What happens to folks after they die?

[Gringo]

Poll question: What happens to folks after they die?

What happens to folks after they die?

[haele]

1. Another option...

They become a type of compost in one form or another depending on funerary rites.

Everything else is pure specutlation. We'll find out sooner or later anyway; my opinion tends to be why the rush to "know" something that we can't know until we reach that point anyway?

It gives me no "comfort" to know I'm going to be leaving exsistance as I know it, with all it's wonders and discoveries to go on to some sort of static afterworld - to me, it's similar feeling to what I've observed in kids; most children have no real comfort in learning they're growing up and going to have the responsibility to be adults.

It's just another step in the cycle of life. In the most basic, cynical way, we all start the cycle of living and dying the moment we leave our mother's wombs. I've never felt that there's any special reason to fear or dread death itself, any more than there should be a reason to fear going to bed every night; it's the process of dying that can upset me - I really do not appreciate needless pain...

Haele

[Gringo]

2. Someone else put it well:

Why do we fear the thought of our own death? - we don't fear the thought of the time before our own conception, when we also did not exist. What's the difference?

[premjan]

7. why fear death?

because it is a loss of identity.

[Ein]

9. Fundamental Difference

Death is coming at ya, the other is long gone.

[salmonhorse]

3. Not on this list...

We are all in the process of putting in for our next assignment; we will then await the next assignment; what our next assignment will be is in large part a fucntion of a form inertial residue...if you will ~

Free Will, that is...

[izzie]

4. I guess I would miss the world when I die.

I am sure we just rot away but that thoughts of us live in the minds of other people,and that is it.

[enki23]

5. agony, of course

life wouldn't have any meaning without some eternal agony to look forward to.

[shatoga]

6. They Vote Republican from then on

Cemetaries are the most faithful Republican voting bloc.

That's why Republicans got so mad in 1960 when a few of their
staunchest supporters voted for JFK. (In southern Illinois)

http://www.the-ocean.com/simpsons/others.html
Bart "Oh my God the dead have risen and are voting Republican"

(Scroll to Bart at link and hear what Bart said after Lisa discovered sideshow bob had won votes even in the pet cemetary.)

Item: After a recent Georgia Republican Senator got 'elected'
Georgia legislators passed a law removing dead people from voters' rolls- 5 years after they die.

[Ein]

8. the mind and the soul simply cease to exist.

I hate to choose it, because that thought simply freaks me the hell out. It's the conclusion I come to though.

[durutti]

10. Mind & soul cease to exist, except...

I don't believe in the soul.

[BlueJazz]

11. Gee, I thought the dead spirits hang around

a sleazy southern california TV studio waiting to be called on by a
former bartenter on "Crossing Over".

[magnolia]

12. First of all...

...we don't die...not ever. Life is eternal. The only thing that dies is our bodies. So...the only thing that changes is that we no longer have a body, everything else remains the same.

[gyopsy]

13. Mind and soul cease to exist

my guess as much as I would like not to believe it. This simply makes the most sense to me. I hope I'm wrong.

[BiggJawn]

14. And you either go to feed the worms...

Which is really hard, considering how they seal you up in a box and vault these days, or they burn you and your crunchy bits reside on your kid's bookcase shelf...

[kentuck]

15. They are remembered or they are forgotten...

.................... ...

[Az]

16. Flawed answer

The mind and soul option is the one most likely to be picked by nontheists. But many nontheists are not going to believe in souls either. The soul concept is tied strongly to the montheist religions.

[Gringo]

17. Even as an atheist, I like the concept of a "soul"

It may be artificial and a conceit, but it does describe a part of us which, though it may be nothing but chemicals reacting with memory engrams, truly feels like something deeper and more meaningful. That's why included the soul. It doesn't really matter whether it exists or not, it is very real for millions of atheists even. There is no worse insult IMO, than to be called "soulless".