What do you believe happens when you die?

[Nick]

Simple question, complicated answers.

Religious views aside (though, I suppose that's unavoidable for some people, so I guess ignore that), what are your beliefs of what happens to someone once they die? If you believe when you die, that's it, why do you believe that? (Just to make your replies a little more interesting.)

 

[Gregtom2]

I think that the nano second you die, you either go to heaven/hell, or get immediatly reborn into the very next newborn baby.

 

[Mr Cat Dog]

Nothing. You just die.

Wait... that's not an interesting answer. Can't really think of what to add to it, though. There are times when I sort of want to believe in some sort of reincarnation, but those times pass, and I go back to thinking about nothingness and its inevitability.

 

[Steven]

I'd like to believe that there is something after life. Reincarnation, heaven, becoming a ghost, whatever.

There's actually some evidence implying something happens after life, but there is no evidence saying nothing happens.

 

[TheMysteryEgg]

Here's what I think:

I believe:
you wait till' the end of time until God says to go up or down.

I think:
you stay dead and that's it.

I wish:
You could be reincarnated but would not remember anything about your previous life.

 

[Ctrl.Alt.Geak]

This is a topic I think about a lot. I really dont believe in an afterlife with an eternal paradise or damnation, I dont generally tend to believe in ghosts/spirits/etc. I dont know but for some reason I just dont think that we or our "soul" lives on consciously after we are dead (and with all the scientific theories on how the world is going to end I sincerely hope we dont).

One idea I do have is that when you die, certain atoms and elements in our body are absorbed by the earth, and if this is true then it may be very possible that these atoms live on in the ground perhaps helping fertilize a plant, so its kind of a little bit like reincarnation but not really, its more that you become fertilizer? Thats it!

Of course no one knows for sure, and even though I may not agree with other peoples beliefs does not mean I dont respect them. There have been some pretty interesting answers so far.:)

 

[Esper]

You just die.

At times in my past I've tried to make myself believe otherwise. I remember being a little brat and waking up one night crying because I realized people die and they don't come back. I didn't want to accept it so I tried coming up with other explanations. I was never religious so I never tried on any of the standard beliefs, but I took ideas from them. I tried to believe that when I die I'd go to another world just like this one, but one where I didn't have the worries I had now, like waking up from a dream and finding the world like it is but more real feeling. I also tried to believe that I could be reincarnated because reincarnation is a lot like recycling or the nitrogen cycle (which I'd just learned about in school) or anything else in nature. Learning that everything in our bodies is made from the debris of stars that exploded and that some person in the future will have atoms in their body that once were part of mine was so pretty an idea that I got caught up in the poetry and imagery of these ideas and that let me "believe" in them even though when I really stopped to think about them I knew I didn't buy it.

So I'll die someday and that'll be the end of me. But I'll still be able to leave a trace on the world through my actions while I'm alive. That's really the only thing I think survives death.

 

[Binary]

I believe people just die. Every trace of your existence is erased. I've been under this perception for quite a while, and I think this is what happens. Your psychological and physiological existence is erased and you just, kind of.. die. :/
Re-incarnation.. I don't know. It may be a possibility. But I don't really believe this sort of cycle exists. Would we have the same psychology and behavior after re-incarnation?
Yeah, there are countless possibilities, really.

So yeah, something does happen after death.. even if you just disappear.

 

[Azure Revolver]

When you die, you die. No reincarnation, no heaven, hell, or life after death. It's like you dream forever but with no dreams, just nothingness.

It's not a pleasant thought, but it's probably what will happen.

 

[King Gumball]

I think that once we die that is it; identical to before we were born, nothingness.

 

[PlatinumDude]

I don't really know what to believe when you die. If you die, what will happen to you? That's what I've been wondering. One of my answers could be that you could go to heaven or hell, if there is one.

 

[Pokemon Trainer Touko]

I believe in ghosts, because I've seen one before. So I think after you die, you turn into a ghost. Simple, eh?

 

[Timbjerr]

It wholly depends on your actions in life of course. Be a benelovent, kindhearted, and overall good person an you'll be in Heaven. Be a selfish, immoral jerk and you'll be in Hell. For people who are middle-of-the-road that aren't particularly saintly or particularly fiendish, they may remain on earth as lost souls, having to earn their place in Heaven by their good deeds in the afterlife such as haunting an old abandoned building so some reckless teenagers don't go in and have it collapse on them. XD

 

[Dave_]

I believe once you die your consciousness is gone, Just as before you were born.
I believe that your material form provides new life through de-composition etc
I believe that your existence dissapears after the memory of you fades

 

[Equinoxe]

I'm also with the people who think you just die and that's it.
A human mind is merely a bunch of cells interacting with each other and no one's been able to prove the existence of some kind of separate 'soul' that would leave the body after death.
So, most likely, when the cells stop sending signals, the person also stops being. The organic material will nicely dissolve into nutrients and provide life for grass, flowers and maggots and so on. Sort of blunt and unceremonious, but personally I think it's better this way (eternal life in either a 'heaven' or a 'hell' would probably be pretty unbearable, because it's too eternal).

 

[Ctrl.Alt.Geak]

I believe once you die your consciousness is gone, Just as before you were born.
I believe that your material form provides new life through de-composition etc
I believe that your existence dissapears after the memory of you fades

Damn you abridged my answer, I wish I had worded mine like you had yours.

 

[Chiar]

I strongly believe that when you die, you somehow reincarnate but don't remember anything and it's not possible to ever find out what person you were before. I'm not really that strongly afraid of death myself.
I don't believe in God, Heaven or Hell as I'm and always was a declared atheist.

 

[176StantonStreet]

It wholly depends on your actions in life of course. Be a benelovent, kindhearted, and overall good person an you'll be in Heaven. Be a selfish, immoral jerk and you'll be in Hell. For people who are middle-of-the-road that aren't particularly saintly or particularly fiendish, they may remain on earth as lost souls, having to earn their place in Heaven by their good deeds in the afterlife such as haunting an old abandoned building so some reckless teenagers don't go in and have it collapse on them. XD

I agree with this. Your path is determined by your actions as a mortal.

 

[ShinyMeowth]

I'm also with the people who think you just die and that's it.
A human mind is merely a bunch of cells interacting with each other and no one's been able to prove the existence of some kind of separate 'soul' that would leave the body after death.
So, most likely, when the cells stop sending signals, the person also stops being. The organic material will nicely dissolve into nutrients and provide life for grass, flowers and maggots and so on. Sort of blunt and unceremonious, but personally I think it's better this way (eternal life in either a 'heaven' or a 'hell' would probably be pretty unbearable, because it's too eternal).

Mostly this aside from the part that death is better than lack of death. I like living, and I am not planning on stopping that if I can help it. I am planning on using cryonics when I die, in order to preserve my brain, and transfer my consciousness to a robot when the technology supports that. I am way too important to die.

 

[Pyrax]

You stay in the ground, rotting in your wooden box 'till you're a skeleton.
Your body then becomes a bunch of nutrients for the Earth.

Of course, your soul would probably wander the Earth as a ghost.
But ghosts haven't been proven to exist.