Wishful Thinking aside, is there any real reason to believe in life after death

Is there life after death?

  • Yeah man

    Votes: 13 20.0%

  • Naw man

    Votes: 19 29.2%

  • I don't know

    Votes: 30 46.2%

  • It's real I have proof

    Votes: 7 10.8%

  • It's fake I have proof

    Votes: 3 4.6%
  • Total voters
    65
AnOminous said:
Is there any particular reason to believe in the permanency of death?

I'm not sure why some people think fatalism and atheism are even logical.
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I think this is interesting and helped me clarify what I meant: like we've found no evidence for a soul, any sort of body or vessel that would pass on. Is it the heart, is it the brain, like what is a "person"? Who are "you"? Typically with this discussion it has to be boiled down that the body dies but the person lives on, and the spirit passes on and continues living. But we have no concept of what a soul is, there's no one part of you that holds the soul, you can't just point to your heart and say "Well MY soul is right here" or something. Ancient cultures used to keep burial rites or vessels because they believed that that was what was used to transport people to the other side, and that they could come back and visit via these gravestones and memorials and tributes. Now we kind of assume it's the brain that makes the "person", that holds the "soul" and when the brain can only live as long as the body, you have to ask how the "soul" exists anymore, how can it pass on -- especially if you take away those old traditions. If a soul exists somewhere that isnt the brain, and a person dies and you dont perform whatever burial rites or traditions, are you damning that person to hell? (But then the churches get around this by saying that if you believe, you're saved, and therefore the church and belief becomes the vessel, I suppose). This sort of corresponds with progressive advancements in medicine and science and more and more people sort of losing the thread of religion and questioning if there can even be an afterlife.

Because we dont have any proof that there is a physical "soul" to pass on, you kind of have to believe in the negative, even if there is a chance you could be proven wrong.
 
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Even if you’re not religious you could say theoretically we’re living in a simulation if it makes you feel any better.
AnOminous said:
Is there any particular reason to believe in the permanency of death?

I'm not sure why some people think fatalism and atheism are even logical.
Click to expand...
I think the book The Denial of Death is a good explanation (From Wikipedia):
The basic premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism. Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality through heroism, by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves. This symbolic self-focus takes the form of an individual's "immortality project" (or "causa sui project"), which is essentially a symbolic belief-system that ensures oneself is believed superior to physical reality. By successfully living under the terms of the immortality project, people feel they can become heroic and, henceforth, part of something eternal; something that will never die as compared to their physical body. This, in turn, gives people the feeling that their lives have meaning, a purpose, and are significant in the grand scheme of things.

Becker argues that the arbitrariness of human-invented immortality projects makes them naturally prone to conflict. When one immortality project conflicts with another, it is essentially an accusation of 'wrongness of life', and so sets the context for both aggressive and defensive behavior. Each party will want to prove its belief system is superior, a better way of life. Thus these immortality projects are considered a fundamental driver of human conflict, such as in wars, bigotry, genocide, and racism.

Another theme running throughout the book is that humanity's traditional "hero-systems", such as religion, are no longer convincing in the age of reason. Science attempts to serve as an immortality project, something that Becker believes it can never do, because it is unable to provide agreeable, absolute meanings to human life. The book states that we need new convincing "illusions" that enable us to feel heroic in ways that are agreeable. Becker, however, does not provide any definitive answer, mainly because he believes that there is no perfect solution. Instead, he hopes that gradual realization of humanity's innate motivations, namely death, can help to bring about a better world.
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Whether you believe in the permeance of death or not I think it might explain why people are seemingly getting more obsessed with politics and identity as society becomes less religious.

Also the book talks about theories related to it, the last two here could apply to a number of lolcows:
Mental Illnesses
From this premise, mental illness is described as opposite, dysfunctional extremes in one's relationship with their own immortality project.

Depression
At one extreme, people experiencing depression have the sense that their immortality project is failing. They either begin to think the immortality project is false, or feel unable to successfully be a hero in terms of that immortality project. As a result, they are consistently reminded of their mortality, biological body, and feelings of worthlessness.

Schizophrenia
At the other extreme, Becker describes schizophrenia as being when someone becomes so obsessed with their personal immortality project that they altogether deny the nature of all other realities. The schizophrenic creates their own internal, mental reality in which they define and control all purposes, truths, and meanings. This makes them pure heroes, living in a mental reality that is taken as superior to both physical and cultural realities.

Creativity
Like the schizophrenic, creative and artistic individuals deny both physical reality and culturally-endorsed immortality projects, expressing a need to create their own reality. The primary difference is that creative individuals have talents that allow them to create and express a reality that others may appreciate, rather than simply constructing an internal, mental reality.
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The real question is, would you want to live after you've already lived? And why? For new experience? For a second chance? To live a life of eternity with no other emotion or thought than bliss?
 
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AnOminous said:
I'm not sure why some people think fatalism and atheism are even logical.
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1. You die and that's it. Your brain stops working and there's nothing else for you.

2 You die and pass through pearly gates and walk the streets of gold with good ol' Nana and all your previously dead pets while being forced to praise a thing that created you. For all eternity. With no end and no reprieve.

I mean... one of these sounds fairly logical.
 
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I don’t believe in the concept of the soul as something that exists independently of the body, hence the fact that psychiatric medication works. Therefore, I don’t believe in an afterlife in the conventional sense.

I do believe in an existence after death in the form of the impact you make on the world and the memories other people have.
 
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Ive spent countless nights nearly inducing myself into a panic attack by just TRYING to answer this question and Ive finally come to accept that I'll never know. Theres no definitive proof that says theres nothing so Im just gonna spend my life being hopeful.
 
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ITT: a bunch of people with shitty boring lives in denial about just how badly they're wasting their limited time on this Earth by sitting on KiwiFarms all day
 
haven't read all the replies but i wanted to say this :
see the only people who preaches about life after death are the ones who don;t live their lives fully
of course we can argue what "fully" means
to me as a someone who lived with majority of afterlifers i can tell you this my man
it really does curb your ambitions in life
like religions aside i would highly recommend not believing in that shit
believing that you have second chance at life is a fatal trap my man
but i heard stuff about brain activity staying active for some minutes after death so theres a possibility but to me i think we would be better off without that kind of belief
 
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