What do you think the afterlife looks like, if you believe in that? What would be heaven or hell for you? I personally hope that heaven looks like Earth before it was developed and polluted. Hell, i'm guessing that it's the burning place "underground", but i don't know about that since my old church taught me that the burning place was the main interpretation for hell after Dante's Inferno.

So, what do you think? Is heaven that cloud-haven in the sky? Or is it something more? Or is there no heaven or hell but reincarnation instead?

The more I think about it, the less I believe in an afterlife.

Let's suppose that only humans go to Heaven (or Hell). Well, here's a question: what's an human? Did Homo Erectus go to Heaven? Do unborn babies go to Heaven? In short: what makes someone an human?

If we go further and suppose that animals go to Heaven too... Then, what's the definition of animal? Are insects animals? Are bacteria animals? We could go even further and argue that all living things go to Heaven. But what does it mean to be alive? Are viruses alive? And what about prions, proteins and amino acids? What's the boundary between a living thing and a non-living thing?

One more question: what does it mean to be dead? If you're brain-dead beyond all hope of ever waking up but that your body is still technically alive, are you in Heaven?

Because of all those questions, I tend not to believe in the afterlife. But on the other hand, the idea of eternal oblivion at the end of life is unbearable to me...

This isn't quite the type of discussion i was aiming for......... :unsure:

I know.

If there is an afterlife, I expect it to be a 'state', not a 'place'. Like the buddhist Nirvana rather than the christian Heaven. Because if it were a place, you would eventually get bored spending eternity there.

I believe in some form of an afterlife. I don't think it's something that you see, more of just a very primitive form of consciousness. Much similar probably to being brain dead.

I believe that thought creates energy, and that energy can't ever completely be destroyed. Thus if we're creating energy through thought, those conscious thoughts will remain existent forever.

Well, the afterlife is supposed to be the best place in existance, the reward for a good life, the one place to spend eternity, so i guess you wouldn't get board with it. A state as opposed to a place is just a different interpretation of it all.

I believe that there is no afterlife (*ducks and avoids flaming*) :P

Basically, it's been proven time and time again that your brain interprets sensory input (sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch) using chemical and electrical signals. When you're brain dead, those signals stop. So, even if there is a Heaven, we wouldn't be able to observe it. In fact, since those same signals carry out thought, we wouldn't be able to even think about where or what we are.

An afterlife seems to contradict a simple inference based on observations that occur every day:

-IMP ;) :)

that's where the concept of a soul or spirit comes in........

Yes, but as there is no evidence of the existence of "souls" (nor a description of what they would be if they did exist, only vague ideas), and there is plenty of evidence that your brain does everything I mentioned above, I tend not to believe in that.

-IMP ;) :)

Definatley the kind of topic i was going for............. :no:

I was not counting on debating whether or not souls are real, as opposed to a state of mind.

Its hard for someone, at least like myself, to conjure up an image of an afterlife if you don't believe in it at all, it really is. And I imagine its like that for others as well. Its like making up anything you want to for a place you don't think is there.

I would suppose that the "afterlife" would be an "endlife." It wouldn't be blackness or nothingness, or absence of anything like what some people think Atheists think, it would just be a cessation of existence, you'd have no concept of it because you'd be....well.... dead.

Yup, basically what I believe as well, since "blackness" is also something to be observed. It's hard to describe because it's hard to comprehend. Everything we can imagine is based on observation (even darkness is the observation of lack of light), so we can't possibly imagine what it would be like to "not observe" anything.

-IMP ;) :)

Think of before you were born. To me, that's what afterlife is like. You can't really comprehend what it would be like, because you wouldn't be there. It's nothing, no consciousness, just like before you were born.

Assuming, though, that souls do exist and that we each have one, I'm guessing just as souls are (at least to our knowledge) undetectable, so the way they'd interact with a place that may well be beyond space and time, and not even a "place" by our typical definition of the word, might be inconceivable.

However, I do wonder, if we have souls, what will still make us "us" if we go to a heaven. Our brains will be dead. Our memories, our personalities, our favorite flavors of ice cream...all of that might be gone. That's part of the problem I have with thinking about an afterlife.

But it sounds like, at least in two ideas, we might not even be able to comprehend what it's like, or would be like.

Think I've read somewhere that according to Judeo-Christian faith our memories will be gone. That was a bit unsettling to swallow, but certainly is plausible if we believe that our entire lives flash before our eyes before the actual moment of death. Of course, it could be aliens beaming up those images from our minds for the sake of posterity. :rancer:

If you believe in souls, do you believe that there is a contest between God and Satan for who collects the most?

Assuming I did, I don't think I would say it's a "contest," at least if I were a Christian.