Is there life after death, and what happens there?

[More Than A Feeling]

Ideas about the afterlife are the most important part of any religious system of thought. After all, they can be a factor in determining the perceived consequences, if any, of actions taken in life. They can also determine our reactions to deaths of others.

[TRYPHO]

1. Unacceptable presumption

1.Ideas about the afterlife are the most important part of any religious system of thought.
2.After all, they can be a factor in determining the perceived consequences, if any, of actions taken in life.
3.They can also determine our reactions to deaths of others.
--
1. Not in my opinion they aren't. The living bit is the important bit.
2. Hmmmmmm....I don't agree
3. Hmmmmmm....that's an emotional repsonse to an emotional time. Not necessarily based on religion or logic.

Sorry, I can't answer the question as asked.

PS - I don't mean to be a pedantic old sausage, and I'm probably going to go to hell for my bad attitude :nuke:, but I can't help it. God made me like this :-)

TRYPHO

[bryant69]

17. I agree

Saying that the whole point to religion is "Be good for a little while and you'll get a treat" is not a very deep view of it. I mean the treat might get you moving in the right direction, but it's really about becoming a certain kind of being, not about getting the treat.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[wtmusic]

2. The afterlife is every bit as important as the beforelife

What, you don't remember the eternity before you were born?

[moobu2]

3. When your cerebral cortex dies, that's it, you can no longer exist.

any perception that you live on somewhere, is only in the minds of the people who knew you.
Once they die, no one will even know you even existed.

[Cleita]

4. There is a whole website on it if you are interested.

Some of the evidence they have gathered is compelling.

http://www.near-death.com/index.html

[moobu2]

5. Those odd experiences people report as near death experiences

are caused by brain hypoxia. They don’t actually die and come back from death. Their blood stops oxygenating their brains for whatever reason which causes them to hallucinate the experience. That's basically all that is.

[Cleita]

7. You're coming from a biological stance on this and I can see that.

Flesh dies. It has to, so that new biological life can begin. However, there is a school of thought out there that believes the soul is everywhere. It has nothing to do with biology. The body is only a part of our existence. I know you don't want to know this and I understand. Just remember that a lot of empirical scientific evidence started out as folk beliefs.

[varkam]

8. Hmm...

Just remember that a lot of empirical scientific evidence started out as folk beliefs.

And once the tradition of empirical investigation got underway, folk beliefs were generally treated as such until they generated some evidence to support their claims. Near death experiences are quite easily explained in terms of biology and neurology - in fact, they can be induced in a high G accelerator (when, by the way, there is no danger of death).

There are also schools of thought out there that believe: magnetic fields interact with iron in the blood to aid in the healing process, a variety of different ailments can be cured by manipulating nerves in the feet, and that all mental illness is caused by sin. Of course, like NDEs, these schools of thought also lack any evidence at all to support their claims. As such, they should be treated as folk beliefs until such evidence arises.

[Cleita]

10. Whatever.

I prefer to keep an open mind about the impossible. You don't have to if that's what's comfortable for you.

[varkam]

11. I, too, keep an open mind

I don't think that the final word is in on what is and is not possible. I am, however, not willing to accept claims that offer no evidence to support themselves. Should evidence surface that supports those claims, I am more than willing to revise my beliefs. I believe that is keeping an open mind.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

19. That is a theory

but there is still a lot of controversy about it.

Fascinates me, really.

[Digit]

6. Great site, thanks

[TygrBright]

9. 1. I believe there is; and 2. I don't know

Therya go.

succinctly,
Bright

[Ron Green]

12. I think personality dies, but consciousness lives.

What makes the most sense to me is that we are differentiated in this time- and space-bound life, but part of the "collective mind" of God in the eternal realm. I also favor the idea that this differentiation is illusory, and that love among humans, when it happens, allows us to glimpse the reality of being, which is infinite and eternal.

[MercutioATC]

13. When we die, we rot in a box.

(assuming cremation isn't an issue)


...just my belief...

[AnotherDreamWeaver]

14. Check "Home with God" In a Life That Never Ends

Written by Neal Donald Walsch. He is calling this his final 'Conversation with God', but I think he just means his final book in his 'Conversations with God" books series.

Are we our thoughts and perspectives? or are we just a physical form with thoughts and perspectives?

Many years ago a friend was driving as we went to see the movie Tommy in San Francisco. As we were moving along after a period of being quiet we both said the same thing at the same time. (wish I could recall what it was) It as an exclamation, an "Oh Wow" moment that we spoke aloud, but that had been in reference to our private thoughts. We turned to each other and started asking "were you just thinking of (I don't recall what this was now, but something)" and we were, and we just kept going back, "Before that was it _____" and it was. We had been driving along having the same thoughts, we were of "One Mind" and then spoke in unison about what ever we had been thinking of. Are we two people, or are we one thought form?

Some years before that, to move out of the dorms I got a job living in a Mortuary. I was to answer the phones at night. It wasn't a requirement that I go help pick up bodies, but they said they would pay me extra it I would. (They didn't pay me to answer the phone, just gave me a place to live). I only ended up spending one night. That night my dream was of being at an alter, praying "What Is Real". It was a question I had to have answered. There were candles off to my right burning and I was on my knees. God answered. He said "It's All Real", and I understood with such comprehension that I laughed and cried at the same time. I went out a side door and sat on some steps that were in an arch along the sidewalk. Friends I knew walked by and asked if I was OK as I sat there laughing and crying. All I could say was that I was fine, no problems, don't worry, and they would go along. After waking from that, which was very intense for me, I thought I was not ready for "Religion", thanked the owners of the Mortuary, and took another job milking cows on a dairy. I did that for a few quarters, until I dropped a class, didn't have enough units to keep my student deferment, was afraid I would get drafted into the Army, so I joined the Navy.

After the Navy I go back to college and have another dream of great impact. In this dream I find myself laying on the ground, I can hear sirens, I can feel my upper body on pavement and my lower body on gravel. I somehow "KNOW" that I will not make it until the ambulance comes. Then I find myself up in the air, looking down as the ambulance arrives. I watch the driver go to my body, I watch the passenger go to the rear of the ambulance and start to get the gurney out. Then the driver says, "we don't need that, we have to call the morgue". Then I watch my parents being told about what happened. Then I watched my own funeral, Then I woke up and was so grateful to be alive, and I have always been a much better driver after that.

I have enjoyed the books of Carlos Castaneda, and read "The Art of Dreaming" a few times. After thinking about the messages in his books, I practiced some of his suggestions and I had a very interesting experience in Oakland California one afternoon, as the Eagles played at a "Day on the Green". It was at the end of "Take it to the limit one more time". I rushed off to see what my friend experienced at the end of that song, and his reply was "did they play that song?" I felt some how let down, but later, driving around with the radio on, a DJ says, "I'll never forget, what happened one afternoon at a day on the green, when the Eagles Played..." and he starts "Take it to the limit, one more time". Just sent chills of excitement through me and I deary longed to find out what he had experienced.

Well, I have probably told enough stories, about our being creations of our own imaginations,

Peace, and Best Wishes,

[Chulanowa]

15. I have no idea

But there was no traight-up "I'unno!" ancswer, so I took "Other". I believe that if someone wants to speculate, why not? For all I know, after we die, what happens is exactly what that person expects to happen.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

20. Wouldn't that be efficient?

Maybe I need to work on my expectations a bit harder so I get a good seat.

[SPKrazy]

16. Operating On The Law Of Thermodynamics

stating that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, I believe that our spirit exists eternally, but I don't think that our ego is carried on into the next realm.

The truth is I don't really know, and neither does anyone else.

When we die, we either go on and realize something that is most likely different from this life completely, or we are dead and there is nothing.

In option number 2 it won't matter because we won't know it.

In option number 1 we may not know it either in the sense that we are aware through the filter of our ego and earthly existence.

Just my opinions

[Goblinmonger]

21. Doesn't that beg the question

that there is a spirit? Thermodynamics would only apply if there were.

[SPKrazy]

24. Whatever Spirit Is, Yes, I Think There Is n/t

[BurtWorm]

18. It is like a mystical communion of cosmic oneness intergirded with ...

...

Nah! It's just decomposition and recomposition.

[silverweb]

22. Speculation is fun.

If belief in an afterlife motivates one to be a better person now, I'm all for it.

Belief in "whatever gets you through the night" and gives a person comfort is just fine, as long as no one ever tries to force that belief on another person.

As for me, I just don't know what's out there. All the speculation and hope in the world cannot change what is or what will be, but it can be very entertaining in the meanwhile.

[Odin2005]

23. No, we're worm food.

[Zhade]

25. No one knows. Anyone who says they do is wrong.

NT!

[struggle4progress]

26. Other: What difference would it make to what we do now?

How would my knowledge of the answer affect my current life? I really can't see why it would.

[H2O Man]

27. Yes.

There is no death. Only a change of worlds. -- Chief Seattle