain scans show that she feels she’s going through what she’s claiming. But this was no astral trip -- it was a type of hallucination triggered by some neurological mechanism.

The particulars of the above brain scan, for your neuroscience nomenclature pleasure:

- Activations were mainly left-sided and involved the left supplementary motor area (F), supramarginal gyrus (D,F), and posterior superior temporal gyrus. The last two overlap with the temporal parietal junction that has been associated with out-of-body experiences.
- The cerebellum (B,D,E) also showed activation that is consistent with the participant’s report of the impression of movement during the extra-corporeal experiences.
- There was also activity in the left middle and superior orbital frontal gyri (A,C,D,E) regions often associated with action monitoring.

Clearly, replication is required to say for sure if this pattern is the same for other people claiming to initiate extra-corporeal experiences. The researchers speculate that there may be many more unreported cases.

Read more at http://www.iflscience.com/brain/brain-sc...24uy3Ed.99

[Purplundy]

You think that the sun rose this morning because you never moved.

No, I don't; I never said I did. I used an expression in the English language.

Faulty thinking and expressions can lead to silly conclusions.

Yeah, they can. If you're implying that this is the case with me, you should probably know that even if I did believe that a mystical fisherman pulled the Sun up every morning, it would be absolutely irrelevant to my argument.

When you die you won't return to the land of the living, at least on this planet.

I never said that, and Christianity never said that (applying to the average person, anyway). The essence of dying is that you LEAVE the land of the living and don't come back.
As for where you go to, I don't know.
As for if there IS a you to go anywhere, I'm arguing there is. If you'd like to contribute something to that argument, go ahead.

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I wanted to share, and the thread title seemed to fit this story. It seems there IS a rational explanation for things that seem out of this world.

Makes sense. I personally never believed in supernatural extra-corporeal experiences.

[FatAndFaithless]

You think that the sun rose this morning because you never moved.

No, I don't; I never said I did. I used an expression in the English language.

Faulty thinking and expressions can lead to silly conclusions.

Yeah, they can. If you're implying that this is the case with me, you should probably know that even if I did believe that a mystical fisherman pulled the Sun up every morning, it would be absolutely irrelevant to my argument.

When you die you won't return to the land of the living, at least on this planet.

I never said that, and Christianity never said that (applying to the average person, anyway). The essence of dying is that you LEAVE the land of the living and don't come back.
As for where you go to, I don't know.
As for if there IS a you to go anywhere, I'm arguing there is. If you'd like to contribute something to that argument, go ahead.

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I wanted to share, and the thread title seemed to fit this story. It seems there IS a rational explanation for things that seem out of this world.

Makes sense. I personally never believed in supernatural extra-corporeal experiences.

There is absolutely no independently verified scientific evidence of consciousness existing without a physical brain. Once your brain dies, you die.