The Atheist Afterlife
Offline Hey folks,
What happens to an atheist after he dies? Well, from his perspective the lights go out and that's it. But there is more to it then that. I've always held the position that you don't need God to have love. Just like you don't need Santa Clause to have charity and giving.
I want to propose a new, naturalistic way of looking at death. This is the first time I'm releasing this to the public, although others have stated similar perspectives.
Feel free to just read the piece and skip the rest of the post!
When I Die
by Stefan Thomas
When I die, my spirit will live on in my ideas and my life's work. Because these are my contributions, no matter how small they may seem, to the great endeavours of humanity.
When I die, my heart will live on in the people I held dearest. My love of humans and of course, my family and my close friends will always be a resource to them and they will continue to pass it on for many generations to come.
When I die, my body may decay, but it's molecules will continue to exist and will take part in the wonderful cycle of life again and again for many more years than you and I can imagine.
" I do not fear death, in view of the fact that I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it."
- Mark Twain
With what we know today in terms of psychology, molecular biology and memetics most of this can be proven and demonstrated. We can surely show that someone's life's work will have effects beyond his time, even if he is just a taxi driver in Bogotta. It may not be the most important contribution, but it's nonetheless one that helps humanity as a whole and as such it's effect will continue until humanity ceases to exist.
On a similar note, we know that love is contagious. If you always have very positive people around some of that will rub off. Even after said people are dead and even if you don't know them. Two weeks ago I was on my way to the cinema and as always I was smiling all the way for no good reason. Usually I'm the only one and noone smiles back, but that day a guy near King's Cross station did. I immediately engaged him in a conversation. Turns out he works for Unicef we talk a bit about each other and finally we both wish the other a great life and part our ways. I'll probably never meet him again, but my world will always be just a tiny, tiny bit brighter since that encounter. So in that sense... his heart lives as long as I do. But since I'm also constantly passing on that brightness, it's fair to say that positive emotions can be contagious over generations. (Negative one can, too, unfortunately.)
Finally, I've had a brief email exchange with a forensics PhD with specialization human decomposition. My question was: What happens to the human body after death? Turns out that most of the molecules - the water and a lot of the carbon - end up in the atmosphere. The majority of the rest disperses in the soil over the years and only bones stay behind. Those molecules that make it into the atmosphere are mostly H20 and CO2 and a lot of it. (The human body contains 70% water, so for someone who weighs 70 kg there is 49 kg of water. Water has a molecular weight of about 18u that means in 49000g of water there are about 2722 mole of water molecules or about 1,6 * 10^27. That is one heck of a large number.) Also, because we have such a chaotic planet, these molecules will eventually disperse to every last corner of it. Some of them will be part of other organisms and I'm talking millions of other organisms.
Please note that all I have stated above is really not supernatural. It's a fine line between what I call "romantic naturalism" and pseudo-science. But I think I've so far managed to walk it. If I find the time I'll be happy to add quotations to relevant research.
The mayans say death as a live-giving event. They didn't know about molecules and their religion was certainly not based on fact, but by pure luck they arrived at the same view. Yes, religious dogma can turn out to be right. Sometimes. In the film "The fountain" there is a story the main character (a girl who is dying of cancer) tells. It's about the funeral of her tour guide's father from a vacation to South America. They planted a tree on his grave, so he would be in the tree. And when a bird would eat berries from the tree, he would be in the bird. And thus, his spirit would live on. I'm seriously thinking of picking this practice up again. It's a beautiful thought and a rational one.
We are really little more than a temporary gathering of molecules and ideas. What we call death is merely the end of the meeting. Chances are none of the ideas dies and certainly none of the molecules. I don't fear death at all. If I were to die today I would have left a positive influence on the world. It would just be a little sad, because there is so much unfinished right now.
Hope you enjoyed the post - if anyone even reads this far! 
Stay rational,
Stefan
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Well we are certainly recyled and are organics become part of the food chain (if buried) and it is our death that allows others to live. If we did not the Earth would soon not support other humans.
If we had kids part of us physicaly lives on in them (our genes) but I think personally for us its game over alas so best to enjoy the game
I really like the thought that after death or bodies begin to break down and become "part" of other things such as heat energy and nutrients. I am completely okay with the idea of going back into the earth.and helping fuel this planet
Oh I was going to guess quantum computers and a brain download was going to be involved, but this is cool too. If someone wants to talk about this kind of thing they should mak a new thread as it goes off topic.
That's what I told my 5-year-old daughter about her great-grandfather's death - that he was going into the ground to help the flowers grow. She was totally cool with that and thought it sounded like a nice thing to do.
See, theists? You don't need silly anthropomorphic fantasies to make the world a pleasent, even wonderful place to be in.
That tree things actually sounds really awesome. How cool would it be to go back to a loved one's grave year after year and watch the tree grow knowing that they are now part of it.
Considering how much of personalities appear to be hard wired, it isn't a stretch to say some of your personality does live on in your descendants via your DNA.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
I think that is absolutely lovely.
I hope that when I'm gone, I'll be remembered fondly and that I've made a difference in the areas about which I'm passionate.
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Thank you for sharing this - it is beautiful and so very true. The people that I have loved and lost live on in my memories and in my heart and I hope the same happens when I die. If you don't mind, I would like this read at the party for my death.
Carl Sagan was fond of saying:
"We are made of Star Stuff".
I love the thought the heavier elements that make up my body came from stars, and eventually our star will expand and swallow the earth as a red giant and I may become part of a star again.
Except we tend to burn our bodies up or bury them in an impenetrable casket!
At the moment I have a slight mental block against it, but soon I'll be sending off for my donor card. Anyone else going to be donating organs after they die?
I will be. They can have any part of me they want, or the whole thing.
Of course, I would be most honored!
This applies to everybody: If you like my little creed there, feel free to cite, recite, print, copy and distribute it as much as you like. I would appreciate though if you leave the authorship notice in there.
On a different note: If anyone here happens to have a background in psychology: I'm very much looking for research on particularly the second point. It seems to be common knowledge that good moods and positive attitudes are contagious, I'd just like to have some solid research on it and I haven't found anything tangible yet. (Neither proving nor disproving my intuition.)
BGH: Needless to say that I love much of Sagan's work on these issues. Great scientist, great man!
Absolutely. They can have anything that would help someone.
I suspect that no one will want my sinus system, though.
Atheist Books, purchases on Amazon support the Rational Response Squad server.
Can we 'ave your liver?
I am not particularly concerned about the afterlife, I'll know what happens when I get there, if there is one. I am an atheist with respect to God existing but I am pretty open to the possiblilty of anything when it comes to the afterlife, as the afterlife is not as self-contradictory, like god is.
I can't imagine many people can claim they aren't "concerned" about the afterlife. I mean, I don't go around wondering all day and worrying about what happens when I die, but I'm sure it has crossed your mind from time to time and you may have worried about what happens. I have many friends who are atheist and we've all agreed that there are times when we worry just that little little tiny bit... "Well what if we're wrong" You know, I believe once you die it's just lights out, and that's pretty much where I've been at for a long time. But I won't know until I kick the bucket... There is no sense in worrying about it, but for about 5 minutes out of maybe every 2 weeks it crosses my mind.
I think the whole concept of an atheist afterlife can be summed up by:
"A what?"
Yeah that would be kinda awkward, that you die and find out that all this God and Jesus stuff WERE true afterall, and there's this welcoming comitte with Moses, Jesus, John and the whole pack just waiting angrily to get their hands on you and they have this big sign that says "So you were an atheist"
Oh shit!
Past experience would tell me that it is unlikely that it will happen... However, there is no such thing as past experience when it comes to the afterlife. I'm not saying there is a Christian God or even a God period, but we don't exactly know that we're just going to kick the bucket and turn the lights off. Do I know my head isn't going to explode? Yeah I'm pretty sure, because there are billions of people in the world who haven't donated $10 to the RRS, but do I know with even the utmost certainty what happens when I die? Nope... Christians, Islamics, Bhuddists, are all just as clueless as we are. We can just make an educated guess, and hope it works out well. But there is no past experience to make that guess.
You aren't ready to join the ranks of the theists yet, Justmoon. That tendancy to make testable threats is going to kill you. To be a true theist, your threat must be vague and undefined, like "bad luck." Better yet, it only kicks in after your death when you can't report on whether it's for real or not.
Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown
Nope. Your argument doesn't work. The analogy stands. You can't use past experience, because I told you that it happens on May 15th 2007. This date is in the future, so past experience has no bearing on the validity of my claim.
It's just so hard for me to understand why you give even the slightest validity to something some moron invented thousands of years ago to manipulate you. Of course it's theoretically possible, but if you believe anything that's theoretically possible and that someone has said at some point, you'd have one f-ed up world view.
We humans like to believe that "there is something more". Yet James Randi offers one million for anyone who can demonstrate anything supernatural and so far no-one has been able to.
Getting back to the topic of hell: It is so despicable. To play on people's fears to manipulate them is TERRORISM. To create a fake problem (Sin or in the case of Scientology: Thetans) and to then solve it for money/following is a SCAM. The fact that it is a pretty big scam doesn't make it any less evil. The fact that most minds behind the scam are dead or believe they are doing the right thing just makes it more tragic.
Be rational,
Stefan
Oh, my apologetics specialist just told me that of course you won't see SacKings head explode, because he be transported to Xibalba (pronounced Shibalba) and replaced by an identical copy of himself. It would be wrong to punish his peers for his grave error of not donating 10$, wouldn't it?
Just so we're clear, all this isn't my opinion. I saw a bright light and a flash and a loud, deep voice told me to mess with people's heads because religion is bullshit. Needless to say I immediately fell to my knees praising the lord, which turned out to be a car parking in such a way that the upper beam headlights hit my window. God really does work in mysterious ways. Afterwards I got drunk and an angel came to tell me that I am the fifth prophet and that I had some noodles sticking to my upper lip. Behold the next evolutionary step in the abrahamic religions is here: Atheism.
God, I can't believe we even have to talk about religion outside of history class. Faith is such a transparent, don't-use-your-head concept. It's frightening to see what a little rhethorics, scare tactics and the argumentum ad populum can do to otherwise smart people.
No... But I can say that it has never happened in my any day of my lifetime, nor has it ever happened in the history of mankind. So I can use my *past* experience to make a decision about the plausibility of something happening in the future. Once again... If nobody in the history of mankind has ever experienced anything after death, and somehow they could tell us about it (but they can't because they don't exist anymore) then if you told me that I was going to float through the universe for eternity I could use experience to give me an almost 100% certainty that it will not occur.
But... We don't have that luxury. Obviously as an pretty solid atheist I'm not going to go out and join a church for insurance just in case. But it is also not irrational to think about every now and then about what really will happen once you die.
I'm sorry to have to say that, but you're missing the point. We have quite a lot of past experience of what happens after we die. It has been observed millions of times and we have a very good model of it. Depending on the way you die your neurons stop firing and your consciousness stops. Your heart stops and after a while your brain cells die. The cells of your fingernails and hair die last. Then you start to decay, in a way that largely depends on where on the planet you are and whether your are buried or not, etc. You get the idea.
Now of course I understand that what you are proposing is that some magical vehicle comes and takes away your consciousness into some sort of supernatural realm. This claim is untestable. Similar claims have been postulated that involved an interaction between the natural and a hypothetical supernatural world and that were testable have all without exception been proven wrong. We conclude that humans have a tendency to invent supernatural ideas that are simply wrong. The fact that this particular claim of the afterlife is untestable should not make it any more valid. In fact it should make it even less valid.
But who does our consciousness belong to in the first place? To our brains? Our bodies? Isn't it just as valid to say our consciousness exists in and belongs to the universe? It is merely our daily experience of having our bodies with us wherever we go that makes us associate with them so much. But we can also see ourself as a conscious universe, some or all of who's consciousnesses happen to live in the brains of a certain animal on a certain planet. You, yes you reading this, you are the universe, get it? A flicker of consciousness in it. If one of your bodies and one of your consciousnesses dies, is it really that big a deal?
I want to emphasize that all of the above, as spiritual as it sounds, isn't esoteric or religious at all. It's a way to look at reality, not a story about what is outside of reality.
So where does that view lead us? Well, I've had the idea in my arsenal for many years now and it has a couple of interesting consequences.
1. I try to identify, analyse and fix global problems, because I see everything that happens on earth as something that happens within myself. Just like you wouldn't want two of your organs fighting each other I don't want two of my countries fighting each other.
2. I'm constantly trying to bring something positive in the world. On www.thebeststuffintheworld.com , 340 people voted for Sarcasm. I'm one of the 9 people who voted for Optimism. I'm the only guy in the London Underground (the subway) who smiles. And because of that - and I'm not bullshitting you here - I get to know new people almost every day. There are usually only one or two people smiling back and I more often than not talk to them. I got my current job this way. I just try to brighten people's days, because I found it brightens my own at the same time.
3. I recognize that I'm not important and that I might be wrong on everything I think or say. But I also recognize that I if try to be a force for good with humility and after careful selection and research of what really is the right thing to do, I can make a difference. Maybe it'll just be a small one, maybe it'll be a big one. But it'll be one for the better. If I were to die now, my influence on the world would already have been overwhelmingly on the positive side. Well, it would be a bit sad because I would have loved to be able to do more.
4. I see the possibilities. We as humans can do anything. Listen to people like Jeffrey Sachs' Reith Lectures, one of the greatest economists of our time - He is convinced that we can save most of the people who are dying from hunger and he has a detailed and scientifically founded plan for it. Listen to Aubrey de Grey. He is a gerontologist who shows that aging kills more people than anything and yet it is perfectly curable as soon as the next generation thanks to the fact that we only need to extend life longer than we need to extend it even longer and so on. Listen to the RRS, they have recognized that religion kills millions every year, yet it is completely obsolete. We see moral, working societies that have a vast majority of happy atheists in Sweden and Japan. Donate to these people, donate to scientists and foundations who are working to cure AIDS. (And I'm not just talk and no do. Look at the list to the left. I'm a student and I have about 150 £ to spare each month.)
Religion has managed to make us believe, atheists and theists alike that only the supernatural can bring us fulfillment and that we are fundamentally spiritual beings. I would correct that and say that we are fundamentally creative. That doesn't mean that our ideas can't play out on top of what we know instead of some theoretical place. I look at the world. And I find the beauty of the universe to be so overwhelming that I would suggest no human can ever really fully grasp it. And if that is true, what do you need those imagined things for? Check out reality first, it's pretty cool. There just is no need to start making stuff up.
If you think my view is cold or simplistic, then I'm sorry, but you didn't get it. I am talking about reality, an existance that is so profound, so deeply challenging and hopeful that no cheesy fairy tale of gods and devils, angels and demons, mystical places and ghosts will ever match it.
I'm sorry if the above is a little unorganized, I was rambling a little.
Thanks for reading, I hope you found something interesting,
Stefan
I'm not saying you're view is cold or simplistic. It's the same view I have. I used this example when I was explaining to my hardcore atheist friend and I think it should help illuminate my point.
I liken it to growing up thousands of years ago when everyone thought the world was flat. As I grow up, I go "Well this is just ridiculous, the world is not flat it is round, we're not going to just fall off. I mean has anyone ever seen the edge? Just use some logic here"
Now I set off to sail to prove that the world is indeed round, and you can't just fall off. As you get further and further at some point even if you were positive that the world was round... Just one tiny piece of you thinks, "Well what if it really IS flat, and I'm just going to fall off into oblivion? I would then convince myself otherwise, but that doesn't mean it won't enter my mind.
Yeah, I think once we die our neurons stop firing, my brain ceases to work, and my body decomposes and the natural circle begins again. However, I don't think wondering about other possibilities is wrong, unnatural, or illogical.
I think what you're saying is that it's a similar principle to when I say: Don't think of a pink elephant. Almost everyone reading this just thought of a pink elephant. You can't help but wonder but that doesn't mean you consider invisible pink elephant an actual serious theory. Have I got it right now?
What is pushing us to have that hope of an afterlife is a fear of death. I don't think we have a recipe for conquering that fear yet, but we musn't let it be the crack in our logic where all kinds of irrational beliefs seep in. All I'm saying is to be aware of that.
Most people have at least one such issue that is important to them. One person might be easily convinced by seemingly impossible prophecies. Another might be stunned by miracles. Someone might seek for an absolute morality And almost everybody has a fear of death. All it takes is one of these for a good priest to get you to throw logic out of the window. That's why I think the term atheism is so vague. It doesn't mean much more than you don't happen to participate in pagan or abrahamic (Christianity, Islam, Judaism...) religions. An atheist might be a person who is thoroughly irrational and simply hasn't really heard about one of the gospels yet. I'm a naturalist. I don't believe in supernatural things, because to do so would require me to throw Occams Razor out of the window. And if I do that I would have no way to find out which belief to hold and which to reject. From there it's just coincidence on which side of the next religious debate or war you are fighting.
Cheers,
Stefan