Theories Of After Death - [Now With GA]

The idea of a mind seperate from the body is heavily discussed in philosophy, but there is not a shred of evidence for it. There is only the physical world, and the physical world says once our brain stops working our self / soul / consciousness stops to exist, as it emerges fully from our brain. So don't worry, there won't be an empty void in which you'll float bodyless for eternity. Your life will end, and that's all. There is no reason to think otherwise.

How about this. Reincarnation is in fact, a rearrangement of infinitesimal pieces of conciousness of every living being of the past, the same as us (as matter), are a rearrangment of atoms of former beings and things. This will keep going until the thermodinamic death of the universe.

Someone write a scifi book about this

Get the most out of this lifetime. It's probably the only one you've got. What follows after its inevitable end? Probably "Game Over" with no option of inserting another coin.

I don't know what happens after you die, but personally I would find it pretty depressing to go all my life thinking that when I die that's it. So even though I really don't know, I prefer to believe in the possibility that there's something better after and that we not doing all that for nothing...

I've never had a real fear of death.
I recall having some kind of fear when I was a child, but as a teenager I had so many mental and physical health problems that really changed my mind.. I didn't have the time to even think about after life xD
Anyways I've always been an agnostic, actually I've been a Theravada Buddhist for 15+ years, but it's easy for me as an European (with no non-European blood of any kind XD) define myself as an agnostic to everyone, it's easy for them to understand in a practical and smart way what my beliefs are about.. if they want I'm always open to discuss with anyone of course my religion and theirs and so on..
Anyways, many calls my Buddhism "nontheistic" or simply "agnostic Buddhism" and actually it's a good definition.
I have accepted the notion of karman (write it correctly please xD) quite late, although I had accepted the ideas of samsara, nirvana and most of all dharma as a teenager. Dharma is everything that exists (and probably we know 1% about it) - my teacher of Indology at the university encouraged us to search in multiple Sanskrit dictionaries in order to create a personal translation of Dharma xD (ok I had many problems with Islamic studies and other non-indo-european studies actually at the university, fortunately Sanskrit shares many things with Italian and French xD)..
So we're all part of the same life cycle (samsara) and most of all of the same universe. Though we know little about it, science makes us progress, but it's possible that there are lots of spirits, gods, whatever.. we don't know about them, maybe we'll never know, but is this important? definitely not! Since Buddhism tells us simply to do our best and the most positive and great things for what we are, if we're not rich we don't have to use all our properties in order to "grow better" or "have a better public image".. if we can't play sports 'cos we're disabled (like me, in the sense that my health problems don't allow me to use professionally my right arm and leg so of course I can't play lots of sports and activities), we aren't forced to do so.. we can do many other things to make ourselves and everyone else, every being we care about, happy!
It often seems a bit egoistical but it's actually way deeper.
When we die? We don't know, not only: we can't know! I have never seen any kind of god or spirit from any kind of man-made religion so far, I'm 30+yo, maybe I'll see them in the future, but so far I have no proof that any religion is real and of course I don't think that Buddhism is a religion, in the sense that it simply writes down what mankind should do and does in a natural way.. there's really no need to talk about my beliefs actually =P
No one needs to be converted or whatever..
I'm really grateful to my culture and my parents who never taught and forced me any religion, and here no one is religious apart from those who undergo a special and personal training and study..
After death? Why should we have fear? We are made all of the same matter, we will return in the eternal cycle of life, we're all inter-connected, I'm actually happy - I want to do all my best, struggle with depression and other illnesses, be a better person, do kind acts, excuse myself whenever I do something wrong.. this all makes me happy every day and I feel no need of supernatural beings and man-made scriptures that can't be confirmed or non-confirmed... that's why I have way more difficulty to understand atheists rather than believers xD
Who cares? When I'll die the parts of my body and soul will go with the flow of samsara, dharma and karman and if I have been a good person, I'll have helped the whole universe (Dharma, we don't know how big it is or how it's made of, i'm using an europena word ^^) to be a better place and that's what I'm supposed to do as a human being born here in these years and with these capabilities!
I have and I won't likely ever have certain insights and ideas, so I can't tell anything for sure but yeah, it's very unlikely that we'll go on another planet with some kind of gods maintaining our bodies and minds and whatever else.. we'll instead keep on going with the universe.. :)
Have no fear, life is short, and death will takes us all.. =P

There is a lot of confusion about Heaven and Hell. Rather than going through every single thing you have ever been told, I will just summarize it.

• In Heaven, you get whatever you want, whenever you want, however you want, and it's perfect. Anything that might possibly make Heaven the least bit less comfortable does not exist in Heaven.
• Hell is unbearable punishment. Anything that might possibly make Hell the least bit more bearable does not exist in Hell.
• The only negative thing about getting into Heaven is that you cannot simply enter it immediately. The only positive thing about being in Hell is that not everyone stays there forever.

Of course, mere words cannot hope to encompass the reality. Heaven is much better than described above. and Hell is much worse.

With death biological life of e.g. a human being ends. That's it ;)

People in this thread contemplating the After while I'm here gonna live forever or die trying.

What I think is that you should try to make the best of life and to enjoy it, and try not to worry about death. Death happens, and it will hit the people around, because they'll continue to live without you.

But you, regardless of your belief, will be (or not be) in a different place. Most religions believe that what happens later depends on what kind of person you were. If that's the case, being nice and not doing anything majorly bad might earn you points. Many however also believe that you need to follow certain religious edict, and that just being certain things is a sin. If God indeed is the narrow-minded person most religious people believe in, then you're probably screwed. Doesn't make much sense to me though.

Still, the short of it is, if you try to be a decent person then you not only get a better chance at another life, if there is one, but you also make the world a better place for some people, and that's worth it regardless.

As boring as the concept of heaven often sounds, before that we had Sheol, not so different (actually related to) the widespread belief in the pagan world that the afterlife was a pretty dull and depressing shadow existence,un-linked to ideas of reward and punishment and not so different than the bleak afterlife that you have envisioned. I'm agnostic, but that doesn't mean that I haven't spent time thinking about this throughout my life. If I had to pick, I'd say that the most attractive concept for me is the Hindu one of an endless cycle of creation and destruction. I just like the way these ideas mirror scientific theories about the universe, time and eternity which inspire a sense of awe and wonder, rather than one of dread. (Whether this means that there is such a thing as reincarnation as many envision it, I kind of doubt it.) So, I don't much want to be shuffling around in some dingy underworld, trapped by my thoughts either, but I am absolutely okay with the idea of eventually becoming a happy little dot merging with all the other little dots in the great mind of the universe.

Hey guys, you realize that there isn't an afterlife right? Like if you die that's it you no longer exist.

The concept of an afterlife was made to control people better, for example medieval soldiers, religion, etc.

Thanks. I just wasted hours reading stupid SCPs.

For the person experiencing death, there will be nothing to experience.
For all the rest (exclusing nuclear armageddon or epidemics and other forms of mass extincion, ..) life will go on.

But the person who died,.. well, in most cases you won't even get to experience that you 'died'.
Just ask anyone who was reanimated after - technically - dying, the point where the brain registers you are dead is not ... registered for lack of a better word.

So if you go anywhere from getting smacked in the back of your neck to dying of old age, you probabely won't even realise you have died.
And if there is something after, I doubt you will consciously be able to understand it.
When brain function ceases, the light just goes out, so not even an unconscious 'experience'.

So much pessimism in this thread, there are acounts of afterlife depending of religion beliefs (which i would say are mostly faked), but, there are more acounts of reincarnation no matter their religion or beliefs.

Its not clear if we can choose or we are being guided, but these is maybe the options depending of your life of reincarnation, transcern to another reality, or a self-torment caused by a traumatic dead or an obsesion keeping you in this world(repeating you dead over and over or "habitating/walking" errant between realities).

I also hear numerous times that suicide it's punished among "other things" but not even close to an actual "hell", more like a self expiation and other stuff.

When you die you open a door to another existence of your conscience.

You can't actually die, so stop worrying about it.

What other people think of as "you" can die, from their point of view, but you can never die from your point of view. Being scared of the process of dying makes a bit of sense (it might be really unpleasant, depending on the circumstances) but death itself ain't no thing. You're immortal until the day you die!

Now, that doesn't really answer things if you're one of those folks who believe "you" can survive the total disintegration of the electrical patterns in your brain, all evidence to the contrary, but I'm not one of those folks, so that works out quite well. I don't really get the people who think this is "boring" and want something "interesting" to happen. I don't see the appeal of speculating on the unknowable when there's so much knowable stuff to study, but hey -- if that's your thing, fantasize away.

i just know one Thing only life free but die hard ;) ;)

No one knows what happens after you die. We all have an idea, and we may or may not be correct, but no one knows. I've struggled a lot with the eternal questions; who are we, where did we come from, where are we going?

I started off growing up in a Christian family believing in God, to doubting that faith and being an agnostic, becoming a Christian again, and now back to being an agnostic. I lean now towards the belief that there is no God, but I don't know that I am right. I don't curse the name of God, or patronize people for their beliefs (or non-beliefs). I still pray from time to time, and engage in discussions about religion, life, existence, the soul.. I do my best to keep an open mind, and honestly pursue the truth. The way I see it, if you can't question your own beliefs then they aren't worth having.

Death, yeah it can be difficult to comprehend. That you and everyone you love will cease to exist (at least in this human form) can be very frightening, but I think it's something we all need to think about sometimes. We get caught up in the small things, and forget how short life is. Some people spend their whole lives amassing a fortune, sometimes at the expense of others.. but one day they will die, and you can't take it with you. Others create their dynasty, their "immortality project" in making something that will be left behind, a great monument, scientific discovery or works of art. When I die, I only want to be genuinely remembered and missed by a few loved ones.

That said, we never know when death will come for us.. no matter how old you are, you or someone you love could die in a car accident tomorrow. Call your parents, grandparents, kids, friends and tell them that you love them. Spend time with those you care about, or a friend you haven't seen for a while. Be honest and kind to the people around you. Fight for justice and do what's right. Meditating on death can help put these things into perspective, and alleviate our fears as well.

One theory I've heard a lot lately is that death is the end. Game over. Nothing comes after it. I'm tempted to believe this. We cling to life so desparate that we find solace in the idea that even after death, there will be something. Something good, something bad. Anything at all.

I've read about near-death experience and found solid evidence that everything and everyone we see during that experience can be rationaly explained with science, therefore I can't take it as a proof that something miraculous happens when we die.

I'm not really afraid of the death as I've been on the verge of meeting my demise a couple of times especially last year in Febuary when I suffered from a stroke. The last thing I heard was my Mum crying and it was her Birthday that day. I was walking out of my room then my right side when into shut down mode and lucky my body made it to the bed rather than the floor then next thing, didn't even realise it was three days that passed when I woke up.

The strangest thing that I have experienced,was seeing people in limbo, or in other words, the realm between Heaven and Hell where you also have people filled with doubt, confusion or are simply clouded with judgement and not willing to move forward. Scariest part, may be or may not be, was seeing this afterwards as well, I had someone who I can't name put their hand reaching out to me. It isn't scary honestly speaking but it is something where you would have to place your trust into the whole matter.

And no, death is not the beginning nor the end.

Dark Souls handles the subject perfectly, without the need for existential nonsense or imagined meaning.

YOU DIED

Live your life to the fullest because after that it'll be all meaningless.
I'm not waiting until I retire to have some fun. Recently I started hiking and it's a blast!
I've taken some pics if you're interested in breathtaking landscapes:
Cheers!

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The picture you've described is also the scariest I can imagine. My greatest fear in this life is being trapped in my body: alive, conscious, feeling everything, but unable to move (even if just to finish it all). The only thing worse than that is mentally staying in my body after death. Fortunately, I don't believe neither in this version, nor in any of the religious fantasies (be they scary - like Christian one where I'd be condemed to hell for eternity just for being a nonbeliever, or attractive - reaching Nirvana or even just staying in Samsara does sound nice).

I've got a friend, her son is heavily autistic. According to her religios mother (and mother's priest), her child's illness is a punishment from that petty asshole of a (Orthodoxal Christian) God who's apparently angry at her for her stopping to visit his church. She's obviosly also going to Hell, yeah. I'm not saying she's a saint, but why the hell should a decent woman who's taking care of a disabled child (alone, of course) suffer for eternity just for not believing in something? Not only it's unfair, it's totally illogical. Why should I believe this or any other religious fairytale? They vary from just just unsubstantiated to outrageous (and still unsubstantiated, of course).

Basically, I think that death is the end. A complete, total one, without this "soul" bullshit. And I'm totally fine with that if we're talking about my own end. The people I love are a whole different story, of course, but I'm still not going to delude myself just to make it less painful. I can also easily imagine this approach leading to my suicide, but, well, that's also fine in its own way.

I don't tend to sugarcoat things. My opinion is that the most likely outcome of death is, if put simply, nothing. The act of living, knowing, thinking, and being, is all powered by the complexity of your brain. It has the ability to do those things, and when your brain stops functioning, all of those things cease to exist.

It's hopeful, and sometimes even fun to fantasize about after-life, but I don't believe in spirit/soul and I don't think that there is any logic to the assumption that there is anything past life - humans are an extremely intelligent species and I think that's why we tend to think that we're "too smart" for our consciousness to just disappear from the world in an instant. Having the ability to think for ourselves and consider the meaning of our lives means that we feel the dread of death, unlike most creatures who only instinctively understand danger and avoid it in a self-preservative notion.

Still, the topic itself is interesting and I've often thought of ideas for a fictional after-life - the concept is simple; after death, you become a "ghost" in an empty world, while retaining your memories and personality. Now, the world is entirely empty, BUT you are able to build and create anything you want using your imagination - so for example, remembering how you looked will give you a body, but imagining another body will give it to you. Want to build a house? Imagine the layout and design, then have it appear from thin air. The interesting thing about this is that creative people such as artists would be the greatest assets to this world, along with people who have knowledge of various mechanical/engineering things as in order to build, say, a watch, you need to imagine the mechanism inside of it for it to function as intended - in other words, you need a watchmaker or a person with knowledge about watches.

But again, this is just a fun little idea. I still do not believe in "life after death".

And Suddenly a ga!

The concept of religion in general has always intrigued me. I think, for the most part, the majority of humans want to feel as if they have a purpose on earth, which is why the majority of the planet is partakes in some form of religion.

With that said, I've moved on from being a "Christian" to being more of an Humanist.

In short:

Humanists believe that this is the only life of which we have certain knowledge and that we owe it to ourselves and others to make it the best life possible for ourselves and all with whom we share this fragile planet.

I like the idea of living my life in a way that benefits myself and my community and those who I interact with in a influential and positive way without the drive of doing it for the sole purpose of afterlife karma. I'm not doing it for rewards in the next life. If we all lived this way, it would eliminate the hatred that often times spawns from religious belief systems.