The Afterlife

C

Cellar_Door

Whose Worth's unknown
Registered Senior Member
I'd be interested to know your theories, if you have any, on life after death.

Plus, if you do 'believe' in the mostly monotheistic idea of heaven and hell (for example), do you have any reasons for this except for a blind faith?

I'm not seeking to pick apart anyone's belief systems, only ascertain the motives behind them. Also, I love hearing other theories on an 'afterlife', which contain a more scientific viewpoint.

-----------

Mes deux cents:

When we're talking about life after death, we're really questioning the idea of existence. Physically, the atoms that once made up our bodies will always exist* (and the energy we contained in our bodies will never be destroyed), but because we will not be consciously aware of this, we don't generally consider it to be a continuation of life.

However, and I know this will sound like a I-dodge-the-brutal-truth-by-making-things-sound-poetic spiel, but isn't our persona (our soul?) merely a collection of our memories, inherent characteristics and the thoughts we form with them?
Therefore, if this is recorded, our persona will still exist. In not only our diaries, letters, photographs and videos, but in the memories of others?

Or, do we have a spirit, which exists within us, but also dies when we do?

Essentially, I believe in no afterlife, and think that many ideas surrounding one spout from a fear of the unknown. However, I still feel like I am being very closed minded, and would love to be persuaded to believe, or at least brought to appreciate, other points of view.

---------

* I once read somewhere that about 98% of the atoms that make up our bodies are exchanged every 5-10 years. So, based on that, we are quite literally a completely different person to the one we were 15 years ago.
 
Mine: there is. Because each moment of mind has a previous state of mind the beginning of that continuum cannot be found and nor can an end. I believe the mind has varying levels of subtlety. As the body dies the mind dissolves into more subtle levels of consciousness and leaves the body. The mind then is reincarnated (yeah, it sounds like something from a Scientology novel, but bare with me), into another body and the subtleties of mind expand into more gross levels of mind, which form consciousness, discrimination and compositional factors.
 
Last edited:
Enmos said:
My theory: there is no such thing as an afterlife.
Click to expand...

I agree...think of being absolutely nothing....knowing nothing, feeling nothing, thinking nothing, thats what death is, I once was able to get into that state of mind, and it was terrifying.

So in conclusion, death sucks, but if you need to tell yourself that a afterlife exists, so you can sleep at night, go ahead....i think i might need that to
<---can't sleep :yawn:
 
I was actually asking for reasons behind people's views, rather than simple statements. Threads like this, which are intended to be a discussion, often turn into heated arguments between people who say that God Almighty should be unquestioned, and those who dislike all theists.

It's much more constructive to put forward different viewpoints, leaving open ends. I mean, you say you believe in no afterlife, but what do you think the experience of dying entails then? Do you believe in a black abyss, or simply the state of non-existence?
 
Bradley364 said:
I agree...think of being absolutely nothing....knowing nothing, feeling nothing, thinking nothing, thats what death is, I once was able to get into that state of mind, and it was terrifying.

So in conclusion, death sucks, but if you need to tell yourself that a afterlife exists, so you can sleep at night, go ahead....i think i might need that to
<---can't sleep :yawn:
Click to expand...

It's not even 'being absolutely nothing....knowing nothing, feeling nothing, thinking nothing' etc..
You (the self) just stop existing.

Death doesn't suck because it can't be experienced. There is no one to experience it :)
 
Enmos said:
It's not even 'being absolutely nothing....knowing nothing, feeling nothing, thinking nothing' etc..
You (the self) just stop existing.

Death doesn't suck because it can't be experienced. There is no one to experience it :)
Click to expand...

Eh, good point, but one could argue you still exist, just in different forms of energy, sans a consciousness.
 
Enmos said:
It's not even 'being absolutely nothing....knowing nothing, feeling nothing, thinking nothing' etc..
You (the self) just stop existing.

Death doesn't suck because it can't be experienced. There is no one to experience it :)
Click to expand...

I completely agree with that. The self we identify with will just dissolve. It's the dying part that most people are terrified of. It's romanticised as this peaceful parting and then you fly off to heaven. I don't know if any of you guys have seen what death does but it's not nice at all. You whole body packs in. You piss and shit yourself. you're scared and you can't control what's happening. You start wishing you'd done things differently, then when you're on your last breath you pray to that thing you swore all your life you didn't believe in. Or if you have another faith you go for refuge to that.
 
Cellar_Door said:
What does that even mean? Of course we were born, what do you call the exit from your mother's vagina then?
Click to expand...

The dictionary definition of that phenomenon is called birth. In reality it's a transformation of material form, something that's happening all the time.
 
I'd be interested to know your theories, if you have any, on life after death.
Click to expand...

Death is just that. The "remains" of who you were return back to their once again natural state of organic matter and energy.
 
I not sure that I actually believe this, but it kind of makes scientific sense, in a way... Reincarnation. I believe the laws of Physics says that energy can not be created or destroyed only changed or moved. So if you believe in the spirit or life energy then the the energy of the dead is transferred somewhere else that requires energy for exsistence. I don't like the idea of the judeo christian heaven so much because heaven sounds so... well... boring.
 
The afterlife is no more than your brains last moments.

My daughter says heaven is like a dream. You can only see a dream if you are asleep, and you can only see heaven if you are dead. You are moving around and seeing things in a dream, but its not really your body doing it. Same with heaven. Your soul will do it, not your body.
 
It's really just a case of words. I say "reincarnation", scientists say "transference of energy". I mean exactly what they mean, but they think I mean something non scientific. I really do think the scientific community can be very closed minded in that way. If our minds are just a storehouse of data operating on different levels of energy then it makes sense that energy can be etch-a-sketched out of existence. It has to be transfered somewhere. the data is lost of course but the energy cannot. I also don't think we have much of a choice about how that energy is shifted, it really depends upon the causes and conditions that dictate what happens to it. So, even if we don't like what data is being fed into our storage container there's not really anything that we can do about it. If it's our karma (application of cause and effect) to experience a Hell realm, a Hell realm we will experience. We're really just receiving data.
 
Last edited:
Cellar_Door said:
I'd be interested to know your theories, if you have any, on life after death.

Essentially, I believe in no afterlife, and think that many ideas surrounding one spout from a fear of the unknown. However, I still feel like I am being very closed minded, and would love to be persuaded to believe, or at least brought to appreciate, other points of view.
Click to expand...
I don’t think you are being closed minded I think you are being realistic. I think a lot of people kid themselves when it comes to death. No disrespect is intended, I can understand why. Death is something that is very hard to cope with, whether we are talking about loved ones or our own.

Many people imagine themselves floating around or in heaven watching over friends and family. I’m sorry for stating the obvious but you no longer have vision or access to the memories you acquired through life. A life with brain damage could be horrible, but eternity without a brain at all…… hmm.

I am not completely close minded. It is possible. If you do continue on though, you will do so without sight, hearing, memories, perception, intelligence, imagination, emotions ect ect.
 
Bradley364 said:
Eh, good point, but one could argue you still exist, just in different forms of energy, sans a consciousness.
Click to expand...

The matter you are built up of still exists, but the organization is lost or damaged. Eventually your molecules will disperse throughout nature. But the self will never be again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top