Afterlife

[Acrylic]

We all have our views on the afterlife. Heres mine.

 

Now we all know the thing we all hear. "When you die, youll go to heaven if you're good, hell if you're bad." I dont know if I believe in that anymore. I sometimes dont know what to believe, but here is what Im starting to believe. My mom. She believes that "once you're dead, you're dead. You'll never see anybody again." I dont want to believe it, but I think it is true.

 

Now, please post your thoughts on my beliefs and please post yours too.

[taoistimmortal]

I believe that it may be possible that any scenario that any one can think up may be the correct belief in terms of the outcomes of our death. It matters very little whether it be a christian or other judeo-christian belief or a buddhist, hindu, sihk, parsian, shinto, taoist, animistic, or voodistic beleif. If there is someone to believe in a certain outcome it may as well be viable.

 

The more interesting question is the existence of our eternal souls, that is if we actually possess them, and if we do possess them then is the spiritual body prone to death similiar to the flesh body?

[Ray Jones]

mainly we are just some kind of physical/ chemical reaction. and of course every individual (if human or bacteria) is therefore part of a bigger reaction/ process. and so on.

[Druid_Allanon]

Well, when I was at a very young age, like 5-7(can't remember), I was worried about dying, and wondered what happens after you die. I asked my dad for guidance. He used to tell me that after you die, you'll reside in the place surrounded by faeries. I felt comforted at that time. Now, it all seemed so silly.

 

According to biological terms, the decomposers eat away your body and break it down into simpler parts to serve as nutrients for the plants(correct me if I'm wrong, been 2 years since I read this). But I believe in reincarnation. There is life after death, they say. You will be reincarnated as an animal or a human, depending on the deeds you have done in your previous life.

[ShadowTemplar]

The question is fundamentally irrelevant, because nobody can come back and tell us what it's like.

 

On the subject of a 'soul' or the equivalent: I find it silly: If you take a look at what most people would think constitutes the components of a 'soul', and compare it to the list of attributes that have a localized brain centre, you'll find that if there is such a thing as a 'soul' then it is intimately tied to the brain. That is: Brain damage impairs the functions normally associated with the 'soul'. This means that death, which results in the total cessation of brain activity would impair the soul to the point where it would be considered crippled.

 

And even if we, for the sake of the argument, accept the idea that 'the essence of a being' can live on, then it will be fundamentally different from the being that it left behind, simply because it is deprived of the being's normal sensory input. Every concious creature defines itself relative to the sensory input that it recieves from its surroundings. If you remove or replace the sensory input channels, you fundamentally alter the way the creature looks upon the world, and thus fundamentally alter the creature's definition of 'self'. So even if I do have a 'soul' I would most certainly die at the point of death.