To ask if you believe in an afterlife?

[DisneyDisney]

I don’t know if I do? I want to, I lost my dad (he was young relatively speaking) and never ever seeing him again is a painful thought, we only had 30 years (we never have enough time though so we) but I don’t know if i actually believe in one, specifically in the theistic sense.

do you believe in one ? What do you believe?

^ I say this as someone who’s held academic teaching and research positions in a theology and philosophy department

Why is it though? Why is that assertion any more certain than anything else?

Why is it though? Why is that assertion any more certain than anything else?

Because if you have an extraordinary claim, the proof lies with you. Sagan standard.

If I say dragons exist, I come up with proof. You don't have to prove they don't.

But if you want to hope, fab, everyone can hope.

I like that. It’s pretty much what I believe too.

Quite.

There have been two types of assertion in here, in favour of the afterlife idea.

First, the assertion from personal experience - my grandad spoke to me; I can feel my sister here sometimes. So something has happened to you. If that convinces you that there's an afterlife, no one can tell you that you're wrong. But, equally, you can't tell anyone you're right.

Second, the assertion from feeling stuff - I've always felt there was more than this; if this is all there is, what's the point? So nothing has happened to you. If that convinces you that there's an afterlife, you can't tell anyone you're right. But, me, I can't see how you can even tell yourself that you're right.

Actually, in my life, I don't care. I don't need to believe or disbelieve there's an afterlife, because if there isn't, that's what'll happen, and if there is, then that's what'll happen.

I'd put money on there not being one, though, because I can see absolutely no reason at all to think that there is.

But surely the extraordinary claim here, is despite it being evident that almost every civilisation has held a belief in an afterlife yet here are some people claiming that the billions upon billions of people who have believed in an afterlife there is none. The people making extraordinary claims must be the people who don’t believe in an afterlife. Therefore on your argument the burden of proof lies with them.

Honestly, no, I don’t. I certainly would like to, I think most people would! I am a bit sentimental though in that I believe although there’s no afterlife, loved ones and good people do live on in other ways. So your memories and thoughts of your dad etc. Also I see sometimes in my children, they look like family members and share a lot of my and DH’s mannerisms. So people live on in that way.

I would also say that “proof” is an interesting thing when it comes to spirituality-what counts as proof? Scientific methods are designed for and are only fit for purpose to analyse the material. So what would you want as proof, it’s unlikely any spiritual realm would work in the same way as the physical world.

The human hope for an afterlife demonstrably exists and no-one contests that.

If the god who created this afterlife exists he’ll know what proof is enough for me. Nothing so far.

Nah, once you expire, that's it. There's nothing. Like in the song, you come from nothing, you go back to nothing. What have you lost? Nothing! As for heaven and hell well they are just social constructs designed to keep folk in line.

Of course, it is perfectly possible for our lost loved ones to live on in our hearts. Where it matters.

People taking comfort in something does not make it any truer. People take comfort in all sorts of nonsense.

Sam Harris's views on Islam don't alter his understanding of neuroscience. His PhD in brain science give him greater expertise about what might happen to the brain in crisis than the committed Christian woman who thought she saw Jesus when her brain had been starved of oxygen.

If I say there are goblins who live under my stairs who come out and night and tidy my house, you are perfectly within your rights to say it's bollocks and I am deluded. This woman's claim is no less stupid or deluded.

People used the believe the sun revolved around the earth, which was flat, and that disease was caused by demons or the "humours" of the human body. They were wrong.

The number of people believing something has no bearing on whether or not it is true.

i may well be within my rights to say something that brings you comfort at the most difficult time in your life is bollocks and utterly stupid, but should I say it, knowing that it would cause you hurt and chip away at maybe the only thing that was keeping you holding on? No, I personally don’t think so.

now I know I asked for peoples opinions on the afterlife, so your opinion is valid and welcome here, you don’t believe and you think its far fetched but I don’t think it’s kind to call other people stupid and deluded, especially when you read who some of the posters on this thread have lost, parents, partners, siblings and children.

It's not kind to lie and to pretend that nonsense is real and death is not real.

My father died very recently

His clock started chiming today

I know it’s probably because the decorator moved it

But I’d like to think he came back, wound it up and started the pendulum

And there is a difference between being stupid and making a stupid claim. I'm sure the woman is convinced she saw Jesus. That doesn't make her stupid, although it does make her wrong

And in the face of the most commonly held belief it was up to people to prove the heliocentric nature of the solar system.

it’s up to you what you believe, but your thoughts have no more basis than anything else people are saying on here.

Why do you assume

a-the afterlife was created by a god
b- that any god is interested in proving anything to you

I do. I believe in God and heaven and I know one day I'll be there.

No-one can prove the non-existence of God or Santa but I am sure you very happily and confidently would assert that Santa doesn't exist.

Ah the age extraordinarily boring old Santa argument. It’s the most bizarre argument. I don’t think any single person has argued that the existence of God is dependent on the existence of Santa. They’re two completely different things. Why are you linking them?

Also why have you moved from an after life to the existence of God- these things are not interdependent either.

What even is God though? There is no way God can be some beardy bloke in white, sitting in a cloud. I don't doubt for one moment that Jesus existed as a regular human (and the prophet Mohammed for that matter) but God? What is God?

I made no claim that God and Santa are linked at all (although... Christmas?). Belief in either, though, is based on no good evidence and runs counter to everything we know about natural science. Believe in either or both if you like, but there is no more reason to believe in one than the other.

I don't think I first brought God into the conversation. Many people linked God to an afterlife before me. It's still all bollocks

Sorry for your loss.

No, despite a religious upbringing, unfortunately I don't believe in the afterlife.