Question from Nathan:
Hi I was asked a good question about Atheism the other day can you answer this. What happens to Our Energy when we die? because if energy doesn’t die where does it go? my friend was trying to ask if I believe in Reincarnation which sounds ridiculous to me because I don’t believe in that shit can you expain?
Answer by SmartLX:
The human body’s energy consists of a certain amount of heat energy, some electrical energy in the brain and nervous system and a few different types of chemical potential energy in the various bodily fluids (stomach acid, for example). When a human dies and the body decays, that energy escapes into the world around the remains of the body. It might be consumed and carried away by worms and other creatures, seep into the earth and feed plants or be released into the atmosphere by cremation.
This fact is not conducive to reincarnation, because once the energy from your body is dispersed it cannot be reassembled in any form which can be thought of as you. Reincarnation would require all of the energy which comprises your identity to leave the body in a single package, which could in principle be re-inserted in another body – in other words, a soul. There is currently no evidence for such an entity in any of the life-related energies we’ve ever been able to measure. (There was one scientist who figured from his experiments that the body decreased in weight by 21 grams upon death as the soul left it, but his own results varied widely and have not been duplicated since.) If your friend is trying to support the idea of reincarnation, he or she will need better material than general scientific concepts of energy.