Why don't you believe in an afterlife?

[DennisK]

I don't believe in the afterlife because I was able to battle my catholic indoctrination with reason.  I have always been a person of logic and used it to knock down that giant wall blocking the light of the truth.  Once I realized that religion was based on fear and it was pro ignorant and a means of control, I was able to discount all their teachings using reason.

There is an innate part of my brain that wants to believe in the supernatural, however, being a predominantly logical person, it makes it extremely difficult.

[Asmodean]

There is an innate part of my brain that wants to believe in the supernatural, however, being a predominantly logical person, it makes it extremely difficult.

[Improbable]

I don't believe in an afterlife because there is no evidence of an afterlife. The burden of proof. There needs to be evidence of an afterlife, not evidence that there isn't.
    Everything that there is evidence of is material, so everything we know tells us that when your brain dies, you are no longer alive. You are just a corpse.

[Kyuuketsuki]

I don't believe in an afterlife because there is no evidence of an afterlife. The burden of proof. There needs to be evidence of an afterlife, not evidence that there isn't.
    Everything that there is evidence of is material, so everything we know tells us that when your brain dies, you are no longer alive. You are just a corpse.

Blimey mate ... next thing you're going to tell us is that Santa Claus & The Easter Bunny aren't real either (I do believe in faeries, I do, I do ... I do believe in faeries, I do, I do ... I do believe in faeries, I do, I do ...)  

Kyu

[Improbable]

Well the easter bunny isn't real, but there are real bunnies ON Easter day.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Well the easter bunny isn't real, but there are real bunnies ON Easter day.

No! It can't be true ... waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah ... .    

Kyu

[DennisK]

The vatican is deciphering the newly discovered EB scrolls.  They will be made public within the year.  Don't worry.  Go hide your eggs.

[Kyuuketsuki]

The vatican is deciphering the newly discovered EB scrolls.  They will be made public within the year.  Don't worry.  Go hide your eggs.

Phew ... and then some

Kyu

[Arthur Dent]

I have a fairly unique explanation to defy the afterlife hypothesis...
What creates your life experience anyway? Your senses... Why do you sense things?

Sight, sound, smell, touch, taste all emerged because there was as varying medium in which variations could occur and then be mapped to a spectrum of sensation. We see because there is light. We see color because the frequencies of light are important to life. We hear because there is air. We hear different tones and pitch because the frequencies of vibration are also important. We feel pain because lacerations of the the flesh are detrimental to survival. Well, you get the picture...

How can there be any experience without a medium that dictates those sensations? To believe in an afterlife to believe in "SOMETHING FROM NOTHING."

"Is there fire in hell? What makes it burn?! Fire here isn't magical...Will we see x-rays in the afterlife? There are x-rays here on earth... Do the clouds in heaven have a vapor pressure? Is there gravity in heaven? what's the speed of light in heaven?"

That's all you have to do to confront a pusher of the afterlife hypothesis. Inundate them with questions like a little kid. To me, the whole notion of an afterlife simply stinks to high.... heaven...(?) with man's search for purpose and meaning. "If this life doesn't appear to have meaning, there MUST be more to the story"

I'd find it a little too convenient to believe that our deepest desires are catered too by a universe that is indifferent to our existence.

Most people who believe in an afterlife don't fully grasp the realities of this life and why we experience it in the ways we do. They often see things as symbolic entities, like fire...which is simply fire to them... not a chemical reaction that releases energy. Once you start thinking about reality in these terms, an afterlife seems extremely silly, and if any atheist was ever sent to an afterlife, surely he/she would have broken it by now...

[Kyuuketsuki]

and if any atheist was ever sent to an afterlife, surely he/she would have broken it by now...

ROFL!!!!!

Kyu

[Rastelin]

An afterlife for me would involve a lengthy discussion with god why he possibly can't exist.

[Arthur Dent]

An afterlife for me would involve a lengthy discussion with god why he possibly can't exist.

Exactly. A wishywashy, nonreality would be no match for the shear inquisitive nature of the scientific, atheist mind.

[Graham]

I think we'll probably live again in some other form. After our chemical formula is reorganized then consumed by something living and finally making it's way to become a sperm inside whatever consumed it. (our bodies have ways of sorting out what it consumes right?) Whether it is conceived or not will determine whether you'll live again. Also how accessible your body is to be broken down and consumed. For this reason I want my corpse to be thrown into the woods when I die. Hahah. This is a bit morbid but some of my friends agreed with me to have a pile.  just a thought.

I think it's kind of funny assuming the age and size of the universe that I happen to be living in the time that happens to be present rather than past or future.

[Arthur Dent]

I think it's kind of funny assuming the age and size of the universe that I happen to be living in the time that happens to be present rather than past or future.

Every now and then it hits me like a ton of bricks...

"You are HERE, on this planet, made of atoms that came from all over the galaxy, now in conscious form. 20 years ago, you were a collection of plants and animals..."

[ragarth]

The nature of consciousness is a really interesting field of research! There's several theories on what defines the self, what defines our sapience, and what defines the human mind and human mental capacities. All of this exists in a rather nebulous area of thought right now because we're still struggling to attain basic definitions of what all this is.

Early theory on this is now called the fallacy of the homunculus. Basically, the idea was that there was some central piece of us where our consciousness  resided, a particular section of the brain or whatever. We now know that this cannot be so, the self is dispersed throughout an unknown number of neurological structures, somewhere between several to all of them. This, in and of itself does not preclude the 'antenna' idea which has been previously postulated, but attempts to find any signs of external stimulus has failed, indeed, the body of proof is that there is no external stimulus to control the body.

Virtual representations of neural nets have shown several organic characteristics which we ascribe to intelligence, namely the capacity for memory storage, recollection, pattern recognition and recreation. This means that a neural net is capable of being imprinted with the memory of your mom. If you see something similer to your mom then the neural net can reproduce the image of your mom. It's hypothesized that it's the relationship between remembered experiences that produce our capacity for higher thought, we relate the word mom with her picture, her voice, etc. We do this with a massive amount of data, and produce complex webs of relationship between them in our neural net, this is what lets us jump from concept to concept in relation, which is the source of our capacity to think. Damage to this neural net changes the relationship by modifying the interaction between neurons and ergo changes how we think. This is still being tested, but there is a certain body of proof behind it.

One thing that I think about that challenges the 'we are a composition of our experiences' theory is what happens when we put people in sensory deprivation tanks. If we were purely reactive entities that were no more than a composition of our neural weights as defined by our experiences, then the complete removal of all sensory stimulus should see a steady reduction in neural activity as the impedus for that activity is removed. To my knowledge we have not seen this, the mind begins generating it's own sensation in the lack of external stimulus, so there's something there that provides an internal stimulus, possibly even related to the wave patterns we pick up via EKG since they show distinct and significant shifts based on external input but not related to external input temporaly. Therefore, I propose that the brain is capable of generating an internal signal, whether it be non-localized such as the conciousness and self effect, or semi-localized, possibly even in the autonomic sections. In a nonlocalized form it could be triggered by a change in ATP use due to lower stimulus, and in a localized form it can be an asynchronous signal generated constantly. If localized, then it can be said that it is the combination of external stimulus, neural structure, and this internal signal that produces our capacity for original thought, and extended internal analysis beyond a point at which entropy should kick in on neural activity.

Well, that was complicated! To sum it up, there is no body of proof for a homunculus, whether it be a particular brain structure or a soul, but there is evidence that the brain is capable of producing all the wonders of living that we experience on it's own.