What happens after death for an atheist?

Hi, This is an excellent observation.One of the things that annoys me about theists is how they force their beliefs onto thier kids before the child has the mental capacity to understand what is going on. Countless millions of children have been psychologically abused over the centuries by their parents, who force the child to believe in their faith. There should be a religous age of consent whereby children under a certain age should not be allowed to follow a religion.There is something deeply disturbing about a 4 or 5 year old child praying to god or being forced to go through one of their silly rituals.Good point you make.Brian.

It is also purely subjective. It could very well be entirely an effect of brain activity, and have no reality beyond that.

If there is a God I would assume that he would be non-corporeal, which would mean he would be a MIND. No point in saying "spirit" as though that were something different from mind. An unnecessary added assumption.If God is a mind, and God exists, then mind exists; therefore, we would have minds that are not physical, like God is not physical. Hence, in order to have a religious belief, one must be a dualist.So when I'm in my religious role, I assume dualism. What I want and what I can actually do are two vastly different things. You probably want to be an astronaut or something, but that doesn't mean you can. It was 8 am over here when I wrote it. I never drink before 2:30 pm. This is a firm rule, and I think a good one.

It's always 5:00 o'clock somewhere.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

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Are you so shallow as to think that just because we have just this one short life that life is meaningless and we shouldn't strive to better things and expand our knowledge? What a small minded person you are. How old are you? Are you just some ignorant kid or are you an adult of some years?

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In the context of a 16 billion year old universe, human life is meaningless. Why do you think that acknowledging a short life is meaningless, makes someone small minded. I think it makes them a realist if their own view of all of this is that it's a result of evolution and chance. What possible good are you thinking of making that is actually worth anything in context to an old universe that will eventually collapse in on itself and then start over. What difference will it make?That's kind of like me being at the beach and drawing lines in the sand to make a beautiful picture. Then critisizing everyone else who doesn't see the value of drawing in the sand. In an hour, the tide comes in and goes back out and my beautiful picture is gone.Tide goes in, tide goes out and the Earth is gone because the Sun went red giant.Tide goes in, tide goes out and our galaxy twists itself apart.Tide goes in, tide goes out and the universe collapses in on itself in the big crunch.So in a realistic cosmic perspective, all life is meaningless. Whatever actions that are undertaken by living beings will all be crunched into an infinitley small point of incrediblely intense ball of energy. Then it starts all over again and basically renders time itself as meaningless.Does it really matter how many times tide goes in, tide goes out? Are you aware of all of the good that was accomplished just before the last time the tide came back in?So if my sand drawing gets some play and another human comes up and adds to my drawing and "Leaves their mark on the beach" and "leaves their influence on sand art", so what. In an hour, tide goes in, tide goes out. At best, I'll have some fun and memories while I draw, but in a cosmic sense, you don't even get that. And even if I keep hold of the memories, if I loose my mind in my old age, then even the memories are worthless to me.

Can you support any of this by quotes from the Book of Mormon? None of the key doctrines of the LDS curch comes from it's most sacred work.

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Ah I see, you worship out of fear - You better hope you don't get there and Allah is waiting for you.....

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That's a good point. The Bible even addresses what proper worship is, and it's not out of a gratuitous fear. Fear is useful from the Biblical perspective but the Bible says that the Fear of the Lord is the "Beginning of Understanding", not the guarentee of a better afterlife.

Your entire reply is out of context of this topic. LDSDude was not acknowledging that our short lives are meaningless, he was saying that unless there is a hereafter our lives are meaningless. And yes I think that he is small minded for thinking so. In the big picture you paint, nothing really matters as we and everything that has ever existed will be gone, but as long as I'm alive and functional, a lot of things have meaning to me. If you don't want to care about anything, then just go ahead and have a meaningless life.

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There should be a religous age of consent whereby children under a certain age should not be allowed to follow a religion.

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I like you line of thought.Perhaps the children of religious parents should be confiscated by the state until the child can rationally decide whether or not they want to be placed into an abbusive household that teaches religion. There could be courtesy visits by the biological parents but only under the direct supervision of an objective social worker.Maybe potential parents who profess a religion should be sterilized by the state to stem the flow of violence against objective newborns. These people might be forced to obtain a licience or permit by the state, allowing them to believe in a religion and if found a believer without a permit would levy heavy punishment.

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It is like a fairy tale by Hans christian Anderson or something equally fictional.

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The Brothers Grimm!

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"Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."
Hey, Albert, I agree!

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but as long as I'm alive and functional, a lot of things have meaning to me

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A lot of things have an affect on you, just as the rays of the sun have an affect on the surface rocks of Mars. But to infer that something has meaning to you requires it to have purpose. Since there is no purpose for the universe to be, except that it just is, means that there is no purpose for you or I or anything that we do.All of it is merely electro-chemical energy and reactions that are spin-offs of the original Big Bang. Nothing more. What your electro-chemical reaction sequence does in the boundries of time while it is "funtional" is no more meaningful then if a rock on a mountain on Mars rolls down the hill or stays in place.The feeling of purpose that your body is generating is a phenomena resulting from certain electrical activity in the brain. Any type of real purpose to your life would require that you would have had to have been created specifically to be you, by design. You would have had to have been formed/created for a purpose.Cosmically speaking, you were not created or designed. You are a result of specific types of amino acids coming in contact with each other under chance circumstances, following a repeated pattern of events in a chain sequence.This message has been edited by Lizard Breath, 02-07-2005 14:49 AM

an interesting line of thought, i too have been wondering if it should be illeagal to infect a child with dangerous memes, but anyone who proposes such things will probaly find the answer to the OP rather more quickly than they wanted.
(added y to the)This message has been edited by DHA, 02-07-2005 14:49 AM

Good points. You can see how crazy this can all get as people try right the wrongs of a religious society with the superiority of Aetheism.I'm not saying there there isn't any wrongs in religious society, heck that's real apperant to see. But having humans try to play God while denying that there is one is pure craziness to me.

Hi Lizard Breath, So these words you are reading do they have any meaning to you? Last time I checked there was no scientific evidence to prove or disprove the existance of God. Do you have privy to some new founded information?
Shape dictates function...function serves purpose. Purpose does not have to imply a creator or design.IMO. But I believe things do have a purpose, those eyeballs of yours would not serve you if they did not 'function' to they're purpose. Now would they? LOL. By that logic there is no difference between you and that computer screen your reading. Your merely a collection of atoms. The mystery of abiogenisis summed up in one sentence not bad.

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"One is punished most for ones virtues" Fredrick Neitzche

Listen LizardHalitois, the above is a false analogy. The universe doesn't have to have purpose for someone to find meaning in life. Furthermore your responses are troll like and I have no further wish to correspond with you.