the afterlife, near-death experiences, reincarnation, etc.

We do so WANT to believe we don't die!

Philip Larkin in 'Abaude'
discusses the fear of death and religion as one way we attempt to dispel it:

"...This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear -- no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round..."

afterlife
Jjorge. YEs there is "oblivion" after our lives end. But, as I keep stressing, this oblivion, in which there is no thought, no smells, none of the things listed in "Abaude". But remember that there is also no ME to suffer this absence of things to experience. The oblivion is ABSOLUTE, not relative to a ME existing in an environment of nothingness.

I understand you JL! But - 'tis the nubbin of the understanding that, as creatures who experience ourselves as in existence, we cannot conceive of non-existence, so 'tis very hard for us to move out of the frame of thought where we EXPERIENCE the nothingness.

I have read a few books about NDEs and it appears that, whatever they may be, they have a profound impact upon many who experience them - giving them a sense of peace and joy about life and death.

Not that this says anything about whether they are a genuine glimpse into eternity, or hallucinations and euphoria caused by physical trauma and endorphins....

For myself - I believe both that we die - and cease to be as consciousnesses - AND the Buddhist tenets! Which is to say, I guess, that I half-believe both, with one or the other dominating at different times....I suppose they are amongst the least incompatible of contradictory belief systems, though. Doubtless one day I shall plump finally for one or the other - but I do find the Buddhist way of viewing the world and the cultivation of virtues like compassion most attractive, whether or not i believe in reincarnation.

afterlife
Dlowan, I see your point. We truly cannot imagine our own non-existence. And we must, ipso facto feel that there is an oblivion state in which we (continuing in some state of post existence) suffer. Near death experiences that people can describe--that they actually experienced--are, as far as I can see, only NEAR death experinces. And here a miss is as good as a mile. If they actually died, they could not remember anything of death, i.e., they could not remember what they did not experience, and they could not experience that for which there was no live experiencer. At least that's MY belief. Doesn't mean it's true. By the way, I suspect that the buddhist notion of compassion is that (like the Christian notion of virtue) it is its own reward. I also think that "evil" is its own punishment. I would have hated to have lived in Hitler's mind (even if he should have thought he was happy--oh what he missed).

Near death experience is nothing like being pregnant. You either died or you're pregnant. It's never, I was almost pregnant! c.i.

Well, people have been clinically dead and come back. One of my parents did and was a changed person afterwards... quite different.

I don't believe in the "there is nothing" construct that JLNobody offers. I'm more inclined to the C.S. Lewis idea, "We do not have a soul, we are a soul. We have a body."

I also think that we create our own heaven, hell or life after death. It is a free-for-all. The souls who want heaven, go to heaven, the souls who are sure that should burn, burn, the souls who want to reincarnate, do so, and then there are others who decide to remain in the great Void, communing with what we now call God.

souls
Piffka, My views on the subject are almost ALWAYS misunderstand. I did not say that I believe the extinctionist position our afterlife is a state of oblivion. I can't possibly know that. I am just arguing that IF the afterlife condition is one of oblivion it is, by definition, an absolute oblivion, one in which there is not even a kind of existing self that is in an environment of nothingness. I DO believe in a kind of nothingness, but it is a FULL (not an empty) one that underlies all our experiences from moment to moment. But forget this; it is sure to be misunderstood.

Well I did misunderstand you, JLN. When you said that "the wife never really existed" and "there is no me to experience this absence of things" I naturally assumed you meant an empty nothingness. As you say, you meant, a full nothingness.

I think we were created as souls, our souls goofed up and we were given this body, and this planet, to work our way back to the creator where we will be co-creators. I also think we will be reincarnated again and again until we have learned all that is to be learned (who would know what?). We are children souls in the process of growing up, spiritually maturing, to become whomever our "father/mother/creator is.

Neither do I think anybody has to prove what they may think or believe. Forcing someone or demanding they prove what they feel is true is dangerous and creates much hate and anger in this world.

I remember back in the late 1960s one (we call them babyboomers now) teen asked his folks at the dinnertable just why they were living like that, weren't they really board, what indeed, did they have to live for? The answer from the father, crestfallen, was "Well, we have roast pork and little potatoes..." Actually, this was in a movie. But, we learned from the 12-step systems that we don't have to have a gasping rah rah New Years' Eve type day every day. We just maybe could learn something new, enjoy something.

Tex-Star, what a lovely way you have of saying what I also believe.

Thank you for your wisdom and insight!

souls
Actually, let me correct myself. I AM a sort of extinctionist. I believe that upon my death I cease to be. But this is misleading because I believe--and you'll forgive my obscurantism; I've no remedy for it--I do not really exist RIGHT NOW. That is the sense in which the zen master told his student that his deceased wife never ever existed. I feel that in reality there is no BEING, only BECOMING, no nouns are appropriate for describing the world, only verbs. But we cannot conceptualize our experience only in terms of becoming. We seem to be able to think only in terms of substance, being, and their properties. In reallity there seems to be only process, movement, change. Nothing to stop and capture as a thing, a being. If this is so, then in this sense no beings can come to an end; because they never were in the first place. THis means that, like Dracula, we are the unborn--no: vampires are the undead, not unborn. Ha!

My discuss of oblivion and how it must be absolute, assumes the common notion of beings coming to an end.

JLN, Your thesis that no nouns exist is a "brain-washer" if I ever heard of one. Why must we have verbs? Just have pronouns, adverbs and adjectives. Nothing else makes any sense. c.i.

souls
O.K. (but that's not what I meant to say)

JLNobody -- It is an interesting construct, but in the real world, you do exist. I understand letting go of your ego, but... you still have it. You are consciously giving it up. If you didn't exist, then why bother eating, breathing, working or doing anything?

You are as real as anything you will ever know... in this life.

JLN, It's as simple as just looking in a mirror to see that you exist. c.i.

afterlife
Piffka, you are right IN A SENSE, and I think I am right IN A SENSE. We really can't argue about such matters. You say that in the REAL world I exist. "Real" and "I" are meanginful in a conventional sense, and that is a conventional reality we both live in and can't live without. I can't possibly give up my ego if it exists; I can only realize its nature. I eat, breathe, work and everything not because there is an "I"; I do it because it is built into my cultural, physiological, and psychological nature to do so That has nothing to do with whether or not the ego, the SENSE of ME, is just a subjective process or a subtantial entity. But the nature of self--in this sense-- is something we see or we don't, and I'm not being patronizing here.
By the way, C.I., what's a "brain washer"?

JLN, It's take a certain kind of mind to buy into your kind of thinking. I'm sure there are many. I'm a simpleton, and anything beyond my conceptual range flies way over my head. I will never get to the point where my existence is in question. To me, it takes a whole lot of "brain washing" to believe I don't exist. c.i.

souls
C.I. I understand your perspective. It's not "wrong" it's a perspective that works for everyday life, but it's dysfunctional when facing issues like one's mortality and other existential dilemmas. I certainly don't want to look strange here or give the impression that I'm not on the same wave length with smart people like you. But I would love to be understood. It's just that this is not a perspective that is easily accessible--and the obstacle to its access is NOT lack of intelligence. Bertram Russell did not accept it(or understand it), although Nietzsche and Schopenhaur did--as well as all mystics. You say that "it takes a whole lot of 'brain washing' to believe I don't exist." Wow, what a sentence. It DOES take a lot of brain washing, in the sense of meditation to see not that you don't existence, only that your EGO does not exist, except as a feeling, one that comes and goes like any other sensation or thought. As a belief, as a fundamental assumption it is "fixed." But it is not so as an experience. You see that in meditation. But I'm not advocating any kind of meditation or belief. Not at all. That's my "bag" as we use to say. You seem to be very adequately on top of things as you are. I am not going to talk more on this particular subject. I've pretty much exhausted it, and fear being a bore.

You are never boring JLN and I saw your posts on this subject earlier today and just want to add a quote I like since I do not know how to say what I think I think.

Creative people who can't help but explore other mental territories are at greater risk, just as someone who climbs a mountain is more at risk than someone who just walks along a village lane.

R. D. Laing