Theists who do not believe in an afterlife?

[Sha'irullah]

Am I the only person who accepts the existence of a god yet does not believe in the existence of an afterlife or spiritual state without physical existence?

Almost all religions or theological disposition hold that there is an afterlife and an immortal soul which lives on past the body, I myself do not accept this and associate the soul and spirit as the consciousness that arises through physicality. In other words, there is no such thing as a floating entity called the soul. The soul cannot exist without a body, in layman's terminology the soul/spirit is our brain.

No conscious awareness can be brought about by something that is not even rooted to a reality of some sort. Nonexistence is literally not existing and consciousness cannot arise from something not rooted in an existence of any sort. So the concept of an afterlife will be no fundamentally different than the way of life as we have now since one will still require a physical medium to experience sentience.

So the only plausible existence of an afterlife I could possibly see existing is an afterlife with physical existence. The often thought of afterlife where souls exist alone in a spiritual state is utterly nonsensical and has no way to validate its existence other than imaginary thinking. Dharmic religions and their concept of samsara bypass this of course which makes reincarnation a plausible result of a person after death but considering the dismantlement of the reliant factor which promotes or consciousness(the brain) there is no reason to assume that whatever could come after our death is even ourselves.

Share your thoughts on this

 

[Thana]

If you believe in God, But not the afterlife, Then what is the point to life to you?

I don't know, It doesn't really make sense to me.

 

[Riverwolf]

If you believe in God, But not the afterlife, Then what is the point to life to you?

I don't know, It doesn't really make sense to me.

Cattle die, kindred die,
Every man is mortal:
But the good name never dies
Of one who has done well

Cattle die, kindred die,
Every man is mortal:
But I know one thing that never dies,
The glory of the great dead
​

-Havamal

Life for life, not for death. That's the point when the afterlife is either not relevant, or nonexistent.

 

[Windwalker]

If you believe in God, But not the afterlife, Then what is the point to life to you?

If you believe in God, why do you need there to be an afterlife? What is the point of an afterlife, if you believe in God?

I don't know, It doesn't really make sense to me.

I am always astounded when I hear someone say this, that the claim to believe in God and yet see no point of this life if there is no afterlife. Have you not realized yet what God brings to this life, to even ask such a question? To me the afterlife is besides the point, if it does or does not exist.

I suppose the question should be do you believe in God for God's sake, or believe in God for the sake of your afterlife?

 

[Thana]

Cattle die, kindred die,
Every man is mortal:
But the good name never dies
Of one who has done well

Cattle die, kindred die,
Every man is mortal:
But I know one thing that never dies,
The glory of the great dead
​

-Havamal

Life for life, not for death. That's the point when the afterlife is either not relevant, or nonexistent.

Yeah, And that's all well and good, Until humanity dies out and then there's no one to remember if you were a nice guy or not.

 

[Sha'irullah]

If you believe in God, But not the afterlife, Then what is the point to life to you?

I don't know, It doesn't really make sense to me.

I could easily counter that by saying what is the point of making art? Art does no good on an evidential level so why make it?

The answer is simple because it is an emotional benefit. Living and appreciating life is an emotional attachment and emotional experience. I live because I desire to experience it the say way I desire to experience Salvador Dalí's masterpieces.

They make me satisfied viewing them no matter how satisfied we are living even when it saddens us. When we become dissatisfied with life then usually we contemplate suicide.

Simple as that.

 

[Thana]

I am always astounded when I hear someone say this, that the claim to believe in God and yet see no point of this life if there is no afterlife. Have you not realized yet what God brings to this life, to even ask such a question? To me the afterlife is besides the point, if it does or does not exist.

I suppose the question should be do you believe in God for God's sake, or believe in God for the sake of your afterlife?

What my thought was, Is that everything that happens under the sun is eventually rendered meaningless. So if there is no life after death, Then what is the point to anything in life?

 

[Thana]

I could easily counter that by saying what is the point of making art? Art does no good on an evidential level so why make it?

The answer is simple because it is an emotional benefit. Living and appreciating life is an emotional attachment and emotional experience. I live because I desire to experience it the say way I desire to experience Salvador Dalí's masterpieces.

They make me satisfied viewing them no matter how satisfied we are living even when it saddens us. When we become dissatisfied with life then usually we contemplate suicide.

Simple as that.

Yes but, I meant, Why did God create you?
Just so you can have experiences that you won't remember when you die?
Just so you can become nothing?

 

[Quintessence]

Yes but, I meant, Why did God create you?
Just so you can have experiences that you won't remember when you die?
Just so you can become nothing?

No things simply become "nothing." It never happens. All of the universe is grounded in transformations of matter and energy. When an organism dies, it's matter and energy is transformed into something else. It doesn't just vanish. Being a part of that sacred Weave is more than enough of an honor in my mind.

 

[Riverwolf]

Yeah, And that's all well and good, Until humanity dies out and then there's no one to remember if you were a nice guy or not.

Well, we were never wired to think on such a scale, and so at that point, it doesn't matter a whole lot. 'Sides, we'd be dead. We wouldn't care.

 

[Riverwolf]

Yes but, I meant, Why did God create you?
Just so you can have experiences that you won't remember when you die?
Just so you can become nothing?

Become a star once again.

 

[Thana]

No things simply become "nothing." It never happens. All of the universe is grounded in transformations of matter and energy. When an organism dies, it's matter and energy is transformed into something else. It doesn't just vanish. Being a part of that sacred Weave is more than enough of an honor in my mind.

I don't know, Going from being a living, breathing concious human being and then becoming fertilizer kind of seems like being nothing to me.

But I see your point, It's technically not nothing. Still....

 

[Quintessence]

I don't know, Going from being a living, breathing concious human being and then becoming fertilizer kind of seems like being nothing to me.

But I see your point, It's technically not nothing. Still....

If you must be anthropocentric about it and not value the rest of reality for its own sake, consider the fact that without this "fertilizer" neither you nor I would even be sitting here having this conversation. Human beings are 100% dependent on the environment for their continued existence, and that includes dependence on "fertilizer."

 

[Windwalker]

What my thought was, Is that everything that happens under the sun is eventually rendered meaningless.

Meaningless to who? Yourself?

So if there is no life after death, Then what is the point to anything in life?

Again, I am astounded by someone claiming to know God asking this. The point to life is life. The point to love is love. Not for your ego to survive death for you to continue only seeing what is meaningful to you.

 

[The Sum of Awe]

Am I the only person who accepts the existence of a god yet does not believe in the existence of an afterlife or spiritual state without physical existence?

Almost all religions or theological disposition hold that there is an afterlife and an immortal soul which lives on past the body, I myself do not accept this and associate the soul and spirit as the consciousness that arises through physicality. In other words, there is no such thing as a floating entity called the soul. The soul cannot exist without a body, in layman's terminology the soul/spirit is our brain.

No conscious awareness can be brought about by something that is not even rooted to a reality of some sort. Nonexistence is literally not existing and consciousness cannot arise from something not rooted in an existence of any sort. So the concept of an afterlife will be no fundamentally different than the way of life as we have now since one will still require a physical medium to experience sentience.

So the only plausible existence of an afterlife I could possibly see existing is an afterlife with physical existence. The often thought of afterlife where souls exist alone in a spiritual state is utterly nonsensical and has no way to validate its existence other than imaginary thinking. Dharmic religions and their concept of samsara bypass this of course which makes reincarnation a plausible result of a person after death but considering the dismantlement of the reliant factor which promotes or consciousness(the brain) there is no reason to assume that whatever could come after our death is even ourselves.

Share your thoughts on this

I, too, don't believe in an afterlife or rebirth, but I am open to the ideas, but so far I highly doubt it. Let alone, it is a belief that comforts people but at the same time eating away at them (tickling tics). The reason why I say that is because we have a physical existence, we have a life, why do you want another? Believing that you will have another may increase people looking towards the future rather than living the present.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Yes but, I meant, Why did God create you?
Just so you can have experiences that you won't remember when you die?
Just so you can become nothing?

A Deist does not present the concept of god as anything else but a Demiurge(creator). You are assuming that God is a person with will yet a Panendeist like myself will not think so.

Everything exist because it can exist and nothing else. We are the accumulation of physical existence and our consciousness is just an attribute we have acquired, nothing else.

Also nothingness is equivalent to god for many theological standpoints. Since infinite and nothing are equivalent on many philosophical grounds. So saying that I will exist this world and my consciousness will collapse into nothingness is equivalent to saying I will be reunited with god......is that not what we want?

Material existence is a primary organ of god and collapsing into the default state of matter is the same as being "one with god" as the Hindus may put it. The greatest honor god could ever bestow upon a human being as far as I am concerned is to go back unto the eternal existence of matter and energy where we hath no worries nor regrets. So technically I have not ceased to exist and become nothing, I have actually became something. It is just not the something that you wish to be it seems

 

[Thana]

Meaningless to who? Yourself?


Again, I am astounded by someone claiming to know God asking this. The point to life is life. The point to love is love. Not for your ego to survive death for you to continue only seeing what is meaningful to you.

Meaningless, In the grand scheme of things.
And truly, I am not the only Christian who thinks this.
Read Ecclesiastes.
The whole book is practically about the meaninglessness of life.

It has nothing to do with ego.
My belief is that life has no meaning without the Afterlife.
It's as simple as that.
That does not mean I value the Afterlife more than I value God.

 

[Sha'irullah]

I, too, don't believe in an afterlife or rebirth, but I am open to the ideas, but so far I highly doubt it. Let alone, it is a belief that comforts people but at the same time eating away at them (tickling tics). The reason why I say that is because we have a physical existence, we have a life, why do you want another? Believing that you will have another may increase people looking towards the future rather than living the present.

To me having an afterlife almost degrades the human experience we have now. If you believe in heaven then you believe that you will be stripped of free will as Hitchens once put it. You will exist in a state where you can only do good things as god prescribed but knowing what it is to be human anyone would know that we are not purely good or evil.

Simply loosing consciousness and fulling dawa'yir(circles) is to be an act of worship . I know it sounds strange but loosing consciousness is also loosing any flaws we have. We return into our default state as intended.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Meaningless, In the grand scheme of things.
And truly, I am not the only Christian who thinks this.
Read Ecclesiastes.
The whole book is practically about the meaninglessness of life.

It has nothing to do with ego.
My belief is that life has no meaning without the Afterlife.
It's as simple as that.
That does not mean I value the Afterlife more than I value God.

So by your own standards you believe it is pointless to help others? Why do you wish to help others in this life when it is useless? Why help a fellow Christian if they are just going to enter paradise for eternity regardless?

Belief in an eternally paradise makes our life meaningless. Believing in this one life makes my life all the more meaningful since it is a chance for me to experience something that is precious and can only be experienced once....IN A LIFETIME.

 

[yokomodoful]

So by your own standards you believe it is pointless to help others? Why do you wish to help others in this life when it is useless? Why help a fellow Christian if they are just going to enter paradise for eternity regardless?

Belief in an eternally paradise makes our life meaningless. Believing in this one life makes my life all the more meaningful since it is a chance for me to experience something that is precious and can only be experienced once....IN A LIFETIME.

Belief in an afterlife makes what happens here and what we do here even more important. It by no means lessens it. Helping a fellow christian is what may bring me closer to God and allow my own forgiveness and salvation. Even if I do something small, but with great love, it exists in history and can effect eternity. Jesus died once on the cross, but it effected eternity. If my life is full of suffering and misery, I can do the best I can, and my life will still matter. I don't even pretend to know what the afterlife is like because I have no idea. What is important is that no matter what happens to me in life, how I react to it does make a difference. Not only here, but in eternity.