What happens after death for an atheist?

Been there, done that, couldn't stand dealing with followers.

And blessed are the frozen for they shall be called th children of the most high ice.edited by AdminJar to fix quotes.This message has been edited by AdminJar, 02-06-2005 08:47 AM

My first change of vision came from seeing a 10 kiloton nuclear weapon on a Minuteman ICBM. I saw that if man could end the world, there wasen't much left for god.When we die we are dead, end of story.

Sounds like a transcendental experience to me.Congratulations.Only spiritually healthy people have such experiences.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

riVeRratDepends on whether you find motionlessness boring I suppose since you cannot move without the passage of time.

Actually, while I might have gained from the experiences,ultimately it was self-defeating. It wasn`t reproducible at will, and I couldn`t pass it on to others. Bit like the 'Eureka' moments by men of science after grappling with a problem for weeks,months,years, and the solutions popped into their minds. Do we have to wait for sufficient nerve connections to be made before we get an answer? I saw an interesting special once about brain damage. A lawyer had a tumour removed from the Broka area of his brain. While perfectly lucid, he couldn`t associate legal terms with what they actually meant. When a legal term (i.e. tort) was pointed out to him, he could read the word, even speak it, but said it wasn`t 'tort'.Do we hit a ceiling after years of acquiring knowledge and motor skills? Can we bypass the boundary? Many wonders await our knowledge of how the brain works.Edited for a--oops--spelling mistakeThis message has been edited by Nighttrain, 02-06-2005 16:21 AM

What do you mean? Are people who don't have these experiences not "spiritually healthy"?Are you back to dualism again?

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

Okay, this topic grew very fast. It has been very revealing of some peoples perspectives on religions and the effects they have. I would like to have rejoined the conversation earlier but my computer went blitzo again. Alot of the following is to Gary because he asked very specific questions with what seemed to be a sincere motive. Finding truth.
So here is the answer to your questions, Gary.LDS people like me believe that there is a life that everyone goes to after their death before they recieve judgement and are "sorted" into their respective kingdoms. We call them kingdoms. The life is called the spirit world and is beautiful in and of itself. Kind of like a 'rest stop'. At judgement day, people will be judged according to their works and deeds. Those who followed God's commandments and were baptized, and did all they could to spread the gospel here will go to the Celestial Kingdom, or 'heaven'. It is a wonderful place where you can live with your earthly family forever and become a God yourself and someday raise your own spiritual children in their own lives much like us here now. Those who had the chance of hearing the gospel, but flatly denied it, yet still remained decent people will go to the Terrestrial Kingdom. It is not as great and glorious as the Celestial, but it is still a wonderful paradise to live in. Those people of earth who killed wrongfully(or when it was not out of defense) will be sent to the Telestial Kingdom. It too is actually a paradise. Joseph Smith said of the Telestial Kingdom, that even though it is the lowest of the three Kingdoms of Glory, if a man could gaze on it for just a very small moment, and then return to this life, he would kill himself just to get there. Now, there are some very few people in the world who will go to a fourth Kingdom called Outer Darkness. They will only go there if they recieve full witness of the reality of God(visions and so forth..) and then deny it to themselves and others.
About praising God forever, remember that God is our spiritual father. I imagine that those of us who live to become God's like him will speak to him openly and often as a friend and counsilor.
People can learn in the spirit world, and if they become Gods they will know everything. You could learn about anything I imagine.
Joseph Smith said that if a man were to learn things that another man would not here on earth, he will have so much the advantage in the life to come. I do not know for certain what that intails, but perhaps it will help us become like God faster? Hmmmmmm... I think I answered two or three of your questions with that one answer.
People do not speak the same language in heaven, although I'm sure they still could speak the ones they speak here if they wanted to. People will know "heavenese" as their remembrance of their lives before earth come back to them.
Because we all are striving to become God's, living in heaven will not be useless as you said. As I mentioned, we could oneday have worlds of our own and spiritual children of our own.
The reason we are here on earth is to get a physical body while at the same time proving that we are humble and obedient enough to follow God and listen to the guidance of his holy spirit. The reason it is hard for you and many others to see evidence of a God is because your minds are not humble enough to really sincerely try. It says in the scriptures that all things around us testify of God. It might take a while and some serious praying for help if you're interested in trying, but eventually you can see the hand of providence all around you. Next time you look at something, like say the fossil record, and you see where different animals arrived on the scene, instead of saying to yourself, "wow, I wonder what caused that thing to evolve," say to yourself, "Wow! How interesting that God placed that on earth when he did. I wonder what purpose it served in preparing the earth for his children." Remember that this is not a poisoness ritual I'm asking you to do, and remeber that praying won't bite. It's just an experiment I want you to try if you want to know for yourself. As Jesus says in the NT, "If any man well do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself." I also council you to try to obey atleast the ten commandments during this experiment. Evil is bound in the presence of the spirit, but the spirit is not bound in the presence of evil. It CHOOSES to leave. So to have the spirit, I recommend you try to live righteously, pray often for help and guidance, and try to change your mindset when looking at the world around you.This message has been edited by LDSdude, 02-06-2005 23:17 AM

To the people here that advocated their beliefs that religion is a decietful waste of time for average people, I say........... Those people will live more hapilly than you will because they will not carry a constant hate in their hearts, and when they die, if there is no after-life, their lives will have been spent better and happier than yours, and if there is an after-life, you're really out of luck. Give it up and let people live their lives the way they want to. (and start thinking about the boy scout motto: be prepared.) (;

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What happens after death for an Atheist.

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What do you mean by 'death'?If you're referring to the cessation of biological functions, then either nothing happens, as there's no atheist for anything to happen to; or the atheist continues, and what happens is indeterminate.

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I mean, to all you atheists, can you imagine your current mind just...............gone? Nothing? Emptiness?

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As I don't remember what I dream, the period of time that I am asleep is a blank to me. What I have is:MeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMe--------------------MeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeMeAs I can't access (or don't have) any memories of 'me' in that blank, it truely is empty to me.

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Is there supposedly anything for you after death?

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Again, if you're referring to biological death, whether there still is a 'me' is indeterminate (but highly unlikely). With no 'me', there cannot be anything for me.

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No more life to live, no more influence in the world, not knowing what is happening in the world? Just................gone!

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Yup.

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If so, what is the purpose of your lives?

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To live it.

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It can't be to learn everything you can, because once you're dead it's of no influence to you.

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It's still fun.This message has been edited by DominionSeraph, 02-07-2005 01:14 AM

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To the people here that advocated their beliefs that religion is a decietful waste of time for average people, I say........... Those people will live more hapilly than you will because they will not carry a constant hate in their hearts, and when they die, if there is no after-life, their lives will have been spent better and happier than yours, and if there is an after-life, you're really out of luck. Give it up and let people live their lives the way they want to. (and start thinking about the boy scout motto: be prepared.) (;

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If you want to be delusional, that's fine. However, most religious people fail to realize that their delusion only applies to them, and they try to dictate how everyone should live. Once they interfere with the right of others to be left in peace, their own right to be left in peace is forfeit. Action must be taken, so they are attacked mercilessly until they return to the pit from whence they came.
Once they're back in their hole, peace is restored.

I said that only spiritually healthy people have transcendental experiences, so it would not follow necessarily that spiritually healthy people must have such experiences. I think this is a case of the undistributed what-do-you-call.You sure are a taskmaster, Para, about this dualism business! You keep the whip handy!Actually, I'm not really "back to dualism," but in order to make some points, I sometimes will assume, for the sake of argument, a dualistic position (maybe this is not a good practice, but I enjoy it, and one has to take one's pleasures as one can find them in this world). My own view is that, given any sort of religious idea, dualism is necessary as an assumption since I don't see any difference between "mind" and "soul."In reality I'm still my old nihilistic self . . .Cheers.This message has been edited by robinrohan, 02-07-2005 08:15 AM

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The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.---Milton

Thank you for your responses and for your patience with my questions. This answers many of the questions I had regarding your beliefs. I'd like to say more but I have to leave for a physics test I have at 10:40 today. Thanks again for your response.

You are right, what you say doesn't follow, does indeed not follow. But that wasn't my suggestion. Incidentally, my suggestion doesn't follow either, so forget I said it.By the way, the fallacy of the undistributed middle can only apply to a syllogism, which I had great trouble trying to discover here. (I gave up.) But of course. Dualism is the root of all evil. {*cracks whip ostentatiously*} Could you rephrase that? I don't understand what you mean, I don't see the connection between the nessecity of assuming dualism and not seeing the difference between mind and soul. So you haven't decided yet where you want to be on the scale from shit to Mother T.? What's that whisky you are enjoying?

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We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further. - Richard Dawkins

You forgot to add the words 'Once upon a time' at the start of your story, and the words 'And they all lived happily ever after' at the end.Do you seriously believe this nonsense?It is like a fairy tale by Hans christian Anderson or something equally fictional.What a waste.Brian.