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Original poster

Does anyone else think an afterlife sounds awful?

135 replies

wednesdayweather · 21/08/2021 14:19

I do. If after I die I find a wake up to an afterlife, I will be seriously pissed. I went to an evangelical church for a little bit many years ago, and knew it was not for me when the preacher said, ' why are you worried about what is going on?! (in the news) when we have ETERNITY!' And I thought, ' that sounds AWFUL. So I decided christanity wasn't for me as I just don't want their big payoff. It doesn't matter what the afterlife is like, I just don't want it.

I actively like the idea of life being time limited. You are here and then you aren't, and that suits me.

Anyone else think the same?

OP posts:
Original poster
wednesdayweather · 21/08/2021 19:37

How's the afterlife supposed to work anyway? Do you have to get a job in the afterlife?

A preacher I heard speak said that there would definitely be work in the afterlife, which made me think, 'oh no, working forever without even retirement to look forward to! -Not even the Tories have proposed that!'

OP posts:
MrsRobbieHart · 21/08/2021 19:37

Yeah I’m with you OP. This life is shit enough. I don’t want to have to do it again.

FreeBritnee · 21/08/2021 19:39

I talk about the ‘long sleep’. That’s the kind of afterlife I’m looking forward to.

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about this subject:

Philosophy & religion
Daydrambeliever · 21/08/2021 19:40

I was listening to Unexplained on audible recently and there was chapter about reincarnation. I'm not going to explain this very well but from what I understood one proposed explanation for past life memories is that it is data transfer... Memories are just data and they can be passed from one person to another?

Original poster
wednesdayweather · 21/08/2021 19:41

@FreeBritnee

I talk about the ‘long sleep’. That’s the kind of afterlife I’m looking forward to.
I think that is how I think about it. I love being asleep. Bedtime is my favourite time of day. I just imagine it like a lovely long restful dreamless sleep. Bliss.
OP posts:
MrsHuntGeneNotJeremyObviously · 21/08/2021 19:42

Fore it depends on what it's like. If it's all floating around on a cloud being all ethereal, I'll give it a miss thanks. But if it's eating loads of chips and not getting fat, and wall to wall cocktails, I'll give it a go!
I like the idea of being with my children forever. They might take a different view though Wink

FartleBarfle · 21/08/2021 19:42

@wednesdayweather

Interesting topic and posts. Will definitely watch Bridget Christie's take on it.

It's been said before but watching the Good Place on Netflix really helped me question and understand this concept. I highly recommend if you haven't already seen it. So much cleverer than I realised it was going to be when I first started watching.

I also love the idea of the afterlife world created in Coco. I think Dia Des Muertos is a wonderful concept, but only because it keeps people alive through memory and stories from those who remember them. It's a concept that helps comfort the living rather than the dead.

Original poster
wednesdayweather · 21/08/2021 19:46

I also love the idea of the afterlife world created in Coco

Has anyone seen Soul? Its a Disney cartoon about how souls get ready to be born. For a kids cartoon it actually has some quite deep ideas.
I really liked it! (even if it did have dig at middle aged white women, chanelling the Karen slur, which I did not like).

OP posts:
user16395699 · 21/08/2021 19:48

Life is shit, why would I want more of it? Reincarnation is a horrific idea.

Reunion with deceased loved ones makes no sense - say I want to see my mum, but she's there with her mum, who's there with her mum, who's there with her mum, who's there with her mum etc, so how do we all have time (or interest) to interact with each other? Surely by the time we get there all our ancestors are going to be pretty busy. It only works as an idea when you're a small number of generations in, not now.

It's all just soothing bullshit we tell ourselves to make life bearable. Like going to bed at night and telling yourself "tomorrow will be better" . Or trying to wish away bad news.

Daydrambeliever · 21/08/2021 19:50

I only want to be reincarnated if I get to keep all my previous knowledge and it only happens once.

Daydrambeliever · 21/08/2021 19:51

...and I get to be me again.

cautiouscats · 21/08/2021 19:52

[quote Cornettoninja]@cautiouscats I love simulation theory. There was a Ted Talk by someone who I can’t remember the name of, but he was highly respected in his field (I want to say quantum mechanics or something along those lines - definitely something I have small hope of ever understanding!) who basically said when you run all the numbers that the probability we’re all in a simulation is incredibly high. He went on to give examples of how scientists and mathematicians have basically found the make up of existence can be translated into coding.

Triggered a bit of an existential crisis that one![/quote]

It's fascinating, and there a lot of great minds trying to find proof.

I think it's a possibility, my husband makes fun of me for thinking so 😆

user16395699 · 21/08/2021 19:53

Memories are just data and they can be passed from one person to another?

That's not really how memory works.

The proclamation up thread to "be remembered!" Is just daft. Epitome of existential crisis.

All the shit we do trying to leave a mark - get famous, be published, set up legacies, have our names carved in stone, blah blah blah - it's all just trying to deny our own mortality and the reality that we will revert to nothingness and be forgotten.

AlwaysLatte · 21/08/2021 19:55

I'm not keen on any thought of afterlife. I think it was just a concept to help people come to terms with death, and to help them believe in religion (which as an atheist I think was invented purely as an early form of policing).
As for not wanting to accept finality and to wish for an afterlife, you have to remember that if there is no you then there is no you to wish to stay alive. It's not like dead you will say 'oh dear, that's a shame'. So life IS forever, in.a way - our own personal forever.

Daydrambeliever · 21/08/2021 19:56

How does memory work?

LastTrainEast · 21/08/2021 20:24

The mistake the preachers made was making the afterlife perfect. Even in this thread people have shown that just isn't possible.
If everyone gets their own heaven then you never get to see the people you care about again, but if you share heaven then you have to deal with people you don't like and compromise with people who want things you can't stand.

To make it work some argue that you won't have the same wants and feelings as you do now, but then it won't actually be YOU any more will it.

To be absolutely sure that you won't spoil someone else's heavenly time your free will and personality must be removed before you get there.

I think the worst (and most horrifying) argument I heard from a believer was that "you will be happy. You won't have any choice"

LastTrainEast · 21/08/2021 20:37

As for being remembered you need not be famous. Some people struggle with the notion that when they are gone it will be as if they were never here, but that is never really true. We all have an impact on others even if we're not trying.

Your opinions, ideas and ways of doing things get passed down through the generations. Without your name attached to them for the most part, but still you have made a difference.

Original poster
wednesdayweather · 21/08/2021 20:40

and to help them believe in religion (which as an atheist I think was invented purely as an early form of policing)

I went to a talk once which was pretty dreadful but the speaker had one idea which was interesting. He said that as human societies grew past family groups, religion helped to be a unifying idea that bound different family groups together with a common set of ideas. Probably a lot of truth in that. Religion as an idea which bonds together large groups of non-related people into a functioning group.

OP posts:
Mantlemoose · 21/08/2021 20:41

They say (I don't know who they is) that this life is to determine your place in the next life. I've been through so much I don't want to do it all again, I would like to see my Grampa again though.

Mantlemoose · 21/08/2021 20:44

@cautiouscats

Do you mean like the matrix?

Ish.

There are a lot of very well respected physicists researching the possibility that we are all living in a simulation. When you consider that VR is expected to be indistinguishable from real life in 20 years, I find this theory more plausible than religious ones. But then, how did the simulator creators come into existence?! It's a mind fuck however you look at it 😂

I fekin knew it! Ever since I seen the Trueman show I said it! Thank fek it's not real after all!!
BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 21/08/2021 20:45

@sleepyhead

The Good Place was a really interesting take on this.

Won't give any spoilers but it's worth a watch all the way to the end!

(Agree op, I get the appeal of seeing your loved ones again and staving off the human fear of oblivion, but when you think about the reality of eternal life you'd surely go mad!)

I was just about to say this!!

Worth a watch for sure.

Cornettoninja · 21/08/2021 20:53

Religion as an idea which bonds together large groups of non-related people into a functioning group

I would agree with this. Putting the religion to one side I think that losing churches as a part of every day life (and slightly more controversially pubs as in a ‘local’) has had a noticeable effect on communities and peoples ability to easily form relationships in adulthood. There are few places people can congregate and just start idle conversation anymore.

Fordian · 21/08/2021 20:54

A neighbour of my now gone parents was an evangelical 'mission hall' Christian, whose funeral I attended as a courtesy to his wife/DDs.

The whole shebang was about how he'd go 'to paradise', because he knew from an 'early age' that paradise awaited him, apparently.

He'd been a bit of a bastard, quite a bully towards his wife and daughters his whole life, mind. And there was no mention of any redeeming character trace whatsoever made at his funeral. Just 'Xx believed he was heading to Beulah'. No 'he quietly did this and that , for the community. Nothing. Just that as a selfish, bullying bastard, he was off to Paradise, in death.

I'd like to think 'Good luck with that, mate'.

Fordian · 21/08/2021 20:56

As an aside:

Every night, we sleep. We're 'gone'.
Every morning we wake.

Surely death is that but without the 'waking up'?

Is that so scary?

Jubilate · 21/08/2021 21:20

I once went to a funeral when the minister, during the eulogy, said 'for us, X's friends and family, this is the darkest day, but for X - today is the day he meets his lord and saviour Jesus Christ, this is the day he was created and lived for' and I just thought - oh that sounds awful. I can't imagine meeting Jesus Christ and not having anyone to talk it through with. Or the thought of having this experience alone, to be sentient and know your family are in terrible emotional pain. It sounds horrible.