Is There An Afterlife?

[Dhampir]

How do you answer the idea that the soul is the true self, projecting one's actual personality onto the body and into the brain/mind, whereby mental illness or brain injury simply disrupt or muddle that transmission?

[R. S. Martin]

I see I forgot to respond to the question: Do you fear death?

 

So much of my life has been so nasty that I wished I could just die. So I guess I don't fear it. I'm fifty so I realize I've probably spent over half my time here, but with the present life expectancy I might get another thirty years or more. My one grandmother died at forty. My one grandfather died well over ninety. So I can't go by my forebears to guestimate how long I will live. My mother died at 74 and Dad is 73 with no signs of dying any time soon. It was his father who lived so long. I plan to take it as it comes. That has helped me get through life so far. These days the hospitals have a policy to keep patients as comfortable as possible in their final hours. Mom did not seem to be in any particular agony though she was in and out of consciousness. Her vital organs were shutting down. That's the closest I have ever been to a death and I have no reason to fear it, now that there is no Great Judgment Day afterward.

[mahjong]

Well, I want to get my 2 cents worth in. I don't know what to believe about an afterlife, and most of the time that is ok. It's ok not to know for sure.

 

I am in a quandry about death and afterlife. Both my brothers are dead. My 29 year old niece was recently murdered. It has not been fun to know that I will never see these people again, so I wish there would be some kind and gentle afterlife where it's kind of like an eternal get to-gether. Like the 4th of July. I'd like to meet Albert Einstein and Gallileo and Michaelangelo.

 

I used to attend psychic circles in Hudson, NY. There was a fabulous psychic there who told me so many things that have come to pass that I cannot deny that he has a gift. Well, he told me once that my spirit guide is a relative named Lucy, or Lucia (Italian for Lucy.) I did not have any relatives named Lucy, but he was adamant that she has been with me protecting me my whole life. So I called my mom, who lived in Portland, OR at the time, and she said my grandfather's mother, who died fairly young, was named Lucia, but that everyone called her Lucy. I was shaken by this and still am. It doesn't comfort me most of the time, as I wish it would, but I kind of like to think about it.

 

I'm not afraid of death. I want to live as long as I have people I love and love me, too. I don't want to die before my parents, for sure. They have endured the deaths of both their sons and a granddaughter. Unimaginable!

 

I don't want to die in a car accident. I don't want to die violently. I want to witness my own death, if you know what I mean. I don't want to be asleep and die. I want to be awake and conscious and contented. Is that too much to ask!

 

[pandora]

Now that's an interesting desire... to be awake while you die, but content and not in pain. The thought intrigues me. I think I'd rather die in my sleep, but with the knowledge beforehand that I was going to die soon... but I must say I'll spend some time contemplating this idea.

 

Are you a Buddhist by any chance? Or influenced by Buddhism? This sounds similar to something I remember from my Buddhism class... a death meditation of sorts.

 

Edit: My favorite band's lead singer admires Krishnamurti, Ed Kowalczyk. I might have to look him up.

[Jun]

Are you a Buddhist by any chance? Or influenced by Buddhism? This sounds similar to something I remember from my Buddhism class... a death meditation of sorts.

 

Huh?

[pandora]

Tibetan, I believe... The Book of the Dead, of course. Now I remember. It just sounds to the me that mahjong might have gotten inspiration from such texts.

[Jun]

Tibetan, I believe... The Book of the Dead, of course. Now I remember. It just sounds to the me that mahjong might have gotten inspiration from such texts.

 

 

The Tibetan book of the dead has more to do with the native Tibetan religion of Bon than Buddhism.

[pandora]

Of course, but for general purposes, I put it under the large umbrella of Buddhism. Regardless of which religion you may categorize it with, the ideas sound vaguely familiar and I still wonder if he was inspired by that or some other tradition that sprung from the Book of the Dead.

[R. S. Martin]

Here's an article I came across just now via IIDB: Eternity for Atheists. It seems to fit this thead so well so I'm posting the link.

[pandora]

Ah, that is a good article! I read it the other day.

[Everglaze]

I don't believe in an afterlife. What I believe transpires after death is non-existence, the kind of state that we're in prior to birth. I also don't fear death. I find that it's natural and nothing to be afraid of. Also, my depression supports my lack of fear.

[Dhampir]

Here's an article I came across just now via IIDB: Eternity for Atheists. It seems to fit this thead so well so I'm posting the link.

The idea this article poses is pretty much the question I asked in my last post here I'm wondering how people respond to that.

[WilliamFWN]

How do you answer the idea that the soul is the true self, projecting one's actual personality onto the body and into the brain/mind, whereby mental illness or brain injury simply disrupt or muddle that transmission?

I've heard something similar said by a philosophy teacher I had when he was talking about Leibnizian dualism. My own opinion is to assume the least metaphysical concepts (i.e. none), unless such a concept is necessitated (the whole principle simply a rehash of Occam's Razor, of course).

 

An intriguing concept, nonetheless, but I find its easier to assume a soul does not exist. It's much easier to assume that than to assume that a soul exists, there is a "true self" (whatever the meaning of that may be), that such a thing has an attachment to the body, etc.

 

If one were to assume a "soul" did exists (whatever that "soul" may be), I find it might take care of some discrepancies if one believes in dualism such as why when the brain is damaged, the person acts differently as well, but it raises other questions relating to the mind and body and how these two things are connected. Also, the concept could easily be reversed (that the body has the "true self", and the mind is afflicted by the "illness" which manifests in the body, causing it to distort the "true self" and the appearance of the body), but we would still be shooting in the dark about the "afterlife" (whatever that may or may not be) and the metaphysical realm. Most of the words in quotations are rather vague in the semantic sense it is used (my use of "illness" is rather confusing as well: "how can something afflict a metaphysical body?"; it again raises questions): I quote to highlight that fact, rather than to show disbelief (which I do, but is not the intention of the quotations, as stated). This is all for argument's sake, though, but it is rather fascinating (I guess I can assume that's why the question was asked in the first place).

 

I've heard ghosts and spirits mentioned. I had such an experience a long time ago, but I have continued to dismiss such a thing as a phantasmagoric apparition of the (over)-imagination rather than anything truly indicative of the supernatural or something of that ilk.

 

I am almost sure there is no such thing as a soul, but I cannot claim that with absolute certainty. Then again, no one can claim what a soul actually is other than some sort of metaphysical essence/entity that animates the human in some unknown way (vaguely). This is far too unclear for any realistic analysis, in my own opinion.

 

Hopefully, I've given you an accurate description of my own thoughts on the subject (as if anyone could do better in describing my own views ). In this case (and perhaps every case), I am far too fond of parentheses.... Also (hopefully), I have answered the question, if in my own way.

[OnceConvinced]

Even as a Christianity, I began to doubt there was a Heaven. It just seemed too good to be true. Now I think that any ideas of an afterlife are nothing but attempts by man to make death less foreboding. People want to believe in it, even if it's reincarnation, even if it's coming back as a ghost. They don't want to die.

 

Yes, I fear death now. Not so much the pain of it or knowing I won't be around on this world anymore, but because I'm almost 40 years old and nearly half way through my life. I look back on all the time I've wasted and I think about how fast time flies and it seems to go faster every year. 40-50 years does not seem like a very long time to me now and a majority of those years I'm going to spend old and no longer in my prime.

[R. S. Martin]

How do you answer the idea that the soul is the true self, projecting one's actual personality onto the body and into the brain/mind, whereby mental illness or brain injury simply disrupt or muddle that transmission?

 

I must have missed this post. I also want to comment on your later post about fear of death being canceled by depression. I know what you mean--when all your life you would rather be dead than alive why would one fear death?

 

Now to this one. I have never thought the soul to be the "true self" that is consciously known. Scriptural passages as I understand/understood them just don't support that idea. It's a form of conscious existence that continues after death, but not necessarily any form of feeling like we felt in the body. However, memory is intact with life on this earth. The depression, the sadness, the sensuality--all these will be absent because they have the potential to cause imperfect happiness. Serenity, a calm joy undisturbed by any unhappiness, the bliss of being alive and happy--that is what I would imagine heaven to be for the soul.

 

However, the chances of actually acheiving that are so remote, and the chances of ending up in eternal torment are so huge, that giving up the idea of an afterlife was like shedding a heavy burden. In this life, being true to myself is what brings me most happiness and what makes me the best person I can be. Not having to measure up to anybody's idea of "what God wants" is such a relief. No life after death allows me to live in that relief. And I am sure this makes me the kind of person that God would let into heaven if he exists and lets anyone in.

 

I read a Jonathan Edwards sermon the other day because someone linked it in my thread about "Why would anyone say this" in rants and replies. The God he depicted is so finicky and the rules for measuring up are so absolutely impossible and contradictory that he keeps anyone and everyone in suspence if not on the verge of terror and psychosis. That god cannot be real and would definitely not admit me to heaven. Taht god is worse than a hallucinating totalitarian tyrant because the human totalitarian cannot know every single human being to invade/possess his/her mind.

 

The God I envision, if I want to envision a God, is one who is at least as understanding, empathetic, benevolent, and fair as the most ideal human being I have ever known. And such a god would not--nay, could not--send anybody to hell. Such a god would admit everyone to heaven because such a god understands that all of us did the best we could at the moment with what we've got. And obviously what we've got is what he gave us. Such people exist and not just a few. God could not have created a human characteristic with which he is unfamiliar. So if he created humans with these noble characteristics, then he must be very familiar with them. Being familiar with these characteristics, he could not in good conscience fail to use them. That is my logic and I think it is sound, based on factual reality. If there is a god.

[SWIM]

Brother_Jeff, I believe you read my first post with the ghost stories. Though being a serious doubter of all things unproven, I still have a *feeling* there is more to it then we can fathom. My experiences could have been lucid dreaming, telepathy (possibly) or some other thing that might *seem* supernatural, but may and probably does have a basis in physics.

 

Here is something interesting. You mentioned time travel. Science appears to believe that this is actually a REAL possibility. Not that we can do it, we cannot, but the science is there. Read this article:

 

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/mysteries/html/kaku1-1.html

 

I would be interested in reading your take on this. (sorry to change the subject, but the two are kind of related, if time travel is possible, I have a little time-loop theory about what happens when we die, its also in my thread)

 

Laters

[SWIM]

Someone reviving old posts? LOL good topic anyway! I think just voting though bumps the thread.

 

Anyway, instead of repeating the same thing, here is a recent post you may find interesting, it is only a THEORY though, but it has merit:

 

http://www.ex-christian.net/index.php?s=&a...st&p=345434

[Jedah]

Im in the "maybe crowd" for an afterlife. There is small evidence both ways.

 

On one hand, an afterlife would explain NDE, Ghost sightings and all that crap. Sure it could all be crap, people tend to see things. But there is no real proof that its ALL BS.

Plus their is no sufficient proof that NDE's are indeed hallucinations, its just scientifically assumed that they are for the sake of explaining it. Some have tried to explain NDE's away by pointing out that the effect can be mimicked by drugs ( Ketamine, mainly ) but that's a pretty bad way to prove anything seeming how just about everything can be mimicked by drugs. If you were to go on an acid trip and hallucinate a car driving by, does that mean cars don't exist ? Of course not. Same is true for an afterlife - the fact that a similar experience can be mimicked by giving a person enough dope doesn't prove anything about an afterlife either way.

 

On the other hand, the things we know about neurology just seem to blow any chance of an afterlife out of the water. Were getting to the point were we know that even basic aspects of a person's personality can be changed by just the right rewire. And then there's the existence of diseases such as Alzheimer's, which shows its possible to be gone before you even die. Does the soul magically fix itself once you'r actually dead ? Pretty absurd to believe it IMO. Then there is the fact that not everyone who flatlines has an NDE. While that can be explained, it can only be explained through wishful thinking. Then there is that little tidbit on how we dont actually know if NDE's occur during the EG flatlines, or if its just a hallucination made up during sometime the person having the experience was zonked out.

 

If there is an afterlife, my main hope is that it's nothing like what people here think it is.

 

Personally, my hope is that this life is just a conditioning and the afterlife is in fact a form of reincarnation were you remember everything in your past life and are placed into an entirely different universe with different rules, full of other people who have gone through the "first life" as well ( this world being the "first life" ). This process then repeats itself forever with us living out lives in completely different dimensions in a system designed to make sure that we are "Always with our peers" in that those living around us will have lived the same number of lives. Endlessly traveling and living throughout the cosmos like that would definitely take away from the problem of immortality becoming "boring". Id imagine that people would also gain a great deal of wisdom that way.

 

A sick part of me hopes this kind of afterlife is true is for the simple reason that I want to see the dumbfounded look on fundies faces when they are shocked into realizing that they had worshiped their imagination all this time. I'm sure they would eventually get over it and laugh it off down the road, similar to how we laugh off the dumb things we did as a child people in the second life could laugh about all the dumb things they believed when living on "That Godforsaken Blue rock".

 

But chances are, death is it. That's why even though I see a chance that their is an afterlife I live my life assuming that there isn't one. The way I see it, it would be pretty pathetic to live a life not lived simply because I was foolish enough to believe I would get a second chance when there is no such thing. Plus, it makes me appreciate this life more when I think of it as all I have to live.

[Paladin]

Xtains idea of afterlife, not a chance. But, there are too many things that have a spiritual feel to them, that cannot be explained, so for this reason I do believe in some sort of afterlife, but it is held for us to know only after we die.

But either way I do not fear death, for if there is nothing after this life, you and I will never know it, and it will end pain and suffering, so in my book that's not so bad.

 

Paladin.

[Sparrow]

I chose "No" for any afterlife as I can't see the point of having. I think I will be as dead as I was before I was conceived and born, as I will be after I die. At the same time, I'd like there to be an afterlife as there is so many things I'd love to be able to do. The universe is soooooo interesting - one life time is simply not enough.

 

I also chose "No" for the "fearing death" question. Basically because I think there will be nothing so for me, death would be meaningless.

 

Having said all that, for some reason I still fear dying. I hope I am in a western society when this happens and that it happens after a long and productive, ethically lived lifetime. I hope I am surrounded by loved-ones and friends. I think that I just don't want it to be painful.

 

Thanks

 

Spatz

[Coolhermit]

I don't know that there's an afterlife as such.

 

I am not convinced that anyone actually dies, I am inclined to think that life is indestructible and a small spell in life is played out in this place we call Earth and here and now. I am confident that once this phase is ended we find ourselves somewhere else that is as utterly alien to us as the world must be to a new born baby.

 

Since nobody returns after 'death' to tell us the next stage we can reckon whatever we choose to. My sense is that the essential 'me' which is untouched by earthly emotion, pain, ageing, hunger or desire continues to pule on for what our limited human minds call infinity/eternity.

[Coolhermit]

Typo alert! I missed the letter 's' from 'pulse' and formed a nonsense word - my last sentence shoulda read:

 

Since nobody returns after 'death' to tell us the next stage we can reckon whatever we choose to. My sense is that the essential 'me' which is untouched by earthly emotion, pain, ageing, hunger or desire continues to pulse on for what our limited human minds call infinity/eternity.

[I Broke Free]

I think the possibility of an afterlife is very remote and not something I worry about. However it is something that I occasionally contemplate and I think the most plausible afterlife would be where I merge with the rest of life on Earth and have some kind of shared consciousness. I don’t believe what I call “me” will ever be again.

[blueheron]

This is something I have thought about a lot, and I don't think there is an afterlife.

 

I love life. I agree with a lot of what people have said though, such as one lifetime isn't enough to explore the universe. It would be nice on some level to still exist as "Me" and enjoy loved ones and being unbounded by space and time to study the things that were always so far away before.

 

On the other hand, immortality also seems like a drag as well. And does *every* creature have this? Why are we special? Are there going to be zillions of mosquitoes in the afterlife? What about all of our ancestors through evolution? Eternal life also somehow makes this life "cheapened". Part of what makes this life so special (sacred?) is that this is it. It also really takes the pressure off in a lot of ways to just be human with all the flaws and experiences.

 

And also that when I have been put under for surgical procedures, I have absolutely no awareness, even less than deep sleep, I feel, because there is no sensory input at all like you sometimes get when you are asleep. For example, have you ever fallen asleep with the TV on, and something on the show ends up in your dream? My DH has done this when he has fallen asleep on the couch while I'm watching something. Only to wake up and tell me he had a bad dream involving the show. Well, when under general anesthesia, I have no sensory input whatsoever. I don't even know I exist. The surgical team could cut me up in 100 pieces and I would never feel it or know the difference. I don't know I'm unconscious until I have been awakened. I have always said it is just like before you were born. I think that is what death is like.

 

I do agree with what someone said about the influences we had being passed on as a way to live on after death.

 

At any rate, I chose No for is there an afterlife. And No for fear of death, because we don't exist.

[GraphicsGuy]

I am more afraid of watching my loved ones growing old and dying than of dying myself. Well, not even death...just dealing with life when they are old and when I get old. I don't think of it often, but when it does cross my mind that's where I discover some fear. The idea of being old and feeble scares me.

 

I would rather stay very healthy and active and go out with a bang if possible.