how many of you believe in an afterlife?

[Manji]

if you were to ask me that question, i guess i would answer: i don't.. i learn more towards the belief that when you die, all your systems shut down, including your ability to dream and conjure up such living images as heaven and an afterlife. but, i could be wrong.

a part of me wishes such a thing does exist though. and maybe it does.

what do you guys think?

[Nixon]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

I believe that energy cannot be destroyed.

[Jamos' Old Account]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

I believe in an after life both religiously and scientifically. Similar to what Nixon said: Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it only changes form. Life is a type of energy, at least that is what I believe, so one way or another it will continue.

[gray]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

i belive when he die we still inhabit our bodies, and can see and or hear everything that goes on around us, but are powerless to do anything about it. eventually our loved ones shove us in the ground, and there we rot for the rest of eternity, going slowly insane.



this is why i hope to some day be dug up and put in a museum.

[Magus]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

I believe in life and glory and the lamentations of your women.

[Ryner]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

I believe in nothing.

[jvrlopez]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

I believe that energy cannot be destroyed.

Just like Jeff Goldblum explains in Powder.

Jeff Goldblum is awesome.

[John Mora]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

[thetruecoolness]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

Or maybe “we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream and we're the imagination of ourselves”. (Bill Hicks)

Not really what I believe but I have entertained the idea we're all just part of one big consciousness and when we "die" we just become part of it again and lose individuality. Other theories are that we are immortal beings in moral bodies, since we got bored of living in infinity and wanted to see what it would be like to have a limited lifespan. Now of course none of this is provable since whatever happens to you when you die it definitely separates you from your body, and no memory of it every exists. So even if we are reincarnated we wouldn't know it as most of our memory seems to be stored in the brain, since the brain is really just a storage device and a way for us to communicate on this plane of being.

Of course all of this leads into loopy philosophical discussion, which is why the best philosophy is to live and try to make the best of the consciousness you have now, cause no one really knows what happens after death and likely no one will so it's best not to worry about it. Though speculating about it can be fun and enlightening.

And since no one can really define reality without begging the question, we don't really know if we are real or not, since given only our own perspective it would be impossible to tell if we are actually real, or puppets, or someone else's imaginary friends. Though the matrix might be cliche and slightly overrated I think it points out some good ideas, and thoughts on the subjectivity of our experience. Now of course you can prove that once death is there the body doesn't move any more, no one can accurately define what our mind or soul is, so for all we know we could be in a game reinacting our history, and our physical body is just an avatar. None of these I strongly believe but they are just as valid as any other explination, since life and death and what's in between is really beyond our comprehension.

[Misty]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

The Buddha believe in reincarnation--when a person dies, they are reborn as a different entity, or creature. I don't think a lot about death in itself, but I have a firm belief that once we die, we'll come back as something else, or wander like a spirit. Then you have mediums like James Van Praagh and John Edwards who can talk to the dead, so there's that thought of being a ghost after you leave the mortal world.

Of course, I don't want to find that out for myself just yet

[Kire]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

I believe in the afterlife because of scientific backing and my own supernatural experience...many here have heard "Kire's ghost story." Still, my experience aside, there have been many things like NDEs (near death experiences) that can't be written off as just brain hallucinations because of the information they provided.

I will admit that my belief might partially be fueled by a desire for a life after this one, but I think that goes w/out saying and try to stay as scientific minded as possible.

[Shard]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

And since no one can really define reality without begging the question, we don't really know if we are real or not, since given only our own perspective it would be impossible to tell if we are actually real, or puppets, or someone else's imaginary friends.

When Rene Descartes wasn't busy fiddling with numbers he addressed this issue. He began with doubt. He doubted everything, including his own existence, and came to the conclusion that the one thing he could not doubt, was the fact that he was doubting, and if he was doubting, then he was thinking, and if he was thinking, then he must exist...leading to the shortened "I think therefore I am." Philosopher-mathematicians...where've they all gone?

I don't know where self-awareness begins and ends. I don't believe in an afterlife, although my curiosity is satisfied when it comes to the breakdown of my composite elements. I don't have a problem with people who do believe in some sort of continued existence. As I won't claim to have solved all the mysteries of the universe just yet, I can't claim to know one way or the other.

[Sampson]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

Please, provide specific "scientific evidence" supporting an afterlife.

(I believe) There is no afterlife. There is no reason to believe in one other than man's own ego, and unwillingness to accept his own eventual demise.

Ghosts aren't real, and anyone that claims to be a mystic is a fraud.

The idea that; energy can't be destroyed, therefore your bodies energy and your conscious with it must continue on, is a very bastardized use of scientific laws. Yes, energy can't be destroyed, but it can and does change forms. When you die, the energy left in your body disapates out as heat. This heat doesn't contain your conscious. The matter that is your brain contains your conscious and personality; not the energy that runs it.

As for things such as reincarnation, and being part of a larger 'consciousness':
If you are reincarnated, and you "come back" as something else, but you have no memories of who you were before, then you are a new entity and not the old.

Everyone accepts the fact that there is no prelife, so why should there be an afterlife? Isn't this single life enough?

[Kire]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

People don't care about intellectuals unless Russell Crowe stars as one.

[The Toecutter]

Re: how many of you believe in an afterlife?

This is a matter that I have no definative answer of. I thus cannot say whether or not I believe in an afterlife because I'm not dead and cannot observe whether or not there is one.

And since this is a matter I have absolutely no control in, I'm not bothered by it either. When I am dead and if there happens to be no afterlife, I won't even notice it. If there is one, then I would have been wrong to guess that there wasn't.