Afterlife: Life After Death? Yes Or No—You Tell Me

[Anonymous]

SLOW learners?:sceptic:

We DON'T learn. What have we ever learned?

You only have to have kids to see them making the same mistakes you did and they won't be told like you wouldn't.

You only have to look at history to see the same mistakes over and over...

Does anybody have any examples of human intelligence being applied to a human situation based upon the outcome of a previous scenario who then made choices which didn't make the same mistakes and actually went on to improve things for humanity? I'm not being facetious I genuinely want to know. Sometimes I can't think of ANY. Like now.

from Ms Cynic.

They said the Holocaust would never happen again - we would never forget...
Rwanda
Somalia
Iraq
Burma
China
Cambodia
Etc...
Need I say more?

Sometimes I don't think we like to face what pitiful embodiments of a spiritual soul we actually are.

I'm tired and feeling rather fed up so I should go to bed and chill...

 

[Anonymous]

You're a sweetie. I appreciate it.

I've started a painting called 'Rena' in tribute (there but for the grace of God went I, etc) and am working all my stuff out on canvass which is going into an Australian exhibition in 2004. I'll post a piccie when its done. I also write short stories so I'm getting there. Nothing like self-help, eh?

So what do you think about the afterlife? Are there any Christians out there (I'm nondenominational but would choose Catholicism if I was forced to pick) who can explain why the 'prodigal son' idea because that just sticks in my throat. I'm hoping that we'll all be so happy and loved-up that we won't care that we're hugging Hitlers spirit or Bundy's eyeing our spiritual brunette colouring and wondering what our spiritual heads will look like on spiritual sticks before blushing and remembering where he is but I feel I will mind very much indeed...

Why should ANYONE really behave themselves (apart from the havoc it causes- but some really don't seem to care) if the bastards are going to get the fatted calf slaughtered for them? What purpose, then, does living our lives serve, if it's only the final seconds of 'God...what can I tell ya...sos, mate' before kicking the bucket, that ACTUALLY counts, and not the eighty or so years trampling over everyone else that preceded the utterance?

My sister thinks that if you live in God's way then you are happier in life, before death, and that is its reward, but unfortunately that doesn't seem to work in my life and my bookseller who is Christian also happened to tell me that he and his wife think that life 'is a rather painful experience' so some Christians aren't feeling the benefit either!

Come on you theologians...SPEAK to us...pretty please


PS - Actually someone described the question of EVER INCREASING SOULS to me beautifully and I'll never forget it as long as I'll live and I'll share it with you now. He told me that when you have a child you are full of love for it and you could burst just looking at it. Then you have two children and you look at that child and burst with love. But you don't feel less for the first because of the second. And you don't feel less for the first and second when you have a third...and a fourth. Souls are life Love. The love for the first child is different to the love of the second, the second is different from the third, and the third from the fourth. Souls can be different too and go to different people but it isn't a matter of numbers and the bigger the number doesn't make the source any the less.

DA NAH!!!!

It's kept me smiling serenely whenever the question comes up and I hope it means something to someone out there. It's a very good point to consider. And it came from a Catholic priest I grilled when I was seven! Boy, he gave some good answers and he liked it that I was trying to trip him up!

 

[Anonymous]

There are more people alive now than in the whole of our history put together, apparently...

have just spent my lunch hour enjoying this intriguing thread.

Afraid my only contribution for the mo is to be a nit-picking, pedantic one however, as funnily enough I was discussing the above suggestion with someone last night.

Apparently, the idea that the rapid growth of world population could result in there being more people alive than had ever died was bandied about in the postwar period.

I remember taking it at face value and being mighty peeved when it meant I got a Trivial Pursuit question wrong, but sure enough, it seems to be untrue.

Apparently more than 100 billion anatomically modern examples of homo sapiens have ever graced the planet, a figure which obviously dwarfs the current total of 6 billion.

I couldn't find much on the web in a quick search, other than this article, which refutes the idea in passing.

http://desip.igc.org/malthus/Catton.html

 

[Anonymous]

.........ah, found it! Knew Snopes would have addressed this.....

http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/dead.htm

 

[Anonymous]

That is really interesting. I'd never thought about it like that before!

Emperor Zombie - That's quite a scary thought, that our souls are neither good nor bad. Perhaps we come from Keel's ultraterrestrial dimensions ourselves, then. Don't much like the idea of that, somehow.

Perhaps we should just smoke drugs and go and live in a caravan in Cornwall until we die...and least we'd be having some fun dancing around Tors and Tintagel etc. and hugging everyone all the time. God, to be a teenager all your life...sigh.

 

[Anonymous]

I remember taking it at face value and being mighty peeved when it meant I got a Trivial Pursuit question wrong, but sure enough, it seems to be untrue.

Well, I'mmore than a little relieved to hear it. The implications for the gene pool were rather unsavoury.

I reckon that souls are probably a sort of low-level evil, rather than good. I can't reconcile inherently good souls with human nature. It just won't fit.

 

[conchell]

Well, I'mmore than a little relieved to hear it. The implications for the gene pool were rather unsavoury.

I reckon that souls are probably a sort of low-level evil, rather than good. I can't reconcile inherently good souls with human nature. It just won't fit.

What if...the soul, in its natural state, is unincumbered by physical limits and when residing in a life form, it faces the difficult task of adjusting to the encumberance a body imposes on it. No longer a spirit of light, if it wishes to move it must deal with the time and effort it takes to have the brain signal the foot to step forward etc. And instead of intuitively knowing everything you wish to know when you need to know it- it now must rely on the limited and LOUD input of only 5 physical senses to base understanding on.

Don't you think that would make you a bit put off for the first 85 years or so???

 

[Anonymous]

Well, it would explain a lot. Like why everything seems to be so damned uncomfortable. I don't think my body fits. It's too short ad I keep thinking the top of the head is going to pop off...:err:

 

[Anonymous]

Don't forget that the devil is in the details....and too many details provide you with all too many reasons to doubt.

where do new souls come from? Haven't you ever thought that maybe you find out all about that when you die?

Life is about living in ignorance and ignorance can be bliss.

perhaps we don't remember where it was that souls came from, where we were born, because that isn't what life is about. ever wonder about that? Every wonder that Ok, you don't know about that and what really fries your noodle is you ain't ever gonna know till your dead so why wonder about it. why not explore the universe you know.

it's like the people who say, space is there to be explored sure...but what about our oceans down here on earth...we haven't explored those yet.

The threads called the Afterlife .So I thought it was ok to put my tupence in.I cant remember where I was born coz I was young at the time boom boom!Life is for living its a gift which I am thankfull for.If there is no afterlife well f*ck it! nowt to be done.It would be nice to survive death though eh?
screw death, you'll cross that bridge when you come for it. you think if you know more about it you'll be able to prepare for it? What the heckins is the point in making plans? To have some reassurance? To know where loved ones go? Life is about living, not about dying. death is about dying. live life and dive in

 

[Anonymous]

I didn't actually write that, so that begs the question, is that your contribution?

Never said you did.Who said anything about making plans or seeking reasurance?Life is for living if you live your life worrying about dying you live your life dead.Nothing wrong with wondering what happens though.Every human on the planet must have thought about it now and then.You said something about we wont know till were dead. No matter how many theories or opinions are expounded that is truth of the matter we wont know untill we die.Mind you we all get to find out.

 

[conchell]

No matter how many theories or opinions are expounded that is truth of the matter we wont know untill we die.Mind you we all get to find out.

Well there's some consolation in that then isn't there?

When I would ask my Dad "Is there really Life after Death?", He would answer by comparing it to our experience of birth.

He'd say that when we were being born, it was very scary. We had only known the comfortable warmth, soft sounds and soothing darkness of inside our mother's womb and being thrust out into a world of cold, light and noise made us terribly sad and scared because we had lost all that we had ever known. Now as we came to live and learned the joys of sight and sound and taste and touch grew to fear death because it is an unknown. But wouldn't it stand to reason that the next experience be just as amazing and profound as we discovered life to be?

So even though it is natural to fight and kick and go bawling into death, as we went bawling into birth, is it not possible that once we are there we find it to be a rather agreeble existance and just as much a surprize as life turned out to be?

Any thoughts?

 

[Anonymous]

is the fear of death a normal thing? i've never been scared of it personally. i find the idea of oblivion comforting as it makes me want to enjoy life while i can. i could do with the chance to catch up with my sleep

 

[Anonymous]

Whatever it is it can't be worse than this (if I get reincarnated, it had better be better organised than this time, or some deified heads are going to roll).

 

[Anonymous]

Right- a bit of reducio ad absurdem here-

if a person recieves a soul when they are born, and it has no memories of any existence before birth-
and if that soul is not burdened with all the memories of the lifetime it spends as a human after the death of the body-
then it is truly innocent-
innocent of any useful information.
from a data transfer point of view it may as well not exist.

so either the soul remembers some or all of the memories accumulated during it's sojourn on Earth-
or it doesn't...
if it carries no data, it may as well not exist, as it neither adds or takes away anything from the equation.

 

[Beakmoo]

That's like saying a blank tape may as well not exist though.

 

[carole]

Right- a bit of reducio ad absurdem here-

if a person recieves a soul when they are born, and it has no memories of any existence before birth-
and if that soul is not burdened with all the memories of the lifetime it spends as a human after the death of the body-
then it is truly innocent-
innocent of any useful information.
from a data transfer point of view it may as well not exist.

so either the soul remembers some or all of the memories accumulated during it's sojourn on Earth-
or it doesn't...
if it carries no data, it may as well not exist, as it neither adds or takes away anything from the equation.

But there are sone apparently well-authenticated cases of people remembering a previous life (usually when they're very young and apparently not 'corrupted' by experiences in their present life).

And all tapes look blank until you try to open the information on them . . .

Carole

 

[conchell]

Whatever it is it can't be worse than this (if I get reincarnated, it had better be better organised than this time, or some deified heads are going to roll).

Well, if there is anything true about Karma, judging by the way things have been going lately I must have formerly been in the business of: ravage, pilage and burn. I'm paying for it now!!!

Still and all it could be worse, at least I got to keep me sense of Humor

 

[Anonymous]

Have I mentioned Delores Cameron on this thread?

She wrote Keepers of the Garden and started with reincarnation but ended up with an abductee who ended up channelling all this wierd stuff.

Basically the theory is that there are earth souls and these souls are given physical bodies and they develop with a particular learning-goal in mind when they are sent here. Then there are alien souls.

All of these souls intermingle and the goal is to learn all perspectives on life - learning is the prime satisfaction (and that is true for me also so I don't see why not, per se) Many existences have different things to learn. Some souls from a non-dimensional planet/universe would be interested in a physical existence to see what is it like. Some symbiotic cultures may need to learn the experience of isolation. Some advanced souls may be curious to experience being subject to higher cultures, insitutions, alien-races, etc.

Earth souls live their lives and are then offered further learning choices. Examples of reincarnation on our planet are the result of alien souls being 'primed' with a memory-card of human-lives for their experiences on this planet as they grow up and try to learn as much as they can in a relatively short life-span. The idea is that our planet is an isolated world away from other inhabited planet so we are isolated in this. We are also isolated individually as we largely have no ESP though alien souls have the vestiges of theirs which is lost or weakened through childhood. The lives of the previous earth-souls are imprinted upon the alien soul so that it is not too great a shock. The fact that we cannot communicate our thoughts is seen as an extremely demanding lesson in isolationism. Suicide and depression as well as a tendency to look for Gods (although there is in fact an Ultimate Presence) is seen as symptoms of our isolation disease.

We are a galaxy-wide and universal curiosity because we are the extreme in this isolationist sense - we are a zoo to some of our curious alien neighbours but we are protected by scientists who are studying the effects on our psyches of this isolation coupled with a sense that we are not in control of our own destiny - though gods, God, Buddha, Aliens, etc. This isolationist insecurity is reflected by our tendency to fall into capitalist heirarchical social structures. When some people have NDE's they are being returned to fulfill their learning goals and this feeling of love felt at death is a by-product of reentering a system where thoughts are enough to adequately communicate concern for welfare and benevolence rather than love. The fact that we experience this tumult of 'love' signifies the loneliness of the human condition and the shock of reentering the 'norm'. Our handicap is a trial that must be experienced if we are to take our lessons on to another world where there is no, or a greatly reduced, experience of this on a wider level.

The guy who channelled all of this stuff used to be an alien being on another planet who had many many different existences. The one he had before his life here was one of an ambassadorial nature in which he made an error and gave a primitive planet beneficial technology it was not yet ready to recieve. Therefore he chose to come here as a 'lesson' in order that he fully understand the implications of his actions. He now realised that fragile minds similar to our own can 'pop' under the strain of too much too soon. That is why dribs and drabs are used over centuries. He had learned that our isolation can make us arrogant and therefore ill-equiped to learn that it must learn to walk before it can run, etc. He recounts his visits with the alien 'greys' as one of love/hate. He loves them because he can express himself without words and he knows them and he used to be one of them but he hates them because he is human and is repulsed by them and what they are doing. He expressed fear and repulsion with their sense that we are inferior beings to be experimented on - for the greater good but not OUR good - and he feels ambivalent about the whole thing. At one stage somone he felt 'knew' him before he was born down here showed him how they could stun a group of people like cattle in field. He said he felt the alien was amused by the human's helplessness. Yet he is convinced that there is no malice, not intention to deliberately harm. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

I don't know what to make of it myself but it's a fantastic read about how our planet was seeded and about the fatal contamination that has upset the universe and that we are a curiosity and how they communicate, etc. It reads like Star Trek next generation. It's also comforting to abductees if true. So what does anyone else reckon to the theory?

 

[dot23]

Not a new theory - or at least a modified version of some very old theories. Madam Blavatsky and the theosophists were very much into reincarnation and channelling, including extra worldly emminations.

As to whether the Earth is some sort of moral isolation unit, it's certainly a very intriguing idea. What always puts me off is that none of these reincarnees were previously peasants, mass murderers or nobodies - they always have suspiciously interesting past lives. NO one, as far as I'm aware, was an ordinary egyptian slave (with no connections to the royal house), and the fact that this guy was 'an ambassador' (although why aliens with universal ESP would need people to specifically make good relations between countries or planets is anyone's guess) is highly suspect. If he'd said he lead an existence on a massively over populated orbital ring and killed himself out of deperation, i might give him some credence I mean, I pretended I came from another planet, had an exciting job and was married to a sexy alien women before coming here - but then I was 10 and had an over active imagination

Question: If the population is rising so quickly, where do new souls come from? Or conversely, if so many have already died, what happens when there is no new 'vessel' for that soul. Are souls indivisble or unique?

This isolationist insecurity is reflected by our tendency to fall into capitalist heirarchical social structures.

and to fabricate elaborate afterlives where thezse strictures don't exist

 

[Anonymous]

Right- a bit of reducio ad absurdem here-

if a person recieves a soul when they are born, and it has no memories of any existence before birth-
and if that soul is not burdened with all the memories of the lifetime it spends as a human after the death of the body-
then it is truly innocent-
innocent of any useful information.
from a data transfer point of view it may as well not exist.

so either the soul remembers some or all of the memories accumulated during it's sojourn on Earth-
or it doesn't...
if it carries no data, it may as well not exist, as it neither adds or takes away anything from the equation.

maybe souls are not burdened with all the data but are tainted with selected memories to protect us from having soul blues. Sounds like what happens when i have too many beers on a night out. I just wish that memory of dancing on the tables was filtered out- i went too far.

 

[Anonymous]

Well there's some consolation in that then isn't there?

When I would ask my Dad "Is there really Life after Death?", He would answer by comparing it to our experience of birth.

He'd say that when we were being born, it was very scary. We had only known the comfortable warmth, soft sounds and soothing darkness of inside our mother's womb and being thrust out into a world of cold, light and noise made us terribly sad and scared because we had lost all that we had ever known. Now as we came to live and learned the joys of sight and sound and taste and touch grew to fear death because it is an unknown. But wouldn't it stand to reason that the next experience be just as amazing and profound as we discovered life to be?

So even though it is natural to fight and kick and go bawling into death, as we went bawling into birth, is it not possible that once we are there we find it to be a rather agreeble existance and just as much a surprize as life turned out to be?

Any thoughts?

A comforting idea.
Seemingly, i slipped out rather easy, hopefully death will be a similar experience.
Im thinking death must be quite scary for happy athiests. I mean , if you are Hugh Hefner and you are pretty sure that death is the final end then its got to be an upseting experience. Cant take them bunnie girls with ya. If big shug believed in a god, then heaven for him will be a 2.2 billion pound mansion and more bunnie girls than you could shake a stick at. Shug would obviously be less upset at departing.
If theres an afterlife , id like to place my request to be included in big shugs paradise. I always had a thing for old letharios.

ps na , really, i want some bunnies

 

[dot23]

ps na , really, i want some bunnies

shouldn't that be dark-eyed houris

 

[Anonymous]

Afterlife

<<<<<<<<<<<<<.... Afterlife.......”What do Christians actually think this will be like? I cant work it out. Do we all sit about in robes all day in white rooms? Does the bible say anything about this? It is often said that you will be reunited with friends and family. All very good but while I love all my family I cant think of anything worse than spending eternity with my great aunt....
So what do people who go to church everyday, prey everyday and really do belive expect when they pass over?”.....>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Hope you don’t mind an Non-Christian or a Non-Fundamentalist of any denomination’s response.

Christians , like every other Faith in the unseen, unknown fate of dissolution..Death, imagines a Place superior in Justice ,in all that term might imply and a Standard or Ways of Living within a Superior Justice System that has at it’s Pinnacle or seat of power, a Ruling King of a Genuine Righteousness.
A Righteousness of Self that has caused all things there Universal Manifestation. A genuine Good -Willed Creator.
A creator who did these unselfish acts of creation out of a feeling of Love and kindness , though Not understood in this creators true Intent, for the Betterment and well-being of those many New and Incoming Children of a Universal System of Heavenly Worlds.
This View is Generally speaking , the Image of the Afterlife that is meant for the Believing Souls in-house in Finite , Temporal Form of biologies fates.

Thus a Purposeful Destiny awaits the Faithful in those ideas of Righteous Morality and Justice.
The Anti-Thesis of this Purposefully Righteousness Mentality, by a god of the same, is then originated in a mind defaulted and Sinful.
A Child of the Family that defaulted away’s from, Willfully, from a Perfected State of Self-Being.
A Child of the First Sinner ...Satan.

If I might now, add a ‘Worded, text Image -Picture of the Afterlife?
Regardless of Knowledge of this Image.

The After-life is Not an existence on another world.
The After-life is ..Image..an Eternal Image, of self being. It’s An ‘Image of Self’ , though Not necessarily, the same on as was used in the constructing of biology in the human species type, but nevertheless , image is fundamental too the existence of All Things.
Image is an Timeless , Inherent Event.
Image is Not a Gift , from another Image , or being , God or otherwise.
Self is Inherent.
Therefore Self does return back into the Fundamental State of eternity of Things.
The After-Life is an Event that puts You and all Conscious reasoning Beings , whether Man or beast , no matter size of Image of that Self conscious explorer , Back into a State of Observer.
Back into a State of Eternal Image with Consciousness.

It would require volumes of words to describe the Next Life.
However , for the sack of simplicity.
We Continue to exist, but Only as Images.
Those Image we Return Back into are Inherent Acts of a Universe that Came into it’s Present System of Worlds strictly for the Sole purpose of Allowing those Eternally Conscious to Inter into a System wheres Dreams could become a Realized State of Realities.
Where Self Expression could be acted out in a Unique Manner for every conscious entity of Eternity.
Acted out in a Finite Temporal Drama.
All without ....Said ‘Knowledge’
Allowing, A Genuine....feeling of Freedom of self from the ‘Inherent . Not Created nor Given , by another Image, ....Eternal Existence of Self.
Here on Earth, in This moment of Self being, you can actually Sleep, become non-conscious, temporally, and actually Think of your supposed 'Death' of self as a Reality. It's Not!
This is the Freedom that is created by those who never die.

Regards,

 

[OneWingedBird]

The gnostics believed that YHWH was a demiurge who created the world in order to trap the essence of spirit in bodies of flesh.

As to everyone finding out wether or not there's an afterlife, well the only problem with that is that if there isn't one, you'll never get to know about it...

Marie

 

[Anonymous]

After-Life

The Gnostics were wrong!

Earth was Not created that Spirit might be 'Traped' , as an ascence of self, within biology.
This view is Ignorant of the Inherent Existence of All Spirit entities. Ignorant , and I say this with a kind of respect, not insulting of them; The Life Forces, Spirits if you will, they are the creative Engine behind all that is of this manifestated World.
It was Not created by a One , but rather by the Collective.

As for Discovering whether or Not theres Life after biology, There Is, and it's Not such a great existence. That reason of Natural State of Self without biologies housings, is the Reason for the Earth , Not pain or Slavery of Self.
The Gnostics feel head over heal, for the Ideas of Evil vs Righteousness. This has lead to every thesis ever devised, in mind and text.
It's All of these and more.

Regards,

 

[NilesCalder]

Morgantina, I think you missed an "IMHO" at the beginning of you last post. That is unless you have concrete evidence to back up your claims, naturally. Otherwise this is not a topic with a correct or incorrect answer. There is no black or white, but shades of grey. One person's experience of the Afterlife/Religion/Spirits is as valid as any others, even if they are contradictory. Furthermore, unless you yourself are posting from beyond the grave, it is safe to assume that this is a subject of which we are all ignorant.

We are Forteans, we cannot disregard a information just because they do not conform to our worldview, otherwise we leave ourselves open to all becoming Horatios.

Finally I'd like to note that I am aware of the entities of which you speak. Perhaps it should be made clear that they are capricious, contradictory and not beyond error or falsehood. Many may consider themselves imprisoned while others do not. Some may have ties with humanity and thus be able to communictae with some clarity while others are too inhuman to communicate at all. Of those that do communicate some may speak truthfully, some may tell us what we want to hear, what they think we want to hear or what they want us to hear.

"All Things Are Possible; Nothing Is Forbidden"
-- al-Hassan ibn-al-Sabbah

 

[OneWingedBird]

I'm unfamiliar with the theory of 'the life forces' - where / who does it derive from?

Actually I'm a complete atheist to the point where I sometimes wonder if I still exist, but I thought the gnostic angle was an interesting item to throw into the pot, so to speak.

Marie

 

[waywerd]

...there's no reason your lives should follow a temporal sequence.

You could even be incarnate simultaneously in two or more bodies.

We could even all be one consciousness, the only consciousness, zipping back and forth in time as it (we?) sees fit...

In fact, I think this may fit in with some branch of Buddhism or other.

 

[ignatiusII]

Carole - the Scientologists ( I dated one for a while a long time ago an got a bit indoctrinated and yes, the real question is who didn't I date) believe that we did come here from other galaxies and oddly enough, right about the time when I learned that was when the first Star Wars movie came out. Anyone recall the beginning of the first one? "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."

That creeped me out a bit when I saw that, I'll tell you.

For a while, back in the 80's, I believe the 'church' was using that very concept as a recruiting tool ( of sorts ) for teenagers: 'You'd like us - we're like Star Wars, but better, 'cause we're for REAL'. If 'Battlefield Earth' was any indication of their supposed superiority in the space opera sweepstakes...well, please excuse me, as I'm off to purchase my tickets for multiple screenings of Star Wars: Episode III...

 

[Mythopoeika]

Re: Afterlife

I'm just curious as to everyone's opinions about the afterlife.

There isn't one. This is all you get, etc.
That's just my opinion.