What happens to Atheists when they die??

[lycan]

Originally Posted by Frisky

Undefinable in my opinion.

A word that is undefinable is not a word. It is random noise.

[vicente]

They are cook in hell by Satan and they are eaten by Satan helpers while they are still alive...
just kidding...

[Frisky]

^^^^ LOL

Anyways, to get back on topic. I was just curious if most atheists would occupy the lower, middle or higher astral planes. Thats why I started this thread

[ZephyrusX]

The question still implies that there is something different about atheists, unless you happen to think that the astral plane you will occupy is conditioned upon your belief in God. I some how doubt that is what you meant though.

Why would it be any different for atheists?

Originally Posted by Frisky

^^^^ LOL

Anyways, to get back on topic. I was just curious if most atheists would occupy the lower, middle or higher astral planes. Thats why I started this thread

[Indiana]

In response to the original question, Frisky, I think it's impossible to say what might happen to 'most atheists' given that

a) the existence of astral planes is entirely speculative so there seems to be no real way to accurately guess how they might be apportioned, and

b) as people have been trying to suggest in this thread, 'most atheists' is entirely subjective. You know only a few atheists, and your opinion is that they're mostly 'negative and condescending', but I know a great many atheists and they're just regular people, perfectly nice.

My question in return to you is: What does it matter where they go?

It seems from the original question that you're interested in the idea that atheists should somehow be punished for their lack of belief. What would it mean if they weren't?

[Frisky]

Originally Posted by ZephyrusX

The question still implies that there is something different about atheists, unless you happen to think that the astral plane you will occupy is conditioned upon your belief in God. I some how doubt that is what you meant though.

Why would it be any different for atheists?

Thats exactly what I'm getting at, will their lack of belief in God send them to much lower astral planes then believers. Add points if an atheist writes a book called "God delusion", "God is not great" (do these book titles sound familiar?)

Originally Posted by Indiana

In response to the original question, Frisky, I think it's impossible to say what might happen to 'most atheists' given that

a) the existence of astral planes is entirely speculative so there seems to be no real way to accurately guess how they might be apportioned, and

b) as people have been trying to suggest in this thread, 'most atheists' is entirely subjective. You know only a few atheists, and your opinion is that they're mostly 'negative and condescending', but I know a great many atheists and they're just regular people, perfectly nice

I'm sure there's lots of nice ones, but lets focus on the Hitchens types of the world for now

Originally Posted by Indiana

My question in return to you is: What does it matter where they go?

It seems from the original question that you're interested in the idea that atheists should somehow be punished for their lack of belief. What would it mean if they weren't?

Heck yeah, I want them tortured and prodded with Satan's pitchfork!!












I'm kidding. I'm just curious what punishment, if any, would await atheists.
I read that overly negative people go to lower astral planes to work out their karma. Hence why I asked the question



.

[qwertyportne]

Frisky,

Can't remember where I read it, but the idea was that we all get what we believe. If we believe there is no life after death, for example, then that's what we get--zilch, nada, oblivion. The main thrust of the idea, in other words, referred to the consequences of our beliefs after we die.

But I chose to think of it as applying to this life, the one I am in now, because we do create our own reality by how we interpret things and how we apply those interpetations to our attitudes and actions. If I believe I am a dirt bag, for example, I'll tend to act like one. If I want to think well of myself, I will most likely behave in a way that helps rather than hinders my self esteem and my relationship with other people.

In this life, in other words, we ourselves are the primary source of what we get or do not get as a result of how we interpret life. And belief or disbelief is only one aspect of those interpretations. A secondary source is of course other people who react to dirt bags in one way or the other. Or the wall into which we are beating our head...

But in the next life, if there is one, what or who measures out the thing we get? And is belief or disbelief in some god, the only factor in determining what we do or do not get? If belief or disbelief in some god is the only criteria for what you get, I'm thinking that's a pretty shallow approach for a supposedly divine being. I mean, how "divine" is it to decide a person's eternal fate based on the short span of a human life and how vulnerable it is to good and bad choices?

And which god rules the outcome? There are thousands of religions, each apotheosizing a different god. If the christian god is the only one who really exists, or is the most powerful god, then disbelief leads to a lake of eternal fire. I can only guess what non-believers in other religions "earn" with their disbelief from those gods. If it's Zeus, what do unbelievers get?

I do know, however, you can be a believer in one religion but an atheist with respect to another. The early christians were called atheists by the Romans. Muslims consider pretty much everybody else as atheists worthy of immediate extermination--at least that is how I read the literature.

I like your question and the replies it has attracted. But I'd like to ask some more...

Which atheists are you referring to?
Are you limiting your question to the lack of belief?
Are you willing to include other aspects of an atheist's character?
Are you willing to expand your question to life in the here and now?

--Bill

[VinceG]

What happens after we die has been seen metaphorically by a few astral travelers. What I think is key to understanding the entire cycle of birth/life/death is to understand why it is souls incarnate.

Incarnation is a phase of existence we go through when we're self-aware enough to have a sense of free will, but not self-aware enough to be able to sustain ourselves indefinitely in an eternal context. Before we lead programmed existences as animals/plants. We have enough consciousness to have 'personalities' in the same way a dog has personality. To affect certain aspects of your life.

This self-awareness blossoms into what we call intelligence. The intelligence we possess isn't yet mature, mature intelligence is called spirituality. The intelligence we possess is flawed, prone to going every which way and that. Intelligence is dangerous to itself.

So this process of incarnation happens where we can learn lessons from our self-defeating mistakes within relative safety. We die and are reborn constantly. The lessons get progressively more and more subtler and refined, until we finally have shed the need for the birth/death cycle.

The souls themselves are eternal and unchanging. It's the incarnations that form beliefs in God or beliefs in the lack of deity. These beliefs are localized to that incarnation, they don't affect the soul's journey at all.

Now, the body is composed of physical as well as etheric matter. When the body dies, the incarnation gets shunted off into the ether. In the ether the incarnation can continue, for a brief time, while it can still maintain itself.

This is difficult for most incarnations because timelessness can't yet be understood or held on to. So eventually the etheric matter fades away into a pure observation mode where it observes the effects it had on the world, it's descendants, until it gets tired of existing and fades back into its true soul.

Now, some incarnations develop this intense belief in a Heaven or a Hell. The intensity of these beliefs orders that soul's afterlife. If the incarnations believe they truly deserve to go to Hell, well, Hell is a certain place in the ether they can visit, for as long as they want to be there. Heaven exists too.

In either case, the incarnation eventually tires of eternality and fades back into its soul.

Atheists, having no particular beliefs about the afterlife, will be surprised to find themselves in an afterlife. They can explore the ether for as long as they wish, just like everyone else, before fading back into their soul.

[lycan]

Here is a theory. Atheists, upon death, find themselves in a bed somewhere slightly confused thinking "Wow, that was a weird dream..."

[Frisky]

Originally Posted by qwertyportne

I like your question and the replies it has attracted. But I'd like to ask some more...

Which atheists are you referring to?
Are you limiting your question to the lack of belief?
Are you willing to include other aspects of an atheist's character?
Are you willing to expand your question to life in the here and now?

--Bill

I was more referring to the negative, militant atheists. Not so much the mellow ones.

Reason I'm asking is because I've wondered, when it comes to astral planes, where other types of people wind up in. Such as:

Murderers
Dictators
Terrorists
Negative religious people
Positive religious people
Scientists who made a difference in the world (Einstein, Bell, Steve Jobs)
Etc...etc

I managed to find lots of literature on these groups of people, but almost nothing on atheists. Thats why I started the thread

[qwertyportne]

Originally Posted by Frisky

I was more referring to the negative, militant atheists. Not so much the mellow ones.

Reason I'm asking is because I've wondered, when it comes to astral planes, where other types of people wind up in. Such as:

Murderers
Dictators
Terrorists
Negative religious people
Positive religious people
Scientists who made a difference in the world (Einstein, Bell, Steve Jobs)
Etc...etc

I managed to find lots of literature on these groups of people, but almost nothing on atheists. Thats why I started the thread

OK, well your list implies you are including things other than just dis-belief.

But the context of your curiosity is the astral plane, which, despite Vince's clear, concise explanation of reincarnation, is something I know little about. I read Madame Blavatsy many years ago, but have forgotten most of that.

What I am left with is the impression that reincarnation is a godless religion. That is, the cycle of life and death is not orchestrated by some god, but by some inherent property of the universe. Reincarnation is like gravity, for example, they just are.

My point is that I don't understand how the word atheist applies to reincarnation, astral planes and so forth. I thought you had to not believe in some god to be an atheist.

If this line of thought and questioning is a kind of side track to your questions, I apologize. I'm just very intertested in this topic and willing to approach it from as many different angles as my little brain can handle.

--Bill