What's new

Life after Death

Trilient

Knight in Shining Foil
PF Member
Messages
187
Highlights
0
Reaction score
5
Points
324
Location
Texas
Peak Coin
0.000000
I don't want this to turn in to a religious argument, so I'm going to go ahead and start this thread by saying put your religious beliefs aside for a bit and open up your mind.

Now then, What do you think happens after you die? Do you believe there's a life after death, perhaps you're reborn as another person or animal, or even as an alien on a completely different planet. Maybe your soul is set free and you roam the Earth for the duration of your existence or until the end of time. Maybe you go to heaven or hell, or maybe nothing happens at all and you're just left in a constant state of dreaming.

Lets discuss this, maturely if possible.
 
The afterlife is generally perpetuated by religious or spiritual reckoning, so putting it aside isn't exactly going to stir a good discussion. It's like trying to discuss war, minus politics.

I believe in nothing. Or rather, I believe in the idea of nothing. No harps, no heavens, no hells. No life, no soul. Eternal, unending, deafening darkness.

I did like a supposition I read, where the author made a claim that in death, the "life flashing before our eyes" is actually a full replay of your life, as like dreaming, they feel longer than they are. Deja vu is nothing but your fevered, dying mind realising too late that this already happened, and something is therefore wrong about the scenario. For all you know, you're dead right now, experiencing your life anew.
 
The afterlife is generally perpetuated by religious or spiritual reckoning, so putting it aside isn't exactly going to stir a good discussion. It's like trying to discuss war, minus politics.

I believe in nothing. Or rather, I believe in the idea of nothing. No harps, no heavens, no hells. No life, no soul. Eternal, unending, deafening darkness.

I did like a supposition I read, where the author made a claim that in death, the "life flashing before our eyes" is actually a full replay of your life, as like dreaming, they feel longer than they are. Deja vu is nothing but your fevered, dying mind realising too late that this already happened, and something is therefore wrong about the scenario. For all you know, you're dead right now, experiencing your life anew.

You don't have to have a religion to be optimistic, which is the purpose of this thread. I don't have a religious belief, yet I like to think that something happens after death as opposed to absolute nothingness. Maybe I'll come back as a dinosaur.
 
I've been torn between reincarnation and pure nothingness. I mainly believe in the nothingness side. I believe that when we die, we just become permanently unconscious and return to the mental state we were in before we were born. I understand that a lot of people can't accept the fact that nothing happens after we die, so they turn to religion to help them believe in a fairytale, because they can't face the harsh reality. Believing in reincarnation is just a nicer idea of death and since becoming Atheist Buddhist, it is part of their belief that life is endless and you will be endlessly reincarnated. However, they make out that this is a good thing, when actually, they hope to reach Nirvana and end their endless reincarnation as they believe that every life causes too much suffering.

But I guess we'll only ever know until we die.
 
There have been many children who have spoken of a past life and can identify many things about their previous life and body such as, location of home, location of birthmarks & scars, names of family & friends etc. There's no way that a child would be able to make up a story so vivid, believe it's true and also have a lot of evidence proving it to be true, at such a young age. I personally believe that only a few people get reincarnated; either that or we all lose the memory of our previous life, except for some.
 
There have been many children who have spoken of a past life and can identify many things about their previous life and body such as, location of home, location of birthmarks & scars, names of family & friends etc. There's no way that a child would be able to make up a story so vivid, believe it's true and also have a lot of evidence proving it to be true, at such a young age. I personally believe that only a few people get reincarnated; either that or we all lose the memory of our previous life, except for some.

That reminds me of a film called Chances Are - one guy manages to get away with his memory and is instantly reincarnated after being hit by a car.

But I honestly believe that something unimaginable happens when you die - you become nothing.
 
Believing that nothingness happens once we die is something I cannot accept as a valid argument because we, humans, have still not found exactly what our soul/consciousness really represent. Some people argue that it is a form of energy but if it is, then can we mathematically prove it to be so? On a personal note humans, I believe, are so uninformative that we cannot scientifically justify a person's characteristics by objective facts. Heck we can't even distinguish what triggers love and hate so to jump on conclusions as to whether we may be reincarnated or experience nothingness is practically meaningless.

Religion on the other hand dispels all objectivity and for me it is fine to accept an analogy based on that since the prime motive of religion is to submit to a higher power that humans cannot reach and can only look up to i.e. worship. If we are told that somethings are for a higher being to decide and we cannot do it then mentally that gives a baseline to work with and hence we believe in what we all believe in. I am a practicing Muslim and take all pride in it, but I do understand where people who may be looking for answers develop interesting arguments about Life after death & reincarnation etc. If it helps following religion really keeps us sane on these fronts :) but I guess everybody is entitled to their opinions and we should respect them all.
 
In a nutshell I believe virtuous or fundamentally good believers in God go to Heaven, while fundamentally bad or evil people go to Hell regardless of their belief in God or any other deity.
For virtuous or fundamentally good pagans (read: basically anyone not apart of any Abrahamic religion), I believe they go to a purgatory of sorts. Which, despite what I think most people think, isn't an awful place. It's not a punishment really, it's a place basically like Earth, and you remain in purgatory until you redeem yourself in the eyes of the Lord. Which, I believe, is just a matter of wholly accepting Him as your Lord and Savior.
Although, if you think about it, purgatory would really be it's own special kind of Hell, wouldn't it. If it's like Earth, except you wont die of old age, then it sounds like **** could get monotonous. But I'm pretty sure Angels would be there to make sure you didn't go stir-crazy and start ****ing **** up.

Now, as for Heaven and Hell, those I believe are individually created, why? Because one persons Heaven may be another persons Hell. Although I'd like to think that while individuals have their own 'domains' of sorts, that they can go to a 'public area' of Heaven as well. As opposed to just being stuck in your own domain. I mean, that sorta sounds like Hell to me, being stuck in your own domain, no matter how perfect. But I really don't think we'd be denied access to seeing our loved ones in Heaven. Now in Hell, you probably would be... or maybe not, just to make the torture worse.

So if I were going to make examples, my domain in Heaven would change according to my whims, but the default would be a small, cozy, wooden cabin in the middle of a grassy plains, surrounded by the forest - with huge **** trees everywhere, and off in the distance there would be a lake, and there would be all sorts of harmless creatures around that I would take care of. Basically, a scene right from the humble beginnings of a Disney princess. Then, all of a sudden, a huge **** ****mothering dragon shows up and it's pissed off, but then I start rubbing its belly and it's like "****ing sweet I got a pet dragon".
In other words, it would be ****in' sweet. But would that be for everyone? No. But I'd also create artificial beings to spar with. I'd create conflict within my own domain for the sake of my own entertainment. And then I'd have a nice cup of soda with my defeated foes!
Yes... it's so perfect, I could cry.

Hell, on the other hand... I believe it pin points the things you fear the most then turns it up to 11 on you. Like me, I'm afraid of bugs and spiders... I can only fathom a fraction of what Hell itself could be capable of pulling off. Ugh... *shivers*

I also believe that for some either their ideal Heaven or their worst fear is nothingness, and therefore will cease to exist. In a manner of speaking at least. Maybe their consciousness lingers about in this nothingness, maybe not. Maybe these people get reincarnated and their consciousness is overwritten by the person or whatever they become, thus they cease to exist. Maybe not. On the other hand, 'nothingness' could be a Limbo of sorts.


I'm probably wrong though. I really have nothing to support any of this other than the line "one persons Heaven is another persons Hell", and vice-versa. So to me it makes logical sense to have an individuals Heaven or Hell shaped around their own individual selves.
But if I'm wrong then I might have to explore the whole 'ghost' thing. Because if I don't get to individually shape my own Heaven, then it's not really going to be Heaven for me. An ideal perfect place is different for everyone after all.

Now if there is just absolute nothingness then I guess I just wont ****ing care at that point since I'll cease to exist, wont I? But I prefer to be optimistic about the whole thing. While I think it's fun to speculate what the afterlife may be like, I only like 75% believe it and that's mostly because I hope it's true (or at least the Heaven and Hell parts... assuming I'm going to Heaven) as opposed to having any solid reason, or what I feel is a solid reason, to believe it. But I mean the idea ones Heaven and Hell is catered to who they are isn't a new idea or anything, I certainly didn't dream it up. I actually didn't consider it until this Atheist kid in my old Keyboarding class insisted upon debating with me since I was the only Christian person in class (and the only one he even knew), but he popped off something about a 'personal Heaven' being a plot to some movie and at first I was skeptical because I never figured something like that would be possible, but then I realized 'wait, it's God, He could make Heaven operate however He wanted' so I eventually told this guy that I thought it was possible, though it was my first time hearing about it.

So that's when I first got to thinking about it, eventually I looked into it more and found it wasn't an uncommon belief. There's even a TVTropes page for it... that's when you know it's well known.

But, yeah, that's it. Also, sorry, I can't disregard my religion since it is a fundamental part of my faith and helped to shape how I believe what the afterlife may be like.
FYI: If I offended anyone, trust me that wasn't my intention at all. I'm not saying "rawr! yer all gonna burn in hellz you paganz!" or something silly like that. I just believe in order to gain access to Heaven you must be fundamentally good, and must believe in God. If you're fundamentally good but do not believe in God then i don't believe you're punished for it, but you're not rewarded for it either. Also I think people who believe in God but who are fundamentally gray in the moral area end up in the same boat. Just to clarify that is.

I mean, I'm probably wrong, I'm just a mere mortal, I can't begin to guess about the afterlife for real since I cannot begin to fathom the mindset of God. In the end, I just have faith everything will work out in the end and for the better. And that's that~~
 
I think death will be similar to sleep, just permanent and no dreaming because our memories and thoughts will have deteriorated.

I want to be cremated when I die.
 
Back
Top