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What happens when we die?

1356

Comments

  • #62
    Wanderer2010
    Registered Users Posts: 6,663 ✭✭✭Wanderer2010


    I dont think we are meant to know. Imagine if, during life, we knew that there was an all-loving higher power who would return us to our eternal self where you could live forever in spirit or choose to reincarnate again to learn lessons essential to the evolution of your higher self? Nobody would have any motivation to do anything to better themselves at all, knowing we are going to live forever beyond our bodily life. As cruel as it seems, keeping that information from human beings is probably essential.
    I respect though that not everyone believes in any form of afterlife, the above view is my personal one.


  • #63
    Gael23
    Registered Users Posts: 12,086 ✭✭✭✭Gael23


    Either into a hole in the ground add you become plant food or into a furnace


  • #64
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    Gael23 wrote: »
    Either into a hole in the ground add you become plant food or into a furnace

    You are correct .This is what happens the body. But you don't know about a spiritual existence after death.


  • #65
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    No one can prove there is an afterlife.
    No one can prove there isn't an afterlife.


  • #66
    billyhead
    Registered Users Posts: 9,543 ✭✭✭billyhead


    Government buildings wrote: »
    No one can prove there is an afterlife.
    No one can prove there isn't an afterlife.

    True. Nobody has died and came back to prove anything.


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  • #67
    saabsaab
    Registered Users Posts: 7,737 ✭✭✭saabsaab


    billyhead wrote: »
    True. Nobody has died and came back to prove anything.
    If they had would they be believed? Told that they were not really dead I'd guess.


  • #68
    Covit
    Registered Users Posts: 41 ✭Covit


    I have been banned from boards and reincarnated does that count !


  • #69
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    No one can prove the existence of an afterlife. but I believe in it.

    The thing is, the older you get, and realising you may only have a few years left if you're lucky, it's better for you to believe rather than not believe. You can't prove anything, so what's to be lost by believing?

    By not believing,you lose everything, by believing you gain everything.

    Remember there is no proof. So believing or not believing is a decision you make.

    You can't prove either way. So if you are sensible, you choose to believe.


  • #70
    upupup
    Registered Users Posts: 605 ✭✭✭upupup


    billyhead wrote: »
    True. Nobody has died and came back to prove anything.

    There was a guy that much was wrote about.He caused a lot of political and religious problems so he was killed and they made sure he was dead as they were experts in killing.His friends watched him die so there was no doubt he was dead.
    He came back 3 days later and nobody knows how.He was seen on one occasion by a crowd of 500.
    He disappeared again for good but it seems he came back from the dead not because of sins or anything silly like that....he came back to show what was possible and maybe he was a bit of a show off:)


  • #71
    Stacksofwacks
    Registered Users Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭Stacksofwacks


    Government buildings wrote: »
    No one can prove the existence of an afterlife. but I believe in it.

    The thing is, the older you get, and realising you may only have a few years left if you're lucky, it's better for you to believe rather than not believe. You can't prove anything, so what's to be lost by believing?

    By not believing,you lose everything, by believing you gain everything.

    Remember there is no proof. So believing or not believing is a decision you make.

    You can't prove either way. So if you are sensible, you choose to believe.

    As a non believer who respects those who choose to believe I would take issue here because statements like these sound more like emotional blackmail. In reality you lose nothing if you choose to believe or not because no one can prove otherwise.


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  • #72
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    Stacksofwacks wrote: »
    As a non believer who respects those who choose to believe I would take issue here because statements like these sound more like emotional blackmail. In reality you lose nothing if you choose to believe or not because no one can prove otherwise.

    In reality you do lose, not because you can't prove either way, but because there is either an afterlife or there is not. There are no other possibilities.
    The reason I say you lose, is because I believe that non believers do not deserve an afterlife. If you believe, there is life, if you don't, there isn't.
    This isn't emotional blackmail. You decide to believe or not, it's a free choice. It's not something you can think about, because you won't get an answer.
    I'm not trying to convert anyone, I fully respect your choice, for that is what it is, a choice.
    Ultimately, the whole thing is a mystery that we cannot figure out. As I said, it's a decision you make. I make a decision to believe, not because I understand, but because I don't understand. It's a mystery.


  • #73
    AllForIt
    Registered Users Posts: 8,269 ✭✭✭AllForIt


    My answer is the same as I gave in the Atheism forum version of this thread.

    When I die I go back to the where I was before I was born. Or 9 months before being born if you want to be pedantic.


  • #74
    dok_golf
    Registered Users Posts: 1,090 ✭✭✭dok_golf


    "And I am not frightened of dying, any time will do, I don't mind. Why should I be frightened of dying? There's no reason for it, you've gotta go sometime." Gerry O Driscoll

    We came from nothing. We go back to nothing. Don't worry about what comes after, just be grateful , you got what you have


  • #75
    Wanderer2010
    Registered Users Posts: 6,663 ✭✭✭Wanderer2010


    Its the last mystery of life, the undiscovered country, the land from which no traveller has returned. I do believe we existed forever and this is just a school to evolve our soul before going home. The major religions have been edited so much over the centuries that its impossible to believe the propoganda, plus the concept of an Old Testamant God who hates human beings but yet continues to allow us to exist for millenia makes no sense.
    The afterlife needs to remain a mystery. Nobody would learn, grow or do a thing in life if they knew they could just reset again after death.


  • #76
    AllForIt
    Registered Users Posts: 8,269 ✭✭✭AllForIt


    I have no problem with the concept of existing for a limited time period that has a beginning and an end because everything has a beginning and an end. There is absolutely nothing I'm aware of that last's forever. And by forever that would mean infinitely forever in the past and infinitely forever in the future.

    I might wish I could live a bit longer because as I get older it has dawned on me life is actually quite short, whereas as a child life seemed like an eternity if lived beyond 70, but now I realise in the grand scheme of things human life is quite short.

    So, if the nature of life is elements of life living for short periods, then I can hardly expect to get anything more everyone/everything else gets. 100 years may be double 50 years but both are still relatively short.

    What would be the point of continually living forever anyway. You'd just be doing the same things over and over again and the longer you lived ,if you could make it artificially happen, everything would just become boring eventually. I think one can actually get sick of life.

    If I had a preference for how one's existence could be better it would be that when you die you come back again - somewhere. Not necessarily as a human or even on earth. With no memory of your last life. Not to die and just live for eternity worshiping a God in the heavens. Boring.


  • #77
    Stacksofwacks
    Registered Users Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭Stacksofwacks


    Government buildings wrote: »
    In reality you do lose, not because you can't prove either way, but because there is either an afterlife or there is not. There are no other possibilities.
    The reason I say you lose, is because I believe that non believers do not deserve an afterlife. If you believe, there is life, if you don't, there isn't.
    This isn't emotional blackmail. You decide to believe or not, it's a free choice. It's not something you can think about, because you won't get an answer.
    I'm not trying to convert anyone, I fully respect your choice, for that is what it is, a choice.
    Ultimately, the whole thing is a mystery that we cannot figure out. As I said, it's a decision you make. I make a decision to believe, not because I understand, but because I don't understand. It's a mystery.

    So your saying even if the non believer was a model good person all their life but chose not to believe they don't 'deserve' an afterlife simply because they choose not believe? Look its up to people what they want to believe and if it helps them in their lives great but I don't think people should be made to feel guilty for doing either, that's how I look at it anyway


  • #78
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    Not to die and just worship a God in the heavens forever, boring. Very true.

    But I think you are looking at it from a human point of view. No one has a clue what Heaven, or afterlife, is like. We cannot comprehend it, because it is a mystery.

    All this business about lights at the end of a tunnel, meeting dead relatives etc is all rubbish. The final imaginings of a dying brain.

    You die. Completely. It's called after life, because that is what it is. It comes after life, ie. after death.

    Why not take a punt on it. Decide there is an afterlife. After all, what have you to lose?


  • #79
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    Stacksofwacks wrote: »
    So your saying even if the non believer was a model good person all their life but chose not to believe they don't 'deserve' an afterlife simply because they choose not believe? Look its up to people what they want to believe and if it helps them in their lives great but I don't think people should be made to feel guilty for doing either, that's how I look at it anyway

    Why should you feel guilty, if you don't believe?


  • #80
    Stacksofwacks
    Registered Users Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭Stacksofwacks


    Government buildings wrote: »
    Why should you feel guilty, if you don't believe?

    Rather than address my point head on you have deflected onto something else. But that's ok, we'll agree to disagree and all of that


  • #81
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    Stacksofwacks wrote: »
    Rather than address my point head on you have deflected onto something else. But that's ok, we'll agree to disagree and all of that

    Sorry, I didn't reply to what you said. Yes, my personal belief is that if you don't believe you don't see an afterlife.

    I'm not trying to insult you by saying this, just as you are not insulting me by saying that an afterlife doesn't exist.


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  • #82
    growleaves
    Registered Users Posts: 7,685 ✭✭✭growleaves


    Many people don't want to believe they have an immortal soul because they think tedium, difficulty, nervous tension and other unendurable and undesirable states of being will be dragged out forever and therefore that they'd be trapped in inescapable suffering. They maybe see annihilation as an escape from existence.

    Life is difficult enough as it is without a continuation of it, is the thinking. But that's because we're not living life properly - like a spiritual romantic dream.

    In heaven you are engaged in purposeful creativity and you have relationships with other beings. So its something like you get to be with people you love and do the most meaningful work you can, with no anxiety, pain or loneliness. Like if you were Michelangelo working on the Sistine Chapel but with a loving husband or wife and loving parents, and never feeling bad or bored.

    However I also think that for some people God will give them the option of being folded back into unconscious bliss. Nirvana.

    Then I think people will also be given the choice of going to Hell and some people will take it. Why? Look around you, we're co-authoring an evil, spiteful world increasingly getting bitterer all the time and most people couldn't tell you why. Everything is becoming bickering or hiding in fear. We're married to weird hatred of this and that, while others seemingly hate us or people like us.

    My advice is to choose goodness, beauty, openness to spirituality. If you meet God or Jesus Christ when you die, well they created the universe and they have love for you so why not go along with them or at least ask them for advice?

    And before anyone writes back to say "Well you can't prove that, I'm an atheist and.." well then just treat it as a thought experiment. Imagine you died and were given the chance to live in a new realm of goodness, beauty, meaning and togetherness with people you love would you want that?

    I realise this all sounds strange but life is spiritual, most people have blocked it out. We are here to learn lessons, we're passing through.


  • #83
    Stacksofwacks
    Registered Users Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭Stacksofwacks


    Government buildings wrote: »
    Sorry, I didn't reply to what you said. Yes, my personal belief is that if you don't believe you don't see an afterlife.

    I'm not trying to insult you by saying this, just as you are not insulting me by saying that an afterlife doesn't exist.

    I'm fully aware of what the concept of an afterlife is, I grew up in a catholic environment and believed in an afterlife up until my mid twenties maybe, I started doing some research and the more I looked into it the more I came to believe it dosent exist... on the guilt thing maybe there is a bit of that given the environment I was raised in but I honestly don't think one should feel guilty about believing or not believing.


  • #84
    growleaves
    Registered Users Posts: 7,685 ✭✭✭growleaves


    AllForIt wrote: »
    My answer is the same as I gave in the Atheism forum version of this thread.

    When I die I go back to the where I was before I was born. Or 9 months before being born if you want to be pedantic.

    Some people believe that our souls existed before we were born on Earth, and in that pre-mortal life we lived with God.

    So if you were going back to that it would mean you would be going to heaven.


  • #85
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    True. Guilt shouldn't come into it. It is your own genuine belief, either way.

    You said you did some research about it. Was it the research that led you to not believe, or did you come to that realisation intuitively?


  • #86
    Stacksofwacks
    Registered Users Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭Stacksofwacks


    Government buildings wrote: »
    True. Guilt shouldn't come into it. It is your own genuine belief, either way.

    You said you did some research about it. Was it the research that led you to not believe, or did you come to that realisation intuitively?

    I read books and videos of people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris..if your interested in the subject check them out but I'm not in the business of de-converting people if your happy in that space :D


  • #87
    Thinkingalot
    Registered Users Posts: 52 ✭✭Thinkingalot


    Few months ago, I watched a really interesting video by Dr. Peter Fenwick, concerning this subject- what happens after death! I thought the video was pretty good. It's an hour long but might be interesting for those who are curious about these topics :)

    Here's the link: https://youtu.be/78SkTuk8Zd4


  • #88
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    Stacksofwacks wrote: »
    I read books and videos of people like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris..if your interested in the subject check them out but I'm not in the business of de-converting people if your happy in that space :D

    I know you read the books, but did they convince you? That's all I am asking.


  • #89
    Stacksofwacks
    Registered Users Posts: 1,534 ✭✭✭Stacksofwacks


    Government buildings wrote: »
    I know you read the books, but did they convince you? That's all I am asking.

    They use logic and reason and that's all we have to go on, but can you say 100% categorically that god dosent exist of course not, its impossible to prove a negative


  • #90
    Car99
    Registered Users Posts: 2,530 ✭✭✭Car99


    It's like getting an anesthetic you stop doing **** and that's it. The government is no longer interested in you. Life goes on for everybody else until it's their turn. Eventually the human plague on earth will die out and if there is anything left life and evolution will go on without human interference.


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  • #91
    Government buildings
    Registered Users Posts: 423 ✭✭Government buildings


    Stacksofwacks wrote: »
    They use logic and reason and that's all we have to go on, but can you say 100% categorically that god dosent exist of course not, its impossible to prove a negative

    Just wondering why you quoted atheistic writers. Did you not read anything by believers?
    Anyway, my point is reading and research is pointless. You, and only you decide to believe or not. You don't believe, fine. You do believe, fine.


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