What do people who are atheist believe happens to them when they die?

Question

I'm not asking this to bother anyone so please understand that it's not my intention to argue or question your beliefs. I am a Christian but I'm cool with what anyone else believes, I'm just asking because I'm interested.

Answer 1

I believe in reincarnation, because I am a Buddhist and an atheist.
If I am wrong about reincarnation, I'm okay with that. I will spend my life helping others and my organs will live on in people who need them after I am gone.

Answer 2

That depends. There are a number of philosophical possibilities.

The most immediately apparent idea is that of simply ceasing to exist. You know those times when you're asleep, and without dreams, when you aren't experiencing anything at all? Like that, except it never leads to waking up. You just don't have any conscious experience anymore. You can't think, you have no concept of you or of anything else, it is just total oblivion that you aren't even experiencing because you can't experience anything anymore.

Another idea is that of quantum immortality. Basically, what this means is that you cannot consciously experience not existing, therefore whenever it is possible that you may cease to exist, the universe you experience is the one in which you continue existing as usual. This makes you, in a very real sense, immortal; you will get to watch everyone around you die, and new generations be born, and die, while yourself continuing to survive, miraculously, against all odds and physical laws. This is a rather intriguing idea, and you can read more about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_immortality

The third, and in a sense the most disturbing, idea is that there is nothing special about your perception, that perception exists independent of time and that your point of view is arbitrary. And I don't mean simply random (which it isn't), but ARBITRARY. The idea that subjectivity doesn't really exist. That you are not only not special in the world (we already know that to be true), but that you are not special EVEN TO YOU. That your perception of existing over a period of time is an illusion based on the fact that you perceive yourself having memory, and that in reality there isn't even any 'you' at all, only the perception of 'you' which every consciousness has equally and which ONLY appears 'special' and 'subjective' because it is impossible to perceive more than one consciousness at once (such a viewpoint would merely be its own, third consciousness). This invalidates the question 'What happens to you when you die?' by proposing that 'you' don't exist in the first place. This is the most depressing- and unfortunately perhaps also the most likely- state of affairs.

Answer 3

I've just read all the answers so far...How sad to have no hope in tomorrow. To believe that this life is all you will ever have.....a few years and then you are dust...I often wonder if atheists wish for just a fleeting moment, that they could believe..I know I was an agnostic for 37 years and there were moments when I wished with all my heart, I could really accept God as being real....

Tt only happened for me when I decided to seek truth as though my life depended on it....It did....Thank God, he heard my pathetic prayers,,,,for in the beginning,,they went something like this...
God....if you are there and I don't know if you are,,but show me something...give me a sign.....I really want to know the truth....I stumbled into Christianity,,,just that way...He heard and he answered....

All it really takes is a sincere heart to know the truth..and it has to be more important than anything else in this world....more important than saving face with your unbelieving Friends..if you want to know the truth..you must humble yourself before God..inside each of us,,,is a measure of faith..God has given you enough faith to believe he exists...use it...

Answer 4

To understand completely you will have to understand I do not believe we have a soul or spirit.. When a person dies their brain ceases to function, nothing leaves the body to carry on.. Death is the end...

I know it's difficult for people who believe in a soul or spirit to understand the concept I have had discussions with my parents regarding what I believe and they always come back to but what about the soul or spirit? They simply can not get their heads around the concept that there is no soul or spirit...

So I really don't expect you to be able to fully understand either but thanks for trying :)

Answer 5

The term 'atheist' is pretty broad, since it only means that someone doesn't believe in an all-powerful divine being or creator-god. If you ask ten atheists what they believe in, you will get ten different answers.

Personally, I believe that your consciousness simply ends. Your body decomposes and becomes part of the "life cycle", adding nutrients to the soil and ground water, which feeds plants, which in turn feeds other animals and humans.

In a more far-reaching perspective, I do believe that we continue to have influence over people who survive us through their memories of us in life. If you have children, you gain a sort of immortality through your influence over untold future generations of your descendants.

Think about it this way: George Washington died about 200 years ago, but his memory and legacy lives on to this day. He continues to inspire people to nobler and more selfless ends. In this way, he has acheived a sort of immortality.

Answer 6

You die, but before you die your brain freaks out and it gives you hallucinations (proven fact). Thats why people sometimes experience the white light, it's because your brain is shutting off the blood and nerves in your eyes causing you to have tunnel vision. After that you are gone, but it's one great way to go out. I would like to believe that you are trapped inside your own mind forever, but that's getting a little extreme.

Answer 7

I will no longer exist as a conscious being.
My body will decay and return to the Earth from which it came.

In my book, that's just fine.
This is why I value life.
It's also a fate infinitely better than an eternity spent "worshipping".

Answer 8

Ummm....Go back to being part of the universe. What makes humans so special or different from the other creatures in this universe? You will cease to have consciousness on death but you can take satisfaction in knowing that you are of the universe.

Answer 9

Two atheists I know tell me that you just simply die. That's it. The end. There's no such thing as after life.

Answer 10

Depends on the atheist. Buddhist atheists believe that we're reincarnated. Secular atheists, which the vast majority of us are, accept our fate of rotting in the ground.