debate-points, science-and-religion, science, death-afterlifeAlbert Einstein is known for believing in life after death because as he puts it:
Energy never dies, it just changes form.
Is he talking about religion, or some sort of scientific afterlife?
If so, can an atheist believe in the afterlife?
Albert Einstein is known for believing in life after death
This is not true, it is believers known for believing Albert Einstein was known for believing.
Let me give you a couple of his quotes:
I am a deeply religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion.
I have never imputed to Nature a purpose or a goal, or anything that could be understood as anthropomorphic. What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism.
The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve.
It might happen that all we see, feel, smell is sort of computer program running in VM as shown in The Matrix. But this VM would be awfully complex, error prone and have almost no meaningful benefit, due to cost for instance.
A human may believe everything he wants, but he or she must back it with proof first. I'm doubting he implied religion when he said this. Some believers would interpret this quote as something that has to do with religion, but nine times out of ten it is just wishful thinking.
Aren’t we all made of stardust? that makes us the afterlife of stars, doesn’t it?
Think of all of the people whose lives have been enriched by something you said or did. It could be a small thing, like offering your umbrella to a stranger, to honest and intelligent discourse on the Internet. If you have children, you will almost by default enrich their lives by your example, and if you achieve a modicum of fame, then the work that made you famous will also be an enriching thing to others.
All of these deeds are things that transcend our mortal selves and will live on beyond our finite number of days. Personally, I think that’s a much more satisfying “afterlife” than anything any religions offer. Or, to quote Harry Chapin: “I’m a selfish, greedy bastard. I want the fact that I existed to mean something.”
Once you are dead, you are dead. If you believe in an afterlife the you believe in the supernatural and you are not an Atheist. Blunt but it is how I see it.
An atheist could believe in an afterlife, but I’ve never heard of it.
It really depends on whether you’re an atheist because you are skeptical, or whether you are actually willing to accept unfounded claims but just don’t happen to accept the god claim.
Physics states that matter and energy are conserved - they can change form (and change from one to the other) but are never destroyed. So your energy and matter still exist in some way after your life ends. This has nothing to do with an “afterlife”.
For some, the stardust thing is very beautiful and inspiring. I’m okay with it, but NOT enamored by it. I think it is a great way to start a conversation about the universe with children. (See the One Great Story web site). The law of conservation of energy does leave a little opening for something of ourselves survining after, but it can easily be taken to an extreme.
Always one to look for common ground, I think it is important to find and highlight the few things that religion has embraced and science can agree with. When I say “universe”, I mean since the Big Bang. About that, science can say things like “everything is connected” and “the universe is one”. Some people see those as very spiritual statements, and I’m okay with that.
I can consider Cryonics to my personal afterlife “religion” =) When I subscribe to it someday.
The UAL’s definition of atheism explicitly excludes afterlife:
…humans are finite beings with a beginning and an end at which everything finishes…
See here for more details. Having said this, the very concept of “afterlife” is often ill-defined, and I think that some conceptions of it might as well be possible in the total absence of gods and the supernatural. The Simulation Argument and some other ideas formulated in science fiction (see the works by Peter F. Hamilton, for example) could be considered to entail an “afterlife”, and they are totally atheistic.
I think the closest thing to an afterlife an atheist can hope for is to be remembered by those still living – and that would have to include both good and bad memories. Another possibility would be to have made some sort of lasting mark or impression on the world or society that remains after you’re gone.
Regardless, all of these things will themselves likely eventually fade away to nothing…not that there’s anything intrinsically wrong with that.
You are putting his quote in the wrong context when we die the energy of our body will be decomposed by microbes and the energy will change form that quote has got nothing tto do with after life.
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