So where Do you go, Athiests?

Question

I find it difficult to believe that Athiests believe that you don't go anywhere. How is it possible to just say "Well, there's no god." I mean we die for a reason. Yes? And if we just die for no reason, then why do we breathe? Why do we learn? Why do we experience the things we call life?
Maybe some believe in the Athiestic view because of the fear of death itself. If death takes you OFF this earth, where does it TAKE YOU? You have to go somewhere.

Answer 1

thats right

Answer 2

"I find it difficult to believe that Athiests believe that you don't go anywhere."
I find it difficult to believe that Christians believe that they go someplace in the clouds to kiss the @ss of the Grand Poohbah for all eternity.

"How is it possible to just say "Well, there's no god." "
Like this. There's no god.

" I mean we die for a reason. Yes?"
Yes... the life expectancy of a human is about 85 years. Some of us live longer than that.

"Why do we learn? Why do we experience the things we call life?"
Because we don't need a god to do it. We're alive, aren't we? This is the only life we have... why not experience it to the fullest instead of wasting it worrying about death?

"Maybe some believe in the Athiestic view because of the fear of death itself."
No. I find that it's the other way around. Most believe in the theistic (it's 'atheistic', by the way. Learn to spell.) view because of the fear of death. That's the whole reason God was invented.

"If death takes you OFF this earth, where does it TAKE YOU? You have to go somewhere."
Says you. You sure as hell can't prove it. Most people seem to go 6 feet under.

Answer 3

You're used to thinking of life and death in a certain way, and I understand how difficult it can be to step back and look at things from a fundamentally different perspective, but I hope we can help you understand how atheists view life and death. We're not "put" here for a specific reason. We're born, live for a time, then die. That's all. What matters most to atheists is how we spend our time. As life is finite, each moment is precious. We should make the best use of the time we have. Life doesn't come with guarantees or a preset purpose. We must choose how to make the best use of the time we have. When that time is up, our bodies cease to function, our brains shut down, and we cease to be. Our bodies are disposed of by cremation, burial, or whatever process is in fashion and allowable by law, or donated for medical research. As our personalities and memories are all part of the processes of our brains, no part of our consciousness continues. All that remains are the memories people have of us and the consequences of our deeds during life, both good and bad. No posthumous judgment. No heaven. No hell. We don't go anywhere. We're dead.

Fear of death created the myth of an afterlife. The idea that life simply ends seems to terrify religious people, whereas we atheists have come to accept it--not because it's how we want things to be, but because it is the way things are. We aren't afraid to look reality in the face.

Answer 4

I believe that a lot of people place too much importance on the things we do in this life. Sure, our life is important to us and the people who care about us. Yes we have the power to impact others lives also. But what is a life in the whole scheme of things? All these things we learn and experience...what are they to someone in the next galaxy? This is precisely why we have to find our own meaning in life.

You are right when you say we die for a reason. Our cells degenerate to a point where they can no longer sustain life. The cause of the degeneration is being studied, but it has something to do with free radicals, at least in part.

I don't fear anything about death because I believe that when I die I will no longer feel anything or know anything. I will simply be gone. The electricity that powers my brain will not exist anymore. Dead. Flatline. Just gone. I don't think it takes me anywhere at all. That is why its called death.

Answer 5

Ok, so when was the last time your spirit was transported outside your body? Why is it so easy for you to believe it could happen when you die?

Consider your life for what it is, a series of chemical reactions contained in your body. So your life is all about change, metabolizing nutrients, synthesizing proteins, etc. When you die, your body comes to equilibrium. At that point, there is no further change and your life is gone. Asking where you go is like asking where a reaction between an acid and a base goes when it's done. The reaction itself didn't go anywhere. It just finished.

Answer 6

Death doesn't take me off this earth. It ends my existence as a person entirely.

My mind is nothing more than the switching of neurons in my brain combined with the sensations provided by my sensory nerves. When I die, my neurons stop firing and the residual energy eventually dissipates into the environment in the form of heat. That heat is the last 'remnant' of my mind. Then my body decays and rots and even my physical existence ends.


And to answer your other unasked but aluded to question -- we're not here for a reason. We weren't 'put' here. We are the natural culmination of billions of years of universal laws of physics that formed the planet, life, and evolution of that life, in some cases randomly (abiogenesis is almost entirely random at first), then later more and more stoichastically (somewhere between order and chaos, but definately removed from random). We are just one more phase in the great single chemical reaction that is terrestrial life. If we have any purpose at all, it is only what we ascribe to ourselves.

Answer 7

You die and you are gone, simple as that, nothing to fear at all...... You don't go anywhere...what is there to go? A soul? If such a thing even exists. I think you've got it backwards. To me christians are the ones deeply afraid of death. The entire religion is really based on the fear of death....i.e. be good, believe as we tell you, and you experience eternal life......if that isn't a fear of death. what is?

Answer 8

Death is an inevitable step in the cycle of life.

Things live. Things die.

Do animals go to "heaven" or an afterlife? If not, why? They breathe, they learn, they experience the things we call life...

To me, it seems more that those who fear death itself are those people cling to a concept of an afterlife. They "have to go somewhere" because they are afraid that this might be all there is.

Answer 9

Yes...body is broken down and used as food by other life.
Do all blades of grass go to heaven since they are alive?

We die because it makes biological sense for us to die. We are born, live, breed to perpetuate species and then we die having performed our function.

Maybe some believe in theist point of view because THEY are afraid of death so need to make up an afterlife so they never really die?

Answer 10

A Person"s choice while He/She is living determines their
Eternal Residence/ Unregenrate Man is "Self Centered-Prone to Sin and is opposed to God/they will not accept Jesus a Bloody
Sacrfice for their Sin/ Meaning the god they serve is "SELf

To the Pagan their is the "wittnes of "Creation
To the "Moral Man/Woman the "wittnes of Conscious
To the Jew the Wittnes of Holy Scripture
So everyone living and dead have made their chice

It isn"t the "Fear of Death" As the One on One when standing
before Jesus Christ/Then He will be asking you.Wasn"t what I did enough.You can change that appt;Now

Answer 11

Your foundation of argument assumes atheists believe an eleement of consciousness survives death in order to "go" somewhere.

A number of atheists believe that consciousness as we know it is basically a complex biochemical reaction rooted to the physical body, and when that body dies, that process simply stops. Like the body, the brain and all its chemicals are reabnsorbed into the world around.