# What's the difference between the eastern and atheist views of the afterlife?



## John Bunyan (Sep 8, 2012)

Excluding the whole reincarnation part, isn't it true that in the end the atheistical ceasing of existence and becoming nothingness and the end of individuality and being one with the One like a water in the ocean are basically the same thing? Both seem to me like nothingness. Am I wrong?


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## csedan (Sep 9, 2012)

Hello John, the basic concept of afterlife in the east is actually manifold. What I mean is that there are many different schools of thought with regard to the afterlife. Hindus believe, basically, that you are reborn and are a "spirit" oin the purest form, for lack of a better word, and go on this way, Buddhists and Jains are "impersonalists", or do not believe in a "soul" per se, but a consciousness that goes on. But each one believes that there is "something" that lives after death, if it has not reached the goal of life, namely, Moksha, or salvation. Atheists on the other hand believe that your are completely annilated when dead, no recourse nor after anything. Much like the Christian view of the death of animals, ceasation existance is what they believe. One is nothingness, the atheist view, the other, the ultimate salvation is to be "one" with the Atman, or Super soul, or as Buddhists and Jains teach, Nirvana, annilation of suffering, in this life and the next.


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## John Bunyan (Sep 9, 2012)

But being One with the Universe they describe as being like water in the ocean, or, in Buddhas words "There is disciples, a condition, where there is neither earth nor water, neither air nor light, neither limitless space, nor limitless time, neither any kind of being, neither ideation nor non-ideation, neither this world nor that world. There is neither arising nor passing-away, nor dying, neither cause nor effect, neither change nor standstill.” Sounds like nothing to me.

p.s.: by "eastern" I mean the more pantheistic views within buddhism and hinduism


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## Peairtach (Sep 9, 2012)

Some noted atheists, like Sam Harris, are Buddhists of some description.


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## Rufus (Sep 9, 2012)

Peairtach said:


> Some noted atheists, like Sam Harris, are Buddhists of some description.



Right, I remember going on a Nichiren Buddhist website and seeing a video of Sam Harris.

Buddhism doesn't require a belief in God but it's often syncretized with the local religions, i.e. most Buddhists in Japan are also Shinto.


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## arapahoepark (Sep 10, 2012)

Rufus said:


> Peairtach said:
> 
> 
> > Some noted atheists, like Sam Harris, are Buddhists of some description.
> ...


And a lot of those shinto buddhist priests are atheists....


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