Forums » The Lounge » Read Thread

Interested to hear your thoughts on life and death. Why we're here and where we go after. Hoping the intellects on this sight will enlighten me with a new perspective.

While it's not a belief I personally hold, I think the concept of death in the movie "Jacob's Ladder" is certainly interesting, and a new perspective.

"The only thing that burns in Hell is the part of you that won't let go of life." Quite a quote. I've never seen the movie, but from what I just read it seems pretty good. Although it plays off of the angel and demon idea. Still an interesting view none the less.

You should definitely watch it. It's the movie that inspired Silent Hill.

 What you say is true. However I won't lie to myself and pretend that defending myself with negativity will prosper me any in this life or what comes next. We all have something to offer this world even if it is just our seed.

Just out of interest, where do you think eunuchs and celibate people fit into this? My outlook is similar to yours btw, except that I think we're here to create, which may or not involve breeding. 

I like this thread, personally I think people are just random bits of energy thrown together into something that for some reason has a lot of self-awareness and when we die the energy gets spread back again, i.e. skin decomposes into the ground or gets eaten by bugs, body gases go into the air (do corpses fart?) or smoke if cremation is the way to go, ashes get scattered etc. These bits of energy will eventually come back together into a self-aware form (though god knows how long that will take) but I don't expect any memories will be held, after all we only know the names of people from 10,000 years ago and 10,000 years from now whether humans are gone or not these will probably be lost in the sea of history...

Of course I could be entirely wrong, nobody really knows. Maybe we go to Hades, the Happy Hunting Ground or we become part of the Force and help levitate things. I actually have a mild curiosity about what happens after we die so death and such things never really bother me until the situation becomes relevant :)

I have a similar belief in the scattering of our energy. I feel people's main dilemma is holding onto what they see themselves as. Having the idea of identity is like limiting what you can and can't be.

Someone who is reminded by how much things change and acknowledges it in their comment. Very admirable. I do have some questions, but I will respect your privacy.

We live and die, hopefully prolonging the survival of the species in between.

Well, either there is a supernatural force involved in the existence of the world or we're all here by way of a super convenient cosmic accident. Eventually, we're all going in the ground / somewhere to rot, but millions of people in this world believe that the non-physical parts of their existence are going to move on to another life.

I think it's foolish for anyone, atheist, theist, or agnostic, to say they know exactly what happens when this life ends. You can't prove that, period. Someone's right, I'm sure, but you will not know who that is until you get there.

I'm reminded of a line from a book by Lois McMaster Bujold. It's not at all spoiler-y, so:

"I am an atheist, myself. A simple faith, but a great comfort to me, in these last days."

This is not at all reflective of my personal perspective, to be clear. I just thought it was a terribly clever reversal of the usual assumptions, regarding atheists facing death.

But no, I actually very much agree with your agnosticism, with respect to the fundamental nature of existence, and the fact that no one can know what happens after we die. Personally, I would be quite delighted to meet Death of the Endless, and walk with her to whatever comes next. I do not think there is any chance at all that this will happen, being that she is fictional. I have a similarly firm disbelief in the Christian depiction God, who would presumably condemn me to eternal torment for my myriad sins, and for my persistent failure to 'accept Jesus into my heart.'

That said, if the beliefs of Christianity are some sort of reflection of reality... I will be very interested to meet God's opposite number. >:D

Have you seen the UUC God? He's wayyyy more chill than that, and at that point Satan's just an angel with a shitty job, probably. Problem is, he's just not as entertaining to provoke as Catholic Asshole God. I mean, Jewish God can be fun to piss off too, but there's a higher chance of death.

XD

To be fair, I really should have said "any of the numerous different Christian depictions of God."

"I actually very much agree with your agnosticism,"

But, lol ... I'm not agnostic, Morgan. I'm actually a very staunch theist. While I did give a very objective answer (borderline Mathmatician's Answer, really) I have my beliefs, but I find it grating on an intellectual level when people bash others for their hopes for the afterlife. (Whether that hope is of paradise or nonexistence.)

I find a lot of things in regards to science, history, and personal experience supports my beliefs, but the afterlife? I know what I've been told, I know what I believe, I know more about the physical process of death than many health individuals would, I know I haven't experienced death myself, aaaand that's about it.

Heh, sorry. I definitely did get the impression that you were a theist.

But to say something that seemed to amount to 'we cannot know the truth of this thing: you do not know it, and I do not know it, because it it is fundamentally unknowable,' well... that's certainly seems like agnosticism, in its more general form.

So, yes. I didn't mean to imply you were agnostic, full stop, in the sense of someone who thinks we cannot know whether or not God exists. Just that I agree with your agnosticism, in the sense that you say that 'nobody can know this thing,' on the subject of the afterlife, specifically.

But possibly I shouldn't use definition (2) of a word, in a context where it's entirely reasonable to assume I meant defintion (1). Sorry. XD

Also, I think this probably goes without saying, but: Bashing people isn't cool. If I thought it would help, I would tell my fellow atheists to knock it the fuck off. >_<

Honestly, I've never actually seen that level of religion in real life. It seems to be something reserved for the neckbeard-stroking Reddit crowd and Richard Dawkins. 

EDIT: I guess Dawkins qualifies as a real person. I should say "in day to day life". 

XD

There is certainly this idea, that is reflected in things like "IRL," that the internet isn't a real thing, and that the time we spend on it is not part of our real lives.

And on reflection... that's not an idea I actually agree with.

Bashing people isn't cool.

And we should not excuse the behavior by saying 'it's just the internet.'

Thought I'd share this one. After You Die by Ramin Nazer illustrates some of the theories regarding one's fate after death.

In my opinion, no one knows for certain where we go after we die. That's where faith comes in. Me being a Christian, I believe we go to either Heaven or Hell based on the decisions we make while still on Earth, and that everyone was put here for a indivisual purpose.

Oh god I broke the site...

Death will come when it comes. I don't really care when; we all share the same fate someday. *shrugs* But, I'm not one to hurry up the process. >_<

Life, on the other hand, I see no point to unless you enjoy it. In the most depressing situation to ever live, there's still a chance of having joy despite it - laughing with family/friends, putting a good spin on the bad stuff happening, or trying to find the most amusing reason for why it's happening. (unicorns telling bad jokes, making the skies laugh so hard they cry, while you just happen to be out working on something.) There's only one situation that I could think of where you could not enjoy anything; true loneliness. Where there's literally no other living soul for hundreds of miles, and no way of transportation to get to them.

A theory I like is that life is just a dream, and that one day I will wake up..probably into another dream lol. Then one day, after a million dream lives, I will finally wake up on a spaceship heading to the planet Pupiter with my pals Captain Haddock, George Harrison and Noel Fielding...either that, or in The Hundred Acre Wood. 

Another cool theory is that all of our dreams are actually reality, and life just a dream we've escaped into for a while. And death is just us going back there for good, or at least while we save up to buy another 80 yr long dream.  

I'm gonna swipe a bit of a post I made on BHB for this:

I believe that sentient life is an amazing accident, and death is most likely the end of my consciousness.

As for where I would like to 'go after,' in the sense of what I'd like to be done with my remains... I've seen things like blown glass with ashes in it, as memorial objects. That seems like a nice keepsake, if there was someone in my life who'd want that kind of thing, at the point when I die. I kind of like the idea that it could be handed down, to people increasingly distant from any relation to me. Just a pretty object, eventually, its origin forgotten... and then someone would wonder about it, and figure out what it was. Maybe not precisely who it was, but that it contained human remains, as a form of memorial. And they'd be unsettled, and a little sad, because they live in the far future, and humans are effectively immortal by then.

And then they'd go about their life, because that's what you do.

But they'd keep the glass trinket, and they'd sometimes think of me, across a vast gulf of time.

And it is some comfort to me, not to think that my consciousness will survive... but that there will be conscious beings, into the far, far future, who are not unlike myself.

My beliefs will fail your hopes miserably. :P