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Do you think theres an afterlife?

want your opinions. do you think theres an afterlife or does everything just end?

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Reply 1
If ya'll wanna piece of me ya better wish for that :cool:
Reply 2
I don't believe in one. I think that everything that constitutes "me" is physical, or, I don't think there is likely to be any non-physical element that will permit my consciousness or identity to persist independently of my physical constituents. I believe that when I die, "I" will not exist anymore.
The afterlife is not even a comforting idea. I don't want to be around forever. Luckily, none of us are.
From a neuropsychological perspective... once your brain is dead... you are pretty dead.... :smile:
Reply 5
Sadly not, there's no reason to think there is.
Reply 6
Original post by miser
I don't believe in one. I think that everything that constitutes "me" is physical, or, I don't think there is likely to be any non-physical element that will permit my consciousness or identity to persist independently of my physical constituents. I believe that when I die, "I" will not exist anymore.

but at least if thats the case when someone dies they will be at "peace" and not suffering anymore. thats a nice thought
Reply 7
I don't believe in any sort of meta-physical afterlife but I do believe Schrodinger's cat which implies life never ceases to exist. I also sort of think that that explains ghosts ect. as they appear when universes collide
I believe everything ends when you die. Your thought process is stopped, so there can't really be anything after that point.

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No. The concept of heaven and hell is what pushed me to leave Islam two years ago.

I like to believe that the afterlife is like a resting place for the mind, sort of like eternal meditation. But I'm obsessed with finding peace of mind in this life so this could just be me idealising a place that doesn't exist. I guess we'll only find out when we die. :dontknow:
Reply 10
Original post by Vixen47
No. The concept of heaven and hell is what pushed me to leave Islam two years ago.

I like to believe that the afterlife is like a resting place for the mind, sort of like eternal meditation. But I'm obsessed with finding peace of mind in this life so this could just be me idealising a place that doesn't exist. I guess we'll only find out when we die. :dontknow:

yeah. we worry for our friends who have passed on especially at a young age but it would be a nice thought that they are at peace forever.
Reply 11
Original post by empdc
but at least if thats the case when someone dies they will be at "peace" and not suffering anymore. thats a nice thought

Yes, I don't see it as a bad thing. I think it's predominately the ego that non-existence offends.
Original post by empdc
but at least if thats the case when someone dies they will be at "peace" and not suffering anymore. thats a nice thought


Original post by Vixen47
No. The concept of heaven and hell is what pushed me to leave Islam two years ago.

I like to believe that the afterlife is like a resting place for the mind, sort of like eternal meditation. But I'm obsessed with finding peace of mind in this life so this could just be me idealising a place that doesn't exist. I guess we'll only find out when we die. :dontknow:


Original post by empdc
yeah. we worry for our friends who have passed on especially at a young age but it would be a nice thought that they are at peace forever.


I'm always rather disturbed by this idea of eternal peace, if you don't believe in afterlife, because there is no peace. Peace implies some sort of pleasant state of bliss in which everything is harmonious but realistically the person ceases to exist from a physical perspective, neither in peace nor pain. Their situation is not pleasant to them because they cease to exist. And that idea, to be devoid of any form of feeling, I think, is the scariest of them all.

I am rather glad therefore that my religion (Judaism) believes in an afterlife, in fact rather accommodating in all. In fact, Judaism really believes that everyone, aside from very few people in history in exceptional circumstances (their names are listed in the Talmud and whilst I remember a few I cannot for the life of me remember where in the Talmud nor the complete list of the people) has a stake in the World To Come/afterlife, and "hell" as a sort of temporary purification process to enable the soul to be eligible in "heaven" (the term is rather loosely used).
I would like to also point out that it is not, as some might infer, that due to my fear of their not being an afterlife, that I believe in my religion. Judaism realistically does not concern itself with the next world too much, and is far more focused on what we believe we have been commanded by G-d to do in this world.
Reply 13
Original post by empdc
want your opinions. do you think theres an afterlife or does everything just end?


I wish there was, but then again, I wish Santa was real.
Original post by felamaslen
The afterlife is not even a comforting idea. I don't want to be around forever. Luckily, none of us are.


I do not think there is need to be so petrified of eternity.
Eternity is the absence of time, and something that we are really cannot imagine as we have no point of reference. Even the Universe itself, whether you believe in the Big Bang or in Creation was created in a specific point in time. To give you an idea of some the confusion eternity presents to the human mind, it is worth considering what it would be like to "live" eternally. We often compare it to an immortal human being, but such a creature would live in this world and therefore still be bound by time - they would live every second as a second.
If you live in an eternal world, does this not mean that you can choose to "live" in Hollywood-style-slow-motion or to blast through your entire existence in a nanosecond? Of course, you couldn't blast through anything because there is no end to your existence.
Interestingly, Judaism teaches that the longest time a soul can stay in "hell" is 11 months (12 months in exceptional circumstances), yet it also maintains that the next world is eternal and not bound by the constraints of time. Again, this is seemingly impossible to understand. In fact, how can our world even exist as part of a far greater eternal project, when we are bound by time and there is exchange of souls between the two worlds?!
I'm worried that I am rambling here and beginning to simply formulate my flowing thoughts, so I better get to the point:
I think eternity is simply beyond human comprehension, and one should probably be more worried about whether there is an afterlife or not, which in fact may amount to whether there is a G-d or not. I'm sure if there is, He has fixed heaven up rather well for us and we need not worry too much.
Original post by DouglasAdams
I do not think there is need to be so petrified of eternity.
Eternity is the absence of time, and something that we are really cannot imagine as we have no point of reference. Even the Universe itself, whether you believe in the Big Bang or in Creation was created in a specific point in time. To give you an idea of some the confusion eternity presents to the human mind, it is worth considering what it would be like to "live" eternally. We often compare it to an immortal human being, but such a creature would live in this world and therefore still be bound by time - they would live every second as a second.
If you live in an eternal world, does this not mean that you can choose to "live" in Hollywood-style-slow-motion or to blast through your entire existence in a nanosecond? Of course, you couldn't blast through anything because there is no end to your existence.
Interestingly, Judaism teaches that the longest time a soul can stay in "hell" is 11 months (12 months in exceptional circumstances), yet it also maintains that the next world is eternal and not bound by the constraints of time. Again, this is seemingly impossible to understand. In fact, how can our world even exist as part of a far greater eternal project, when we are bound by time and there is exchange of souls between the two worlds?!
I'm worried that I am rambling here and beginning to simply formulate my flowing thoughts, so I better get to the point:
I think eternity is simply beyond human comprehension, and one should probably be more worried about whether there is an afterlife or not, which in fact may amount to whether there is a G-d or not. I'm sure if there is, He has fixed heaven up rather well for us and we need not worry too much.


I'm not worrying about eternal life or God, since neither exist. Clearly we, as the descendants of common ancestors to chimpanzees and bacteria, share their fate when we die. This, to me, raises the value of life to something which is precious and must be protected.
Original post by felamaslen
I'm not worrying about eternal life or God, since neither exist. Clearly we, as the descendants of common ancestors to chimpanzees and bacteria, share their fate when we die. This, to me, raises the value of life to something which is precious and must be protected.


Firstly, I regard life as no less precious than you do simply because you believe that death is the end.
Secondly, we were discussing eternity and according to yourself its morbidity (no pun intended) versus my belief that eternity simply boggles the mind and cannot be fully understood and thus cannot be classed as a bad thing. I gathered that you were able to deal with the hypothetical of eternity (as you made it clear already that you don't believe in it), and for you to simply terminate the discussion by dismissing the hypothetical as nonsense because you don't believe in it, greatly undermines the discussion we were having.
Original post by miser
I don't believe in one. I think that everything that constitutes "me" is physical, or, I don't think there is likely to be any non-physical element that will permit my consciousness or identity to persist independently of my physical constituents. I believe that when I die, "I" will not exist anymore.


What you're saying here seems to be contradictory to what you write in your blog on time; how can you say on the one hand that you think that linear time is an illusion, and then on the other apply an entirely linear interpretation of death. So far as I can see, if time doesn't really exist, then neither can death.
Reply 18
Original post by Ziggy Sawdust
What you're saying here seems to be contradictory to what you write in your blog on time; how can you say on the one hand that you think that linear time is an illusion, and then on the other apply an entirely linear interpretation of death. So far as I can see, if time doesn't really exist, then neither can death.

I think you might've misunderstood my views or else I miscommunicated them - I don't think linear time is an illusion; what I think is that if it weren't linear, we wouldn't be able to tell. Either way, from any point in time that we would describe as being after my death (whether in a literal or non-literal sense), there would exist no perspective that could be said to be mine, and in that sense, I would not exist.
I do believe in one, yes.

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