What is the afterlife like?

[EGspirit]

I have very good reasons to believe the mind continues after the body dies. Perhaps we'll get into that, if you're interested, in this string, but I'm more interested in speculating about what the afterlife would have to be like, if there is such a thing.

Is it like a dream?

Is it simply non-existence--no mind, no realization of any sort?

Is it a world, a universe of its own?

What does Morpheus say to Neo in The Matrix? "Have you ever had a dream that seemed so real? What if you never woke up? How would you know it was a dream?" ...or something to that effect.

[opalbee]

I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't see how anything about me could "pass on" when my consciousness is a product of physiology and psychology. There are varying degrees of consciousness within the animal kingdom, as well, and consciousness can be taken away from humans after accidents. Some people aren't even born "all there".

I typically identify as atheist, because when I look at our species I see the science behind it all and it all clicks (at least for me) when you don't see that a higher power was responsible for it.

However, there's definitely a part of me that questions "How did something come from nothing? How was something always there?" so I sometimes wonder if maybe I'm agnostic. I tend to think of that as me being fanciful, hoping that there is actually an afterlife, so I remain distrusting of that idea and I try to ignore it. Apparently Stephen Hawking has an explanation for that, but I haven't heard the explanation spread around like the "big bang theory" so I wonder how strong it is. The idea of being letdown by him having an actual scientific explanation for it has kept me from looking more into it.

[brandy1017, ASN, RN]

There are many books about people who have had near-death experiences at least one of children. Also, you can find testimonials on the internet even Youtube. I have met a couple patients that have had NDE, one was very sick on dialysis and yet she was told it was not time for her to go she was still needed as frail as she was. Her love, support, and prayers must have been needed for her loved ones. My grandma experienced one, had always been afraid to die, but after had peace. She lived another thirty years and I can't imagine what my life would have been like without her!

Most NDE's are positive, but occasionally you hear of ones where a person saw hell and came back determined to live a better life. Some people didn't know or believe in God but were pleasantly surprised to find that God exists and loves them. Most are drawn into a tunnel towards a light, see either God and or family, have a life review where they see and feel what their actions have caused the people around them and told it is not their time. Many want to stay because it is so beautiful and peaceful, the colors are alive, but remember their family and reluctantly agree to go back. Once back they are glad to have more time on earth with their loved ones.

[khminh]

That's an honest answer. But let me ask you this: Do you care? I mean, are you okay with simply blinking out of existence as if you never were. 0 continued experience. Nothing, but not even an awareness of Nothing. Just nothing. The eternal rest.

If being out of existence means eternal rest, I am all right with that state. Rest is not a bad thing. Sometimes life is difficult. At the end of a day, all I want is resting in my boyfriend's arms and melting into eternal rest. Since I am still living, that blissful rest is temporary. Then my consciousness is activated again in the morning; I am out of my sleep. I have to face difficult reality again before I receive my bliss with my boyfriend. Accordingly, if blinking out of existence means I will receive eternal silence and peace, I am all right with it.

It's just like my birthday. Americans tend to make a big deal if their families forget to say "happy birthday" to them. I come from a different culture. I don't make a fuss about it.

The day my family celebrates my existence is also the day other families mourn someone's loss of life. It's all about perspective.

I don't think nothingness is such a horrible thing. Dying may be horrible. Death isn't, especially when it fits your definition "eternal rest"

[EGspirit]

Is it simply non-existence--no mind, no realization of any sort?

Probably this yes.

Fair enough. The rest of what you wrote I have no comment on, except to say there is scientific proof that mind can exist without any neurology whatsoever. But that doesn't matter in this response to you. You believe in a cessation of existence, and that's a fair assumption.

[EGspirit]

I like a nice discussion with differing views expressed with respect for the other views.

When you hang on to the "I am right" or "My view is THE way as opposed to A way of looking at it" we get to a snarky level of you pushing your view onto me. That's when I really don't care about you anymore.

No one cares about anyone anymore.

[EGspirit]

I'm with the big nothing after you die. Personally I think this is a good thing as encourages people to squeeze as much from this life as you can as opposed to waiting for some reward in some cartoon-land, pearly-gated nonsenseville. Live the best life you can & if you get an un-provable afterlife then heck its a bonus but I wouldn't count on it.

I don't think everyone does. Personally, I think some people exist after they die in a kind of ongoing dream state, but others simply don't. Every conscious mind is part of the larger Consciousness (with a capital C), and some people are used to continue feeding experience to Consciousness, and others never develop into that sort of mind, so they just stop when they die. I suppose God or Consciousness remembers them, but that they continue on experiencing things, no, I don't think they do.

Will I live on or cease to exist? I don't know. My dreams suggest to me that I will, but I don't know that for a fact. I don't think someone like you, SIP, would. You have no interest in it, and I think if you were the type to continue on, you would not be an atheist. You will probably have eternal rest. And that may be the best thing in the end. I am not sure, myself, if I would prefer eternal rest or continued experience. I'm not sure which is better.

[EGspirit]

I think that if the deeper self of you, EGspirit, goes on (let's say, in a reincarnation), as distinct from the ego mind of EGspirit, then the deeper self of EGspirit doesn't cease to exist after death.

Yes, I agree with that. The deeper self, what I call Consciousness (with a capital C), and what I consider is actually God, and the true mental substance of all other minds, never ceases. But me, the ego of EGspirit, is a filter of sorts. It's a way Consciousness experiences things, the way it perceives the very universe it created. It may choose to continue that filter or it may shut it down, entirely. But I would still feel a sense of continued existence because Consciousness exists. In other words, take the ego out of EGspirit, and you are left with God.

Jesus actually had a kind of cryptic answer to what eternal life was: He said it was to know God and His Son whom he sent. And this is interesting, because he's saying if you know God, you have eternal life. And it makes sense, because how could anything have knowledge of God and cease to exist? One only gets the knowledge of God by transcending their ego-identity. And once they've done that, then they are one with God (which is what I think he meant by "knowing the Son whom God sent.") And in that case, they could never cease to exist anymore than God could cease to exist.

I feel so many revelations about life after death and what it is like, maybe I should write them down some day. But sadly, even I realize I could only be full of speculative hot air.

[EGspirit]

What is the afterlife like? Non-existent. :)

Yes, like death bring absolutely nothing. A mind just blinks out like a light when the switch is turned off. We are born for no reason. We live for no reason. We die and that is the end of us--as if we had never been in the first place. The mind is worthless, or at best an illusion. It is nothing more than a brain state.

Whoops...but paramecium move about by obvious volition and can be trained. They clearly remember things in a small way, but we know everything about them, and they have no neurology whatsoever. None. And they are only one-celled creatures. Hmmm. In fact, they've been training them in experiments since the 1950's. We've been watching them with microscopes for nearly 300 years. How can they have mental function without brains? Hell, without neurology of any kind?

[EGspirit]

One night many years ago, after a horrendous shift, plus dealing with a severely personality disordered co-worker, I drove home in utter disgust. The evening was made worse by the fact that I was still grieving my beloved cat, whom I had to euthanize several weeks before.

I had a sandwich and got into bed. I was contemplating a job opening I had heard about in home care. It would be a little less money, and obviously less experience.

Still the tension at work had gotten unbearable, but I was in a real quandary.

Just then, I began to hear purring. Within a second or two, it was as loud and unmistakable as a purring cat on the chest, yet there was no cat in the house.

It went on for for 15 or 20 minutes.

He was letting me know that he was still with me, everything was going to be ok, and to follow my heart.

I now collect a small pension from that home care position.

I never heard from him again, nor have I had any supernatural contact with any deceased relatives, although I have asked.

So, what's your point? That your deceased cat visited you from beyond? Assuming that's true, what does that mean about eternal life for you? In fact, that's a good point: might we be ghosts after we die? Might we only spend eternity watching the living and trying to contact them?

[EGspirit]

Remember the Vegas shooting? There was a 50+ year old who talked about seeing kids get killed by stray bullets. He said "Why them? It should have been me", was that massacre a part of gods will?

When we die, we cease. Our electricity and tiny little employees in us that keep us alive die with us.

So, why value life? Why not go to Vegas and shoot a crowd of people?

[EGspirit]

I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't see how anything about me could "pass on" when my consciousness is a product of physiology and psychology. There are varying degrees of consciousness within the animal kingdom, as well, and consciousness can be taken away from humans after accidents. Some people aren't even born "all there".

How do you know? How do you know consciousness is a product of physiology? It's a simple question: How do you know that?

I typically identify as atheist, because when I look at our species I see the science behind it all and it all clicks (at least for me) when you don't see that a higher power was responsible for it.

However, there's definitely a part of me that questions "How did something come from nothing? How was something always there?" so I sometimes wonder if maybe I'm agnostic. I tend to think of that as me being fanciful, hoping that there is actually an afterlife, so I remain distrusting of that idea and I try to ignore it. Apparently Stephen Hawking has an explanation for that, but I haven't heard the explanation spread around like the "big bang theory" so I wonder how strong it is. The idea of being letdown by him having an actual scientific explanation for it has kept me from looking more into it.

No offense, but frankly you sound ignorant. You don't know, but you believe what you're supposed to believe according to what other people you believe know more about it than you do. You won't look in to it, but that doesn't stop your opinion. You want to sound educated so you go with the popular atheistic notions--which don't really hold any water, but you don't know that because you haven't looked into it, lest you learn something you don't want to know.

That's why I say you sound ignorant.

[EGspirit]

If being out of existence means eternal rest, I am all right with that state. Rest is not a bad thing. Sometimes life is difficult. At the end of a day, all I want is resting in my boyfriend's arms and melting into eternal rest. Since I am still living, that blissful rest is temporary. Then my consciousness is activated again in the morning; I am out of my sleep. I have to face difficult reality again before I receive my bliss with my boyfriend. Accordingly, if blinking out of existence means I will receive eternal silence and peace, I am all right with it.

That's legitimate. That's a legitimate way of dealing with life and what comes after it. I can't fault anyone who says they simply want eternal rest.

I don't know if I do or not. More and more, these days, I want God's will. And I don't mean that from any classic religious point of view, I simply mean that I am a creation God made, and I am alright with whatever he wants of my existence. If it is to rest eternally, then alright. If it is to experience things eternally, then fine. I am in the end his, not mine. That sounds sentimental, I know, but it's more of a learned resignation I think.

I don't think nothingness is such a horrible thing. Dying may be horrible. Death isn't, especially when it fits your definition "eternal rest"

No, I agree. If nothingness is what comes, there's no pain in that. There's no loss at all. It's just over forever. And there's nothing to fear or worry about. Nothing will happen, but nothing will matter, and nothing will be perceived.