Do you believe in an afterlife? If so what is your beliefs as to what happens when you die?

My mom lived with us and I took care of her until the day she died.About 5 months before my Mom passed away she gave me a birthday card with a note that read,thank you for all you have done for me. I love you.I didn't remember at the time where I put that note. The day after she passed my daughter and I went to make arrangements for the funeral. Thinking I wanted some extra cash besides my credit card I reached in a cookie jar that I kept for spare bills and such. The first thing I pulled out was that note. I want to think somehow she was letting me know she was ok. I had a similar occurrence a few months after my Dad passed. I was setting out plants in my vegetable garden. My Dad always helped me with that. I had pie plates on a string to keep the deer away. The day was very,very still yet all of a sudden the pie plates began to move. Again I want to believe my Dad was letting me know he was fine. I want to believe these things happened for a reason, but I'm really not sure.
 

I know some will think I'm crazy but I believe in Heaven and life after death. I also believe heaven can also be a place where you can be close to those you love who are still alive. I have had a few experiences that have made me a believer. It's funny that I saw this post today on February 10th. Here is the main reason that convinced me. My Dad passed away 23 yrs ago. When we were staying with him at the Hospital as we were losing him,my niece Lisa threw herself on his bed and cried "Dear God if you leave my Grandad here I will never ask for a baby again." (she had been trying to get pregnant for 3 years) I got so upset because I knew my Dad would not have wanted her to stop wanting to have a baby. I pulled her off my Dad and cracked her,telling her grandfather wouldn't want that.
A few months after my Dad passed and I had a dream. In the dream my Dad told me to tell Lisa a nice little boy is coming her way and tell her 313. In the dream he was with my cousin Jim . Surprisingly a few months later my niece heard about a girl that worked in a store my niece would go to was pregnant and wanted to put the baby up for adoption. My niece said if the girl wanted to my niece would adopt the baby.Everything went well and on February 10th the adoption became final. February 10 is my cousin Jim's Birthday. Jim was in the dream I had with my Dad. When they went to the courtroom they were told to go to room 313. So
now that precious baby will be turning 21 yrs old. So Yes I am a Believer.
 
I have had quite a number of interesting experiences surrounded around 'death'... including sitting with dying patients who 'saw' and spoke with loved ones right before they died. If they mentioned a name, I would later ask a surviving relative/friend as to who so and so was...
I have had contact with people who have passed on. I have come across one person...this was a most fascinating experience... with whom I shared a former lifetime just by talking and getting to know each other and both having these memories...and we were both shocked because several people followed our 'discovery' and were equally stunned when we looked up some 'real' records for 'proof' of this...and FOUND it!
These stories are WAY too long for me to go into.... plus, I have listened to stories from other people who had interesting experiences with those who had passed on... and you just 'know' and 'can feel' if they are coming from a truthful or fantasy-like place... (if it makes any difference to any of you: I am not a Christian... but am spiritual...and yup, there is a HUGE difference (to me! :))
 

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We are simply insignificant bacteria crawling around on an insignificant whirling spec of flotsam in a vast uncaring universe. Our lives go by in an eye blink. When we're gone we're gone. If our "energy" continues, it doesn't continue as "us". When your brain is gone, you're gone. Sometimes long before the rest of the body, as many caregivers of the elderly well know. All we have is our time here with each other. It behooves us to put away the hate and make it a happy time.
 
SeaBreeze said:
It's a nice thought, comforting for people on earth to think of a pleasant afterlife after they die, but since nobody has ever come back from the dead and actually reported on this, seein' is believin'. I know that we have a spirit along with our physical body, but I doubt that it lingers very long after we die. I've lost many beloved family members over the years, and welcomed some interaction with them after they died, but that never happened. If it does some day, it will change my mind. I always try to keep an open mind with these things, but I'm in my sixties now and haven't yet been convinced of life after death.
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I love the Monty Python skit where they interview three corpses and ask them if there is life after death. "There you have it, folks. Three say "no". :laugh: I tried to post it from YT, but failed.
 
I'm not sure. I think when the brain doesn't get enough oxygen the body dies and consciousness ceases and without consciousness can their be a heaven or a hell?

On earth, I believe in will and accomplishment and peace and beauty. A strong human will can result in what others might call miracles, but isn't this just a more sophisticated level of existence? The brain when programed correctly can create physiological changes in the body. Zen Buddists can do this too in a different way, by creating an alternate reality.

It's all very interesting. I don't have a clue, but I have had many loved ones die and I've gotta know they loved me so much on earth that if they could've come back to me even for a moment, let's say when I was in dire need, they would have, but they didn't, which means they couldn't, which means to me there is no life after death. Sorry but this is where my train of thought leads.
 
chic said:
I'm not sure. I think when the brain doesn't get enough oxygen the body dies and consciousness ceases and without consciousness can their be a heaven or a hell?

On earth, I believe in will and accomplishment and peace and beauty. A strong human will can result in what others might call miracles, but isn't this just a more sophisticated level of existence? The brain when programed correctly can create physiological changes in the body. Zen Buddists can do this too in a different way, by creating an alternate reality.

It's all very interesting. I don't have a clue, but I have had many loved ones die and I've gotta know they loved me so much on earth that if they could've come back to me even for a moment, let's say when I was in dire need, they would have, but they didn't, which means they couldn't, which means to me there is no life after death. Sorry but this is where my train of thought leads.
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I think your train is on the right track.
 
I think whatever anyone believes about life after death is pure speculation based on personal experiences of one kind or another. I myself have never seen any ghosts or apparitions or even felt the presence of loved ones that have passed on. And I've never had a sense that I have been someplace or known someone from a past life. If I ever believed in reincarnation it was because it was part of a package of beliefs included in the yogic philosophy I was practicing at one time. But now, I don't know and I don't think about it much, except of course when someone close to me passes away and I'm going through the process of dealing with it.
 
Underock1 said:
I think your train is on the right track.
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Thank you Underock.

Life isn't fair, but humans need to believe that it is, hence the creation of a heaven where good people are eternally rewarded for their goodness, and hell, where the wicked are punished. Its laudable that humans have an almost innate sense of fairness, but if we created this theory to comfort ourselves during our lifetimes, laudable or not, does that make it a fact??
 
chic said:
Thank you Underock.

Life isn't fair, but humans need to believe that it is, hence the creation of a heaven where good people are eternally rewarded for their goodness, and hell, where the wicked are punished. Its laudable that humans have an almost innate sense of fairness, but if we created this theory to comfort ourselves during our lifetimes, laudable or not, does that make it a fact??
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" It is better to grasp the universe as it really is than to persist in delusion however satisfying and reassuring"
-Carl Sagan

I find more comfort in the idea of death's finality than the uncertainty of existing in some unknown and unknowable after life for eternity. Eternity is a very long time.
I'm looking forward to a long nap myself. :eek:fftobed:
 
Bettyann said:
I have had quite a number of interesting experiences surrounded around 'death'... including sitting with dying patients who 'saw' and spoke with loved ones right before they died. If they mentioned a name, I would later ask a surviving relative/friend as to who so and so was...
I have had contact with people who have passed on. I have come across one person...this was a most fascinating experience... with whom I shared a former lifetime just by talking and getting to know each other and both having these memories...and we were both shocked because several people followed our 'discovery' and were equally stunned when we looked up some 'real' records for 'proof' of this...and FOUND it!
These stories are WAY too long for me to go into.... plus, I have listened to stories from other people who had interesting experiences with those who had passed on... and you just 'know' and 'can feel' if they are coming from a truthful or fantasy-like place... (if it makes any difference to any of you: I am not a Christian... but am spiritual...and yup, there is a HUGE difference (to me! :))
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God is Spirit Bettyann...everything about Him is Spiritual so really the only difference there is the one mankind has made with their religious (not spiritual) nonsense. My daughter is a Nurse in a Nursing Home and she has sat with many of the elderly that passed from this earth to their heavenly home. They also have talked to some of their loved ones who are already there or angels. And the JOY on some of their faces as they left this earth just radiated from their face. My daughter would tell me it was like that JOY lit up the whole room.
 
Part 1

My father married a woman who wanted only to get his children out of his house. My father was a military man and didn't know much about raising little girls he gave her free hand and trusted her. We never went to him about her because he loved her so much, so we kept the goings on of what the house was like when he was gone to ourselves..never telling him. At 13 I ran away from home. 4 months later I felt really bad for my Dad at Christmas and went back home. That's when my step mother took advantage of the situation to tell my father she found this 'wonderful' place for troubled teens. A 'home' for girls run by this wonderful Christian ministry.
It was a place that would not let the girls speak to their parents for the first 3 months. That is because they had the system down to a science. It took 3 months to break most people. It was systematic brainwashing from 5 am until lights out at night. There was beatings and brutality. Once I found this website online that listed brainwashing techniques used on POWS in Korea. All except maybe 2 of those techniques were used on us in that place to teach us to love Jesus. They even had monitors in our rooms where they could listen in to what was being said, so they could haul you down and beat you for behaving 'worldly'.
 
Part 2
We were not allowed radio, magazines, newspapers, tv. We had no idea that the Vietnam war ended. They finally closed that place down because pictures of beatings were smuggled to news media. They just opened it right up under another name is another state. You can't do a darn thing about these places either. And they are all over the place. Young being systematically brainwashed to 'follow the Lord'. That's why I'm slightly more concerned with what is going on in my own backyard than what Muslims are teaching in the middle east. How many kids are trapped in these whacked out religious environments and places? I don't think anyone knows the real number. I did look up one of my roommates from back then. She's a very famous successful artist. She doesn't want anyone to know she was there. She said she's still going to therapy about that place. Me.. I never could afford therapy ( can't you tell? :p ) but it seriously left scars that lasted a long time. I can't stand someone 'pushing' me into thinking their way. I think ridicule isn't a really cool way to 'enlighten' someone into a better way of thinking either. That's why I get creeped out about organized religion. One of the worst beatings I got while there was when this big man yelled at me " Tell me what your name is!" and I answered him back " Do you have conversations with God?" and he said " Yes I do!" Then I said " Well then why don't you ask him what my GD name is?"

oh P.S.- I have run into some people online whose brain washing never did wear off and they talk about how wonderful that place was and how if anything bad did happen there it was done for the 'Lord's' sake. SHIVER
 
BlunderWoman said:
Part 2
We were not allowed radio, magazines, newspapers, tv. We had no idea that the Vietnam war ended. They finally closed that place down because pictures of beatings were smuggled to news media. They just opened it right up under another name is another state. You can't do a darn thing about these places either. And they are all over the place. Young being systematically brainwashed to 'follow the Lord'. That's why I'm slightly more concerned with what is going on in my own backyard than what Muslims are teaching in the middle east. How many kids are trapped in these whacked out religious environments and places? I don't think anyone knows the real number. I did look up one of my roommates from back then. She's a very famous successful artist. She doesn't want anyone to know she was there. She said she's still going to therapy about that place. Me.. I never could afford therapy ( can't you tell? :p ) but it seriously left scars that lasted a long time. I can't stand someone 'pushing' me into thinking their way. I think ridicule isn't a really cool way to 'enlighten' someone into a better way of thinking either. That's why I get creeped out about organized religion. One of the worst beatings I got while there was when this big man yelled at me " Tell me what your name is!" and I answered him back " Do you have conversations with God?" and he said " Yes I do!" Then I said " Well then why don't you ask him what my GD name is?"

oh P.S.- I have run into some people online whose brain washing never did wear off and they talk about how wonderful that place was and how if anything bad did happen there it was done for the 'Lord's' sake. SHIVER
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I'm truly sorry you had to experince what you did from organized religion Blunderwoman. It is clear from reading so many of the posts from others that organized religion has also abused and caused deep wounds in them too. I have had my own experiences with organized religion that caused pain and wounding too but my pain and wounds have been healed by Jesus and I no longer have anything to do with organized religion or religious denominations either. I am at peace with knowing that when my body dies to this earth, my soul will go straight to my heavenly Father and I will spend eternity with Him. I don't believe this because it was drilled into me, because I was brain washed by religion or another else. I believe it because Jesus has spoken this in my heart and I had no doubt that it was the truth. I read about all the other beliefs of what happens after we die and find all these things very interesting...but nothing I've studied has ever made even doubt what Jesus spoke to me.
 
Blunderwoman, I'm sorry you had that terrible experience in your teens -- and glad that you seem to have survived it well. I know about brainwashing and cults and their techniques, having read some things and having been involved myself in a east indian 'meditation' cult with a charismatic leader for many years. I left, but the effects stick around for a long time. That is why I also find that religions and all their 'beliefs' don't mean anything to me anymore. I find that all the afterlife talk and such seems to be part of the indoctrination and rhetoric, so its hard to take people giving the schpiel which all sounds like a parrot to me now, just repeating what has been told to them. Good for you for dealing with this in a very sane and reasonable way.
 
Even with all that has happened with so many of you I just can't imagine that you don't have a thought of what might happen to you after you die or even seem to care about it...even if it just that as some have said they believe when you die you are just dead and that is it I would like to know that.
 
Cookie said:
Blunderwoman, I'm sorry you had that terrible experience in your teens -- and glad that you seem to have survived it well. I know about brainwashing and cults and their techniques, having read some things and having been involved myself in a east indian 'meditation' cult with a charismatic leader for many years. I left, but the effects stick around for a long time. That is why I also find that religions and all their 'beliefs' don't mean anything to me anymore. I find that all the afterlife talk and such seems to be part of the indoctrination and rhetoric, so its hard to take people giving the schpiel which all sounds like a parrot to me now, just repeating what has been told to them. Good for you for dealing with this in a very sane and reasonable way.
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Thank you ((hugs))
 
Babs, if we do not question the sincerity of your faith, whether or not we share it, why not grant us the same tolerance and accept that bewildering to you or not, some are content to be scattered into the wind, extinguished forever.

Perhaps for them, having lived at all, is miracle enough. With respect, to indicate disbelief re their lack of thought/concern re after death, is less than respectful.
 
Babsinbloom65 said:
Even with all that has happened with so many of you I just can't imagine that you don't have a thought of what might happen to you after you die or even seem to care about it...even if it just that as some have said they believe when you die you are just dead and that is it I would like to know that.
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I don't know what you are looking for here, Babs. You asked whether we believed in an after life or not, and everyone gave an answer. How can you say no one has a thought about it after they have given those thoughts to you. If you mean why don't people believe in Jesus, that's a whole other thing. Given how central that belief is to your own life, any discussion of the topic can lead to no happy place. I am happy for you that you find comfort in your belief. I find comfort in my non-belief.

After thought: If you are asking am I worried about the possibility that I might not get into Heaven or be thrown into Hell, the answer is no. Not a bit.
 
Babsinbloom65 said:
I just can't imagine that you don't have a thought of what might happen to you after you die or even seem to care about it...even if it just that as some have said they believe when you die you are just dead and that is it I would like to know that.
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Many people did share with your their thoughts on death, dying, afterlife. It seems to me like you weren't listening to what they said. I spent a great deal of thought on the matter. I spent a great deal of money traveling through the middle east during this process. I'm calm about death and dying now. I'm okay with you feeling like Jesus does it for you, and I'm also ok with my own rejection of all of the 3 faiths that started with Abraham. I don't believe the Torah, the Bible, The Quran. I don't believe any of the Messengers were sent by God or Gods or in any of them being the son of God or God and his Son at the same time. It's because I have rejected these things I now feel at peace and happy with my life and am no longer worried about death and dying. I don't feel like I just have to know what's going to happen when I die because if I don't a wonderful loving God will cast me out of a Heaven or throw me into a everlasting fire. I'm free to be calm and just find out what happens when it happens.
It really makes no difference to me one way or the other if Jesus does it for you. If that makes you happy ..then that's good. I didn't write about WHY I don't accept Jesus as my God, etc. I didn't write about it out of trying to be respectful for what you believe rather than making an effort to dismantle what you believe.
We can open that door if you want, but it would need to go in another section & not the general section.
 

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