Atheists: Thoughts on the Afterlife?

i do not believe in the soul, and consciousness is merely the emotional illusion brought on by our ability to discern between choices and retain information. those emotions, memories, and choices are all operated within the brain. once the brain is deactivated, it all stops.

*POOF*

just like before you were born. of course, it didn't bother you for the 13.5 billion years or so before, why should it bother you in the eternity after? besides, you will never really be dead, if you look at it in a first person perspective. you won't have the faculties necessary to experience it. =D

enjoy life while you can, it is but a short respite between eternities. even the dullest moments in your life are far more valuable than no moment at all.

enjoy ;)

Personally, I don't know.

There is no evidence for an afterlife, or even for the existence of a soul.

What we consider 'the soul' is usually self awareness, which can easily be attributed to operations in the brain, effected by chemicals and physiology.

That being said, I believe that without evidence for either an afterlife or a soul, neither are required or even likely.

You do realize the only thing tying atheists together is the lack of belief in deities- you will get a lot of varying answers.

As far as what I think will happen- I die, and it will be just like it was before I was born... I won't exist.

It's a good time for the great taste of McDonalds.

I have to somewhat agree with my Deist dad on this one. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Although for us, consciousness ends, something, the energy we possess goes somewhere. It goes into the world. I don't know if I believe in a soul but I find peace in knowing that a part of me will go on to improve (hopefully) the world.

You are dead. There is no afterlife. I have never heard any atheist give any other answer. I highly doubt that you ever heard an atheist tell you that you would be reincarnated or come back as a ghost.

The same thing that happens to the organized energy that displayed information on your TV screen, once the TV is turned off.

Unless you have some evidence otherwise, all that energy that was, for a brief moment in the universe, organized decays to heat.

i died once and for the few minutes i was dead, i had become a golden light and i was moving at the speed of light, but before i met my destination i was waking up in an ambulance. dying sucked but what came afterward was awesome, cant wait to go again.

We have no idea. The evidence points to the idea that we are just dead. But, since we can't identify the soul and we don't know what it does, and we don't know that there is anyplace for it to go to after we die ...

Then anything we say happens is just wishful thinking.

Maybe our consciousness gets pooled and reformed into something else, maybe energy maybe matter. I'd be willing to believe that over a lazy deity that loves blood and destruction.

All of the above? Perhaps different things happen to different people. None of the answers require a "god."