What do atheists believe happens when you die?

Question

I mean, if you cant believe in God, what do you believe in?

Answer 1

That must be so sad if that's all you have to look forward to: just being dead. I look forward to spending forever with Christ!

Answer 2

I'm a weird case. I have the magical sense of an 11 year old (because I am one), yet I have the brains to see what is truth and what is tabloid. Wierd mix.
I'll probably grow out of this, but I hope I don't.
Here's I beleive it all began...

"Once, there was a magical sky-daddy, that was ruler of all and was magically happy." Cut!!! Wrong story. That's yours.

"There was nothing. Nothing at all. Zip. Nada. Zolo. Frittatta. Yet, there was something. Nothing. Nothing was something. It could be described, couldn't it? True nothing cannot be described because it does not exist. But it was true nothing. But true nothing cannot exist. Wait wait wait. How was this going on? If there was nothing, there couldn't be anything thinking this...*pop!* Then there was something. A non-sentient thought. It just...thought. It thought about how nothing could not exist and so forth, and then had the thought that if there was all this, there could be something thinking it. And this thinking THING, could imagine matter..." Wait wait wait wait...This is the same thing as monotheism! There's a god that created everything! But not so. This is not really a thought...more of the existance of something. I give it the term thought because that's the word that best describes it, and well, it is kinda' like a thought. But it is the existance of existance that drove everthything into existance. Now, role the film!"3...2...1...EXPANSION!! A bang occured. If matter could be described, it had to exist. The thought kept on thinking, and our universe was left alone to think of all sorts of new things. But before it left, it thought of something else. Agent P, I call it. The driving force in all living things. A little mini-thought inside of us. Now, to really answer your question: what happens when I die? The agent P inside of us, the non-sentient life force floats around in the universe, until it is absorbed by a newborn creature. Now before I end my little parade, I would like to share my veiws on "magic", because it falls under this umbrella. There are a select few who can "bend" agent P to their will, making objects float, explode, implode, ect.
Thank you for your time.

Answer 3

It's not that atheists can't believe in God, or that they don't want to...they just don't. I'm not an atheist, but I am agnostic, and I have the same belief about death that atheists do. I don't think that anything happens to us. We just stop being. I know that I don't have to believe in anything, God or otherwise, to be comforted about death. I'm secure in the fact that I'm not going anywhere when I die, and I'm cool with that. Personally, I think that living forever would get boring pretty fast. No thanks. I much prefer to sleep, uninterrupted, for once. It'll be so nice to not have my husband kicking me in the ribs or snoring in my face.

Answer 4

I believe in the same kinds of things you do ... except for supernatural beings.

When you die, the lights go out. That's it. Kind of like how it was before you were ever conceived.

And why do I believe that? Because it's the only logical explanation. Everything else is just wishful thinking. None of it can be proved.

Answer 5

Why is it so difficult to understand that what happens when animals die also happens to us?

A dog may be our friendliest companion. We teach him tricks and he learns them; we teach his name and he knows it; we teach him to love us and he does; we ask him to protect us and he faithfully obeys. A dog has a simpler than human brain, but it still has a wonderful soul. The soul of a dog is his brain full of memories, emotions, sensations, words he can respond to. A dog cannot be taught to speak, to do math, to drive a car, but his brain is still his soul with a personality.

What happens when a dog dies and his brain ceases to function? Do the tricks he learned in life continue to exist independently from his body? Do the memories of his name, where he lived, the people he loved have an independent life of their own, without the brain that produces them? Is there a dog-soul that lives beyond the physical body of the dog?

Isn't it logical that, like for the dog, just because we have evolved to have a conceptual brain, all the knowledge, the love, the hate, the ideas, the memories that form our person when we are alive also disappear when we die? The soul is a product of the brain. Without the brain, what kind of soul can possibly exist?

Answer 6

My mother, who was an athiest, believed that when we die we just "blink out" like a light being turned off, and that's the end. We do not exist anymore.

Answer 7

It's not that we can't believe in God, it's that God is too implausible for us to believe in. Anyway, the vast majority of atheists are secular, so I'm speaking for most of us when I say we just rot in the ground. Our minds are no different from the rest of our body - physical matter, which decays.

Answer 8

We believe that there is no god, and that there is nothing after you die.

Answer 9

I can't speak for all but i feel we return to what we came from, nothing. We become an idea. Our "spirit" lives on in memory alone. If you take all the superhero b/s away all that is left is logic which leads to the assumption of death equalling nothingness.

Answer 10

Immortality through legacy and family. My body will make good fertilizer, but that is about the best thing that I can expect when I die. But, I do not need the "promise" of an afterlife, I am enjoying this one.

Answer 11

Do you know how primitive it sounds to say "I don't know what happens when I die, so I must live with a magical wizzard in the sky forever, it's the only logical answer?"