Does atheism/agnosticism necessarily eliminate the possibility of an afterlife?

I think if you're one of those two, the chances of one believing in a pearly gates/hellfire n' brimstone afterlife is slim to none. If anything, the Eastern conceit of a post-life bliss, absent of Earthly desire seems more likely.

Personally, I don't even have an idea yet. Though, I'm a big fan of the Theory of Conservation--the idea that there is no new matter in the universe, it all simply changes form and function to suit the universe's need.

I'd still like to avoid dying for as long as I have the desire, but when it comes, I recognize it is necessary, and that natural causes does not equal tragedy.

I would say no. The reason I consider myself agnostic is because I can't believe in all that The Bible tells me, but I also can't believe there's nothing greater than this afterwards. Who am I to decide what's true and what isn't? I figure I'll just wait and see when it happens.

Personally, I find it hard to believe that there wouldn't be an afterlife. I'm not talking about the kind where you walk into a light and your whole family is there, and then you get to sit on a cloud strumming a harp for all eternity. But death, to me, has always seemed like a transition into another form of consciousness. Hell, maybe another dimension.

Two words: Cowboy Universe.

Agnosticism does not. If you haven't decided whether a deity or deities exist, there's no reason why you can't stay undecided on the 'afterlife' question.

Atheism does, in my opinion. If you're of the "man is matter" persuasion, then that's that.

The better question is, what reason to we have to believe in an afterlife?

Fear of the alternative.

That's not a reason, that's an excuse.

I know, but I assume that's still enough for some people. Fear is a powerful thing. Much more powerful than logic.

Afterlife would require some sort of consciousness after the body dies. So unless atheism denies the concept of a soul or consciousness apart from physical existence, it doesn't eliminate the possibility of an afterlife. However, if you do believe in soul in this way I'd think you're probably a pretty spiritual person and maybe don't consider yourself an atheist.

What is afterlife? Time doesn't exist. Is there any religion or belief system that believes in afterlife but doesn't look at it as though there's this invisible floaty thing hanging around after you die?

Athiest = no afterlife at least to me. an athiest. who isn't dead yet.

I don't think that is necessarily the case. For instance, the person who popularized the concept of a non-material soul in the West, Plato, gives us a rather solid argument against the fear of death that doesn't lean on his belief in the mind's ability to survive death. That argument goes as follows.

Premise 1: A person who claims to know what he does not know suffers from the most blameworthy form of ignorance ("blameworthy" in this case because the ignorance of the person in question is actually harming his neighbors' quest for truth). Premise 2:We know nothing about what happens when one dies. Premise 3: If we know nothing about what happens when we die, we have no way of knowing whether death is a good or bad thing (we have no idea whether or not death is pleasurable/good, unpleasant/bad, or neither). Premise 4: Given that we cannot possibly know if death is a good or bad thing, the person who claims to know that death is a good or bad thing is claiming something he cannot possibly know. Conclusion: The fear of death/the claim that death is a bad thing is a most blameworthy form of ignorance.

This entire section deals with the concept of knowledge. After this argument, Plato has Socrates give an account of how his belief that death may, in fact, be a good thing is justified. To make this as brief as possible, he basically argues the following there: According to existing beliefs, death is either annihilation or a transformation of the soul. If it is annihilation, death is essentially analogous to a dreamless night's sleep, which we find pleasurable. If it's a transformation of the soul, most of these beliefs tell us that we have nothing to fear if we've led a good/just life. If you aren't leading a just/good/beautiful life now, you aren't leading a life worthy of choice anyway and it sucks to be you in both life and death. If you are leading a beautiful you either enter that good night with a clean conscience or enjoy an eternal reward.

Neither atheism nor agnosticism necessarily eliminates the possibility of an afterlife. Say what you will about the tenability of such a view on either condition, but they're really entirely unrelated.

With that said, given what we know about the brain, even if there were an immaterial component to you it's pretty obvious (yes, obvious) that whatever it is wouldn't be "you".

My atheism stems from the belief that that one shouldn't believe in something until some kind of evidence is offered. Obviously, this applies to the afterlife as easily as it applies to a supreme being. It also applies to Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, ghosts and telekinesis. If it can't be demonstrated scientifically, I'm not going for it.

I say there probably isn't anything after this. But if there is, it's going to be so radically different from what I know that I don't think I could prepare myself for it in any useful way. So I figure I'll focuse on fucking up the here and now as little as possible and cross that bridge when I come to it.

Assuming there is a bridge. Which there isn't.

Something eenin is as well versed in as the bible.

Three points:

First, this conversation seems to take the "monotheism or bust" approach that's common here. There's a whole universe of theological / spiritual options out there.

Second, the "conservation of energy" argument doesn't hold water. If you believe that man is matter, then you must take the next reasonable step: shut down the machine that generates electrical impulses from food and water, and you shut down the impulses. End of story.

Third, eenin, you ignore both the Manifestations of the Prophets and the Lazarus story. Many Bibilcal scholars posit that Hellenic ideas of the afterlife had insinuated themselves into Jewish thought during the Greek and Roman occupations, and that Jesus would have incorporated this thought into his own worldview during the time of his ministry.

As long as this conversation is going, there is also the instance of Christ telling the remorseful convict that he will be with him in Paradise. That's what most people trot out to combat the "soul sleep theory".

Additionally, the idea in an afterlife/resurrection came into Judaism a bit before the lifetime of Christ. Part of the significance of the Sadducees and Pharisees showing up in the New Testament is that one sect explicitly accepted the doctrine of resurrection (Pharisees) and one rejected it (Sadducees). This is why a few secular scholars posit that Christ and Paul were both members of the Pharisees. (Weirdly, apart from the comment he makes on the Cross, when Christ is explicitly asked about the afterlife in debate, he refuses to answer for much the same reason Spock refuses to answer the question in the Star Trek film franchise:normal people have a hard time wrapping their heads around things they can put into context and the afterlife is something no living person can put into any context.)

Agnostics would not believe in a spiritual after-life. Atheists believe there is no after-life. And by after-life, I think we all mean a continuation of one's identity in some context, be it memories, consciousness, etc.

I don't believe in a spiritual after-life, but that's not the only kind there needs to be. If we don't blow ourselves up in the next thousand years, I see our natual life-spans not only being extended, but eventually electronic devices that can simulate reality for our poor helpless brains, or computers that are able to recreate our consciousness in such a manner that at least a simulacram of ourselves survive.

I also plan on having myself frozen, just to hedge my bets.

Neither do you.

Going back to what I was getting at before, does believing in God or some higher power necessitate a belief in afterlife?

GEGEGEGEGE

You have as much grasp of physics and neurology as a concussed bee.

Aw, what the heck. So many religion threads devolve into simple apologetics that it's fun to actually, y'know, discuss a religious idea for a change.

That said, the Lazarus story proves that the concept of an afterlife was widely enough accepted and understood to be fodder for a parable. The Manifestations further prove that the concept of an afterlife was accepted in Jewish thought at the time - those prophets were, clearly, alive in some sense.

Finally, and if everyone else doesn't mind, I'd be interested to read your take on the problems with my comments about the influence of Hellenism on Jewish philosophy. You have an excellent c/v knowledge of the Bible, and I'm interested in your perspective.

Of course, you could always start a new thread for this. It seems that whenever I start a new thread in this particular forum, it dies quietly and doesn't come back.

Should I not be amazed that this conversation keeps coming back to specifically Christian ideas on the topic?

"Atheism" has to do with the notion of God. That's it. To declare yourself an atheist doesn't automatically mean anything at all about your belief in an afterlife.

There is no God at the center of Buddhist belief, but the cyclical nature of life and death and the concept of nirvana suggest that there is an afterlife of a sort. So, no. Atheism/agnosticism quite obviously does not eliminate the possibility of an afterlife. You may dismiss both for the same reasons, but the two are not inherently connected.

Dave, it's my understanding that (a) atheism refers to disbelief in any and all gods, not just Yahweh; and (b) that Buddhism flows from Hinduism, which posits a whole pantheon of gods.

It flows from Hinduism, yes, but it isn't Hinduism. Buddhism is an atheistic religion, as belief in God simply isn't an issue.

Yes, but so is the claim that death is a good thing.

We only enjoy a dreamless night's sleep when we wake up.

Yeah, those are glaring weaknesses in the overall argument--another is that Socrates/Plato is drawing a possibly false dilemma in positing death is either the destruction of the self or a punishment/reward scenario--which is why I really wish Plato had either not introduced the belief-centered argument, if that was his own contribution, or ignored it, if it was actually part of Socrates' defense. (Especially since the belief-centered argument does, as you suggest, do violence to everything that he put forth prior to stating it.)

I think like so many things, it doesn't particularly matter. An atheist/agnostic can not believe in an afterlife, but if one did exist, would they be denied because they did not take stock in it? I can not believe the sun will come up every morning, but that doesn't make it true. So, the possibility of an afterlife is unaffected, now how that affects you is an entirely different subject. Not believing in an afterlife may make you enjoy all the time you have here, because it's all you have.

I think like so many things, it doesn't particularly matter. An atheist/agnostic can not believe in an afterlife, but if one did exist, would they be denied because they did not take stock in it? I can not believe the sun will come up every morning, but that doesn't make it true. So, the possibility of an afterlife is unaffected, now how that affects you is an entirely different subject. Not believing in an afterlife may make you enjoy all the time you have here, because it's all you have.

Right you are. And here all these years, I thought Buddhism:Hinduism as Christianity:Judaism. Thanks for inspiring me to get off my intellectual ass and look it up.

Fascinating, but all of that has nothing to do with electrical impulses leaving a permanent footprint on the universe. If that were true, then using my toaster would leave a footprint on the universe as well, thus rendering my toaster spiritually immortal.

I love the Caves and Plato's concept of knowledge, but I don't really buy into the idea of Forms or the Republic. I think the critical thought from that school is that we cannot be sure of our senses, beyond that there is a lot of pick and choose.

I can see where you're coming from. Based on the reading I did after the DaveB/MissZooey one-two punch, it would appear that Buddhism fits that bill.

God and afterlife. These things have yet to be quantifiable or dis-proven. Therefore they don't exist. This however, doesn't me they aren't there.

An atheist/agnostic is arguably governed by the laws of science. And does not believe in an afterlife, but also can believe in it.

My explanation is getting cyclical. Just study the "Who's on first" bit and you will understand.

While much attention is paid to the unreliability of the senses in Plato's works, I think the overall point of drawing attention to that is to help make the case for the claim he's most concerned with: focusing on the life of the mind and the quest for truth are the two most important ends of humanity.

Nearly every project that Plato undertook has that as its object. In The Sophist, he basically sets up the foundations of the Philosophy of Language but that's in service to the project of illustrating that one is capable of instilling false beliefs in others and thereby subverting their quest for truth. (The sophists, especially Protagoras, were known for being early and sophisticated advocates of moral relativity and even went so far as asserting that it was impossible to believe or say anything false.)

The point of The Euthyphro is not so much to call the entire concept of piety into question, which it does, but to point out to the interlocutor that he's not an expert in piety and that he should give both that concept and the concept of moral duty a bit more thought before acting on his understanding of those concepts.

Examples like these show why I dig Plato. That is, he's a really staunch advocate of Truth, which I think is a great position for people to be in especially when they're engaging topics like the one this thread deals with.

What concerns do you have with the Republic?

I groove on the idea of immortal toasters. Makes me think the old "flying toaster" screen savers were prescient.

Not that I'd actually worship one, but the thought is a pretty cool one. Is there a way, theoretically, to read and (more importantly) seperate the many various and sundry electromagnetic footprints in the ether? Or do they all just meld together in the cacaphony of the whole?

I dig immortal toasters, too, especially when they look like this:

Actually the joke's on all of us.

We're already dead, and this is Purgatory.

Hell and Purgatory have jokes and "come hither" pictures of Boomer? Ol' Dante never said nothin' about that!

Judging by the angle of Grace Park's spine, I think it Rob Liefeld might have taken that picture.

Doc, you are a helluva guy. And make a compelling point.