As a devout atheist I'm actually quite comfortable with the concept of nothingness after death. That's it - it's final you just cease to be.
I have a real problem with the concept of the soul - people seem to think they'll be able to spent time with their relatives, shag virgins whatever... but imagine an elderly gentlemen with late onset of Alzheimer's, if you've ever seen someone at late stages of this disease then there are no lights on. They are unaware of their surroundings and simply sit, do not move and do not respond to external stimulae. Arguably these people still have a soul. So if your soul does not comprise your alertness, conciousness, self-awareness, memory and thinking ability then what is it? Strip away all that is not your soul what do you have left? It can't think, see and is not self aware... It would be the equivalent of that stretch of last night that you were totally unconcious that you can't remember - without the dreaming.
If that's the case then I simply don't see the point. Put my soul in hell for all you want, I won't be aware of anything anyway.
this chimes in with my own views. but it is a fascinating area of thought.
if your parents die at an early age, and you die at an old age, if you meet up in "heaven", will you appear "older" than your parents?
(if your grandfather dies in WW2 at age 20 on D-Day, and you die of old-age at age 70, if you meet your g-father in heaven, will he be a youthful 20 and you a wizened 70??)
I read somewhere that when the Iranian Revolution overthrew the Shah in the late 70s, the Shah had his feet cut off, as the Islamic scholars believed it would prevent the Shah to "walk to heaven" in the afterlife. This implies the final state of the physical body affects your "spiritual body".
But if thats true, suicide bombers would enter the afterlife in a myriad of small pieces, and wouldnt be able to reach/walk to their allocation of virgins.
Weird.
I could be wrong.
Much like my trading.
Ho hum. :whistling
EDIT: you would think, with the exclamations prefixed by "Holy", "Jesus", or suffixed by "Hell" and "God", that traders were of a rather extreme branch of most religions. Much like Jesuits?
The Holy Order of the Candlesticks?
