What are your perspectives on the afterlife?

Throughout my life, I've been shifting between two beliefs:

1) No Afterlife - the consciousness is only a biological process of the nervous system. Upon death, the brain ceases to operate and thus, the consciousness no longer exists.

2) Eternity - this is quite different from "Heaven." Sometimes, I feel that people have this energy that cannot be explained by a biological process. According to thermodynamics, that energy cannot be destroyed. So upon death, the energy of a person transcends anything we know...basically part of eternity or everything. Some kind of pantheism, I guess.

I've been reading up on NDEs (near-death experiences) and I find them very fascinating...are they just a pathological process of a body experiencing death or the transition into eternity?

Most NDEs that I have read about include:
1. a bright loving light (memory of mother upon birth)
2. life review (beginning with memories in the womb and ending at the moment of perceived death)
3. hallucinations (are they?) of loved ones
4. approaching the ultimate boundary

Also, time during the NDE is so distorted to the point it has no meaning.

I am extremely open to criticism of my beliefs as they are not set in stone. Please share your own beliefs on the afterlife.

I think the first one would be the most interesting to experience(so to speak).

I believe one day, I will die. For all I know everything I love and cherish will be gone, taken from me. I believe it is better to accept this, then to not.

But I also believe that there is no "end", and that reality is infinite.

I believe one day, I will die. For all I know everything I love and cherish will be gone, taken from me. I believe it is better to accept this, then to not.

But I also believe that there is no "end", and that reality is infinite.

This.

Conciousness can't be destroyed because it precedes reality as the fundamental truth, and as such the properties of existence (existance/nonexistance, time, other qualities) do not apply to it. This is, of course, excluding thoughts, personality, and everything else personally identifiable from the definition of conciousness. Those things are a part of reality just as much as anything else.

IMHO, "afterlife" is a misnomer. Life--that is, the soul, the essential self, the kingdom of God which is within you, in other words-- is eternal. It is, always was, always will be--without end.

I recall enough past "lives" to be quite confident that when my soul's purpose in this incarnation is fulfilled, I shall either choose to merge with Spirit, or reincarnate.

I tend to look at this life as a deist. There is no God existing in this [but rather another] realm, and all religion is stupid.

Nonetheless, energy has to go somewhere, and there have been lots of NDE's and weird paranormal shit. Of course maybe its all coincidence we can explain one day, but it would be nice to know I'm not fucked after I die.

Though generally when you get to 80 years old you are ready to die regardless... Earth isn't a great place.

The self is nothing but an illusion, nothing but making up a story about a character based on events and supposed 'traits'. This, and all of experience, is based on brain activity. Go into a coma or try to remember what 'it' was like before you were born...this is your so-called 'afterlife', it doesn't exist. You experience, exist, and then cease to do so...and most people's egos do not let them accept this and they would rather invent some vehicle in order to have eternal life....their mystical 'consciousness' (lol) or soul (lol).

The self is nothing but an illusion, nothing but making up a story about a character based on events and supposed 'traits'. This, and all of experience, is based on brain activity. Go into a coma or try to remember what 'it' was like before you were born...this is your so-called 'afterlife', it doesn't exist. You experience, exist, and then cease to do so...and most people's egos do not let them accept this and they would rather invent some vehicle in order to have eternal life....their mystical 'consciousness' (lol) or soul (lol).

5char

The self is nothing but an illusion, nothing but making up a story about a character based on events and supposed 'traits'. This, and all of experience, is based on brain activity. Go into a coma or try to remember what 'it' was like before you were born...this is your so-called 'afterlife', it doesn't exist. You experience, exist, and then cease to do so...and most people's egos do not let them accept this and they would rather invent some vehicle in order to have eternal life....their mystical 'consciousness' (lol) or soul (lol).

Our brains are overpowered. We create our own reality. Once our brain is gone we are no longer apart of this connection. Our souls are made up of thoughts that will cease to exist once we are brain-dead. It is hard to accept for a human being to accept death and all of its traits because of how our brain works and functions. It's better to know this and live your life instead of building false hope which wont matter anyways when YOU die.

Why do you think religion was created? Fear and ego combined into false interpretations of death and our so called life. Our spirituality only exists in our human brains and an outer being is impossible.

We are not here for a reason. Our thinking capacity as a human being is amazing though. We think and create false hope for ourselves and our future. Discovering things that were already there to begin with. It is only our minds that has created what we are and will become in the future.

The human BRAIN is an amazing specimen.

I do not believe in an afterlife or care about it. My memories, thoughts, and consciousness are part of my brain. When I am no longer alive my brain will not function anymore. Hence, anything after death is not me and so I could not care less whether there is an afterlife.

It would be pretty sweet to just be able to walk around and see what happens to mankind.

But then again, what the fuck would you do when the world ends. Float around in space?

I believe that when I die, the energy within me shall go on, forever!

That is to say, I believe the thermal energy my body will produce in the moments before my death will dissipate into its surrounding environs; and that the chemical energy contained in my body will be transfered to other hungry organisms. Unfortunately, my consciousness is insuperable from the biological processes that allow my brain to function. When said processes end, so will all that is "me."

I think after death we enter the dream world, Similar to when one falls asleep. I heard someone saying the chemical dmt is released during sleep and also when one is about to die. Noone can explain dreams. Its like a whole other world or dimension. The dream world might actually be reality.

A bunch of you seem to think that some intangible aspect of you never really dies. So then, what is the point in even dwelling on such a thought?

So yeah, your 'essential energy' might continue living in some grand eternal flux, but your thoughts, memories, and personality will be gone, so it's not like what happens to your 'energy' or 'soul' affects you. It's the same as your body decomposing and turning into worm food. That's not much of an afterlife if you ask me.

I think that what makes you you is your personality, thoughts, and memories and whatnot. And those things, I'm sure we can all agree, do not go with you when you die (unfortunate as that may be).

Same with reincarnation... I have never understood why people even consider the notion. I mean, you don't remember or feel anything from your past lives, so who cares??

In the same way that you look into a far distance, yet your vision, rather then going black, perceivably carries on infinitely; so will your life, that you will never be able to realize you are dead, perceivably go on forever.

I can observe my key board, my plants, my books, but I am not these things right?
Why then, can I observe my mind?
I am not my mind!
Is there an eternal "I" beyond the observable, meaning that what we normally perceive as I, isn't, really?
If matter is the result of mind, and mind is the result of spirit, and spirit is the result of God, what could that mean?
*scratches balls*
*ponders*

I can observe my key board, my plants, my books, but I am not these things right?
Why then, can I observe my mind?
I am not my mind!
Is there an eternal "I" beyond the observable, meaning that what we normally perceive as I, isn't, really?


No, it's simply that "I" is a social construct, much like a building is not one single, coherent entity, neither is a person. Rather, "I' is a list of characteristics and a story of the character itself. It's a perceiver and holder of thoughts and beliefs, but is just a large container of biological and chemical processes, not some magical 'soul' or 'spirit', as some of the religious regime would have you believe.



If matter is the result of mind, and mind is the result of spirit, and spirit is the result of God, what could that mean?
*scratches balls*
*ponders*

Silly. Mind is matter, not some immaterial godstuff as it has been archaically viewed. Mind is actually just a label for brain processes.

Not having personal experience of death I can only refer to the accounts of others. A man I met thru work was minister of a church, and whilst I was servicing his fire extinguishers, he told me he had died on the operating table. As far as medicine was concerned he was dead... he was emphatic there was nothing! Fairly surprising for a minister of a christian church! Some time later, servicing the fire extinguishers of a panel beater, this bloke also volunteered his death story. He died and remembers rising above his body looking at the personell working to revive him, then he rose higher until he saw earth disappearing.

There are tens of thousands of NDE's on records but once again we see left/right brain thought processes. The right brain sees the big picture of us as a fractal of a universal one. The left brain has not yet the data to perfect the big picture and thus doubts.

Empty the self completely;
Embrace perfect peace.
The world will rise and move;
Watch it return to rest.
All the flourishing things
Will return to their source.

This return is peaceful;
It is the flow of nature,
An eternal decay and renewal.
Accepting this brings enlightenment,
Ignoring this brings misery.

Who accepts nature's flow becomes all-cherishing;
Being all-cherishing he becomes impartial;
Being impartial he becomes magnanimous;
Being magnanimous he becomes natural;
Being natural he becomes one with the Way;
Being one with the Way he becomes immortal:
Though his body will decay, the Way will not.

TaoDeChing

Namaste:)