Thread: Do you believe in a 'Afterlife'?

Originally Posted by SpecialInterests

Well I kind of look at it like this: When your brain stops working, you die. But I never had a brain before I was born, just like I won't have a brain after I die. So really, being dead and being unborn ought to feel a lot alike. What did I feel or remember before I was born? For the billions and billions of years before I was born? Well, Fuck all.

Something woke up from a dreamless sleep, and I was born; and someday I shall return.

This has already been said on DV, and I agree completely both then and now.

Originally Posted by Xedan

This has already been said on DV, and I agree completely both then and now.

Then you're saying you don't believe in an afterlife?

Edit: Demara, we are different from other animals in that we have consciousness. Most other animals can't think, and are, in essence, organic computers.

A few related factoids...

• Origin of the word SOUL
  
  The word for SOUL was originally used in ancient Greece, and what they meant by it was the thinking part... ie the mind. later the church claimed that there's another part, one whose existence can't be proved, that is actually what "goes on". Wish I remembered where I read this or at least more details. But this suggest that from the very beginning the church appropriated ideas and twisted them to suit their needs.
  
  
  
• The concept of "self" or identity
  
  This was found in one of the Sagan books I read recently... but not sure which one. There's a little area of the brain responsible for creating the sense of being a unique individual, or of having a unique identity. In people where this area has been damaged there's no sense of being anybody in particular... these people think of themselves as simply existing in a rather unconscious state, undifferentiated. It's believed that this area of the brain exists only (or mostly) in the "higher animals" and than most animals don't think of themselves as individuals at all, but rather as almost automatons, like ants. I like to think that those of us who do have the 'sense of individuality' are lucid in waking existence because of it, while I think of lower animals as living in a rather 'regular dreaming' state... unaware in the fullest sense of the term. Probably not a very good analogy though, I haven't really thought it through.
  
  
  
• Possibility of living again or living on after death
  
  Ok here Im going into pure personal conjecture... these thoughts do not represent my "beliefs", only ideas that I like to play around with. I'm an atheist (sometimes I call myself an agnostic) and while I agree with about 99% of what Mario says on these hallowed fora, I like to stay pretty open-minded about those possibilities that science hasn't yet uncovered.
  
  
  Spoiler for My weird theories about reincarnation and the collective unconscious...:

  This is getting into some deep philosophical territory, and maybe I shouldn't even try to express my ideas here...
  
  But I can't help myself!!
  
  And let me preface this by saying, Im really interested in certain intellectual concepts, but I'm just not smart enough to actually BE an intellectual!! But here goes anyway.... my own little foray into the realm of philosophical inquiry:
  
  
  
  
  Can you imagine not existing?
  
  Like, as in after you're dead, or before you were born? It's basically impossible to truly conceive. I don't mean intellectually... I mean on a gut level or instinctively I suppose. Sure, intellectually I understand the world did just fine before i was here, and will roll on without skipping a beat when I'm gone, but I just can't really wrap my head around the concept. I suspect no-one really can (though of course most of us can understand it INTELLECTUALLY).
  
  I think this is exactly why there are so many ideas like reincarnation and life after death or immortality... people just simply can't face the idea of non-existence. Perhaps this is something that only became an issue when we became human enough to understand our own mortality.
  
  Have you heard the idea that humankind is essentially the universe made conscious so that it can contemplate its own existence? This is from astronomers and physicists (I read it in Carl Sagan long ago... or probably heard it on Cosmos). ... We're made from atoms that have always existed, or at least the subatomic particles always have and always will -- when we die they'll just disperse and re-combine into new atoms and new molecules. So the material we're physically made from was created in the big bang... the atoms existed at one time or another inside of stars, in planets, falling eventually to earth, and then somehow combined to form into a living being... YOU. Organic matter (food -- which may have existed previously as an animal or a plant) being filtered through the mother and then into the fetus via the umbilical cord.
  
  Sorry, Im taking a really roundabout way of expressing this idea, but I don't know how else to do it. If you're still hangin with me, then just bear with me a little bit longer here...
  
  This little growing body that is you emerges form the womb and grows eventually to adulthood, the mind develops from a rather incomplete and un-conscious one into a fully aware/conscious mind as an adult, then devolves in old age back toward unconsciousness and oblivion. This of course happens for everybody... billions of people all aware and alive at the same time. What makes each of them unique? What makes each of them THEMSELVES?
  
  My concept is this...
  
  Imagine driving along on a rainy day (yes this is an analogy). There's a quivering mass of water on your windshield being whipped around by the wind (it's not raining hard enough yet for the wipers ). The water forms sort of an edge around your windshield... a thick border running all the way around with open area in the middle (heh... cause you use Rain-X!). Through that dry area in the middle course many droplets.. spawned from the mass of water along the bottom of the windshield, running their crooked courses upward, where they rejoin the mass of water at the top. (That's if you're driving fast enough... slower and they move down from top to bottom).
  
  Each raindrop is of course one person. The raindrop analogy works physically... we rise from the prima materia of the earth and become a living creature within the womb as I described above - and at death the atoms that formed our body disperse back into the earth to feed plants or animals... but it also works for the personality. Consciousness rises from obscurity into fully developed prominence in each person, then at the end of life it falls back into the undifferentiated mass of unconsciousness.
  
  Sorry, I'm pretty much mangling this!!
  
  But here's how it goes....
  
  When the stars first formed, you could say the universe now has light. When life developed (in whatever mysterious way it occurred, and on whatever planet it first happened on) you could then say it's a universe with life... a living universe. Before that it was a dead universe, or a universe with the potential for life, but that potential was as yet unrealized. Once life evolved though, it was a living universe. And when consciousness evolved... it became a conscious universe.
  
  Ergo, we are the universe made conscious that it might contemplate its existence. Of course human beings aren't the only conscious beings, even on our little planet, but it's a safe bet we're the only ones on earth who understand the nature of the universe even as well as we do (which is fairly incompletely obviously).
  
  What Im working up to is the idea that, each time a new person is born, a fragment of consciousness forms in it (him/her whatever), almost as if there's some vast consciousness (of a very low level... maybe along the lines of Jung's collective unconscious?) that splits itself into myriad pieces, invests fragments of itself into all of us, so that it can experience subjective reality... so it can experience life through the eyes/mind of an individual human being for a time. Actually through billions of them all at once, but through each one individually. It's a bizarre concept... with some similarities to the idea that god and jesus are one and the same... if you can wrap your head around that then this shouldn't be too hard.
  
  Ok, my head is starting to hurt...
  
  This was something I posted on the board recently and just copy/pasted in here. Again, not an actual BELIEF of mine, but something I like to think about.
  
  Essentially it's about the idea that after your body dies YOU might live again through another body... but of course absolutely without any memories or thoughts continuing from your "past life".
  
  I don't think I'm phrasing this very well at all... I'm not really saying you "go on" after you die, but that you rise again as somebody completely different... maybe an animal... a consciousness (and the only way a consciousness can exist is through a living host body, right... which is a life support system for a brain, which supports a consciousness). The nature of consciousness itself is so shrouded in mystery.... and while I absolutely agree that your own sense of identity can't pass to another body after this one dies, what about the theoretical possibility that a whole new sense of identity is developed and that it becomes YOU.
  
  Ah crap... this is too hard to express!!

I'm working on refining this idea so I can express it better, and I suppose posting it here can help toward that. I think the idea Carousoul posted about "YOU" being basically a grammatical error when used in the expression of reincarnation can help a lot toward this.

HaRd WiReD said most of what I was going to say, so I won’t have to type as much, but I’d like to say a few things that may go off topic.

In order to understand or believe the concept of the “afterlife”, you’d also have to ponder and understand reality itself, the two forms reality takes, and the importance of awareness. To most, reality is only a physical experience and can’t go beyond that, but in truth reality is made up of two universes: the ethereal and physical. And one can only experience either reality by themselves--not simultaneously. Proof of the ethereal is given to you when you sleep and dream; its existence can’t be refuted. It’s there and your consciousness experiences it when it can’t experience the physical, again more proof that an afterlife must exist.

I view “death” as the shutting down of one consciousness and the awakening of another, but unlike those who believe in multiverses, or similar, your consciousness is unique to you and can only experience two realities--physical and ethereal; however, it can reside in the many subdivisions of both. There may be other material universes similar to our own, but I find it to be highly unlikely, illogical, and meaningless, whereas in the ethereal it would be more likely as consciousness is more abstract, free, independent, and personal. I do, however, believe that there may be a physical “clone” of ourselves on other worlds within this universe, but to have separate, physical realities would be pointless since it is believed to be the “lowest” reality. Physical matter is also too restricted by the laws of physics, so it could never branch off or become an “island” like an ethereal reality could. What we see, and experience currently, is--and will always be--the one physical reality.

As for the guy who says you lose your personality if your brain gets damaged: that’s true in terms of the physical self, but as far as the self entirely, that can’t be proven because the ethereal self is a subjective experience and can’t be evaluated by anyone but the individual themselves. They also wouldn’t be able to provide evidence of this since their physical brain would be “damaged”, so what they experience outside the material world is usually forgotten by them after waking up. What you feel here is different (in most cases) than what you feel in the ethereal. Logic doesn’t exist in the ethereal; thus, the emotion experienced there is the purest of form and ultimately the true self of an individual. Without the physical brain to subject you to logic and reason, doubt and fear can’t dictate your personality and behavior. Also, you could argue that the emotion experienced in dreams are a product of the brain, but I’ve always viewed emotion as a stand-alone energy, manipulated by hormones and other stimuli. I would explain further, but it’ll be viewed as “arrogant”, so I won’t.

Then there’s awareness and why it makes an afterlife possible. It is, after all, the sole reason why life itself exists. Without awareness there is nothing, or a need for anything to exist… but we’ll skip that thought because that’s a whole other, and lengthy, discussion. Awareness’ role in life is simple: to allow experience. Once one is aware, they are always aware, though, the complexity of the awareness one achieves is determined by that being. Unlike some religions/spiritualists, though, my belief is that all organic life retains its physical form. For example: a human soul will always reincarnate into a human, or something similar. It could never reincarnate into a “lesser being” because the mind of a lesser being couldn’t hold the capabilities that a human soul has. However, I believe that a soul/energy can “upgrade” to a higher being, but I’m rambling now.

Now, the ones who seem to be atheist and against spirituality, I have a few questions. Why do you waste your time arguing against these things? As someone said earlier, if you desire evidence and refute it when given, why bother trying to understand? You’ll never understand because you simply choose not to and argue against it; that is the very definition of close-mindedness. A close-minded person will argue any chance they get, while an open-minded person will do anything to try to understand the material. Arguing only strengthens a stance, it very rarely changes it. Most spiritualists will understand your stance, me being one, considering I was once atheist. What “turned” me was all the evidence that I found for myself, what I experienced, and all the questions I asked, which took more than just a few hundred google searches, library trips, and an outer body experience. I’ve spent about elven years of my life studying this (almost half my life), so my beliefs aren’t something that came to me overnight. If you’re not willing to put that much time and effort into research, why bother? Especially in a subject like this, where it’s either you believe or you don’t.

Before I end this, though, I’d like for everyone to remember this: Death isn’t a state, it’s a transition.

EDIT: Darkmatters, I liked your post. A lot of what was said on it is similar to my own beliefs, except with a few differences. I still believe that we can have awareness after physical death because what would be the purpose of evolution and betterment? Absolutely none. Why do some people choose to believe such things and others don’t, or why do some comprehend them better than others? Some memory must be retained, as a connection is made with the belief(s); some people even feel emotional connections to past individuals.

Also, I’d consider you agnostic.

I just spent over an hour writing what I thought was a really awesome post as a reply to this, only to submit and have been logged out. Back on the browser was merely a tragic log in screen, which, upon logging in, presented to me this, this empty box.

So I won't write all that out again, for some time.

Rather, I'll just put one point here for the time being. So I didn't TOTALLY waste the past hour :[

Originally Posted by Re-l Mayer

Proof of the ethereal is given to you when you sleep and dream; its existence can’t be refuted. It’s there and your consciousness experiences it when it can’t experience the physical, again more proof that an afterlife must exist.

If our dreams are in some sense our tapping into this ethereal reality, which is a wholly non-physical existance, then why is it that our supposed experience of said reality is through physical means?

I'll try and make it a bit clearer. You say that we are experiencing the ethereal when we dream. [I think? If not, please correct me]. However let's think about how in fact we do experience the things in our dreams. When I dream of a naked indian boy speaking cryptically, in what sense could I be said to experience him? Well, through seeing him, and through hearing him. Seeing, is simply the word we use to mean the process carried out by the eyes. Now the eyes are physical things, and seeing is simply the mechanism of these particular physical things. Likewise, hearing is the word we apply to the process of the ears. Ears are physical things, and hearing is the mechanism these physical things undergo.

So why would it then be the case that our non physical selves in a non physical reality, hear and see. If we are in a non physical reality, how are physical processes, hearing and seeing, occuring?


I would imagine that if truly I were to experience an absolutely different and non physical ethereal reality, I would experience it through a way totally different to how I experience the physical world, surely.. Yet we cannot concieve of experience which does not occur through sensory, and by extension physical, means.


I take this same problem with alleged "Out of Body Experiences". People claim to see and hear their body from outside of it, or to see things like a number or whatever, which they couldn't possibly have known. Now like I said, "seeing" is merely the mechanism of eyes. So why would a travelling consciousness experience the world in the same way a body does? Why not experience the world in a profound totally different somehow "non physical" sensory perception?

Double thanks, carou!

And another thing about that, if it is the ethereal, then why is it so self centered and changing from person to person and night to night? If it was some other plane of existence, could we not expect at least the slightest bit of uniformity? And why is it that the ethereal must create DC versions of people you know when they appear in your dreams? Quite often you will dream of a person and, if you tell them about your dream, you can be sure their consciousness wasn't really there. But if everyone sleeps at roughly the same time (or at least everyone you know locally) why wouldn't you just meet them in this etheric plane?

Originally Posted by Re-l Mayer
Proof of the ethereal is given to you when you sleep and dream; its existence can’t be refuted. It’s there and your consciousness experiences it when it can’t experience the physical, again more proof that an afterlife must exist.

...or it could be your subconscious, sleeping mind...and being that the mind is so incredibly complex, I wouldn't put it past our brains to come up with a decent quality dream-scape...

I don't believe in the afterlife that is mostly accepted by religions I suppose... more of an overexagguration of every sensory apparatus in the mind all detached and free flowing until it dies out indefinitely.

So I guess I kind of don't believe in it, as much as I really really would like to.

I believe in one. ^.^

But ya'll already knew that.

There are no other hells that you have been forced to acknowledge or what you have created for yourself. I understand the curiosity, but patience is also a virtue. I think you'll see after you die. Or not if there is none, to that matter. I cannot stress this enough. You will most likely know after you are dead and gone. Seek the truth then.