Specifically no. We live, we die, we become wormfood. It's a hard thing to grasp because as humans we can't really grasp not existing, but it's what happens.

But the impact that we have as humans extends way past our natural lives. Some people (e.g. Newton) continue to make the world a better place. I think this is a kind of afterlife. The world is not a place we live in for 70 years, it's a charitable project that we join for a short time. It's up to us, in a myriad of small ways, to contribute.

^ This.

One of my greatest fears is that when I die, not only will I not be remembered well, I will not have left this world a better place in some small way, shape, or form. Again, I have Kelly's death to "thank" for that, and that's one of the major reasons why I'm in therapy and why I have such problems with my faith, whatever it is.

What seanyboy said, except that, while we can't all be Isaac Newton or Shakespeare or somebody, I think that we can all remain in people's hearts, and make positive differences in individual lives. Oh, wait, he kinda said that.

Also what seanboy said. Although my moral compass is not calibrated by a god or church, I try to be a good person and want to leave the planet in a better condition than I found it. Of course, I can't do it alone, but I take great care in making sure I'm not making it worse. I don't have to worry about getting into heaven or landing in hell, I'm just going to be a nice guy and if people don't return the favor, well fuck them.

I'm in the what seanyboy said group.

I think there is an afterlife. I don't believe in Heaven or Hell, because that's just what you make of your life here. How much responsibility you take for your own actions.

I hope what will happen in the afterlife is I get the bigger picture. Everything that can't be known while I'm here will be known then.

I have a silly fantasy about what the afterlife will be like, though: it's called Afterlife Beach, and it's basically this enormous, gorgeous beach with tons of dogs running around with their tongues out, and the owners of the dogs are all my heroes.

So I'll get to meet Bill Monroe and His Dog. Billie Holliday walking her dog. Etc. etc....

I with seanyboy here too. I believe we all live on in the hearts of those we leave behind. Those memories we leave can be good, bad, or indifferent and can have an effect on those who remember us. I think a life well lived is one that leaves those who knew us with positive memories that inspire them in some way however small to try to be helpful to the next generation.

It's all very small and yet as big as all creation.

Eh, smack me upside the head with a shovel to make sure I'm done and then toss me in a ditch somewhere. I prefer to be recycled as best I can.

So, uh, no.

These are hard questions to answer and as anyone who knows me well, knows that despite having a deeply compassionate nature, I am, much more often than I care to admit, logical to a fault. Therefore, to admit that yes, I do believe in god seems hypocritical, if not downright disassociative. That said, I have always felt a profound kinship with an something other, greater than than myself that is much less an ideology or a specific entity than a sort of process. It feels like a constant conversation, one without end and whose beginning precedes my memory, but I am confident of its constant presence. In the context of this conversation, this active relationship with god, the process is the growth and evolution of my personhood and my capacity for contributing to humanity on whatever levels I can and choose to achieve.

I do not believe in a grand plan or care about the debate of free will vs determinism or the shades therein. The holy trinity of the "omni-"s are not high on my list. In my mind, it's an open system; god is benevolent and benign, and, in general, indifferent. It's a modified ant farm analogy. The Big He doesn't know the thoughts of every flower or go into Ceiling Cat mode each time we masturbate or watch pron. If anything, The Big He has an interest, most of all, with what we do with what we're given. He'd rather not see the ant farm implode and die, but if that's how we're going to do it: so be it. Silly ants, anyway.

In actuality, The Big He, probably isn't a Big He and probably has better ways to expend energy. But in some way, the concept of the existence of god and the surety of said existence - illogical though it may be - deeply impacts how I connect with the world at large and on an intimate basis. It is that, perhaps constructed, relationship with a great unknown that informs a personal philosophy of contribution vs retribution. I have no sense of entitlement about who should answer to me regarding bad things happening to good people and the insults that life hands one, minor or gross.

Life on the broadest scale is impersonal and imperfect; largely dictated by chance and luck. As an experience it is not, nor promises to be, fair [cue Princess Bride], but that is no excuse for me to not behave fairly.

It is this dialogue with something of which I cannot and care not to define too exactly [if for not other reason than I believe that the human brain today functions on far too limited a scale to fully understand and engage the vast scope of reality and its implications] that, I feel, prods me to be a better person. This process is a personal path of grace - received and given - the chance to push the envelope of who I can be and how I can be that person. In the end, if this was simply an elaborate fiction that gave me comfort and inspiration to be a good human, what expense is there? What has been lost?

And then there's the question about the afterlife. By default, I should believe in one, shouldn't I? But I waver. And I'm equally compelled about each side. If there is an afterlife, I think it would be like returning to the hivemind. Comfortable and familiar: "Hiya Peanut, we sure missed you!!" But also a bit sad, making your whole life an open source experience for the group at large.

Then again there's something poetic about dying and being done with the whole thing, tip to tail:
A. You are a beautiful and unique snowflake
B. After you're gone, life will go on relatively unchanged; much as it did before
C. There is something wonderful and amazing about that fact

I waver. Still.

I cannot shake the sense that there's so much that we don't know and that someday we'll look back at these constructs and explanations and laugh. Benevolently. Like adults watching kids confirm one to the other that thunder and lightning is God and the angels bowling in heaven.

So much to know. So very, very little time.

Hey, Hi, Frisbee Girl.

Seannyboy, that was well put indeed.

But basically, no.

However, I find the intellectual concept of reincarnation useful to express feelings I have towards certain people. I don't actually believe it, but as people powerfully, randomly, come into or go out of my life, I find it a good metaphor that expresses strong connection - "See you in another life" - etc.

no

Don't presume to know. Even the science we do know - that our bodies will decompose, that our brain activity will end and take our notion of identity with it - doesn't tell us much about context. I'm not sure our concept of 'death' makes any more sense in the big picture of how the universe is made than the concept of 'afterlife.'

I do not believe in an afterlife, nor do I find the idea particularly alluring. I would like to have my body fed to wolves or composted, or burn me and work my ashes into some griddle cakes and serve with marionberry compote. Whatever.

w/r/t the decomoposition part, I really like the idea of natural burial. Bot regular burial and cremation create a lot of waste and pollution. Natural burial lets your body get reused by nature quickly.

I do. But then y'all knew that.

No. I think we're all basically roadkill. I do, however, have this rather odd notion that everything we do and are is imprinted in time, like an endless camcorder, and, in that sense, we are eternal.

(the Big He? I'm more a Big Hee Haw person, myself :)

The mister and I were talking about this morning. I don't think there is an afterlife, although it would be nice to be proven wrong.

Yes. And Frisbee Girl said it better than I could.

I don't believe in an afterlife, BUT...

Not a lot is known about what happens as we die. You've maybe had those dreams where you go on fantastic adventures and live entire lives and then you wake up and it turns out you were only dozing for 20-odd minutes. Subjective time within the brain passes very differently when it is not synchronized with external events. Some think that as the brain dies, it stretches out the remaining time as much as possible. Since you're no longer receiving conscious input from external stimuli, you may enter a dream-like state. And, if this is true, this is your heaven or hell, in the classical sense (though I agree that it's in the kind of life you make in your time on earth). If you are the kind who is plagued by demons and haunted by regrets, your last long moment will not be pleasant. But if you're more contented and at peace with your life, then you will look back fondly with joy.

You see shades of this in stories like An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge and movies like Waking Life and Lost Highway (one possible interpretation, at least). Personally, this is one of the reasons I practice lucid dreaming. I plan to do all sorts of awesome shit as my brain slowly turns the lights out.

All in all, I'd rather have reincarnation. I used to debate the Sisters all the time about these things, and one of them said, "Well, that's because you want to learn all there is to know, and you can't do that in one lifetime". True enough, I'm all about learning and teaching.

If there were a heaven, I'd like it to be a little like LT's get the Big Picture - could God really draw a truly straight line? Even down to the microscopic level? Would I see and play with all the kitties I've lost over the decades? I'd love to see Howard again.

But really what we're talking about is self-consciousness and awareness. Where did it come from? Where does it go? It's terrifying to think of losing it, and to think we have "wasted" time while you still had energy in the physical body. Some of us take comfort in a real, defined afterlife. Others take satisfaction in knowing that done is done and there's no sense in worrying about it.

I'm mostly wistful. I know in the front and back of my head that my consciousness depends on all most of the right wires being plugged into corresponding plugs. The likely impact I'll have on the world is minimal - the only way I'll consider myself truly immortal is if I write or end up in book. I've arranged things and am trying to arrange things in my life that will make that okay for me. I want to look back and say, "you know, that wasn't half bad", and be ready for whatever there is. Or isn't, as the case may be.

I don't no. I also don't believe in any god, in any form.

The thing is, though...I am pretty sure that there is some form of electricity, firing my heart muscle, etc. Some ENERGY is responsible for my being alive. When that energy is no longer firing my being, I suspect it must move on to some other thing, whether it's the flames of a campfire, or...who knows? So...without any consciousness, we do continue to exist in some way.

Plus, I hope to survive as seanyboy mentioned, in the hearts of those who knew me. I know that it's rare for more than a couple of days to pass without me remembering my best friend who passed away last fall. So...he's still around, in that sense.

there is no afterlife. Another pointless philosophical question. I want my body tossed into a system with rapid decomposition where I can quicklybe assimilated into the nutrient cycle.

I do believe in reincarnation....I've had several regressions which explain things about me for which there are no other reasons.

No. I wish there was something more colorful, but when you die, it all stops for you. Boop. No more. There is a period at the end of this long rambling sentence.

As seanyboy said, we do live on in the memories others have of us, but we're not here to see that. Our consciousness dies when we do, and that's pretty much that. The planet would be even more crowded than it is if people kept hanging on... another few generations, and we'd be stacked four-deep into space, ghosts all standing on each others' heads.

I don't believe in an afterlife, no. Like deborah said, it'd be nice to be proven wrong, but that doesn't make me think it'll happen. I'm terrified by my own mortality; it seems like the rawest of raw deals.

Honestly, I have no idea. I guess I continue to cling to the hope that there is something, but I'm not particularly hopeful.

Yep. I don't think it has any resemblance to a physical place, but I do believe there's some sort of continuation of the soul that is shared with all those who have gone before.