afterlife thoughts

If I believe and I turn out to be wrong, nothing is lost or gained.
But if you don't believe and you turn out to be wrong, what then?
Purely rhetorical...

Deleted post

I am sympathetic to this argument, but there are some responses to it. It's up to you to decide whether these responses are valid.

One response is that people need a way to pick between many religions and they don't have one. Take just two religions - Islam and Christianity. A standard view of Islam says you have to worship Allah as the only god. If you worship anyone but Allah, you have a low chance of being saved. On the other hand, a standard view of Christianity says you have to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior to be saved. It might not be impossible to be saved in both Islam and Christianity but it's at least quite difficult. Now when you add in all the religions throughout the world and throughout history, how are you to know which religion will lead to your salvation?

Another response is if a person does not believe, there's no choice that person can make to cause the person to believe. Presumably, the belief we are talking about is something at a person's core. There's a lot a person can fake, but can a person fake the feelings at the core?

what i 'know', i know; what i don't 'know', i don't know; i don't do 'believe'.

I do believe. I do have faith. I'm not blind in either one. I am not clever or entertaining in my testimony, but I am steadfast and the result is joy and peace. I don't need others' approval, nor am I swayed or weakened by ridicule. I live to be an example, show love and compassion to others, and I have never found a life more worth living than that.

I consider myself a gnostic Christian. I do believe in afterlife. I had a near death experience.

Near death speaks of that something exists after life. If you think of a day going from day to night from sleeping to waking, what is always present is consciousness. The near death experiences seem to confirm that for me. So how can we know our consciousness and learn to focus on it? That is a question I ask myself.

I've lived, died, and been reborn. I sort of remember a state in between. It was restrictive, static and brightly contrasted with yellow, black and red colours. I think I was the yellow and black, but I sort of bled into the red like it was all stitched together. It wasn't physical, but it wasn't ethereal either. It was more like I and everything else was made from plasma. I was the only thing that existed in that plane of reality, but not the only thing that existed "everywhere"; like there are multiple planes and this was just a pocket of this reality and not really outside of it. It felt like been inside an egg and I remember feeling feverish and tormented. It was also lacking spacial dimensions... maybe. It's hard to comprehend or remember.

Our son died on January 12, 2018. Immediately upon his death, we all started feeling his presence. I could smell his cologne at the airport when we went there the day he died to pick up our daughter. His best friend could feel him. We could all sense him there. None of us have had this experience before our son passed. One day, I was thinking about a happy memory of him and I could feel him smile. It's feel-seeing or feel-see. It's when you feel something, but you also have a vision of what you feel. I wasn't seeing his smile from the memory, I was seeing the smile on his face at knowing I was remembering a happy time. My husband has never believed in the afterlife, until now, because he can feel-hear our son speak to him. Or perhaps he's just feeling what our son is feeling in that moment. He firmly believes in the afterlife now. It's also little things that happen. Our son spent a day with his best friend in the weeks before he left us in a garden where there were a lot of butterflies. There are photos of him with a butterfly on his hand. Those butterflies were in an enclosed garden type arboretum. A week after our son passed, that friend was seeing butterflies everywhere they went. Real butterflies, butterflies on t-shirts, butterfly decorations for your home, etc. And when that friend is sad, she frequently sees a butterfly. Those on the other side communicate with us, but we are conditioned to not notice that communication. And I think the deceased can re-direct things to us. I see dragonflies on my patio frequently. I believe my son re-directs them there to me.

So the next life I can become an ET? I wish that were true, but honestly have no idea what my own conscious perception of reality will bring me when I cease to live. That I can say is the universal messages of my world are trying to tell me. Though I do question this since I once had a strange dream, as if it were a recollection of a past life. Then again I have to take everything with a grain of salt. I'm open to the many possibilities of the many theories that we hold, but then I have my teeter totter doubts in believing.

For whatever reason, that thought scares me.

But I often hear family members say, "He suffered so much from his illness, now he is in a better place." So that means there is heaven, a better place where someone no longer has to suffer.

I also hear people who suffered injustice say, "Now he is receiving his reward in hell." So that means there is a place where justice will be executed in an event it wasn't executed on earth, during his lifetime.

"scientifically speaking" Energy Doesnt die, it just changes form so I believe there has to be something. I also like to quote contact when a character said something like "if we are alone its an awful waste of space"(paraphrasing).
There is always the idea that Earth is sort of like our pergatory and when we get it right we move on. In that sense I believe in loosely defined reincarnation. I believe if you didnt get it right you get another chance here on earth. I may be crazy to believe this. I believe there are no coincidences and that there is something akin to "fate" in play. There are so many things that have lined up to be like Kismet for me I cant believe that it was all just meaningless and random.

I've thought about this question in the past but don't anymore.
Atheism scares me, reincarnation scares me, heaven and hell scare me...
I believe something exists and I would love to know what it is but I'm too anxious to think about it.

I believe there is an afterlife, but I have no idea of what it may be like. Just like everyone else, I suppose. Sending many hugs to everyone

The closest thing I have found to an explanation of the afterlife is by people reporting their experiences in near death experiences NDE. Here is a blog on that Part II: Near-Death Experience Changes Therapist's Life and Work

In the process of staying sober I met a higher power - in as close to the flesh as he could possibly be and not be human. That happened in 1982 and it's as real to me today as the day I met him.

I should have been dead so many times I sometimes wonder if I am dead. I know that sounds weird but what if you never really die spirit wise and things continue for you the way they are. I have heard this mentioned else where and I have tjought it a possibility. a unlikely one but still one. I was then reminded of it when someone said they saw their mother's ghost watering the plants in the morning in her yard just like she had always done. There are so many things that could happen after we die. I am Christian so I am supposed to believe in heaven and hell but I just dont know and thinking about makes me anxious.

Intellectually it is not reasonable to believe in an afterlife. We certainly cannot know. Yet, I have had an eerie experience that rather shook this belief. If I could choose a belief it would be in reincarnation as that comes the closest to making sense to me but I'm still not sold on the idea. It is absolutely illogical. Still, our physical bodies are reincarnated (matter is not generated it is constantly in a state of change and redistribution). Those adherents of reincarnation would say thus our spirits then are redistributed too. All I can say though is that I conduct myself morally and ethically so it wouldn't really matter to me anyway.

This is a really interesting discussion point to me. I am an agnostic despite growing up in a Christian household. My father is an Anglican Priest but he is also a professor of Philosophy. I get frustrated by this on account as a (intellectually Mensa brilliant man) I cannot begin to grasp that he would believe the very story (virgin birth) that identifies him as a Christian. His choice though. We do however have pretty good discussions on this point. He has actually written books on the subject of 'faith and a life of reason'. They are too high brow and academic for me though. But this discussion is quite relevant as he is at this time writing a book on the subject for the non-academic and about to go on a lecture tour on the subject.

What if this life is a real bad dream and when we "die" we wake up?
What if there is no WE, only I am, and I am dreaming of you and you are dreaming of me?
What if this dream is totally mind created to the minute detail, feeling real even in afterlife if we are in a transitory place like the Pearly Gates of Heaven?
...ok ok sorry for this rambling I must take my meds.

I don't believe in an afterlife EVEN after I was in the ICU "seeing" dead people like the kid in the movie The Sixth Sense. Could those dead people have been due to the opioids I was put on at the time? Who knows. I knew that my sister was going to give birth to two sons b/c I saw them in their human form, standing at the foot of my hospital bed staring at me, smiling, as two teenage boys. Now, they look exactly as I had predicted they would from my ICU bed. So, does an afterlife exist? I have no idea. I only know what I saw that time I was in the hospital ICU that i can't explain to this day.

If you don't believe in an afterlife and wake up in an afterlife after all, you probably would have a very strong reaction. Whether positive or negative depends in the quality of afterlife.

Or are you talking about hell, the hell of the unbelievers? In that case, it is most logical to believe, just to make sure - but only if you believe. Otherwise it wouldn't be logical.

I definitely believe in the afterlife.