What do you think happens after death?

I didn't exist for 14 billion years, and wont exist for the remainder of the the life of the universe. That fact that I will exist for hopefully 80-90 years is a bonus.

From an individuals point of view your lifetime is eternity. Your own consciousness cannot conceive of its non-existence, so to your internal self, eternity is your conscious existence. Live it with no regrets.

Annoying people in this way is all but certain to be counterproductive.

Always seems to be primarily about stroking the ego of the person doing it.

The theory I was given - though I can not remember the source now - is that they are sent door to door so that people will treat them badly. And so they deepen the "Us against them" feeling inside their cult. Inside their cult they are loved and cared for and treated well. Then when they go door to door they see the outside world of people who treat them badly, rudely and slam doors in their faces.

So it is less about stroking their ego and more about strengthening the feeling that the world outside the safety of their cult is a hateful and unwelcoming place and there is no reason for them to ever want to leave to go there.

No idea how true it is but the idea affected me deeply. Now if such people come to my door I go out of my way to make them feel like the most welcome and well treated people in the world.

You didn't read the last 2 words of what I wrote.

It’s an awful pity that society as a whole have organised themselves around an after-life - Christians & Muslims especially - for me I think it lessens what we’ve got here on earth right now as being of something “second rate” - we obviously haven’t looked after the planet nor each other, often using religion and “in the name of god” to kill others and take over countries and all of that nonsense. At least the Hindus only focused on regeneration and reincarnation- actually a lot more believable and realistic.

I wonder if religion didn’t exist would we be worse off or better off? More caring or more ruthless?

I don’t believe in an afterlife simply because anything beyond death for me is totally incomprehensible - so I’m not going to worry about it. But all this talk of heaven and angels and what not- sorry, kids stories, the whole lot of it.

I'd agree that being aware of our own mortality drove us to seek a greater meaning and a handy way to airbrush death.

Midlife and existential crises are uniquely human experiences.

The difference being that I don't fear death nor put it to the back of my mind

As I said earlier, I don't do religion. It's doesn't work and never has. I love lost count the number of religious funerals I've been to where even days after death, the officiant is telling people we hope the red person will enter their eternal rest and be received into heaven.

I was also responding to a person who said they" feared death " and they are without any religious crutch .

Religious or non religious, the fear of death remains.

I don't fear death.

A fear of death is not easy to get rid of it seems. It is nearly hardwired into us I guess. But it is certainly something that can be attained. Many people do it by imagining the existence of an after life - so in one way or another they are dealing with the fear by convincing themselves it will never actually happen and it is not a thing. That option is not open to me - I simply do not even remotely believe there is a life after the current one. No one has shown me a single even tiny reason to think this might be true.

But there are certainly not religious ways to deal with and entirely remove a fear of death. Simply confronting the concept openly and honestly from a variety of angles and coming to terms with it works for some. Myself included. I simply do not fear the concept of death or being dead even a little bit.

This is not a case of repressing the fear or hiding it in the back of the mind or anything. The fear is simply completely and entirely absent.

I have wholly accepted it's inevitability and have entirely made peace with it. And at no point in that process did I have to believe anything without evidence or on "faith".

I'm not afraid of death because there is nothing after it, imo.

Death is just the end. That doesn't make me hopeless either, nor do I put death to the back of my mind, it's just something I don't think about because I'm too busy enjoying my life.

I'm not Catholic and neither is the bible.

"Lurking on the forum"

It appeared on the trending list and I was curious.

As the lord said "you don't need to be a cyclist to go on the cycling forums"

I don't believe in reincarnation either. Suggest you read John's gospel chapter 3 for where it's initially mentioned by Jesus

It's also mentioned elsewhere in the new testament