What Happens When We Die?

Hank_Jones · 24-01-2010 8:29am #1

Just thought I'd go all philosophical, feel like working through some of my thoughts about what I think happens after we die.

Personally I always thought that when we die, we end up in a big long queue, in somewhere similar to the dole office.
Of course the line is never going anywhere because it's a public run office, as opossed to private.
So the remainder of existence is spent in pretty much the same spot, looking around and complaining about how the line is not going anywhere.

Must remember to bring a book...

So people, what are your thoughts on the beginning of the end?

Or should that be the end of the end...

SoupyNorman · 24-01-2010 8:31am

Nothing, you'll be dead. What do you remember before you were born? Nothing!

Your body will rot in the ground, that will happen.

Spiritoftheseventies · 24-01-2010 8:32am

someone else gets your username AFAIK

Super-Rush · 24-01-2010 8:37am

I become you mwahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

TanG411 · 24-01-2010 8:57am

We stop living.

Ickle Magoo · 24-01-2010 9:02am

SoupyNorman wrote: »

Your body will rot in the ground, that will happen.

Unless he gets cremated....:pac:

Sharpshooter · 24-01-2010 9:06am

You go on up to the spirit in the sky.

rednik · 24-01-2010 9:08am

The worms come out to play.:eek:

Sharpshooter · 24-01-2010 9:10am

rednik wrote: »

The worms come out to play.:eek:

Are they as good as the Beatles? :pac:

WalterMitty · 24-01-2010 9:11am

rednik wrote: »

The worms come out to play.:eek:

Put that away!!!!!!

WalterMitty · 24-01-2010 9:14am

Maybe we can exist outside of the temporal spacial constraints of this universe.

rednik · 24-01-2010 9:14am

Sharpshooter wrote: »

Are they as good as the Beatles? :pac:

Slightly different style to the Beatles, not as good but they have been around forever.;)

Joey the lips · 24-01-2010 9:15am

That moaney oul cow you have been living with gets a whole lot of money to go out and get p1ssed.....O and you get a new suit. Never understand why you get new shoes though. Its not like your going to need them.

CreepingDeath · 24-01-2010 9:16am

Hank_Jones wrote: »

Personally I always thought that when we die, we end up in a big long queue, in somewhere similar to the dole office.

That's the film Beetlejuice you're thinking of.

We're in a very privileged position on earth, top of the food chain.
If there is life after death, then there's probably an entire food chain of life after death and no guarantees we're at the top there. We could be the equivalent of a blade of grass.

Karl Hungus · 24-01-2010 9:23am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX07j9SDFcc

Naikon · 24-01-2010 9:55am

It's a bit like before you were born. Nothing. You won't have any awareness of the fact that you are dead. You basically rot in the ground. Death = The End.

suitseir · 24-01-2010 10:09am

Maybe this is how it happens.....

If you believe that, you die, that's it, end of the story, then that's what is going to happen to you.

But maybe if you believe that there is something else, like re-incarnation, a spiritual after life, then perhaps that is what will happen to those who believe in an after life.......

It is FASHIONABLE to believe in nothing..........

Ickle Magoo · 24-01-2010 10:17am

suitseir wrote: »

It is FASHIONABLE to believe in nothing..........

Eh, I don't think fashion can force people to believe in nothing - they clearly didn't really believe it in the first place if a fad can shift their faith.

Joey the lips · 24-01-2010 10:19am

Carefull..... they are wakeing up......

Naikon · 24-01-2010 10:21am

suitseir wrote: »

Maybe this is how it happens.....

If you believe that, you die, that's it, end of the story, then that's what is going to happen to you.

But maybe if you believe that there is something else, like re-incarnation, a spiritual after life, then perhaps that is what will happen to those who believe in an after life.......

It is FASHIONABLE to believe in nothing..........

Wanting something to be true does not make it true.
Logic ftw!

kowloon · 24-01-2010 10:52am

suitseir wrote: »

It is FASHIONABLE to believe in nothing..........

I thought it was fashionable to be an extremist.
Nobody tells me these things and I end up looking like I'm not up with the cool kids. Must make a point of catching Exposes religion and philosophy segment, apparently skinny jeans and Hegel are in this season.

Hank_Jones · 24-01-2010 10:58am

At the risk of showing how completely uncool I am...

Wtf is Hegel?

Prof.Badass · 24-01-2010 11:00am

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mulching

Bluetonic · 24-01-2010 11:10am

Sharpshooter wrote: »

You go on up to the spirit in the sky.

That's where I'm gonna go when I die.

plein de force · 24-01-2010 11:10am

you rot in the ground or get reduced to ashes

Spiritoftheseventies · 24-01-2010 11:24am

a lot of non believers on this thread.

robby^5 · 24-01-2010 11:28am

Well you die and then it's probably a lot like before you were born.

Hank_Jones · 24-01-2010 11:52am

vinylmesh wrote: »

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=mulching

Not my kind of thing but whatever floats your boat.

Sicko.

Wibbs · 24-01-2010 11:52am

I dont think the "it'll be the same as before you were born" holds that much logical water.

One could easily argue the difference between before you were born and after you die, is that unique information came together to give rise to you and your particular consciousness. That didnt exist before. It's a forward moving thing. Otherwise why aren't you a baby, or a 9 year old?

Now that information may well dissipate and that's it. But if consciousness is an emergent quantum vibe then its possible that some of that info, "you" may survive. Of course it may require the complexity of the brain to sustain that and when that falls apart then so does the info. What interests me is how long after official "death" does this happen? It's at least imaginable that some part of "you" continues or is reabsorbed back into the universe, just like the components of you go back to the worms etc. It will not be consciousness as we know it though.

I always liked the notion espoused by some religions that you become one with the "God head". Maybe you become one with the universe in a very profound way. We are part of the universe, like a blood cell is part of you, so maybe.... It would also solve a lot of the issues around the simple immortality of the soul thought of by many.

magnumlady · 24-01-2010 11:55am

Lots of people you don't know or can't stand turn up for a feed.

Seriously I had a near death experience. I know you will all mock. So I know there is something after death.

Hank_Jones · 24-01-2010 12:05pm

magnumlady wrote: »

Lots of people you don't know or can't stand turn up for a feed.

Seriously I had a near death experience. I know you will all mock. So I know there is something after death.

I think the closest that I came to a near death experience was...

I was 18 and on a bus. I was fairly hammered and I ring the bell for the bus to stop, bus driver opens the door while the bus is still moving.
Me being the feckin eejit that I am thought that the bus was stopped, the driver is hardly going to open the door when the bus is moving surely.
So I hop off the bus and vmmmpp my legs go from under me and I do several rolls along the ground.
Nothing worse than a few scratches but it could have gone a lot worse, could have gone under the bus.

Ugghh kind of shudder thinking about it.

wylo · 24-01-2010 12:49pm

I think we are just part of a process that is the universe. I think human intelligence has gotten so high that it leaves us trying to think of things that cannot be explained. Like what happens after we die, what started the big bang, what is beyond the universe? Nothing?
I don't believe in god ,but I am not atheist, apparently if your an atheist you cannot even speculate anything beyond what we see in front of us. I refuse to be like that.

The_Kew_Tour · 24-01-2010 12:54pm

your either fried or go 6 feet under

Ickle Magoo · 24-01-2010 1:08pm

wylo wrote: »

I don't believe in god ,but I am not atheist, apparently if your an atheist you cannot even speculate anything beyond what we see in front of us. I refuse to be like that.

I hate to be the one to break it to you, atheists just have a lack of a belief in a god. If you want to discount it, you may want to find out what it is you are discounting. :P

somethingwitty · 24-01-2010 1:21pm

You trip balls!! DMT! :P I hear its a very pleasurable experience:pac:

Mrmoe · 24-01-2010 1:51pm

How do you know that you are not dead right now?

Columbia · 24-01-2010 2:09pm

My personal opinion is that it is as simple as you reverting to your pre-birth stage, i.e. nothingness.

Consciousness is a function (almost an illusion) created by the most sophisticated and powerful machine in the world, your brain, and nothing else. It comes from perception of everything around you, and the sythesisation of this perception with conscious and proactive thought. We have no existence whatever beyond the electrical signals of our brains, and I'm quite firm on that. As soon as those stop, any existence we have peters out with it, leaving some residue (the body).

Death itself holds no fear for me, I did a load of death tests online and they all reckon I'll live until at least 84

rednik · 24-01-2010 2:10pm

Mrmoe wrote: »

How do you know that you are not dead right now?

Just ran up to the GP and he declared me ALIVE. (Phew)

CaptainCrunch · 24-01-2010 2:17pm

Hank_Jones wrote: »

Personally I always thought that when we die, we end up in a big long queue, in somewhere similar to the dole office.
Of course the line is never going anywhere because it's a public run office, as opossed to private.
So the remainder of existence is spent in pretty much the same spot, looking around and complaining about how the line is not going anywhere.

Sounds like life.

Sirsok · 24-01-2010 2:23pm

My biggest fear is that when you die your mind is still concious....so your just alone with the thoughts for eternity!!!!or until your eaten all up!Thats just a fear though personally I believe in God.

MaybeLogic · 24-01-2010 2:24pm

I'm a firm believer in 'Frisbeetarianism', myself.

robby^5 · 24-01-2010 2:50pm

Wibbs wrote: »

I dont think the "it'll be the same as before you were born" holds that much logical water.

Both meet the basic criteria of a person not existing.

We have no reason to believe that any part of our consciousness will be somehow re-absorbed into the universe, that's just wishful thinking based on the sentiment that consciousness is not finite.

Dean820 · 24-01-2010 2:54pm

If I end up in a dole-like queue after I die and have to stay there for eternity, I'll re-kill myself.

Fago! · 24-01-2010 2:56pm

Unlike you peasants, I can't die.

I have a deal with god.

CokaColumbo · 24-01-2010 2:58pm

Worms will snack on your eye balls and your spirit may possibly pass on to another existence.

midlandsmissus · 24-01-2010 3:21pm

I had an NDE, and Magnum lady I'd love to hear your NDE.

I believe that when the body dies we move from this dimension to one where there is no physicality, where we exist as streams of energy. The body dying is jut like casting a jacket off, we're still alive.

Energy cannot be destroyed, it only changes from one form to another.

Ive read alot of NDE's as I'm very interested in the subject, and alot of them say that we chose to leave our real home and come here to learn, and that is why many people feel that there is something missing from their lives that they can't put their finger on.

Believe it or not, they're a fascinating read.

Mardy Bum · 24-01-2010 3:21pm

We wake up in Africa, new life but much tougher!

Dean820 · 24-01-2010 3:25pm

Well if you can't remember anything when being knocked after a punch, how can you remember anything when you die? It makes no sense.

speedboatchase · 24-01-2010 3:28pm

Interesting OP asked this because I was just reading this article from TIME Magazine today:

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1955636,00.html

Q & A
Is There Life After Death?
By Laura Fitzpatrick Friday, Jan. 22, 2010

Is there life after death? Theologians can debate all they want, but radiation oncologist Dr. Jeffrey Long argues that if you look at the scientific evidence, the answer is unequivocally yes. Drawing on a decade's worth of research on near-death experiences — work that includes cataloguing the stories of some 1,600 people who have gone through them — he makes the case for that controversial conclusion in a new book, Evidence of the Afterlife. Medicine, Long says, cannot account for the consistencies in the accounts reported by people all over the world. He talked to TIME about the nature of near-death experience, the intersection between religion and science and the Oprah effect. (See how you can change your genes.)

Medically speaking, what is a near-death experience?
A near-death experience has two components. The person has to be near death, which means physically compromised so severely that permanent death would occur if they did not improve: they're unconscious, or often clinically dead, with an absence of heartbeat and breathing. The second component [is that] at the time they're having a close brush with death, they have an experience. [It is] generally lucid [and] highly organized. (See the year in health 2009.)

Q. How do you respond to skeptics who say there must be some biological or physiological basis for that kind of experience, which you say in the book is medically inexplicable?
A. There have been over 20 alternative, skeptical "explanations" for near-death experience. The reason is very clear: no one or several skeptical explanations make sense, even to the skeptics themselves. Or [else ]there wouldn't be so many.

Q. You say there's less skepticism about near-death experiences than there used to be, as well as more awareness. Why is that?
A. Literally hundreds of scholarly articles have been written over the last 35 years about near-death experience. In addition to that, the media continues to present [evidence of] near-death experience. Hundreds of thousands of pages a month are read on our website, NDERF.org.

Q. In the book you say that some critics argue that there's an "Oprah effect": that a lot of people who have had near-death experiences have heard about them elsewhere first. How do you account for that in your research?
A. We post to the website the near-death experience exactly as it was shared with us. Given the fact that every month 300,000 pages are read [by] over 40,000 unique visitors from all around the world, the chances of a copycat account from any media source not being picked up by any one of those people is exceedingly remote. Our quality-assurance check is the enormous visibility and the enormous number of visitors. (See what happens when we die.)

Q. You say this research has affected you a lot on a personal level. How?
A. I'm a physician who fights cancer. In spite of our best efforts, not everybody is going to be cured. My absolute understanding that there is an afterlife for all of us — and a wonderful afterlife — helps me face cancer, this terribly frightening and threatening disease, with more courage than I've ever faced it with before. I can be a better physician for my patients.

Q. You say we can draw on near-death experiences to reach conclusions about life after actual death. But is that comparing apples and oranges?
A. Scientifically speaking, interviewing people that have permanently died is challenging. Obviously, given that impossibility, we have to do the next best thing. If these people have no brain function, like you have in a cardiac arrest, I think that is the best, closest model we're going to have to study whether or not conscious experience can occur apart from the physical brain. The research shows the overwhelming answer is absolutely yes.

Q. You raise the idea that your work could have profound implications for religion. But is whether there is life after death really a scientific question, or a theological one?
A. I think we have an interesting blend. [This research] directly addresses what religions have been telling us for millenniums to accept on faith: that there is an afterlife, that there is some order and purpose to this universe, that there's some reason and purpose for us being here in earthly life. We're finding verification, if you will, for what so many religions have been saying. It's an important step towards bringing science and religion together.

Q. Is there any aspect of human experience that you don't think science can touch?
A. Oh, absolutely. What happens after permanent death — after we're no longer able to interview people — is an absolute. To that extent, the work I do may always require some element of faith. But by the time you look at [the] evidence, the amount of faith you need to have [to believe in] life after death is substantially reduced.

wylo · 24-01-2010 3:36pm

Im an NDE skeptic. Im not saying that people are not experiencing those feelings when they are 'dying' but I just believe that they are a result of a lack of oxygen to the brain, a hallucination that is so real that you believe you truly experienced it.

Ever try ketamine? Why is it that you can experience a 'near death experience' on that, because you are off your rocker on drugs thats why.

http://www.near-death.com/experiences/paranormal12.html

http://www.mindspring.com/~scottr/nde/_ketamine.html

m5ex9oqjawdg2i · 24-01-2010 3:46pm

suitseir wrote: »

But maybe if you believe that there is something else, like re-incarnation, a spiritual after life, then perhaps that is what will happen to those who believe in an after life.......

That would be nice, but I don't think we are powerful enough to create a place for us to exist after we are dead.

It is FASHIONABLE to believe in nothing..........[/QUOTE]

Fashionable???

Spiritoftheseventies wrote: »

a lot of non believers on this thread.

And? Got a problem with that?

magnumlady wrote: »

Lots of people you don't know or can't stand turn up for a feed.

Seriously I had a near death experience. I know you will all mock. So I know there is something after death.

Tell us what happened and how did this change your mind (if you thought otherwise)?

wylo wrote: »

I don't believe in god ,but I am not atheist, apparently if your an atheist you cannot even speculate anything beyond what we see in front of us. I refuse to be like that.

Where the hell do you get that crap from???

Definition of Atheism: a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.

robby^5 wrote: »

We have no reason to believe that any part of our consciousness will be somehow re-absorbed into the universe, that's just wishful thinking based on the sentiment that consciousness is not finite.

The great thing is that nobody is right or wrong... nobody can prove what happens after death. It scares the shít out of most of us. Our inability to understand what happens, forces us to create bullshít stories about gods, heaven and hell... This gives us peace of mind, we can progress as a species without worrying about death and the aftermath. Religion is needed for our species to survive. Most of mankind are thick as ditch water, too ignorant to accept that we simply cannot understand what happens after death, at least for now.

What Happens When We Die?

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