An afterlife for Atheists?

[Monkey Man]

for athiests a question. Why is there something and not nothing ?

As an atheist I don't have an answer to that. All "atheist" means is that you don't believe in a god. We're all born that way, but some people go on to get religion. Really the question may be better directed at someone of faith, because they're the ones claiming to "know" about existence.

I haven't yet encountered anything that gives me the answer to "why something rather than nothing?" but I suspect the answer is scientific rather than mystical. The fact I don't know the answer in no way makes me less of an atheist.

 

[dangull]

As an atheist I don't have an answer to that. All "atheist" means is that you don't believe in a god. We're all born that way, but some people go on to get religion. Really the question may be better directed at someone of faith, because they're the ones claiming to "know" about existence.

I haven't yet encountered anything that gives me the answer to "why something rather than nothing?" but I suspect the answer is scientific rather than mystical. The fact I don't know the answer in no way makes me less of an atheist.

My answer to that is if you dont believe in a creater, you tend to go with the big bang theory that started the universe. A big explosian from nothing is harder to believe than a creator imo

 

[vic123]

Thanks, you put it eloquently. The bit I still can't get my head around is that improbable events will NECESSARILY happen because of an infinite amount of time. Couldn't it be argued that however long time lasts, some things will never happen, simply because chance hasn't made it so?

The chimpanzee/typewriter thing is a case in point. I maintain that however long the chimps type, none of them will write the complete works of Shakespeare, because it's so massively improbable. You might get the occasional coherent sentence, maybe even something longer. But the complete works of Shakespeare? A version of Hamlet that ends with a custard pie fight? I'm struggling. (I realise this isn't an analogy you've put forward, but many do.)[/QUOT

I'd happily wait a gazzillion years to read about how Hamlet solves all of life's problems with a custard pie fight!

If the event that we're waiting for is illogical ie, a snake making its' body form the shape of a square circle, then no amount of time will make it happen. If, on the other hand, our task is to create a simple sequence of events ie, recording coin flips, we can be sure that certain sequences will appear simply because we never stop trying to make it happen. The question is, what exactly constitutes a "special sequence?" Let's replace the numbers on the roulette wheel with fictional symbols. These symbols are fictional in the sense that they have been created only by us and that they have no "character value" outside of this test, such as numerical representation. Each spin will create a fresh result and, after one hundred spins, we stop and publish the results. We hand this list to someone we do not like very much and say to him, "you! You with the face! You must spin this wheel until, by chance alone, you recreate our sequence. When you've done that you may stop playing and return home." He'll have died long before he gets close.

But what of our list? What make it special or unlikely? Nothing...other than the fact that said list is predetermined by us. If we look at our list we see nothing but meaningless symbols and, really, that's the only description it deserves. We had created a massively unlikely event (spinning those specific one hundred symbols in that specific order) by chance alone but, crucially, our newly spun list never "felt" special until our hapless victim tried to recreate it.

It's our interpretation of randomness that's at fault here. We see faces in the clouds, mistake shadows for burglers and attempt to ascribe meaning in the mess and chaos which surrounds us everyday.

Of course Shakespeare is as ordered as 1, 2, 3 but ONLY when we first create that order.

 

[Brovion]

My answer to that is if you dont believe in a creater, you tend to go with the big bang theory that started the universe. A big explosian from nothing is harder to believe than a creator imo

Couldn't the Big Bang have been the way the Creator actually created the universe? Seems more logical (and neater and more plausible) than one of the alternatives - that it took a creator six days to make just one planet out of celestial modelling clay.

(Ah I know where this thread's going! Stand by everybody!)

 

[Monkey Man]

My answer to that is if you dont believe in a creater, you tend to go with the big bang theory that started the universe. A big explosian from nothing is harder to believe than a creator imo

The science points to a big bang, but why it should have taken place is something scientists are debating. We may never know the answer. The idea of a creator is something that has made sense to humans from early times, but as the science of the universe has been unveiled, more of us have decided it's not a credible theory. But each to their own. I won't burn anyone at the stake for taking a different opinion, or shoot them in the face, or send them into exile, or teach them to fear an eternity of agony.

 

[vic123]

My answer to that is if you dont believe in a creater, you tend to go with the big bang theory that started the universe. A big explosian from nothing is harder to believe than a creator imo

I sympathise with this view. I used to struggle with the idea that we had gotten everything from nothing and I still do to a certain extent but there are certain aspects of nature which, when examined and thought about, go some way towards explaining how it could have all happened. For example, I wanted to imagine that fully formed stars, planets and galaxies spilled out from a central location and that this location is still around somewhere, lurking in the ether. This is the wrong picture. The "explosion" didn't come from a central location, but rather, it happened everywhere. There was also a period of time when the universe had no recognizable structures within it. As the early universe cooled and expanded the electron was able to fall into orbit around atomic nuclei, forming the very first atoms of hydrogen and helium. From this point onwards the matter was able to use gravity and sculpt itself into ever more complex stars, planets and galaxies. Thus, when we turn the clock back, we see a devolution of structure and a simplifying of everything not unlike the story of life on Earth whereby simple beginings give rise to ever more complex and beautiful structures.

 

[Silk]

My answer to that is if you dont believe in a creater, you tend to go with the big bang theory that started the universe. A big explosian from nothing is harder to believe than a creator imo

why?

 

[dangull]

why?

I'm not devoutly religious myself, but would like to believe your spirit, personality etc may exist elsewhere after the body dies. An Explosion occers through reasons like gasses combining etc, not out of nothing. Like someone said earlier maybe the big bang if it did accur was a creaters way of starting the universe.

 

[glasfryn]

There is a pre life / life / after life, it's just that we're not (in our human existence) capable of understanding it.

this sounds about right
people since the human race began have believed in some sort of after life even very isolated tribes so there must be some thread that runs through our consciousness, this of coarse could have been put there by ancestors beliefs and or religion
we read about it
we are told about it
we see it/ plays,films ect
and eventually we believe it

I have a very open mind about this ................but as I have got older am more impressed by the pro argument but is that from fear of the fact that I might be getting closer to finding out /or not

 

[One Love]

My answer to that is if you dont believe in a creater, you tend to go with the big bang theory that started the universe. A big explosian from nothing is harder to believe than a creator imo

Aaah the Big Bang. The one miracle that is allowed.

 

[dangull]

If the universe is still expanding, what is it expanding into ?

 

[vic123]

I'm not devoutly religious myself, but would like to believe your spirit, personality etc may exist elsewhere after the body dies. An Explosion occers through reasons like gasses combining etc, not out of nothing. Like someone said earlier maybe the big bang if it did accur was a creaters way of starting the universe.

I do not believe that life after death need only be explainable by supernatural means. Perhaps we just need a new way of looking at things. Maybe we are reborn in a paralle universe but, because we need experience and a flow of time in order to form memories we never remember that part of time before we were born. In essence we always feel as though we are living one life and that we could never have existed before, all because we are born with a blank canvass for a mind.

When I imagine the start of the universe, I try not to think of it as a typical explosion whereby, after an initial bang, things fly out from a central point. I try to imagine a pre-existing nothingness, that is a vast never ending dark room with no parameters, encompassing all available space in all directions and across all time. This room then becomes filled with a "substance" which spreads out in all directions. In one split second the room is filled with all the "stuff" there will ever be. Now this "stuff" begins to spread out, not because it is forced out from an explosion, but because the room itself is expanding and this "stuff" is along for the ride. At first this "stuff" is so densely packed in the room that nothing, not even light can penetrate it but as time goes on the "stuff" becomes more and more diluted as the room expands and light can begin to shine through, illuminating the darkness. Because there was no central point and no typical explosion scenario, an observer inside of this room will always perceive themselves to be in the absolute central location of everything, with all visible matter moving away from them. When we look out into space we see all galaxies moving away from us. That would imply that the Earth is in a very special place within the universe. Today we understand that there is nothing special about our place within the universe and that, if we were to relocate another galaxy, we would see exactly the same thing. That is, we would see all visible matter moving away from us. How can this be? The only explanation is that every point is moving away from every other point and the only way to explain that is to imagine that the space inbetween galaxies is expanding.

 

[dangull]

You obviously know a lot about this subject. Though at one point you imagine "this room becomes filled with a substance which spreads in all directions"why ? that would seem to be a miracle event , not disimilar to believing in the supernatural.

 

[Dandyman]

for athiests a question. Why is there something and not nothing ?

Are you asking for an explanation of the Theory of Evolution or the concept of the Big Bang ?

 

[Dandyman]

Aaah the Big Bang. The one miracle that is allowed.

Not a miracle - a scientific theory.

 

[screamadelica]

Does no God necessarily equal no afterlife? Is a deliberate designer the only being which can offer an afterlife or can the universe offer one too? What will be the difference between a religious afterlife and a natural one?

There is no god, there is no afterlife

 

[vic123]

If the universe is still expanding, what is it expanding into ?

Nice question! It's a head scratcher, that's for sure. I think the answer may lie in the fact that space and time are the same things. If I move through space at a high rate of speed I can actually cause the rate of expansion and therefore the flow of time to pass by me more slowly than it would do if I did not move. If I then plotted my progress through time against a relative observer who had not been moving I could show how my time, having passed slower as I had ran against the expansion, had caused your own time to speed up. I would have jumped into the future whilst aging very little. This all proves that the expansion rate creates an arrow of time and shows how questions such as, "what happened before the big bang?" or "how long did the universe not exist for before it was created?" are nonsensical. To answer these questions means that we must allow ourselves to exist outside of our universe and that, as we have seen, means we must step outside of the flow of time.

Perhaps, "what is our universe expanding into?" is a question which, despite appearances, also falls into the nonsensical realm. If we cannot have a physical, conscious observer existing outside of time (which we cannot) then perhaps it follows that said realm, the "bit" outside ot the universe, does not exist in any way.

 

[Dandyman]

There is no god, there is no afterlife

This.

 

[Eddie Bee]

There is no god, there is no afterlife

Phew...that's good, I can sleep easy now!

 

[vic123]

You obviously know a lot about this subject. Though at one point you imagine "this room becomes filled with a substance which spreads in all directions"why ? that would seem to be a miracle event , not disimilar to believing in the supernatural.

This "stuff" is moving in this way because the space itself is expanding in all directions and the "substance" is clinging on to that space. Imagine I had a balloon and I blew it up until it was the size of an orange. I then, using a felt tipped marker, dabbed some dots over the surface of this balloon. I then continued to expand this balloon while we both watched what happened to these dots and in particular, we watched how these dots moved in relation to each other. As the surface of the balloon expanded we noticed how each of these dots moved away from every other dot and how, as the balloon kept on expanding, the space inbetween each dot grew as well. Now, this experiment began, not when I first revealed the balloon, but after I had drawn the dots onto it. In this way we saw how all the matter in the universe ie, all the dots on the balloon, emerged in totality at a single point in time and moved as one over the surface of the expanding universe.