If you are an atheist or pagan, what becomes of your soul when you die?

Question

I hear over and over how the Bible doesn't make sense. What is the ulternative? I am trying to understand the other point of view. Even before I became a christian I still believed in a Higher Power. I think I still thought of some kind of after life. Some accountablity. I am wondering what the beliefs are.

Answer 1

You'll be accountable to God. Only you know what happens at that point. Those who are glad that God is in control will be saved when we come before God.

Answer 2

Pagan: those of a non Judeo-christian faith, Judeo-christian indicating those who derive their religion form the old tesitment. There's a better word for it, but I can't spell it.
Therefor how can one answer such a broad question?
The hindus and buddhists beleive you are born again, to a new life for varying reasons. There is also Nirvana among the hindus. I'm unsure what place buddhists end up, whether it is the same or otherwiose, and whether I'm confusing them. It's been a long time since I studdied religion.
Sikhs beleive something else, and I can't remember it... You might want to ask about in the other three major world religions before you ask for the more obscure. I presume by "pagan" you ment "neo-pagan".
A lot of neopagans likewise beleive in reincarnation, although the essential life-lessons learned in the larger faiths tends to be lost into a meaningless circle without destination in neo-paganism.

Atheists die. End of.
Personally I find that more apealing than endless rebirth.

I beleive that the souls of the brave and war-like will gather to be traiend for a battle at the end of time, and all the others will either fall into a pool of semi-existance much like dreamless sleep, or be born again to learn of existance. Those who learn well eventually reach enlightenment. A state I understand nothing about, so don't ask.

Answer 3

The Ulternative is that there is no Ulternative. The atheist belief is that your life goes away... like turning out a light. I don't understand the part about accountability. Accountability is a MAN-MADE concept that has to do with rules. If you left your church for a different church that believed different rules you would no longer be accountable to God which you worshipped under the first religion. You become accountable to your church in your conscious life if you follow organized religion. Organized religion will have you believe that if you leave the specific sect that you worship with, you will burn in hell or reap some horrible consequences. The reason is, your fear of death and God's retribution keeps the money rolling into the church you attend. You shouldn't have to reveal your relationship with God to anyone. It's none of their business.

Answer 4

If you are serious about spiritual exploration you might look into these problems: 1. Why were certain gospels selected at the Council of Nicaea and others rejected; 2. Is the Bible, which is vague, ambiguous, poetic and metaphorical to be taken as literal and if so, why do you need a preacher to interpret it if you know how to read; 3. has Christianity perverted the teaching of Jesus and evolved into what Jesus reportedly threw out of the temple; 4. by their works you shall know them, where are the serious Christian peace makers (A: Counting the money they are making on arms company stocks and oil stocks and fxxx the poor and needy.)
You might also look at the Unitarian Universalist's beliefs in monotheism instead of the illogical and irrational triple mono theism of contemporary Christianity.
There are rational, logical alternatives that are consistent with a scientific epistemology.

Answer 5

My personal beliefs (which differ from quite a few) is that there isn't a conscious afterlife. My "judgment" comes while I'm still on earth, reaping the return of what energy I've put out into the universe, for good or ill. Sort of like karma, but not across reincarnations.

As far as what happens to my soul, I believe that the energy that makes me "me" (my soul or spirit) will be returned to the universal energy that it came from in the first place. Think of a cup of water being poured back into a pool. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only changed in form.

When something else is born, the energy that makes it a unique entity is drawn from that universal pool - like another cup of water. Some of what used to be me might be in it, but not all of what used to be me. I think this helps explain "past life" experiences, and why different people can claim to be the same person in a past life.

Basically, there's a chant that sums it up for me:

We all come from the Goddess
And to Her we shall return
Like a drop of rain
Flowing to the ocean.

Answer 6

First off, Pagans do believe in a higher power. But we also believe that life is cyclic and that energy is eternal. Our observations of the natural world confirm this. The concept of going to heaven or hell when you die does not fit into the view of eternal energy or the cyclic nature and constant motion of the universe. Heaven and/or Hell represent stagnation. That is, what happens next? You go to Heaven, great. Then what?

Pagans (with many exceptions, of course as the word Pagan itself is a broad generalization) believe that after death the energy of life, that which you may call a soul, lives on and often (though not always) completely forgets that it was once part of a material being at all but is simply added to the endless pool of energy that is the Universe, losing its individuality to become one with the All. To us, it is beautiful to be part of this wonderful cycle of nature. Our bodies when we die will, ideally, decay and become nourishment for little creatures and nourish the soil for plants, which will in turn nourish other insects and animals and produce oxygen for everyone and our spirits will become one with the All. Our spirits are immortal and so are our bodies, but we don't continue to exist in a conscious manner, though all that we have learned will be added to the collective consciousness of all people. We have all existed from the beginning of time and will exist forever (because time too, is cyclic) as part of the material world and the world of spirit and life is only a brief, periodic punctuation of that time when the spirit and the material meet in a beautiful dance. And I have just told you the deepest secret of magic. Miraculous, isn't it?

Accountability is in life. Like attracts like. So if you are a good person, good people, things, events, energies will be attracted to you, and if you are not, likewise.

Answer 7

Rebirth in another human body, reincarnation as an animal, or sitting there in the void for eternity twit-ling your thumbs wondering what in the heck you are supposed to do now. Personally I believe one waits for a time in some spiritual place and then they are reborn, but that is my beliefs every one has the right to see the after life as they wish.

Peace and Blessed Be (this means the same as God Bless)

24 y.o. Pagan College Student

Answer 8

When I was a Pagan( There are many types of Pagans, I practiced Native American Spirituiality with other beleifs), I believed in reincarnation. I believed that we would keep coming back until we learned all our life's lessons. Apparently I was told that I was an 'old soul' and came back to help people.

I no longer believe in this, and now am a Christian.

Answer 9

I believe if there is a soul, then everyone goes where all souls go. There probably is no such place as heaven or hell, just another plane of existence, where there are bad people and good people just like here on Earth. The laws of physics state, energy can not be created or destroyed, only changed.

Answer 10

As a "Pagan" I'm hoping to be recycled... so I can torment more people. ^_^ But honestly, there are thousands of different beliefs about the afterlife in paganism. I'm sure you've heard of Valhalla of the Norse religion.
And, I don't think the Atheists believe in an afterlife. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they believe when you die, you're just dead. Nothing is left.

Answer 11

Well, all religions have an afterlife except atheism, I'm agnostic/atheist, I do not believe in swearing my life away to a pre-structured afterlife. I will discover when I die. For now I live.

The bible itself does not make sense in modern day- Hebrew slaves? Selling your daughter? Nonsense. And for it to be a guideline for your life is silly, it's as feasible as the Greek Myths, they are the Christian Myths.