The Afterlife: What You Want Versus What You Believe

I don't want to exist after death. This life was enough.

I don't believe in an afterlife. When we die, we die.

"Oh wait. She doesn't have a... Forget what I said, don't catch the preggo. Just wear her hat." - Question Marc

I'm very much agreed on the idea that basing one's life on what they expect to come after death isn't very rational based on the limited amount of data we have on the after-death status of the consciousness, assuming that consciousness exists at all.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

In the words of one of my favorite characters: "Do I look like someone who cares what God thinks?"

I am a Hindu, so I believe in limited reincarnation. There is are many heavens and many hells. But none are permanent and no one is in there longer than what they need to learn what it is they must. Samsara is overrated. Moksha, the liberation of rebirth, is nothing but eternal bliss. I rather loose my individuality and achieve bliss.

But by even wanting such a thing I set myself back, so I rather just go where I am meant to.

"Psssh. Even if you could catch a miracle on a picture any person would probably delete it to make space for more porn." - Aszur

I'm more basing mine on the Eight Precepts and attempting to be less sucky in this life despite my beliefs. I greatly fear dying so a good deal of my meditation is focused on this. Even if I didn't it should be. Death meditation of various sorts is a practice of great importance in Buddhism since learning to accept it and becoming calm and comfortable with your death and the death of others is a very big part of the religion. I don't think much about what my next life will be if I have one. I don't see the purpose in worrying about that.

The abbot gave me a talk one day about worrying. He said that it is a waste of time and energy to to worry about things that haven't happened yet. Chances are they won't happen how you imagine them. Even if you aren't worrying about these future events why spend time day dreaming about them? Planning them is different. Day dreaming and fantasizing wastes time and could lead to future disappointment. So you should try to avoid doing that. But you shouldn't be too hard on yourself if you stray. Just keep trying. The road is long and hard, you'll mess up a lot, and there's many following the same road along with you.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

@USAF: It certainly is. I personally believe, from what I've heard of near-death experiences, that there would be a moment of fusion; a state of perfect contentment and peace, right before the drop into whatever happens next. In fact, I've heard that the brain releases quite a bit of DMT at death; from what people have told me about being on DMT, it sounds like it could even make everyone's individual death trip completely unique to that person, so it's likely that everyone would have a sort of personal heaven experience, right before the big moment.

Now, once death becomes permanent, I will admit I have absolutely no idea what would come after, but cessation sounds likely, reincarnation sounds nice, doesn't make much sense to me, but that's got more to do with humanity's (not to mention my own) collective ignorance about how the universe works than any real impossibility. The idea that one's fate after death is tied to any objective morality is a bit absurd to me, since moral principles are so subject to interpretation, and seem fluid, artificial, and above all, breakable compared to, say, the inviolable laws of the universe. It may be that your mindset at the time of your death affects how enjoyable your heaven experience would be, and it would make sense if life after death was largely subjective, so someone who believed that they had been doing the right thing all their life would have a much better time than someone who kept doing things they believed were wrong. Of course, that's just an opinion...

edited 11th Dec '11 10:31:56 PM by tropetown

I dunno. I think I'd even take the Christian conceptualization of heaven over end of existence, even if I think it'd be absurdly boring.

Just... ending... makes things seem rather pointless.

I am now known as Flyboy.

I have problems with the kamma, which isn't morality itself in Buddhism but is heavily tied in with the concept, idea myself. I think I can somewhat accept it more if I go with the idea of panentheism. Then we're just part of an All and hurting other beings hurts ourselves, that being, other beings, and the All and the All might have rules regarding this. Or maybe the All just doesn't like it when people poke it for douchey reasons.

Or maybe the All is so above us that we're all wrong.

edited 11th Dec '11 8:46:29 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

That's why it's better not to think about it; if this life is really all there is, why waste time dreading the inevitable, when you can make the most of your time on Earth?

I like that idea; thinking of the entire cosmos as one spiritual organism really helps to put things in perspective.

edited 11th Dec '11 8:48:01 PM by tropetown

Panentheism is pretty much the only conception of God I've ever had and ever been able to understand.

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Indeed.

As for "the universe as an organism," eh... perhaps. Seems as good as any other explanation.

I am now known as Flyboy.

Well if I think about it...In panentheism it's not just the universe that is God. In panentheism the universe is in God. God is bigger than the universe and something else exists beyond it. Whatever that is we don't know and may never know. It might be, in my totally cool and totally expert Buddhist opinion, Nibbana. Which is just another part of this All. Which is in the All. So All is in the All, but the All is in All. The All made All, is All, in All, without All, connects All and will end All. BUT WHY DOES ALL ACT. Personally I like the answer of "BECAUSE IT DOES" which was apparently an official Hermetic stance.

Pantheism is "God is the universe".

edited 11th Dec '11 8:59:27 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

It's how I would explain the idea of the omnipresence of the Judeo-Christian God, at least. It does raise an interesting question, though; if humans (along with everything else) are part of one giant "All", what exactly is our function within that being?

edited 11th Dec '11 8:59:25 PM by tropetown

No bloody clue. In Buddhism everything's purpose is to get to Nibbana which is outside the universe, yet not complete annihilation.

edited 11th Dec '11 9:00:29 PM by Aondeug

If someone wants to accuse us of eating coconut shells, then that's their business. We know what we're doing. - Achaan Chah

Who says we have a function? Maybe we're like the appendix: useless but too costly, resource-wise, to do away with.

I am now known as Flyboy.

Nirvana sounds like the most desirable of the traditional afterlives, though my hope would be for a world in which I could spread my essence in creation; my will would be made manifest, and a perfect, living fusion with all the possible expressions of my creative energy, which would go on and on into infinity.

If that's the case, I think the being has appendicitis.

Honestly I keep typing up long responses then reading them only to realize their completly inchoherent and delete them.

At it's core what I'm trying to say: It's a logical conclusion that we as the only known species capable of reason and logic *

are by the nature of being able to understand our situation able to thusly deserving of some form of continuation beyond nothingness after death. Cessation of Existence just strikes me as....illogical and frankly depressing.

edited 11th Dec '11 9:48:32 PM by LMage

"You are never taller then when standing up for yourself"

Now that's an interesting statement; deserving according to what principle? In order for us to deserve an afterlife, there would need to be an objective standard of judgement by which afterlives were automatically conceived of, judged, and handed out, a "cosmological death principle". If you say God, well, we've decided to introduce a foreign element into the equation without answering the questions as to why that element would be necessary; his existence is pretty much a Voodoo Shark for the inner workings of the universe, though I wouldn't rule out the possibility of beings from a different plane of existence as being too far-fetched, given how little we know about the universe.

Now, cessation seems like it would suck, just based on the idea that it's fundamentally opposite to existing, but the truth is, we have absolutely no idea what cessation would be like; it's impossible for us to even concieve of not existing, since any conception would necessitate an existing conciousness to observe it.

edited 11th Dec '11 9:58:26 PM by tropetown

How is Cessation of Existence illogical? Just because we "deserve" an afterlife doesn't mean there is one. People don't always get what they deserve.

edited 11th Dec '11 9:53:57 PM by Enthryn

I'm not sure why "logic" would come into believing in an afterlife, given the grand absence of evidence we face...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Logic is always relevant, even in the absence of evidence. One needs no evidence, for example, to verify the truth of mathematics (edit: bad example, disregard this one), or to know that an entity defined in an internally contradictory way can't exist.

Also, absence of evidence is, contrary to the common saying, evidence of absence. (However, it's correct that absence of proof isn't proof of absence.)

edited 11th Dec '11 10:14:59 PM by Enthryn

I don't think the best evidence of an afterlife is being "deserving."

But, I see it this way. There are even other species who respected their dead (Neanderthals and other hominids and elephants, even). Religion and belief in a life after death is an incredibly long-running theme in human, and perhaps even other animals, history — it's a very natural train of thought. Perhaps there is something behind it besides a comping mechanism for simple fear.

edited 11th Dec '11 10:09:28 PM by ohsointocats

Depending on the situation. If one is not in a position to observe any possible evidence for something, then they can't really use that as evidence that the thing they want to observe does not exist, if there are reasonable hypotheses supporting it. Black holes are a good example of that; we can't directly observe them, and for years we didn't possess the indirect evidence of their existence, either. Of course, when you are in a position to look for relevant evidence, and none appears, that makes it likelier that the thing you're looking for does not exist.

edited 11th Dec '11 10:13:14 PM by tropetown

Um... math is a human construct. It literally exists because we make it so. It describes things in reality, but the entire concept of math as it applies to these things is a creation of our own needs.

Math is a name for a thing in reality, and like any other name, it could in theory be changed. It would be pointlessly counterproductive to try, but math isn't some objective truth, so much as it's a man-made creation.

I am now known as Flyboy.

Sorry, confusing use of terminology on my part. When I talk about mathematics, I'm often referring to the underlying patterns of reality being described, not the descriptions themselves (which are obviously a human construct). I need to be more clear about what I mean... and maybe that was a bad example to begin with, since it brings up all sorts of messy issues of metamathematics.

edited 11th Dec '11 10:14:32 PM by Enthryn

Thats not quite what I'm saying. What I keep trying to figure how to put in words is that...if you concive that the universe is built on logic and reason, then you also concive that God is logical and reasonable to have created it, and that when he created (or allowed for the evoultion of, whichever really) humans he granted them reason and logic, the power to understand their condition, he meant for us to try and understand the world at large which includes death. What follows logicaly is that God meant for us to ponder the nature of death and what might lie after death. And what follows logicaly from that, is that their must be something after death if God wanted us to ponder it.

In short Cessation of Existence is illogical because it implies that the actions of our lives are ultamietly meaningless.

edited 11th Dec '11 10:18:20 PM by LMage

"You are never taller then when standing up for yourself"