I don't believe WE are immortal in this sense. I do think that the awareness that exists inside us is though and I think it is all one big ether.

@kauva matter cannot be created or destroyed which makes us immortal literally

@Fulishsage It just makes "matter" immortal.

At least on a chemical and atomic level.

Of course we have reason to believe in more. Science proves that our life force is energy. It also can prove that energy cannot cease to exist it only changes form. You don't need a God to believe in an afterlife because science has already proven it.

@Krypto-Knight Are you saying that science has proven an afterlife because energy cannot cease to exist? I’m asking just for clarity. I hope that’s not what you are saying. Lol

@Krypto-Knight, can you run that past me again?

@moNOtheist Is it that you can't read or can't understand? It's very simple science has proven that there is an energy force that leaves the body after death. Science also proves that energy only changes it doesn't just cease to exisit. with or without a God we exisist our energy goes on after the body dies.

@Krypto-Knight So energy is your idea of an afterlife even if you don’t have the conscience of the energy after you are dead? Unless you believe we do have conscience after we are dead...I’m not sure you can make that case just like any religious person that believes in an afterlife.

@Lancinator science has proven that energy doesn't die it changes if that means afterlife to you then thats on you. if choosing to believe that theres more to life than just one day everything is over and it was all pointless makes someone feel good why try to take that away from them? I guess if my life where a misserable existance I would want it to fade into nothingness, however I live on an active volcano. 39 of my neighbors have already lost their homes and I still think that life is awesome and have no desire to see it just fade to black.

@Lancinator Dude you have serious issues, you realize how many times you have replied and tagged me in your response? Lighten up it's philosophy not facts. Light hearted disscussion nothing more.

@Krypto-Knight I tagged you twice wondering what your position is. And I realize how fallacious you are. I never tried to take away someones belief of an afterlife just because it makes them feel good. I understand this is philosophy. But you claimed that science proves an afterlife? And I also enjoy life too. What is your point other than your anecdotal evidence of living on a volcano.

@Lancinator well heres the point I never said energy equals an after life, only that energy doesn't die. as far as Anecdotal evidence, I do Live on an active volcano so not sure what your point was, do you know? Forgive me for not disbelieving according to your idea of disbelief. enjoy life a bit and laugh just because your going to just fade out like the final episode of Sopranos, doesn't mean you have to be glum and negative. Wheather or not theres an after life is unimportant if you don't laugh and enjoy this life. It was only comedy brah. Aloha

@Krypto-Knight alright cool. Nice joke. Wooooooo. Aloha

there is no "where". awareness is everywhere. and as such it resides inside us filtering the world thru our senses and memories and karma.

@kauva But what is the evidence? What does it mean that "awareness is everywhere"? What is your concept of awareness? In practical terms, is a horse aware? A hare? A herring? And whence does this disembodied awareness go? Where does it reside? What part does karma play? Do you mean in the strict Hindu sense (which would involve belonging to a varna and fulfilling the requisite dharma) or as a more liberal Western understanding?

Your argument seems to border on wishful thinking.

@moNOtheist I can understand where you'd think that unless you've been a student of meditation. prove gravity to me without math.

I see nothing horrible about it. It is the way nature works and as it should. IMHO

Its not Ella, you leave the love you gave to others. They hold onto that and the memory of you for the rest of their lives. You leave the stuff you made and the good you did for the world.

It's all the above. ♥

But we continue to exist in the minds of those who knew us, until they in turn expire. The ancient Greeks recognized this with the belief that we exist as shades in the underworld a mere generation or two, until our memory is lost when those who knew us have themselves passed on.

Could not have said that better! Much appreciated

1. we are awareness apart from all our biologicals
2. this awareness flows through everything
3. the biological components provide memory and sensory data - but our awareness if the screen it is cast upon
4. yes it is in animals etc... and it does "move on". it is always and any individuality we feel is merely a facade. we return to the ether of awareness.

@AMGT spare me the drama - death is personal to all of us. I have already been dead twice and am living in the middle of a medical death sentence now.

Proof of the heretofore unknown? You think you are unique in demanding proof to the answer of the unanswerable. There is so much we have yet to understand - we are millenia away from an answer in the form you seek. All we can do now is hypo-test and find alternatives that fit.

You are welcome to believe as you will. I will observe the teachings of the Upanishads, the Dhammapada, and the Gita. I will live my life by three simple words ... damyata datta dayadhvam.

damyata datta dayadhvam

@AMGT there's no reason for you to be mean. just because you don't have the tenacity to learn and grow doesn't mean you should disparage others. your anger will never find an answer, it will only increase your suffering. Use some self-control ... take the first step ... show compassion. damyata datta dayadhvam. Maybe if you educated yourself a little more you might understand. Check out "The Wasteland".

@AMGT I don't remember trying to convince you. I wasn't proselytizing. I said this is what I believe. My reasons for it are my own - after decades of study and years of meditation. I have chased religion step by step all the way back to early man discovering a life other than as a hunter-gatherer. This proved to me that it is a construct of man and how ... but there was never some "unsmoking gun" to delegitimize religion or some piece of evidence that says "all religions are wrong - sincerely, some reputable source". But the lack of any substantiation does tell me things. Asking me to prove things we can't describe now is like asking a caveman that air exists. It is near impossible to prove a negative. Believe or not believe what you want. I choose happiness.

@kauva, and the evidence is...?

@kauva I'm truly sorry to hear that you're health is in jeopardy. If turning to Hinduist thought provides comfort and make sense to you, then you have every right. I learned a while back that what I have come to see to be as an utterly concrete and observable aspect of the world is not something that someone else might recognize as such. A friend firmly believes that she has had an experience that proves the reality of reincarnation beyond question. I haven't, but I would no more try to dismantle her understanding based upon her experience than I would attack her in any other way.

What has led you to believe that reincarnation (presumably into human form) is part of the life cycle? And, I have to ask, do you consider that other sentient life forms are reincarnated?

@moNOtheist Not having a traditional teacher actually aided me in my path as a Buddhist and vedic. It meant I have to take every concept and convert it to the western equivalent that I understood to see if it withstood current science and math. Much of the scientific knowledge of the east in those areas is horribly dated. I separated those things and included current western thoughts in the sciences and math and quantum physics. What didnt get washed over however was Indian psychology. The east is far far more advanced in that regard. Only now is the west admitting the advantages of mindfulness and meditation. By not having a traditionally-influenced teacher I was not subject to their preconceived notions. I learned Buddhism on my own through study of the Upanishads, the Dhammapada, and the Gita. I used strictly sanskrit of the original teachings (as remembered by monks for centuries obviously) and came to my own conclusions. Amazingly it led me to the same conclusions and Shakyamuni Buddha and even the current Dalai Lama. There exists a self or awareness or consciousness or whatever you want to label it today and it exists in all things. On its' own it is and does nothing except observe differences from moment to moment. The vibration or relative vibration of things from one moment passing to the next. Our senses interpret those changes as sight or smell or sound and the information is a filter to our self. This is how it "sees" the world. That self, our memories, our senses, and our karma all make up that illusion of an individual self when there really is none. Once3 you know it's there, through introspection and meditation, it's a matter of seeing what happens when the shell dies. It continues to exist but at the level of growth previously experienced through the momentum of karma. Hindus, Buddhists, and others try to explain away the resultant karma and where/who it acts upon. That is where the anomaly lies that some find reincarnation. We just call it rebirth. We are actually just awareness in the flesh and when this flesh falls away we are just present in some other shell at relatively the same level if the Hindus are to be believed.

I am sorry you don't like my questions. ask your own if you don't like mine.

The title of this forum is Agnostic.com. Last time I checked agnostic was most definitely not atheist. Two distinctly different belief systems, or non-belief, if you must.

the idea of hell is so ignorant to begin with. you did something someone didnt like in the few years you were here so now you spend eternity in torment? if thats not a bunch of man-made bullshit I don't know what is

I see it more as a heathen party full of debauchery and shenanigans. I don't take much of religion seriously, though.

@CaroleKay I am the same way about heaven too. NOTHING that lasts for eternity would be good. except a nap.

@CaroleKay, I 'd recommend a read of the priest's sermon in Joyce's 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' - heavy on an eternity of flesh-searing fires, the unending screams of the tormented, and the stench of the sewer, not too light on anything approaching fun

I had several Hell experiences on LSD in my early 20s. I think I would be a stronger and more together person if I had never experienced that, so as far as I'm concerned, you're better off not having that experience.

because the awareness doesnt have a component that can even die. its not biological

@kauva dude. It is totally biological. Give me evidence. Feelings are not evidence. Stories are not evidence.

@NothinnXpreVails you will have to find that yourself. I would suggest meditation.

@kauva absolutely not. The burden of proof falls upon the one making the statement. Also, meditation is anecdotal and not valid.

@NothinnXpreVails ok, show me some gravity. a picture or maybe a teaspoon. not the effects of it, but actual gravity. please show me some.

Uhm, until you meditate you cannot say that.

@kauva lmao I hope you get the help you need

@NothinnXpreVails yes, all buddhists must be crazy huh.

Nobody really can say what consciousness is, separate from awareness, which is clearly the interaction of an aware being with their environment through their senses. In science, there is no consciousness and therefore no way to study it or to make any claims or assumptions about it.

Did we ever leave it?

@moNOtheist no. ?

We will all be reincarnated, for sure. Our chemical components will break down to form something else entirely, just as we are the sum of atoms that once made up something quite different from what was ourself, and are formed from the dust of dead stars.