Atheists, a question?

Question

A not so simple question. I admit, I cannot understand your way of thinking. To not believe in a supreme being just boggles my mind. I don't think I'll ever fully understand what you believe.

I do ask that you help me in part understand some of your beliefs. One of the biggest is what happens after death. From what I understand, atheists believe that once we die, that is it. No heaven, no meeting your loved ones, just dirt and worm food.

Please help me understand how this comforts you when a loved one dies. If there is no meeting up in some mystical place or something beyond death, how do you console yourself after someone dies? I mean no disrespect, I just want to know. As I said, I can't wrap my mind around it.

Answer 1

My mother died a year and half ago of esophogeal cancer. She was an organ donor. I know that her organs either went to someone who needed them or that they went into cancer research. I take comfort in this because I know that somehow someway these organs are going to help someone in need. I am also an organ donor for this reason.

I also know that my memories of her will be with me until the day that I die and the same holds for everyone she ever knew.In this way she does live forever.

Answer 2

You're assuming all atheists think the same and believe the same things as if it were a religion. A lot of people believe in an after life but no God! Yeah some think when we die thats it, not everyone need the comfort of some magical place in the sky. When someone dies atheists that dont believe in an after life will get over it the same as everyone else.... with time.

I hope that helps a little...

Answer 3

Atheists don't really know what happens when we die. Maybe we just turn out like a light bulb, maybe we come back as a cow or a dog, maybe we go to one of the many afterlife places, maybe we go to another planet and are reborn. There is no proof anywhere, anyhow of any answer to this question. Anyone who says they know is just speculating.

As for comfort when a loved one dies - the universe is not necessarily created for our comfort. I might like to think that my dad died and went to heaven but thinking doesn't make it so. Our comfort comes, mostly, from our understanding of the person who died and our support of and from family and friends.

That may not be a pretty answer but it is the best one, IMHO, based on the data.

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Answer 4

Most atheists I have spoken to just accept the fact that your conciousness is just... gone.

I wasn't brought up to believe in a god, and when my father died I did have lots of questions. I was told about the whole heaven thing (I was 10), but it just didn't make sense to me. I didn't, and still don't really think that it's fair that nothing happens, but death is finality. Why should you get to keep existing (on some plane of reality) after you've already lived your time? I feel that I have to make the best out of life while I have it.

I'm sure that the promist of heaven is very consoling, but I can accept death without it.

Answer 5

I admit I would like to think there was an afterlife. But, I see no evidence that supports believing that there is. Just because I would like it to be that way doesn't mean that it is true. To me that would be just deluding yourself into something that makes the situation more comfortable which I personally believe is the main reason that people are religious.

Interestingly, I don't personally find death all that scary since I don't see how I could possibly know that it happened to me.

Answer 6

Not all atheists believe that.

Atheists need have just ONE thing in common to be atheists, and that is no belief in a god or gods.

Many Buddhists are atheists, there are atheists that believe aliens created the universe. Babies are atheists and don't have any theory about the afterlife. Some believe in ghosts, fairies, or what have you.

That said, wanting to believe does not make something the truth. It never has and it never will.

I can tell you that thinking my father simply no longer exists comforts me much more than watching him live in pain and slowly die did. It also comforts me much more than thinking that he went to hell to burn forever or that he went to heaven to be with a God that would create such a place as hell in the first place.

Answer 7

I can't imagine the things you do...imagine being the key word
I believe life and death are all part of the same thing Just like the worm food or worms which help things grow.. you know ashes to ashes there is no death only change
did you know you can't remove a single thing from his universe only change it... you call that change death but in truth life feeds life ...I could turn this into a novel...

Answer 8

i can't wrap my mind around why you can't wrap your mind around the concept of appreciating the life and love you have in the Here and Now. i'm an Agnostic so the possibility of having a soul that survives physical death is not beyond my imagination. however, having no real guarantee that such a happenstance will occur i can see the Atheist view clearer than that of religious folks who assert, beyond all doubt, that they know for a "fact" not only that there is life after death but that they, know beyond all doubt, what happens in that life after death. you can read piles of holy books and if you have any self honesty at all you could never come to any definite conclusion concerning the existence of soul or the eventual status thereof.

Answer 9

Why would you think this comforts us? I don't believe that the soul exists beyond the body. I don't believe in heaven, hell, ghosts...any of that stuff. But I'm not comforted by this fact when someone dies. I draw comfort from my friends and family and, hopefully, from the knowledge that they did the best they could with their time on Earth.

I can't believe in something just because it's a nice story.

Answer 10

Death is part of the natural cycle. You cannot avoid it. We grieve when loved ones die, it is a natural process as well. I cannot believe in a god as religion on many levels makes no sense. The concept of a supreme being that loves you and sends you to eternal damnation for not following 10 things is not a god I want to believe in.