I was just wondering; I've been thinking about death a lot lately and I wanted to know what people's opinions were about it. The prospect of nothing after death is probably the one thing in this world that scares me. So I was just wondering what you guys all thought. Any opinions?

Seems like this could be a poll, since there is no real way to debate this.

I fear that too. I'm Xian, but whenever I think about the possibility that there's nothing after death, it just sends a shiver down my spine. I mean, I know once it happened, I technically wouldn't care. But I still would hate that, despite some down times, I generally like being me, and would rather not stop existing.

yeah that's pretty much how I feel, and as for existing, exsisting is fun - I'd rather not stop existing either.

What is Xian? A religion I assume, but it beleives in...

Xian is a shorter, easier way to type Christian.

<------------------- Lazy sometimes .

This is my belief. Take it as you will.

When we die, we are accepted into God's Holiness until the Final Judgement when we wil stand before God and recieve His Judgement. Then's there's the Heaven and Hell thing that I'd rather not get into.

I don't really know what I believe.

It's hard for me to think about there not being an afterlife...because it's just something that feels so comforting when I have lost someone to think that someday I'll be able to see them again. It's one of my biggest fears that it doesn't exist.

I do know that I believe that if there is an afterlife...then it's just one place...I don't believe in Hell. I guess I'm an optimist, but I just believe that there is good in everyone and that there is nothing that anyone could do that would be bad enough to condemn them to an eternity of torture.

But those are just my thoughts. Like I said, I guess I'm just an optimist...

I really have no substantial evidence any which way on this issue.

However, my personal belief is it's not entirely unlike falling asleep, or into a deep coma...so far as what you perceive. You just....go to sleep. Forever. That's it. I've heard there's still a small electrical charge in your brain after you die....perhaps that's your brain dreaming. And that might explain the "light in the tunnel" people see when they die, should the Heavenly theories prove to be not true.

There's really no way to know one way or another. Personally, I'd PREFER if there were an afterlife. It's a lot more welcoming and comforting then nothingness.

Maybe I'm just morbid

well, i'm an atheist, so for me, heaven and hell just don't exist. but i don't find that scary. on the contrary, i find the prospect that they may exist more frightening. i mean, think about it, no matter which one you end up in, would you really want to exist there for eternity?! i'm sorry, but i'd start to get pretty damn bored after awhile!

some days i believe that we just cease to exist, and some days i believe in reincarnation (and reincarnation is an atheistic belief as no gods are involved). i really haven't decided which. if you cease to exist, then you still live on in the memories of others, so you're not completely gone, and if you get reincarnated, then you get to live in peoples memories, and get a brand spanking new body! so hey, it's not all bad.

"Life is pleasant. death is peaceful. It is the transition
that is troublesome." -isaac asimov

My beef with the whole heaven and hell thing is this...if God/the Bible preaches forgivenes...how does Hell exist? Its something I've pondered about before.
Fair play to those who are religous. I often envy you.

see, even though I'm christian, I don't really believe in a hell. The only way I think a person goes to hell is if they want to, they must actually choose to worship satan (or whatever devil you believe in) over whatever god you believe in. In the bible if jesus died to forgive our sins, and went to hell so that we could go to heaven - then why would we go to hell? I mean, that's kind of redundant don't you think? I think if we're truely sorry for whatever bad things we've done in our life, that if there is an afterlife, we get to go to whatever 'heaven' we believe in...

sry if that made no sense


::sniffles and huggles ri:: I'm so sorry, really - I'm so so sry hun

::apologizes to everyone else for random out burst and causing confusion::

I'm sorta with Aries on this one. I get the impression that it's just like falling asleep forever. Sleeping is nice, so I'm not too worried. I don't think people have a soul or anything, just that they sleep in a dead kind of way. I don't know how well that came across. I know I don't believe in Heaven or anything, it all seems a bit fairytale-ish/Father Christmasy for me.

I guess that's your brain making its final adjustments to make the transition run smoothly and maybe give us a chance to get used to the idea, you know, just to be a little more civil about things, twould be a little mean for the universe to create a sentient being, make them fear death more than anything, then just switch them off like a light when they're used up.

I beleive it's just like before you were born. Nothing. I don't beleive in an afterlife. Lots of people say they beleive but truly it's for the sole reason of wanting to end up somewhere when they die. Sort of like they think it's a: "If you say you beleive, I'll let you into heaven" kind of thing.

I, too, allways wonder if God is all forgiving, why is there a hell? I know about the forgiving God and condemning God thing but still..

"When I was a child, every night I'd pray for a bicycle, and I never got one. I finally figured out God doesn't work that way, so I stole one and asked him to forgive me."

I don't believe in an afterlife. I've had a few people talk about the deceased looking down on them from heaven or being a presence in their lives, but I've never thought about it like that. I suppose I was raised marginally christian but around the time I stopped believing in Santa Claus I stopped believing in God and all that goes along with God and religion. I've actually tried to imagine people who've passed on as looking down on me in heaven or something but I've never been able to picture heaven or hell and the things that I can't picture or imagine in my head I have a hard time believing.

edit: I actually had a dream awhile ago that sort of defined heaven for me (though I still don't believe in it) According to my sub conscious heaven is an empty darkened office building where you meet everyone in your life that you should have met to have the best of all possible lives if time and space weren't a factor. Funny that it had nothing to do with scenery or clouds or harps.

okay, being morbid now - how do you want to die?

Quietly in my sleep, at an old age, after a long and mostly-happy life.

too peacefull for me, there's been mornings where I've prayed I wouldn't wake up but I think I'd like to go out with a bang...

Like in the movie second hand lions...

that was a good idea

The Afterlife.

An interesting question. Does it exist? Quite honestly, I don't know. While I believe in the Divine, to the core of my being on a level that isn't really rational but seems to rise above it, I sometimes have to doubt the afterlife. It all seems so fairytale-ish. On the other hand, I can't quite comprehend the concept that upon death, you just cease to exist... because I exist right now, and I think therefore I am, so that concept is just foreign... I mean, as far as I remember, I've always existed, right? And from my perspective, the world only exists because *I* exist. If I cease to exist, then the world that *I* know ceases to exist with me... or rather, my perception of the world. So, I have trouble wrapping my mind around the concept of my non-existance. But then I think of it in terms of my non-existance before I was born... (which boggles the mind, if you think about it. You didn't *exist* before your birthdate. Yet the people you know did. Weird. And then suddenly, your parents did the nasty, and some neurons developed and then as you developed in the womb, you came into existance) and realize that's what death would be like. Pre-life = post-life, I guess. So I can't say that I'm afraid of there not being an afterlife... because I really wouldn't know one way or another, would I?

On the other hand, I really *want* to believe in... something more, because it's a comforting thought, no? So, if I'm delusional, at least I'm happy with my delusion.

I would say that I do generally believe in the afterlife, mostly out of my strong faith in the Divine. My concept of the afterlife is not a strict judgmental heaven/hell existence. I think that concept developed in a three-tiered earth-centric worldview of heaven above, earth here, hell below, an idea that falls apart in the light of modern science. So, for me, I see the afterlife as a place where our souls continue to develop and evolve. Like Jicama, an eternity of *anything* seems boring, but perhaps that is only my very human mindset. I believe that we continue to change after death. Perhaps I'm tempted to say that I might even believe in reincarnation. (If so, I think in my past life I have been a Bedouin warrior who followed Mohammed and, at some point, a serving girl or something similar in China or another Asian country... this comes from flashes of insight, etc.) One thing I always find amusing about people who do believe in reincarnation is the tendancy to stick with their present gender when describing their past lives. Also, there's a tendancy to pick famous people... (do you *really* think that that many people could all have been Cleopatra? lol) Okay, maybe I'm just weird, but I find it amusing.

So what do I think about the afterlife? Well, if there is one, I once summarised it like this:

"There are many who foolishly claim to know all that lies beyond this world; believe me, you have only glimpsed the first page of the book of mysteries of the Island Beyond the Sea."

--

How would I choose to die? Happy, peaceful, old, and without pain, after a long life, surrounded by the friends and family that I love.

Have you ever had an experience that you just wanted to last forever? I imagine Heaven being like that, like one big party or something. I think it would be cool to chill with God, Jesus and some other really cool folks for eternity.

I too believe we change after death. I see it like this: Right now, we're like programs in an old crappy IBM. But once the Ressurection happens, we're taken out of the crappy IBM and put in this awesome, top-of-the-line Dell (or Compaq or what-have-you). Then in Heaven, we're all chill and things are gravy. I also believe that in our new spiritual bodies, we'll actually find rest, eternal, comforting sweet rest.

I don't know how I'll die and frankly I don't really care. One thing I think about a lot is if I saw my worst enemy in the street about to get hit by a semi and if I were to run and push him out of the way, I would get hit by the truck and probably die. If that were to happen, I would do it be it a truck or a bullet or something. I know it's a lot easier said than done, but I figure if I don't think about it and rely solely on instinct and love for God and even my enemy, I could do it.

EDIT: Spiff and I were having a talk similar to this. I told her that I would give my life to her in a heartbeat and I would. I think that if you really love someone then giving your life for that person would be no question. I would die for her and a lot of other people, both here and IRL. I personally don't think that it means that I'm a good person, but I do know that it's a good thing to do. That counts for something, right?

I don't think there is an afterlife. I wanted to believe in one for a long time because I was so afraid of my life ending, but it didn't seem logical to me. At the moment I don't really see that as a bad thing, though. I just believe that since this is all I've got, I'd better make the most of it. Hedonism is fun!

I'm not sure what to think about death at the moment, though. One side of me thinks that death would be a relief and a definite end, and I wouldn't really want my soul to go on living for all eternity. Another side is still hoping science will find a cure for mortality sometime soon so I won't have to die, or worse, get old and not be able to enjoy my life anymore. As much as I hate the idea of dying, old age seems a lot more frightening at the moment.

I'm just babbling now. I really don't know what happens after death, and I'm not in any hurry to find out.

That's not entirely true. Re-incarnation has an up and down scale, you can come back as a flea or as better class, richer, human whatever. But to do this requires some form of judgement, implying a higher force.

Even without this re-incarnation in itself is a belief system an athiest believes in nothing, the big nada.

RJ

Not true. To many Buddhists, reincarnation as "higher" and "lower" beings occurs completely independantly of a divine being. It's a result of karma, which occurs spontaneously without divine intervention.

Also, it's possible to believe in reincarnation (as humans) without transmigration of souls into the animal kingdom. One does not necessarily imply the other.

I do find it odd that an avowed atheist like my dear friend Jicama would flirt with the concept of reincarnation, however, being an atheist does not necessarily imply that you "believe in nothing." Certainly many atheists believe in many things: empiricism, logic, etc. Atheism really only means denial of the existance of god... nothing more or nothing less.

I believe in reincarnation but not straight from body to body (i.e. the day you die is the day you are born as someone else). I believe that we die, got to a place called The Summerlands (much like a Christian heaven) and then we are re-born when it is our time. We always gravitate to the same souls. This is why sometimes you think you know someone when you can't possibly. I feel like I have a connection with some people that transcends normal every day life

Personally I am not worried about death and what happens after. I'm worried about dying. I don't want to die a horrid painful death (does anyone! ). I would rather go in my sleep or drop dead suddenly than have any period of suffering.

I never mentioned divine beings, just a higher force. You build up good and bad karma, obviously this has to be judged in some way it's not judged by humans, Karma must have some scale so there must be a higher force, of some kind even if it's just the universe, it's still there between the lines.



It's still a belief without proof in a (albeit quasi) religious way.



I know what you mean but I think you're stretching my point into semantics. Atheism itself is a belief system if you want to push it that way. If you speak to (most) atheists their belief is this it, one life, one chance, etc. I'm not talking about dictionary definitions but about common usage, Atheism is a hard path to follow because in essence it means you believe everything is an accident and life, has no meaning*. This doesn't utterly negate saying, "I'm an atheist and I beleive in an afterlife," but it is akin to saying "I'm Muslim but I do like the odd Gin and Tonic."

If you take Atheism in it's true dictionary definition you could say "I'm an atheist, I beleive in an overpowering force within the universe that guides, but is without any intelligence and without a name". Clearly, you're not an atheist if you say this (prolly a taoist), you've just stepped lightly around the definition of divinity.

RJ

I cant really call my thoughts on this matter beliefs. I think that what happens in death is like what a lot of poets and writers would think it is, or at least along those lines. I definitely think people have souls, and I have a lot of other spiritual (as opposed to religious) beliefs, bordering perhaps on eastern culture, or on ancient Celtic druidism, only without the religious crap that goes along with them.

I think that death is whatever we make of it, both the departed and the ones left behind. It itsnt some sort of force that acts against us or in concert with some sort of "bigger plan". Its just another step in our journeys, and its one that everyone HAS to take. Not everyone gets married, not everyone has kids, so I guess thats why death has such a big impact on our beliefs. I prefer not to try and look beyond that which i cant see, and ill just take whats handed to me when my time comes. Not that I'm not afraid of dying, I just reckon i've accepted its inevitablity.

Also on a side note, as far as religion goes I've been really considering an official change to Bushido recently. I already live according to most of its tenets, and its more a lifestyle than a proper religion, a code of conduct and honour that rewards following it with a happier time and the satisfaction of being a good person at heart, rather than not being damned in hell. I like it when threats arent used to gain trust in something that is supposed to be our creator and ultimate fate. It makes the universe seem a much more friendly place. And of course it means instead of a cross i get to carry a katana (lol jk )

Even I am an agnostic/atheist, I have seriously feared hell from time to time, and I think I just may be going to hell and suffering for eternity. It is an incredibly disturbing thought and I get unsettled by it.

My question is, must one beleive in Jesus as savior to go to heaven, or just be a good person. It seems to me that even though I reject heaven and hell, heaven should not be about your beleif, but how you live your life.

Righteous, since you seem to be our resident expert on Christianity, I would specifically like to hear your thoughts on the issue, however others don't be afraid to enlighten me, please do! Just that Righteous wanting to become a religious leader and all...

What sect of Christianity are you, and what is that sect's view on entrance to heaven.

See, I believe that if there truely is something up there that it comes down to whether or not we're sorry for the bad things we've done in our lives. But, according to the Bible, if God truely does exist, then he gave us free will to make our own decisions. And thus if God really exists, and Jesus died for our sins so that we wouldn't have to go to hell, then it would be redundant for a person who is good at heart to go to hell - don't you think? I mean, if we die and get up there, and realize that we were wrong then that's something isn't it? We're entitled to free will and mistakes as a human race because as humans we are imperfect, so we've made a mistake, and if we get the chance after we die, then we can rectify it... I hope.

It would be rather enlightening to hear the bible's point of view.

While the papacy may have spewed things over the centuries, the bible provides an objective view (in this cntext)

Christianity says that you have to be and good person AND believe in Jesus. If it didn't have the whole Jesus thing, it wouldn't really offer anything special or different from other religions, would it?

what I wonder is: what is so scary about nothing? I mean.. nonexistance would not be bad, nor would it be good. It would be completely nonexistant (for lack of a better description). that doesn't seem too scary for me.
The one thing that scares me is the prospect of immortality... you would never get a rest. You would be alive forever... you would be conciously thinking forever.. and that's rather frightening.. I don't think I could stand myself for all eternity.

I'd like to live in eternity, as long as I can move between two places. First is my quiet tranquil grove, the other being with my friends and fantastical creatures in another setting.

*post by jen*

The reason I quit the entire christianity thing 4years ago was probably because I was sent to sunday school and taught that unless i did everything in my life perfect i'd go to hell. Also other events in my life when i was 9/10 made me feel like I'd done something terribly, awfully wrong, like a really big sin and that I'd go to hell.

Then I jus thought that I couldn't believe in something that had taught me so much self loathing and refused to believe in anything other than blank reality. Apologies to all Christians, but I have my reasons for everything I'm saying here, just I'd rather not go into them if I don't have to. I know a mate of mine who's Christian and he said I should just go and yell at God sometime. I doubt I will.

Nowadays I am a proud Pagan and I accept the doctrine of reincarnation, though my belief system here is VERY complicated but here goes...

1. When we die, the body returns into the earth into the embrace of the feminine divine/great mother earth/nature.

2 The soul/spirit leaves the body and comes upon the summer plains. Here depending on how advanced it is towards perfection it has 3 options.
~if it has reached perfection, the soul will become one with all divinity and be in all things as are the Lord and Lady.
if it has not it can either become
~a spirit guide for another living soul which is less advanced,
~or become reincarnated into the next born body, normally of it's own species however if one species is growing at that exact second and another falling, leaving too many spirits of one species and too few of the other, cross-species reincarnation will occur.
*If reincarnating, the spirit may choose to stay in the summer plains for a while and think over the life it has just lived before leaviong to the material world again.*

3. The cycle continues until we reach perfection and join divinity. Animals also do have spirits.

So basically, death is never the end full stop to me. We just carry on, and on, and on...which is one reason why I really don't want to commit suicide because technically I'd have to live the troubles of this life again and learn the lessons I missed. By commiting suicide the spirit cannot progress if the llife has not been lived as originally planned.

sorry for babbling and writing a whole essay on stuff.....

**YATCHOOOOOOOOO!**

As a semi-practising Roman Catholic I find the concept of heaven and hell difficult to explain / understand.

This is something that I'll find out about when I die... until then I have chosen to follow the teachings of Jesus in the sincere hope that it's a good path to follow.

Jesus never said that if someone didn't believe in HIM that (s)he would go to hell OR would be prevented from entering heaven.

This idea was added on later (possible by some Christian bureaucrat afraid of the spread of other evangelical religions).

In the late 1960s - the then Pope stated quite clearly - that "if you were a GOOD person - then it didn't matter what religion you practiced - you WOULD go to heaven"

Radical stuff.

So - as in keeping with Jesus's teachings - you must be a good person to go to Heaven... whether you believe in Jesus or not is neither here nor there.
_________

Some stuff JC said:

In order to enter into paradise you must keep the ten commandments, and you should give everything you can - to charity... as it is easier for a fully laiden camel to pass through the eye of the needle than it is for a rich man to enter into the Lord's kingdom.

Feed the poor, clothe the naked, offer shelter to the homeless, tend to the sick and wounded, visit those in prison, be meek... and you shall inherit the kingdom of heaven.

Don't cast the first stone unless you are without sin - and don't point out the splinter in someone elses' eye without having first removed the log from your own... (maybe we Christians shouldn't be telling people that they can't go to heaven 'cos we don't like their brand of worship).

Bladrick, out of curiosity where did this religion come from?

JC: He who believes in Me and is baptised shall be saved.

I would assume that people just took the logical (but not necessarily correct) next step of turning the contrapositive into a law too: He who does not believe in Me and is not baptised shall NOT be saved.

I suppose I should go find my Bible and start looking this stuff up again...

We're all going to die.

I think about this a lot. It's not morbid. I just try to be at peace with it. One day, I will die. I may be hit by a truck, shot, contract lung cancer, get electrocuted, get mauled by an animal, get caught in an avalanche, have a building fall on me, drown, get poisoned, get sucked into a tornado, get into an airplane crash, the lis goes on and on. I figure that when I die, it will be my time. I don't fear dying so much as I fear not living life to the fullest. That scares me.

I fear what I will miss, my friends, family, life. I also fear a painful death, don't want my last sensation to be pain.

here here

I don't believe in an after life... But I don't see how it possible that you only live once. Maybe you won't have memories or anything of before, and for a lot of people its hard for them to fathom ceasing to exist... I can fathom it, but I don't like it and I don't like being able to fathom... Nothingness. And of course, the Spoon has to add some poetry to the topic. A crappy one, but a poem by... Me.

Life is worse than death to me...

Ultimate Illusion

The ultimate illiusion
The sublimity of it all
This, so convincing
A lie that seems truth

The ultimate illusion
Your dillusion
The matter
It will not change

The paradox
Your life in
My hand
It flows seamless

Produced by your mind
A fraud of reality
The ultimate illusion
Is our lives

None of it is truth
We live everyday
Trying to find truth
But its all a lie

Fighting the reality
Each day gets harder
Happiness is
The delusion of your mind

Its insanity
To consider these
Lines that spew
Through my lips

I'm living a lie
So are you
Its anguish to think
It should all disappear

Wanting needing
The truth of life
Science is yet
Another illusion

Religion is a way
To make it go away
The illusion is still there
It won't go away

The moral being
Of my random thoughts
Life is an illusion
The forsaken belief
-Andy Hillier

I 'm an atheist and I can't help but agree that the prospect of eternal conciousness after death worrys me a lot more than "nothingness". I think nonexistance would be kind of restful after life (not that you'd actually exist to experience it) and I wouldn't want to have to go on forever.

Out of all the afterlife "options" (none of which I really believe), I have to say my favorite is the one from 'His Dark Materials' (a trilogy by philip pullman, for those of you who haven't heard of it - go read it), I like the idea of my spirit (though I'm still pondering on the whole 'do I or do I not, have a soul' point) spreading out and joining the earth. My second favorite being undiscriminatory reincarnation (ie anything can be reincarnated as anything), mainly becauce reincarnation seems interesting but how am I 'sposed to know if I'd prefer to be an ant or a human? I think it's kinda spiciecist (sp?) to give all creatures "levels".

Oh and on the whole "what would you like your death to be like?" subject, all I have to say is painless, without to much grief/stress for my friends and family and preferably without the experience bad emotion (anger, fear etc.)

Do people here choose as their afterlife something that sounds cool or something they reall beleive? The idea of beleiving in reincarnation because it is a cool thing to have happen seems odd to me.

NOT AN ATTACK ON ANYBODY, DON'T MISREAD MY POST

Exactly what I said. People SAY they beleive because they WANT to have that happen to them.

I beleive it'll be just like before we were born, not because that's what I want, but because that's the most logical answer (to me). I don't beleive in religion, I beleive in this. Life. We are here. Make what you can of it. You die, it's over. Oh well.

Yeah, I find it kinda odd to base beliefs on what you want rather than anything else, believeing in reincarnation because it's cool is a strange concept to me. Anyway thats just me, people can believe what they want, and should do what makes them happy! (unless it harms other people, in which case, they shouldn't )

People don't believe in an afterlife simply because it's what they want to believe. There are many complex reasons that make up theistic beliefs. They can't be explained in such a shallow way...at least for most people.

Like I said, I would like it to be true...but I honestly can't say one way or the other what I believe...because I don't know.

I didn't mean all people, some people truly beleive, but I know people who say they don't beleive in God or anything, but theysay they believe in heaven.

Sorry if that was poorly written, I didn't mean to come across like that....

It's funny, I'm not bothered by death or life or anything. What worries me is, how come there is a universe? It's so illogical in a lot of ways, why have something when you can have nothing? Why have nothing when you can have something? Maybe there is a God.

If you beleive the scientifc explanation, why is irrelevant. Just how is. The question of "why are we here" is simply answered as "because we are".

If there is a god, I doubt we would be able to even comprehend the nature of its being or non-being, or maybe it would transcend existance, let alone understand its motives.

Who needs logic? The non-living world is full of chaos, the only logical thing is life. Order and chaos combined in sweet matrimony to produce existance. Pretty romantic when you think of it that way. It's the foundation of a religion.

I don't know about that last part about logic, Sir. People instinctively desire order and stability; comfort and strength... Reliability... That's partly why we created religions, I believe. We want an explanation because it makes more sense and with that "answer", whether true or not, our curiosity is content -- our reliance on ourselves no longer necessary but rather reliance in a God etc. Humans are naturally curious, by nature, and want knowledge.

However I do agree with you about the scientific explaination to the creation of the universe. To scientists, why we exist isn't the question -- that's completely irrelevant, like you said -- it's simply how we came to be. Well, not so simply, but nevertheless.

And as for getting a little bit more back on topic... Being traditionally Christian, I believe in God. However, I don't logically think there could be a heaven or hell simply because that makes no sense to me. I think death is just like the period before birth, whatever that is. Nothing or endless sleep? Possibly. I don't know yet. I sort of do believe in reincarnation, even though that's not really part of my so-called religion whatsoever. I mean, I'd like to think we don't stay in that "nothing" forever, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's true. What I'd like for death to be like and what it actually is, and what I believe, are two different opinions entirely.