What happens after you die?

[Monophobia]

I'm actually very curious to hear what everyone's opinions on this are. Again, the question is: what do you think happens to you after you die?

Is it just lights out? Do you ascend to a heavenly world? Are you reborn again?

My thoughts are that you lose consciousness. Sort of like a sleeping state, without dreams. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

[CoffeeDrink]

Well, koffi~

First comes the discovery of the body. Were you in bed? A car perhaps? Starve to death in the woods? Or maybe went down with the ship and they won't even be able to recover the body. Then come the fees, oh boy. The lawyers fees for sorting out your will and estate, the government has to take their share too, of course. Then perhaps the estate sale itself. Then, if your body was recovered, your family (or your will) decides how to dispose of the body in a ridiculously expensive action. The classic way is to bury you in a box under six feet of dirt. Another popular way is to turn your body into ash, so your family can then put it on display for all to see. Or perhaps donate your body to science!
If you are buried, there are rules that go along with it. Dates to be scheduled, the location you'll be buried at, what kind of vehicle will pull your corpse, the pall bearers, perhaps a priest or two to pay off. The tombstones, the coffin design, embalming or no, what kind of photo to put up, flowers, etc. Then there's the wake. Do you cater? Who do you cater with? What kind of food? Then they get to see who gets what after your dead. Oh the wonders of what happens to you after you die, koff~

 

[Monophobia]

Well, koffi~

First comes the discovery of the body. Were you in bed? A car perhaps? Starve to death in the woods? Or maybe went down with the ship and they won't even be able to recover the body. Then come the fees, oh boy. The lawyers fees for sorting out your will and estate, the government has to take their share too, of course. Then perhaps the estate sale itself. Then, if your body was recovered, your family (or your will) decides how to dispose of the body in a ridiculously expensive action. The classic way is to bury you in a box under six feet of dirt. Another popular way is to turn your body into ash, so your family can then put it on display for all to see. Or perhaps donate your body to science!
If you are buried, there are rules that go along with it. Dates to be scheduled, the location you'll be buried at, what kind of vehicle will pull your corpse, the pall bearers, perhaps a priest or two to pay off. The tombstones, the coffin design, embalming or no, what kind of photo to put up, flowers, etc. Then there's the wake. Do you cater? Who do you cater with? What kind of food? Then they get to see who gets what after your dead. Oh the wonders of what happens to you after you die, koff~

I see! Perhaps a bit too literal for my tastes, but the answer in legitimate and nonetheless acceptable. I'm gonna take this as you have no opinion on the existence of an afterlife?

 

[Danny0317]

There was a thread like this a while ago, so I'm just gonna say the same thing I said in the old thread. I think it's like sleeping, but not dreaming. I did for a long time think that you go to heaven or hell, but I'm not religious anymore.

 

[Kameken]

I never understood cremation. Regardless of what happens to my personality or soul when I die, I'd want my body to be returned to the earth, rather than be used as a mantlepiece.

That being said, I am a religious person, and do believe in an afterlife of sorts. I do not, as some do, believe that whether you are punished or rewarded after death depends on the beliefs you held in life. It boggles my mind how some call their god benevolent, yet believe he/she/it would eternally torment those who didn't warship only them. The best way I've heard it explained is that, after death, souls, whatever form they take, are sent to a place where they reflect and repent for the sins they committed in life, which many call Purgatory. The only people I believe go to hell are those who realize how wrong their actions are, and feel absolutely no remorse for them, which is exceptionally rare even among the most terrible of people.

What form any afterlife takes, I'm not entirely sure. I'd like to believe that heaven is similar to this life, but without physical bodies causing all the trouble they do here, such as disease, famine, and insecurity. Many media depictions of heaven just seem boring, quite frankly.

 

[Evening]

I obviously don't know.
All I know is that it's a GAME OVER.

I'm not really religious, I do not believe in those.

 

[Kameken]

I obviously don't know.
All I know is that it's a GAME OVER.

 

[Rabby]

I'm not at all religious, so I dont rly believe in anything much, but.
I believe in my own facts lol
Well, I dont rly. I mean...no one dead have even "lived" to tell us wut happens after ur dead, right? XD
But I believe, or my theory in 2 things:

-Either u r suspended in forever nothing. No thoughts. No dreams. Nothing.

-Or, u get reborned, but not as reborn as in bought back to life :P. After u die, there has to be somethin, right ;)? So, ur borned as a baby again but u remember NOTHING from ur...other life or wutever. Ur a complete different person but a newborn ^^. Hard to explain this :(

Ik, ik, it seems silly, which I find it ridiculous too, but who knows wut happens o_O? :P

 

[Aeroblast]

Nobody knows, because we've yet to experience it.

 

[£]

I obviously don't know.
All I know is that it's a GAME OVER.

I'm not really religious, I do not believe in those.

Ah, but is there a New Game+ function?

Is this is just the opening gambit to a greater game?

No way of knowing for sure! It's incredibly unlikely that there is any such comfort as an afterlife/reincarnation but, it's pretty difficult to disprove completely. I don't really think there is. Just playing devil's advocate innit.

I think if there is such a thing though, animals and humans will all be able to go wherever it is/experience it. The idea that humans are the only species that get an afterlife in some theories is a wee bit self absorbed!

 

[Zorogami]

My thoughts and ideas on this matter change every few years. As of now, i think you lose all types of conscience, no dreams, no thoughts, nothing. And to be honest, everytime i think about it i shiver, and hope there is something better than that at the end of the road...

 

[Sopheria]

To be honest, I know this is going to be a boring answer, but I just don't know at all. I can't even begin to hazard a guess :P

I don't think anyone knows, even people who claim to know. The only way we could ever know is if someone died, came back, and reported what happened to them. And when you're dead there's no coming back, so I don't see how it's possible. I know someone's probably going to point out that there's been plenty of people who were pronounced dead who made a recovery, but I've always wondered. They were dead by the medical definition of dead, but were they actually dead? After you're dead it takes 10 minutes before your brain actually stops working, meaning your consciousness is still in your body for that 10 minute window.

So yea...tl;dr version, I just don't think we'll ever know.

 

[Livewire]

I'm not a religious person, but I would consider myself pretty spiritual. It's important to note that those aren't necessarily mutually inclusive. You can have one without the other.

The fragility and finite nature of human life should be impetus to live fully and enjoy what you have while you're here. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you. If anything, I think the idea of an eternity in a heavenly realm promotes nihilism and apathy more so than the notion that there is no afterlife - If your eternal future is secure, with your soul + consciousness set up for an eternity of bliss, then what do you have to live for while you're here? It's important to remember that the notion of an afterlife is almost endemic to the human condition. It's a psychological comfort to the human mind for the finite nature of life and the mystery surrounding what happens after someone dies.

 

[BadPokemon]

Ok, I believe we live on forever after death in either Heaven or Hell. If you believe Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and came back from the dead three days later, you go to Heaven. You must admit you are a sinner. The only unforgivable sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, if you don't believe, you are going to Hell. It is someone's choice to believe or not. Those who go to Heaven will be with God and other believers for eternity. Everyone else...will be in Hell forever. (It's not a fun place).

 

[Talon]

I honestly believe that you are dead. There is nothing. No thoughts, no light, no sound, no blackness, just nothing. Unless your brain can still think when it is dead, there is nothing. That's how I see death.

Why don't I believe in heaven? Well. Heaven in one place. It's paradise. But, everyone's idea of paradise is different. There would have to be multitudes of different heavens to fit everyone. However, the bible only mentions one heaven. One heaven fits all. No. That's not possible.

Why don't I believe in hell? Same reason as heaven. Everyone's form of torture would be different. Masochists would love pain. Sadists would love to hurt others. So one hell for everyone IS possible. But, it would be very hard to locate. It would have to be something where the individual would watch someone they love slowly die, calling their name for help, and the person can't help them.

I would love for their to be something else after. But honestly, I don't think there is anything. I don't know though, there might be something after death. Another life? Heaven and Hell? Paradise? No one knows.

 

[Leo the Lion]

Havent you all heard of the Lazarus Syndrome? The patients dont remember much, but they say they see a light. Hint, maybe? Maybe we go to a very bright place? Was it their imagination?

 

[Monophobia]

Ok, I believe we live on forever after death in either Heaven or Hell. If you believe Jesus died on the cross to save us from our sins and came back from the dead three days later, you go to Heaven. You must admit you are a sinner. The only unforgivable sin is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, if you don't believe, you are going to Hell. It is someone's choice to believe or not. Those who go to Heaven will be with God and other believers for eternity. Everyone else...will be in Hell forever. (It's not a fun place).

I really don't want this discussion to go all "religious debate" on everyone, however, since we're sort of fading between different subjects...God knows all by your views, correct? So, he must have known that some people would not believe in him as soon as they were born. Therefore, doesn't that make your God a bit, well...I can't find the word, but doesn't that seem a bit wrong? Why send someone you knew was going to be born a certain way to Hell if you are all-powerful being who can change that?

Anyway, back on topic, does anyone think it should be allowed for volunteers to be "killed" and then brought back via defibrillation to tell about what they saw, heard, or felt?

 

[Blu·Ray]

I really like the Hindu idea of reincarnation, and as much as I see the validity in debunking other people's beleifs, I see potential in my own personal theories. Because reincarnation happens all around you. What happens to a body when you die? Well the body gets buried, gets absorbed by the earth, it gets split into molecules, the atoms get absorbed by plants all around you, and the energy that your body possesses gets pulled out to be used elsewhere in order to create new life. This is what reincarnation means to me. Your entire life, your memories, your merits, get spread in earth and you become a part of new life, you become a part of everything.
This world consists of everything, of everyone, is blooming with life.

 

[Tek]

If anything, I think the idea of an eternity in a heavenly realm promotes nihilism and apathy more so than the notion that there is no afterlife - If your eternal future is secure, with your soul + consciousness set up for an eternity of bliss, then what do you have to live for while you're here?

This may not strictly be on-topic, but what I've seen in my own experience is similar. A belief that Heaven lies in an afterlife, where all the cool stuff happens, appears to lead people down the road of constantly turning away from present experience, or at worst, actively despising this 'dirty' place we're in now, and condemning it in a great many unhealthy ways.

Anyway, back on topic, does anyone think it should be allowed for volunteers to be "killed" and then brought back via defibrillation to tell about what they saw, heard, or felt?

There's a movie with Kiefer Sutherland in which this happens... doesn't work out well. However, I think it's a brilliant idea, and there may actually be people already pursuing this line of inquiry. Try looking up Kenneth Ring, he researches OBEs and NDEs.

This is the same basic concept as entering a specific meditative state and reporting what you find. We should note that it may not be exactly like true death, in that there will still be some degree of vitality in the physical body: residual electrical currents and such.




Which leads into my views on the subject at hand. While we can't know exactly what you will see after death, we do have some idea of what you will not. Sight requires a functioning set of eyes and a brain, thoughts, including memories and expectations, also require a functioning brain, and touch requires electrical signals to be passed between epidermis and brain. So it is fairly safe to say that you will probably lack much of the sensory experience that you have now, and you will probably lose any information stored in the brain.




Yet somehow I feel that physical death may in fact be an awakening into some sort of trans-physical reality. A passage from one of my favorite books, Lucid Dreaming - The Power of Being Awake & Aware in Your Dreams, by Stephen LaBerge, Ph.D.:

While ascending a mountain path, I began to find it more and more difficult to climb. My legs took on the familiar leaden feeling they sometimes have in dreams, and a dull heaviness spread throughout my rapidly weakening body... I was overcome with the feeling of certainty that I was about to die of exhaustion. This realization of my imminent death focused my attention with remarkable clarity upon what I wanted to express with the one act of my life I had left: perfect acceptance. Thus, gladly embracing death, I completely let go of my last breath, and to my amazement and delight a rainbow flowed out of my heart and I awoke from the dream.

Years after this experience, the profound impact of this dream of death and transcendence continues to influence my beliefs concerning what may happen to us when we die. Because of this dream, I am inclined to share Walt Whitman's view that to die is "different from what anyone supposed and luckier." Yet I know that it was just a dream, and I wonder whether I, or others who have had similar experiences, have sufficient grounds for trusting the belief that they have seen the truth.

In the next chapter, he says:

It is a traditional doctrine of esoteric psychologies that the ordinary state of consciousness we call "waking" is so far from seeing things as they [really are] that it could be more accurately called "sleep" or "dreaming". Bertrand Russell comes to the same conclusion by a very different path: "If modern physics is to be believed," the philosopher writes, "the dreams we call waking perception have only a very little more resemblance to objective reality than the fantastic dreams of sleep."

Philosophers aside, if you were asked, "Are you awake now?, you would probably reply, "Certainly!" Unfortunately, feeling certain we are awake provides no guarantee that we are awake. When Samuel Johnson kicked a stone as if to say, "We know what's real," he was expressing this sense of certainty. Yet Dr. Johnson could have dreamed he kicked a stone and felt the same. The illusory sense of certainty about the completeness and coherence of our lives leads us to what William James described as a "premature closing of our accounts with reality."

How do you know you are awake right now? You may say that you remember waking up from last night's dream. but that may merely have been a "false awakening", and you may fool yourself now by dreaming that you are not dreaming anymore. Perhaps what we take to be "true awakenings" are really just another degree of partial or false awakenings.

Perhaps we are not "truly alive" right now, but only immersed in, and fused with, a shallow version of reality, a shadow of the Real. If so, "dying" is in fact the final awakening from illusion.

 

[BadPokemon]

Really nice posts by Tek and Blu-Ray. I think physically what Blu-Ray speaks about will occur, our molecules will in most cases become parts of new organisms, or just soil. Perhaps in that sense a part of you continues life as a plant or whatever. Your own consciousness is gone forever is my belief of what will happen. There's not even eternal darkness, just nothing whatsoever, until part of your energy is transferred into that of a bird or something but it would not be "you".

A question, if you don't know you're going to die can that acceptance still occur? For example you are vaporised by a nuclear explosion or hit in the brain with a .50 cal bullet. Maybe it's possible, but that would require proof that there is some sort of essence impervious to all physical damage and not dependent on the brain.

I think believing in God and most religions that promise eternal bliss for following what they say is incredibly naive. There is no proof that what they say is true, at all. Then again, the thought that life is pointless and the wonderful experiences of our lives will be lost forever is very depressing. Good on you if you can find spiritual peace.

Hey BadPokemon, I'll send you a postcard and tacky t-shirt when I get to hell, what size are you?

What Tek says reminds me of terrible short stories written by high school students that end with "and then I woke up" :D Abysmal writing.

I'm a size: how immature and hateful that comment was. Serisously? As a Christian, I believe in Heaven. I'm going there, but that doesn't mean I party and do bad stuff. My job is to spread the word of God and create disciples of Jesus. Again, it is ones choice to believe or not. I think not believing in a Heaven/hell can have negative effects. Yolo- why not rob a store? It I like increase selfish behavior- why not get the best out of what I can before I die? Morals and values may not be good. I'm not saying everyone is like this, as there are many wonderful people out there.

Anyways, when I die I want my body to be donated to science.