Is There Any Possibility Of An Afterlife?

[Lilith666]

People have been posting about death and giving their opinions on what happens after it--if anything happens at all. This is something that I am struggling with quite a bit now. I just can't handle the idea of being eliminated. I know I'll hear in this post that we were fine being brainless before life, and we will be fine after it, too. But the difference is that now we have experienced life. We (not necessarily me personally) have made friends, found lovers, had children, and drunk lattes. I don't want to be without some sort of happiness. I don't want to lose myself or think about people I love not existing. I've heard non-Xians express conviction or at least the personal opinion that we will not be simply annihilated. Can anyone possibly find some sort of evidence that this might be true? And I know everyone means well, but please don't say that nonexistence isn't so bad, or that I should live in the moment and stop worrying about it. I am looking for hope that we could be happy--really happy, not indifferent--and possibly see our loved ones. Even if all you can think if is that you once saw a ghost, that would help. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

[florduh]

Technically, anything is possible. There is, of course, no way to prove an "afterlife" doesn't exist, but no evidence points toward it, either.

[duderonomy]

I've wondered a lot about this myself. I don't have any answers, but I wonder what will happen to the energy that is me.

That is, what is firing the neurons in my brain right now? Is that just energy in general or is it 'my' energy? If energy can't be created nor destroyed, where does it go when I die? Will it still be me?

Science can tell me how I got here and how the energy works (so far as we understand how the brain works), but can it tell me why?

 

Sorry Lilith666, I guess I'm just adding more questions, but both of us are changing the universe itself in some way just by being alive.  That doesn't help much with your question I know, but still that's pretty big isn't it?

 

Just my two cents.

[Blue elephant]

There is a wonderful song by Iris deMent called "Let the mystery be". No-one really knows and if anyone tells you they do know, they are full of shit!

 

 

 

This second version from Kerr Fagan Harbron includes "Pie in the sky" as the "chorus". The YouTube recording is not so great on this one, but they are fabulous live (in the UK).

 

[LifeCycle]

I think this is one of the biggest struggles deconverts have. One moment you're living forever and the next moment you become very aware of your mortality. The truth is, we don't really know and, there's more we don't know than we do when it comes to the universe... Scientists are discovering more every day that makes the universe more of an engima... It's like, the more they find, the more questions they have. There are some great theories that explain some details about the cosmos such as string theory and its explanation of various dimensions. They say there's probably eleven but we can only observe three and the fourth would be time. But what about the others? They're around us, but what's in them? And then there's dark matter. It exists, but it cannot be measured. What is it exactly? And then there's the questions of what is outside of space? What is a black hole? Just one can spawn other universes which can spawn more black holes that can spawn more universes. So an accurate assumption is that we live in a multi-verse. But do they all play by the same rules? Heck, we just don't know. It's mind boggling, honestly. But you know, knowing all the unknowns doesn't make one stupid to have hope that there is more than what we know of our own world. So, have hope. It's not baseless. It's just not provable.

 

Ultimately, we don't have all the answers... And in the grand scheme of things, we know very little. Just be happy and if hoping for more is the component you need to be fullfilled, then hope. That's what I do.

[duderonomy]

A "black hole" can spawn more universes? We don't even know or understand what a black hole is, LifeCycle.

I mean, if light can't even get out of one, how could a whole Universe?

[sandiego4me]

This is going to sound really stupid.  But, please, hear me out.   I want you to look at this picture: 

 

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1092&bih=514&q=snow+flake&oq=snow+flake&gs_l=img.3..0i10j0j0i10l2j0j0i10l3j0l2.2711.7000.0.7431.11.11.0.0.0.0.87.809.11.11.0....0...1ac.1.30.img..0.11.806.xy7hCOIltHo#facrc=_&imgrc=uFkAqF5Yn-l4QM%3A%3B4VUxwFRCJB6hyM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.its.caltech.edu%252F~atomic%252Fsnowcrystals%252Fphotos%252Fw031230a113.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.its.caltech.edu%252F~atomic%252Fsnowcrystals%252Fphotos%252Fphotos.htm%3B518%3B570

 

 Before you go on, look at the picture in the top left corner at this link.

 

This is a real snow flake.  How in the world could something so fabulously beautiful make itself in the sky?  Last I checked, there are no factories in the sky.  Just crazy, inconsistent swirling wind.  Yet, somehow, this masterpieces falls from the sky.  Freaking look at this thing.  Only a God could make something like this. 

 

Now, why would I show you a stupid snowflake?  Because this snow flake is only 1/trillionth of an example of the incomprehensibly brilliant things in the universe.  Only brains could make these things.  I have no idea where God came from, or how he could always exist.  But I do have the cognitive ability to realize that surreally complicated things come from surreally brilliant minds. 

 

Forget your Christian past.  Don't even think about joining a church again.  Just realize that there is something so immense behind it all that eternal life is the furthest thing from a ridiculous idea. 

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

What is there left to survive after death? How do we know that there is a soul? These questions must be answered first, along with many many others before this question is even approachable, much less addressable.

[sandiego4me]

What is there left to survive after death? How do we know that there is a soul? These questions must be answered first, along with many many others before this question is even approachable, much less addressable.

We all sense that we will live forever.  If we strip the veneer away, well all sense in our gut that we won't cease to exist.  Many of us have no idea how that will occur, but we sense it.   Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am."   How could a piece of meat think?  How could a piece of meat have a computer within it that is infinitely more sophisticated than any computer that intelligent minds from Japan, USA, China, India, and Germany could ever invent?  Come on.   It's there because an infinitely brilliant being put it there.  

[Vigile]

 

What is there left to survive after death? How do we know that there is a soul? These questions must be answered first, along with many many others before this question is even approachable, much less addressable.

We all sense that we will live forever.  If we strip the veneer away, well all sense in our gut that we won't cease to exist.  Many of us have no idea how that will occur, but we sense it.   Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am."   How could a piece of meat think?  How could a piece of meat have a computer within it that is infinitely more sophisticated than any computer that intelligent minds from Japan, USA, China, India, and Germany could ever invent?  Come on.   It's there because an infinitely brilliant being put it there.  

 

 

The Descartes quote you use is a non sequitur.  What does the acceptance of individual existence have to do with eternal existence? 

 

The reality is, we already know how self/ego exists.  It exists as a function of the brain.  If the brain ceases to exist, how can we, beings made up of our thoughts and memories, continue to exist? 

 

Humans have in common wishful thinking.  That hope is a good survival tactic, but it's not evidence of anything that goes beyond the destruction of the brain; rather, it is evidence of how the brain functions. Anything else is just magical thinking. 

[LivingLife]

Eternity is a very long time and then some. To long for a meetup seems nice but then what the hell do you do after catching up with all the news? It sounds eternally boring. In my case with my deceased wife, while I am not there yet, is she also suffering loneliness like I am? That would seem overtly cruel for her.

 

So many have had NDEs and a bright light experience and while I do not think this is evidence of any afterlife, at the point of death, the brain probably will create this illusion and fabricate what desires you may have had. In dream states, the stuff we actually remember or visualise, happens in the periods of falling asleep or waking up. They always seem longer as in dream land we do not really observe time nor are we constrained by it.

 

Perhaps this last dream will seem like a long time while the brain lasts and it will slowly fade to nothingness. I can deal with that but eternal life is just too complex to contemplate.

 

Any scenario you can dream up has too many complications and then folk invent ideas of soul sleep, rapture and others to get around the obvious issues.

 

If it exists and none of this is within our comprehension and say my wife will be there to meet me and show me what awaits, I will be pleasantly surprised.

 

What if I remarry and wife2.0 and I perish in say a car wreck, that is really gonna be awkward. Will I now be a mormon in the hereafter and how the hell will I be shared w/o driving me nuts. Lets say I live another 20 years, will my continuance be as an old man or do I get the preferred 30 yo me before I lost my hair, was fit and virile.

 

It is questions like these where oblivion is the only thing that makes sense.

[LivingLife]

This is going to sound really stupid.  But, please, hear me out.

It is stupid

 

How snowflakes are formed

 

I live in Africa an where I stay it does not snow (that often) and when we get it it is more like sleet. Thus your analogy fails.

 

Simply put

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

 

What is there left to survive after death? How do we know that there is a soul? These questions must be answered first, along with many many others before this question is even approachable, much less addressable.

We all sense that we will live forever.  If we strip the veneer away, well all sense in our gut that we won't cease to exist.  Many of us have no idea how that will occur, but we sense it.   Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am."   How could a piece of meat think?  How could a piece of meat have a computer within it that is infinitely more sophisticated than any computer that intelligent minds from Japan, USA, China, India, and Germany could ever invent?  Come on.   It's there because an infinitely brilliant being put it there.  

 

Do we all sense that we will live forever? I've never had that sense. And to be perfectly honest, we're not as intelligent as we trick ourselves into thinking we are. We're smart, as are chimpanzees, dolphins, etc... but we've all had far more time to evolve than computers. Though computers, actually having a designer, are progressing farther faster than brains.

 

I love how you demean the human brain by calling it a "piece of meat", then compliment it calling it a better computer than any human could ever design. Isn't that a bit of false praise? All in the name of glorifying god's divine creativity of course! Intelligent design is so rediculous, I'm not even going to waste my time derailing this thread to debate you on whether or not IsraeloBabylonian myths are history.

[ExCBooster]

 

What is there left to survive after death? How do we know that there is a soul? These questions must be answered first, along with many many others before this question is even approachable, much less addressable.

We all sense that we will live forever.  If we strip the veneer away, well all sense in our gut that we won't cease to exist.  Many of us have no idea how that will occur, but we sense it.   Descartes said, "I think, therefore I am."   How could a piece of meat think?  How could a piece of meat have a computer within it that is infinitely more sophisticated than any computer that intelligent minds from Japan, USA, China, India, and Germany could ever invent?  Come on.   It's there because an infinitely brilliant being put it there.  

 

What's wrong with thinking meat? Honestly, it's a continuity. I have a serious moral problem with any ideology that separates humanity out from the gradient of life on Earth. For a certain basic value of "thought" - autonomous information input, storage, retrieval, manipulation, and output - technically, even bacteria do. Paper on quorum sensing in bacteria. Nifty. Medications work, and they've been tested on animals because they're close enough to us as relatives and in physical structure for it to work. If you've ever been to a doctor, if you've ever had vaccinations, you've personally experienced how thoroughly and well the Theory of Natural Selection and the Theory of Evolution predict the outcomes for living things in our world. We live in a world where children have a decent shot at living past 5 because of what the Theory of Evolution has given us. It's no coincidence that medicine took a gigantic leap in efficacy and into the realm of a science rather than an art, after Darwin. If you think that DNA testing to find criminals or decide who's the baby daddy works, then you have to accept that it shows the continuity of life on Earth. It's literally the same exact science. We share 98% of our genes with chimps, but also about 55% with cabbage. Besides, the brain is far from perfect.

 

There are a LOT of things this computer does far better and faster than I could ever hope to (that's why we use them). A computer performs mathematical calculations at a truly blistering speed. We measure CPU internal clock cycles (each cycle is a complete calculation performed by the processor) in Gigahertz. A Gigahertz represents a billion cycles per second. A billion. This ability of computers is exactly why we developed them. To automate, and perform tasks humans can't do on their own. COLOSSUS, the first electronic computer, was designed for code breaking. Sure, humans can do this job, but it was taking too long to do the calculations by hand. In fact, "computer" used to be a job description for a human sitting there at a desk with a slide rule and scratch paper. Like these ladies. If a computer didn't do some things far better than us, we wouldn't have them.

 

Honestly, how do you square the concept of "intelligent design" with a good look with eyes open about life on Earth? Ever choked on anything? Yeah. What moron made the food hole and the air hole the same passageway in humans? Every time we eat, it's like choking Russian Roulette. Does God like snakes more? (The snakes' trachea is completely separate from the oesophagus, and opens under the tongue. Some can even extrude the glottis completely out of the mouth, while swallowing.) How about this: God didn't do any of this. It's natural selection. We don't tend to swallow things bigger than our own heads, and not quite enough of us choke to death to exert pressure on the gene population to change this little issue. People die of genetic conditions all the time. Why would God embed these genetic time bombs into our DNA? Hint: there is no God, it is literally mutational and inheritance luck of the draw, and there's no existential moral issue here. Nobody's at fault, it just happens. (None of that "it was the fall" nonsense, either: if the definition of God is omniscient and omnipotent, and just, either he foresaw and caused it, foresaw and did nothing, or failed to see what was coming. Either way, this God, in light of the evidence, is self-refuting.) Forget humanity, for a second: Thou shalt not kill?

 

Than how about siblicide in birds? Infanticide, in a whole lot of animals? Intrauterine cannibalism in sharks? Parasites? Parasitoids (that tarantula will be eaten alive over the course of a few weeks, and then busted out of Alien-style)? I don't have to do any skittish tap-dancing around this issue. "Thou shalt not kill" is a human social code, made by humans, and for humans. Simple as can be. Also, any time you have to make a rule against something, someone is doing it, and it's a problem. Social regulation, it's what humans do. The concept of a "just" God is the smoking gun that's it's all a fable, made up by humanity to support their social structures. (Define "just" exactly. Impossible to do without reference to human social structures and values.) It's why there are different religions, in different cultures. No tap-dancing there, either. If God, why not Thor, or Susano-o? All of these beliefs have the exact same evidence: faith. I don't lose sleep over that question.

[ExCBooster]

(Okay, rant over, back on topic...)

 

In all honesty, Lilith666, as to your topic of the "unknown country" as Shakespeare had it, after death, I hold to that nice quote attributed to biologist J. B. S. Haldane: "Now my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."

 

I do meditate, often with no other point to it than to sit back and just observe. The thinking meat in my head (and, by extension, all of ours) is capable of some very interesting things. I would bring back the idea of continuity, that I brought up in the last post. I emerged from the universe. I am part of it. I really do think that the greatest mistake of Western philosophy (going back to Christian concepts of the soul), was to imagine the self as something separate from the universe around us. I do not look at the world around me. I am the world regarding itself through a facet of its own being. Parts of my mind are capable of recognizing this, in an intuitive sense. We rely so much on linear reasoning (make a list for the grocery store, check the time for that appointment, do I need an umbrella today) that it is easy to forget that the other side is there, and just as important. I am very much more naturally in tune with the linear reasoning patterns going on upstairs. It's important, for me at least, to meditate, and let the intuitive side do its thing, and stay grounded in the fact that I am an emergent quality of infinitely deeper processes and interactions. In this sense, the chemical reaction that "I" was when I started this post is already long dead. In another sense, there's no such thing as "after" or "death." Now, as for whether this complex of interactions that I call myself in some sense is immortal, in some way, I'm not sure that can be answered. Of course, I'm also pretty okay with ambiguity.

 

I think the answer to the "is there life after death" question might be mu. In English, questions require yes or no answers, but mu is a great word. It means: "the question cannot be answered in the affirmative, since it is founded on an unsound premise."

[Deva]

To answer the OP: Of course there is.  Whatever it is that is "you" is here now, why not again? We are talking about a time span  you cannot wrap your mind around and a  universe that is bigger than you can imagine.

 

No one really knows but I say the odds favor it.

[midniterider]

People have been posting about death and giving their opinions on what happens after it--if anything happens at all. This is something that I am struggling with quite a bit now. I just can't handle the idea of being eliminated. I know I'll hear in this post that we were fine being brainless before life, and we will be fine after it, too. But the difference is that now we have experienced life. We (not necessarily me personally) have made friends, found lovers, had children, and drunk lattes. I don't want to be without some sort of happiness. I don't want to lose myself or think about people I love not existing. I've heard non-Xians express conviction or at least the personal opinion that we will not be simply annihilated. Can anyone possibly find some sort of evidence that this might be true? And I know everyone means well, but please don't say that nonexistence isn't so bad, or that I should live in the moment and stop worrying about it. I am looking for hope that we could be happy--really happy, not indifferent--and possibly see our loved ones. Even if all you can think if is that you once saw a ghost, that would help. Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

 

Talk to Theresa Caputo. She talks to the dead. Or claims to. Actually I think she just makes shit up and people believe it. Or it could be scripted. If it's not scripted I think she plays on people's failure to emotionally disconnect with passed loved ones.

 

But, if this eternal link to dead loved ones is something you need then why not create it for yourself. Don't invent God and heaven to store these people, just do some good ole ancestor worship  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veneration_of_the_dead

 

My wife has a vague belief that 2 of her deceased relatives continue to bring her fortune. It gives her peace and she's not a fanatic about it. She's also very logical and rational when she needs to be. :-)

[bornagainathiest]

To Sandiego4me...

 

Please consider this question.

 

If you've got infinite time, infinite opportunities and infinite resources is there anything you couldn't do?

 

I can't think of there be anything that could stop you being endlessly, eternally creative.

 

But if you can think of something, I'd be interested to hear about it.

 

Thanks,

 

BAA

[midniterider]

This is going to sound really stupid.  But, please, hear me out.   I want you to look at this picture: 

 

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1092&bih=514&q=snow+flake&oq=snow+flake&gs_l=img.3..0i10j0j0i10l2j0j0i10l3j0l2.2711.7000.0.7431.11.11.0.0.0.0.87.809.11.11.0....0...1ac.1.30.img..0.11.806.xy7hCOIltHo#facrc=_&imgrc=uFkAqF5Yn-l4QM%3A%3B4VUxwFRCJB6hyM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.its.caltech.edu%252F~atomic%252Fsnowcrystals%252Fphotos%252Fw031230a113.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.its.caltech.edu%252F~atomic%252Fsnowcrystals%252Fphotos%252Fphotos.htm%3B518%3B570

 

 Before you go on, look at the picture in the top left corner at this link.

 

This is a real snow flake.  How in the world could something so fabulously beautiful make itself in the sky?  Last I checked, there are no factories in the sky.  Just crazy, inconsistent swirling wind.  Yet, somehow, this masterpieces falls from the sky.  Freaking look at this thing.  Only a God could make something like this. 

 

Now, why would I show you a stupid snowflake?  Because this snow flake is only 1/trillionth of an example of the incomprehensibly brilliant things in the universe.  Only brains could make these things.  I have no idea where God came from, or how he could always exist.  But I do have the cognitive ability to realize that surreally complicated things come from surreally brilliant minds. 

 

Forget your Christian past.  Don't even think about joining a church again.  Just realize that there is something so immense behind it all that eternal life is the furthest thing from a ridiculous idea. 

 

Look at this wonderfully complex schematic diagram: http://www.z80.info/gfx/Circuit_diagram_2A_3A.gif

 

People created it.

 

But I do prefer to believe that there is more to life than just this physical existence. However, there really isnt any physical evidence of non-physical existence. But there never will be. It's non-physical. :-)

 

Believing in an afterlife may be similiar to believing in Invisible Pink Unicorns. It can't be tested while you're still alive. But I like to retain some irrational beliefs anyway.

 

Duderonomy had a question as to where the life energy goes when we die since it cannot be destroyed. Maybe it dissipates as heat. I dunno.

[Lilith666]

There is a wonderful song by Iris deMent called "Let the mystery be". No-one really knows and if anyone tells you they do know, they are full of shit!

 

 

 

This second version from Kerr Fagan Harbron includes "Pie in the sky" as the "chorus". The YouTube recording is not so great on this one, but they are fabulous live (in the UK).

 

 

Thanks for taking the trouble to answer, but I very nicely asked people not to glibly answer that we shouldn't worry about it. Maybe your life is full of rainbows and you can afford not to think about that. I'm happy for you. But one of my best friends just attempted suicide for the third time in the past year. A few days ago, I was sick worrying about her and wondering where she was when she disappeared and would not answer her phone, which is always on. She's had depression for as long as I have known her. I would like to someday be able to spend time with her without being afraid of when she'll go. So I would have appreciated it if you had read the whole post and tried to come up with a real answer instead of a Sunday-school cop-out, or been kind enough not to reply. I don't need any more "it's not a big deal" bullshit. It IS a fucking big deal. OK?

[Lilith666]

This is going to sound really stupid.  But, please, hear me out.   I want you to look at this picture: 

 

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1092&bih=514&q=snow+flake&oq=snow+flake&gs_l=img.3..0i10j0j0i10l2j0j0i10l3j0l2.2711.7000.0.7431.11.11.0.0.0.0.87.809.11.11.0....0...1ac.1.30.img..0.11.806.xy7hCOIltHo#facrc=_&imgrc=uFkAqF5Yn-l4QM%3A%3B4VUxwFRCJB6hyM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.its.caltech.edu%252F~atomic%252Fsnowcrystals%252Fphotos%252Fw031230a113.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.its.caltech.edu%252F~atomic%252Fsnowcrystals%252Fphotos%252Fphotos.htm%3B518%3B570

 

 Before you go on, look at the picture in the top left corner at this link.

 

This is a real snow flake.  How in the world could something so fabulously beautiful make itself in the sky?  Last I checked, there are no factories in the sky.  Just crazy, inconsistent swirling wind.  Yet, somehow, this masterpieces falls from the sky.  Freaking look at this thing.  Only a God could make something like this. 

 

Now, why would I show you a stupid snowflake?  Because this snow flake is only 1/trillionth of an example of the incomprehensibly brilliant things in the universe.  Only brains could make these things.  I have no idea where God came from, or how he could always exist.  But I do have the cognitive ability to realize that surreally complicated things come from surreally brilliant minds. 

 

Forget your Christian past.  Don't even think about joining a church again.  Just realize that there is something so immense behind it all that eternal life is the furthest thing from a ridiculous idea.

Thanks. That helped. And please don't take this the wrong way--I liked your post--but aren't you Christian? I thought I read recently that you're not conservative, but you still love Jesus and everything.

[Lilith666]

OK, guys. I was looking for some affirmation of an afterlife, but some people are trying to convince me that there isn't one, or are saying that annihilation is really the best end. Can we not do that, please?

 

To answer the OP: Of course there is. Whatever it is that is "you" is here now, why not again? We are talking about a time span you cannot wrap your mind around and a universe that is bigger than you can imagine.

 

No one really knows but I say the odds favor it.

Thank you, Deva. *hug*

[Overcame Faith]

Lilith,

 

Here is some evidence for you.  It is from the University of Virginia's Division of Perceptual Studies.  It is an ongoing study of very young children who purport to remember past lives.  The way this study works is that for at least some of these children, a team goes out and tries to verify (or debunk) what the young children remember about past lives.  They have made some remarkable findings.  I do not say that it "proves" past lives (reincarnation) and people may dispute the weight of the evidence, but I believe it is at least evidence worth considering.

 

http://www.medicine.virginia.edu/clinical/departments/psychiatry/sections/cspp/dops/

[Ravenstar]

Energy and matter can not be destroyed.. isn't that the law of conservation or something like that? I find that fascinating... because everything that makes up me will go on, in some form... because I am a tiny part of the universe... like how every molecule inside me was once inside a star (probably many stars)  that's SO cool!

 

I like to think that my tiny little consciousness is a projection, a small manifestation of the universe being sentient, or experiencing/observing itself. Maybe that energy pattern is something that goes on in some form, maybe it reincarnates - to experience life in many ways, maybe it makes up a part of a larger collective consciousness...maybe it dissipates and coalesces again to create star factories, or new life forms...

 

But I think what you are talking about is not 'death' per se... everything dies (changes actually), even stars... it is the loss of the ego, the Id, the personality. I don't think it's logical to expect the personality to continue on...our personality is so tied to this particular body, at this time, in this place, with this experience... no, there may be some sort of continuation.. but if there is it is probably more wondrous than we can now imagine... and since everything we have observed about the universe shows us that things change... that really is the only constant I would suggest that IF consciousness does survive, transmute, evolve, reincarnate it would follow this seeming nature, and change also.

 

Our ego is powerful, the reason for it's existence is to protect us, and it does that admirably.. the survival instinct in it is very strong... but I have found through meditation that there is a 'self' beneath (above? somewhere  lol) the ego, and beyond the 'personality'. I don't claim that this is the 'soul' or anything - but it is kind of ....hmmm.... expansive, and for me has little emotional connection to my body. It is a very detached thing, not cold though... just, how to explain(?) It's like an observer... Antlerman could explain it better. Whatever it is, it's still me... but there's NO FEAR, at all, of anything. It feels like a place of complete, gosh, I don't want to use clichés... complete peace.

 

I don't know what it is, but for me it suggests that the universe and life is more mysterious than we currently know.

 

I'm okay not knowing, it will either be oblivion, like being knocked out for surgery, or it will be a new adventure. Neither of these frighten me.

[Vigile]

OK, guys. I was looking for some affirmation of an afterlife, but some people are trying to convince me that there isn't one, or are saying that annihilation is really the best end. Can we not do that, please?

 

To answer the OP: Of course there is. Whatever it is that is "you" is here now, why not again? We are talking about a time span you cannot wrap your mind around and a universe that is bigger than you can imagine.

 

No one really knows but I say the odds favor it.

Thank you, Deva. *hug*

 

 

So you only want responses that are not uncomfortable and that encourage you to believe there is an afterlife?