The afterlife?

[kevin 714]

I've always considered myself a pretty solid atheist. I joke sometimes about being an atheist Buddhist as I like certain ideas, conceptually, but overall, I don't really believe in any afterlife. We exist and we pass and such is the nature of things

Yet


I find myself hoping my cat is waiting in some sunny field, sunning his fat belly, until it's my time to join him. Its just s thought, but gives me solace. It's all nebulous and j don't believe in any real religious doctrine, or solidified idea, it's more this fleeting image in my head at times. Despite not REALLY believing in much beyond, I still find myself taking extra care to erect a small memorial for him, with a marker, making sure it's near his favorite spot to lay in shade.

My mother is very Christian, and believes my father, and her father are waiting for her in heaven. Very Christian. It's funny how different people, even from the same family, view things differently. My brother really is just of the viewpoint it's over, and as far as I can tell he harbors no real thoughts beyond that when you die it's over. And that's really how I felt, for most precious deaths of family and friends. Maybe as I've gotten older things slowly change?

Do you believe in an afterlife? Being aware of death is such a fundamental human trait, and a topic that inevitably will be a part of the human condition, but never answered


Please be respectful of others beliefs here.

 

[Hyperborea]

Go round once. Get dizzy. Fall over. The end.

Make the most of it while you can.

 

[Bowling4Bikes]

I've was holding the hands of my mother and father in the moments when they passed. They were there, and then they weren't. All I have to go on is my own anecdotal evidence. I didn't feel anything. I don't think there's anything after. Others may have had different experiences. I don't pretend to have the answers.

Perhaps your act of building a memorial was more to help yourself heal in the present, and less about any religious act? Just a thought.

 

[kevin 714]

I've was holding the hands of my mother and father in the moments when they passed. They were there, and then they weren't. All I have to go on is my own anecdotal evidence. I didn't feel anything. I don't think there's anything after. Others may have had different experiences. I don't pretend to have the answers.

Perhaps your act of building a memorial was more to help yourself heal in the present, and less about any religious act? Just a thought.

No doubt it was a personal catharsis act


Recently before all the stuff with the cat went down, I was reading and studying haiku more and more. Just as s personal thing. And I read a book on Japanese death poems. Written by poets and zen monks in final moments of life. Was interesting to see how it was viewed, so differently. I found great enjoyment in some of those poems

 

[Eldritch]

I've always considered myself a pretty solid atheist. I joke sometimes about being an atheist Buddhist as I like certain ideas, conceptually, but overall, I don't really believe in any afterlife. We exist and we pass and such is the nature of things

Yet


I find myself hoping my cat is waiting in some sunny field, sunning his fat belly, until it's my time to join him. Its just s thought, but gives me solace. It's all nebulous and j don't believe in any real religious doctrine, or solidified idea, it's more this fleeting image in my head at times. Despite not REALLY believing in much beyond, I still find myself taking extra care to erect a small memorial for him, with a marker, making sure it's near his favorite spot to lay in shade.

My mother is very Christian, and believes my father, and her father are waiting for her in heaven. Very Christian. It's funny how different people, even from the same family, view things differently. My brother really is just of the viewpoint it's over, and as far as I can tell he harbors no real thoughts beyond that when you die it's over. And that's really how I felt, for most precious deaths of family and friends. Maybe as I've gotten older things slowly change?

Do you believe in an afterlife? Being aware of death is such a fundamental human trait, and a topic that inevitably will be a part of the human condition, but never answered


Please be respectful of others beliefs here.

Sorry for the loss, man, but you and I both know that the feels you are having in this matter are merely a coping mechanism for your loss, which is tough. Be aware of your feels, understand them, and work through them in the time that it takes, but you have always struck me as the kind of cat that believed in courage too much to be the atheist that finds god in a foxhole now that reality is too painful.

You and your cat are made of the same heap of piled up star junk, just like the rest of us. Eventually, you will both be cycled into the same ceaselessly grinding particle jumble of the universe. You will be together in that, just like you always have been, except for these few short years of formation into carbon based life forms. You will return to this some day soon, probably only a handful of simple decades and be together again. More than likely, at some point your star junk will be part of another carbon based life form, so will your friend. Maybe they will now each other in some way, maybe even be a part of the same being. Time grinds ever on and possibility is an amazing thing within the realm of the real.

 

[mototireguy]

Afterlife: I worry about that time when I was young and burned a bunch of ants with a magnifying glass in the sun will affect my lot in the afterlife.

 

[JesasaurusRex]

Brain says no, heart says maybe. Consider myself pretty atheist as well. Hard to explain I guess

 

[packnrat]

something after???

as for this life when it is over it is over nothing more. a machine just shuts down.

if one needs to believe they will live after then just give everything and devot your life to doing something for mankind. NOT giving or doing for any "cause".

be that person who is there for any and everybody. help those you know. and do not know. but you will only be as those that care to remember you. :afm199


other than that you will just be dust in the wind. as most of us will be within 10 years after our deaths.


.

 

[Blankpage]

Afterlife: I worry about that time when I was young and burned a bunch of ants with a magnifying glass in the sun will affect my lot in the afterlife.

I used to stop my dirtbike on top of ant hills and pull the gas line off the bottom of the tank letting about a cup of gas spill on top of the ants, then light it :laughing :blush :facepalm

But I was Catholic so all I had to do was tell that in confession once a month and all was good again :gsxrgrl Religion has its perks

 

[Bay Arean]

Because I had a "religious" experience of being reunited with my mother, I believe in some kind of afterlife. I can't explain it and I fully understand that all-science types that reject it all as unprovable. Had I not had the experience, which was basically like a religious ecstasy dream, complete with heavenly voices etc etc, I could never be convinced that anyone else could experience it either.

It doesn't get me goin to any church or anything, but I fully believe there is something else we cannot understand or see. And that just is gonna have to be good enough.

There is so much about the Universe that I cannot comprehend, it's hard to for to put some proven science filter over all of it and reject some over others.

I just happened to see a teevee show attempting to explain the theory of dark matter and its a case in point. Trying to comprehend dark matters is as hard for me as comprehending the afterlife. But I haven't even experienced any kind of inkling of dark matter while there is so much cultural and learned stuff about afterlife that makes it easier to believe in, perhaps.

 

[Blankpage]

If there is an afterlife wouldn't you want to die young.
Who wants to be up there (over there) forever wobbling around in the feeble body of a 90 year old. Or do you afterlifers believe everyone reverts back to their collage physique?

 

[asdfghwy]

I don't think there is anything. Sometimes I think of my friends looking down on me and it's comforting but I snap out of it and realize there's most likely nothing.

"Life is like a tangled ball of wool... it begins with nothing, and it ends with nothing"

There's a great set of philisophical lectures from yale about death on youtube I really enjoyed watching.

edit:
youtu.be/HccFCA2TGvY

 

[aminalmutha]

I do. I won't go into all that I believe one way or another, as I feel that would require far too much time/space/words.

I don't necessarily think it's a Dante-esque heaven and hell, but I do feel there is far more to the universe than what people think they know. I think humans have figured out a lot about the time and space which we occupy, but I feel that we know a tiny fraction... a very tiny fraction to the point of it being statistically zero... about the universe and existence as a whole.

Bottom line, I don't think there is any way anyone could know for certain.

I don't know if was my brain processing immense pain, but I do know that I found a profound presence when I lost my best friend. And I do know one can develop an extremely strong bond with an animal and I don't think it's a one way street.

It's ok to memorialize your loved ones, fur covered or not.

 

[kevin 714]

Sorry for the loss, man, but you and I both know that the feels you are having in this matter are merely a coping mechanism for your loss, which is tough. Be aware of your feels, understand them, and work through them in the time that it takes, but you have always struck me as the kind of cat that believed in courage too much to be the atheist that finds god in a foxhole now that reality is too painful.

.

Oh yeah I'm not ACTUALLY believing in an afterlife. It's the IDEA of what people think, is all. You know me, harsh realties are not something I hide from. There's no real fox hole moment here, as much as just thoughts bouncing around because 2016 has been a year of death for me.


Previous deaths of family, friends, animals etc have happened and o occasionally ponder it all more directly. I don't really believe, In s concrete way, that there is anything "after". My dad, and the cat, both led long fruitful lives, nothing to be upset at, aside from the longing to see them. Shit with me as an owner, that cat was ajresdt in heaven :laughing

 

[jh2586]

I don't believe in an afterlife. I believe we go back to the state of whatever we were before we were born. I believe when you die, you don't know you're dead. You don't exist. You are just not..

 

[Karbon]

Former believer to non believer here. I feel like the death of friends, loved ones, pets and people are/feel waay more meaningful when viewed through a materialistic viewpoint.

I had 3 friends die on me in the last 3 years. All of em kiddos in their late 20s. It still hurts, and despite this i still feel lucky to have know these people. Cliché as it seems, but to have experienced that sadness is to know that you're alive.

I feel the sadness, suffering and closure you experience as an opportunity to further think about how you can live your life in a more meaningful way.

 

[rsrider]

My uncle-in-law was the Chair of Religion at Dartmouth.
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/burlingtonfreepress/obituary.aspx?pid=156225136
He was an atheist.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

 

[russ69]

They say animals have no soul, so they can't go to heaven. But when I die and there are no dogs and cats, I'll figure I went to hell, I must have done something really bad to be stripped of my animals.

 

[hophead]

Those who know do not speak. Those who speak do not know.”
― Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching


....therefore disregard what I just posted.

 

[planegray]

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