Afterlife?

I do believe in afterlife. I don't think you only live once. I thimk there is a reason for why we are here. I believe life is about learning and experience and many other things.

yes i do belive in afterlife i belive that when u die, when it is the end of the line for you for someone else it is a new begining and when u die u either go to heaven or hell and if u go to heaven u become an angek and have to look after a certain person who is still living and if u go to hell that u become a devil and cause trould for the angels.... i know my thought is sotra cheesy but that is what i think WE ARE ALL CONECTED ONE WAY OR ANOTHER..I hope that helped u alittle.

I do not believe in an afterlife.

Once I die, my organs will be put to use elsewhere and my remains burnt to ash. And I am absolutely thrilled with the idea.

For me, to believe in an afterlife waters down our experience in the present. If our focus is always on the post-mortem existence, we forget to enjoy ourselves in the now. Life is precious, and death is an inextricable part of living. Therefore it gives me a sense of logic and closure to think that in order to live you must die. Why bother making life better here if all we have to do is wait until we die to get something better? Besides, a story with no ending is never very dramatic.

People are funny creatures. We've spent trillions of man-years investigating the concept of what comes after death but aside from a brief fling with past-life regression we've put next to no thought into what came before birth.

Most people are happy with the idea of our souls or whatever just bamfing in out of nothing but then obsess about their permanency and what will occur post-death.

Yet to answer your question, no. There is no more an afterlife than there is a priorbirth.

On death the chemical reactions that create your thought will cease. Over the next month or so your cell walls will rupture and with the assistance of various other creatures your body will digest itself. Assuming you're not mummified or cremated, it won't be long after your death before nothing remains of you except a stinking yellow goo.

Faced with this prospect is there any wonder that we make up stories about floating cities in clouds?

I always thought of death as eternal unconsciousness. People might argue that we have souls that last forever, but even if we do, there is no reason to believe that they will be conscious souls.Time passes, but there is no awareness. We are not afraid of the unconsciousness that accompanies sleep-why then are we afraid of death?

Re: Afterlife?
extra medium

I don't believe in an Afterlife.

When I die my body becomes water and a small amount of minerals.

And when all those that knew me, die, I will not be even a remote memory.

The eternal nothing.

There is a certain sense of quiet beauty I perceive when thinking about nothingness. Sometimes it seems like a very comforting state to be in. Of course I won't be aware, but still it is nice to think about.

i believe in afterlife (i am a muslim):

a heaven and a hell.

heaven will be good-

there are seven grades of heaven

there are four rivers in heaven:

'rivers of milk of which the taste never changes; rivers of wine, a joy to those who drink; and rivers of honey pure and clear
and the highest grade is the closest to God' (Q47.15)


hell will be bad-

There are seven progressively worsening levels in hell (which is a realy deep pit)

adulterers and hypocrites and even many muslims will reside in hell- suffering unbelievable torture


HOWEVER i am not sure about the duration peole will stay in hell for (until they are cleansed of their sins or for eternity?)

i believe it is until they are cleansed of their sins.

I agree. There is a certain finality in death that I find curiously appealing. The idea of souls lingering on forever seems... I don't know, somehow messy.

Heaven strikes me as being like a retirement home. Your official job is done, you've stopped finding your own and you're just being stored somewhere because the powers that be don't like throwing things away.

It's actually a pretty revolting idea in some ways.



My knowledge of the Qu'ran is a bit shaky, but isn't wine forbidden to muslims?

I used to hate the thought of spending an "eternity" in heaven or even worse hell. Eternity is just hard for the human mind to comprehend. An eternity in hell would be unimaginable and worth reading a bible every day to avoid it. Where as an eternity in heaven seems like it would get boring after a while. Its hard to live your life according to the bible because there is no guarantee on the "fruits that you will sew." YOu can't be sure its worth living a perfect life hoping there is a heaven and hell. ANd i find so many flaws in religion its hard to have faith. So in the famous lines of billy joel

"I rather laugh with the sinners and die with the saints, the sinners are much more fun."

Just to open this up a bit and to be clear:

By "Afterlife" I did not mean to limit it to Western Biblical ideas.

There are over 100 (probably thousands) other religions and ideas of Afterlifes out there.

So I didn't mean "Do you believe in the Bible or do you believe this is all there is?"

I meant (forget about the Bible for a moment and all the other books):
Do you believe in any form of an afterlife?

No, but do you include reincarnation in this definition of an afterlife? In other words, a continuous cycle of birth and death? I wonder if it would be possible to remember your deeds in a past life.

As far as eternity goes, I still think that an eternity of anything would be hell.

In other words, heaven and hell are the same place, it just matters how long you've been there!

..

Sure reincarnation would be included. I guess I did mean any "consciousness or any remnants of your essence remaining after your current physical body ceases functioning."

Interesting idea on the eternity thing. I know what you mean.

I've heard people say "wouldn't it be boring to just sit around in a place forever, with gold streets and everything is calm and loving and wonderful, and you just hang around like that....forever?"

I have to agree.

If there is a heaven, I've got to think its something more like basking in an unbelievable wave of ever increasing and changing energy, just when you think you've experienced all the pleasure and joy you think is possible, it changes yet again and increases a millionfold...and just keeps expanding and changing beyond your wildest imagination....and you can handle it all, because you are heavenly....

Its like you are in the presence of a supernova of pure love energy or something, and it just keeps increasing and exploding onto you, you're basking in it, and it just keeps changing like a kaleidescope of pure light and love and _______(fill in blank with your wildest imaginable pleasure and multiply X 1000, and make it eternal...) --- (dang this sounds too new agey....)

Or take the best longest orgasm you've ever experienced, and multiply that times a million, make it eternal and ever changing...

something like that...maybe even beyond that

but it definitely doesn't sound too thrilling to sit peacefully on a gold street calmly...forever and ever and ever...

Death is probably my biggest fear. i know that's extremely cliche, but it's also human nature. what's so scary about it is just the unkown. We have no way of knowing what happens when our time comes. Do we just float up to heaven or down to hell? do the lights just go out and that's that? I like to think that when we die, we are immediately reborn as someone else, as a new beginning with no recollections of past life besides occasional deja vu. i think that's the safest, most comfortable way to think about it. people have an image of heaven and hell in their mind, but i feel like if i went to heaven, after a while i would just get bored. i mean it beats hell i suppose, but still. then there's limbo, which would be awful. just floating around in the middle, until your fate is decided. That would suck. but in all seriousness, afterlife is to complex for any of us to even comprehend, and i don't think there will ever be a time where we know what occurs after death.

afterlife is like the beginning not the end- this life is like a dream



My knowledge of the Qu'ran is a bit shaky, but isn't wine forbidden to muslims?[/quote]

yes it is but the wine in heaven is non-toxicating and has no bad effects

raheel


[/QUOTE]

So you could drink and drink and never got drunk. Then, why use wine? Wouldn't water be better?

The wine in heaven in not-toxicating???

What kind of sick mind thought that one up?

This heaven deal is sounding worse and worse all the time, for heaven's sake!

I can just see it now, we'll all be up there sitting by the gold streets, calm, serene, and bored.

Then someone (probably Frank A. if he makes it there) will say "Hey let's have some dam wine to liven this place up."

Then we'll all drink a bottle of wine, but we won't even be able to get drunk!

More boredom and calm serenity! Can't even get drunk to escape the boredom!

Sorry, give me the eternally orgasmic heaven. Oh yeah, and the wine works in that heaven too.

****

On the plus side, your wine may not work, but don't you get to get with a bunch of virgins or something up there? Can you or must you marry all of them?

Maybe this makes up for the "safe-wine" thing in some regards. Though if you must marry all these women, it might make one yearn even more for some really strong wine.