RE: How I deal with no afterlife
October 21, 2016 at 7:57 am
(This post was last modified: October 21, 2016 at 8:04 am by Qwraith.)
What exactly do you think will happen when the time comes? What do you envision the afterlife to be like? There's nothing necessarily about an afterlife ensuring happiness/pleasure/tranquility/what-have-you. Unless you're referring to the Christian afterlife?
I can tell you right now that nothing of what you are in this life survives into heaven, at least when taking the idea to its logical conclusion.
We must ask ourselves what is it that moves on to the afterlife if not our physical bodies? What is a soul?
I'm going to paraphrase one of my favorite public atheist speakers, Mr. Matt Dillahunty. If you've heard this before, please forgive me:
Everything we attribute to a soul can reasonably, based on what limited knowledge we have of the brain, be attributed to one's personality. When one is giving, we call them a kind soul. When one takes advantage of others, we say they have an evil soul. So, we know that a soul and a personality are mutually inclusive. The soul, in terms of science and philosophy, is a long dead concept. So, what is a soul?
Everything we know about one's personality can be altered by damage to the physical brain. Cut off the left hemisphere and suddenly you're not so rational. Cut off the right, and you'll have difficulty with creativity. So, if the brain dies, so dies the personality. What we know of ourselves; our memories, our experiences; don't survive into the afterlife, at least from a logical perspective.
Then, what can this magnificent place be like? If we no longer have our personalities, are we not shadows of our former selves? What can this be like? Mindless spirits roaming around billowy clouds? Fun...
Nevermind the notion of everlasting happiness and only happiness, this place sounds fairly monotonous.
To me, the idea that everything we are in this life can continue on in some kind of glowing husk devoid of thought, is the insulting and demeaning take away. It quite literally strips us of everything we are in this life.
I can tell you right now that nothing of what you are in this life survives into heaven, at least when taking the idea to its logical conclusion.
We must ask ourselves what is it that moves on to the afterlife if not our physical bodies? What is a soul?
I'm going to paraphrase one of my favorite public atheist speakers, Mr. Matt Dillahunty. If you've heard this before, please forgive me:
Everything we attribute to a soul can reasonably, based on what limited knowledge we have of the brain, be attributed to one's personality. When one is giving, we call them a kind soul. When one takes advantage of others, we say they have an evil soul. So, we know that a soul and a personality are mutually inclusive. The soul, in terms of science and philosophy, is a long dead concept. So, what is a soul?
Everything we know about one's personality can be altered by damage to the physical brain. Cut off the left hemisphere and suddenly you're not so rational. Cut off the right, and you'll have difficulty with creativity. So, if the brain dies, so dies the personality. What we know of ourselves; our memories, our experiences; don't survive into the afterlife, at least from a logical perspective.
Then, what can this magnificent place be like? If we no longer have our personalities, are we not shadows of our former selves? What can this be like? Mindless spirits roaming around billowy clouds? Fun...
Nevermind the notion of everlasting happiness and only happiness, this place sounds fairly monotonous.
To me, the idea that everything we are in this life can continue on in some kind of glowing husk devoid of thought, is the insulting and demeaning take away. It quite literally strips us of everything we are in this life.
