Discussion Afterlife (and related) general discussion

[Revok]

I'll copy what I said in another thread with a similar topic:

Coming from someone with a background in neuroscience:

Your ability for conscious experience is directly linked to your brain activity. People find it hard to imagine that conscious experience just stops, but the reality is that you were unconscious before you were born, were unconscious during anesthesia if you've ever had a semi-major surgery, are unconscious for periods of time each night when you sleep, and there is no reason to assume that being dead would be any different.

A theoretical conscious afterlife without a brain would be weird indeed, because without your brain you would be unable to form memories or remember things. You would not be able to receive any sensory input, nor process any information. You couldn't be happy or sad, in pain, excited, stressed, bored or have any emotions or mental states for that matter, since those are also tied to brain activity.

What would even be left of you at that point?

Of course you may always believe in magic and things that transcend human comprehension and the endless possibilities that come with it, but at that point it's quite impossible to have a discussion, or make any predictions, because at that point anything goes and there is no point in worrying about it.
Maybe people who commit suicide have won the interstellar gameshow where everyone is in a matrixlike simulation and you wake up and get a million space dollars while those who finish to late get thrown to the space sharks.
Maybe it was all just a weird dream and you are really a 6-dimensional being of pure energy.
Maybe it's a roguelike and you get to start over after buying some power ups.
Maybe 2+2=5

But if you want the answer based on what we know and what is reasonable, then being dead is like being unconscious, which should be a familiar state to anyone. A deep and dreamless slumber. To me that seems very enticing.

You are free to believe whatever you wish though. Just try to not stress over it. <3

 

[polyswarm]

I think Revok is pretty on point.
Consciousness seems to dependent on my brain.
No more brain is no more consciousness, so no more capacity to experience demons, hell or something wonderful for that matter.

Near-death experiences seem to refute this point, but I bet those take place when there is still some brain activity.
Even if people were clinically dead for a few minutes, I bet their NDE takes place before or after this.

 

[crova]

I'll copy what I said in another thread with a similar topic:

My vote goes to: Maybe it was all just a weird dream and you are really a 6-dimensional being of pure energy.

 

[Niko]

i really think this is a simulation and i worry we're gonna have to be back here again if our lives don't end without "succeeding" in some stupid mission that was set out for us, like in some basic video game: a fake world to solve problems to achieve points and move forward. fuck this game.

 

[ParamitePie]

I really have no idea because there's no sufficient evidence to support any one belief. That said, when a close family member died I saw their "ghost" and the same thing happened when a very close friend died. In the latter case, I also had a particularly vivid dream, which is something that never happens to me. Of course, the obvious explanation is that my traumatized mind caused me to have a vivid visual hallucination, but I'd like to believe that it's an indication that both are somewhere better.

 

[millefeui]

I really REALLY wish someone incredibly smart would convince me there is no afterlife or anything like reincarnation, without using arguments such as "there is no proof of afterlife, therefore it doesn't exist", since that doesn't prove anything.

I will admit: I am shit scared of it. My dreams are impossible anyways, so I reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally don't want to live again. I also don't want to spend an eternity being either forced to praise some stupid selfish God (or any God) or burn in the pits of hell or whatever instead.

I just struggle to accept the idea that once your brain dies, you stop existing. Yes, it is logical, but there is a lot of shit in life that doesn't make any logical sense. Logic isn't always everything.

 

[mattwitt]

Burning in a lake of fire forever and ever at the bottom of the universe somewhere with all of the misfits of the universe
would really suck bad X's infinity !!!

 

[Villinte]

I really REALLY wish someone incredibly smart would convince me there is no afterlife or anything like reincarnation, without using arguments such as "there is no proof of afterlife, therefore it doesn't exist", since that doesn't prove anything.

I will admit: I am shit scared of it. My dreams are impossible anyways, so I reallyreallyreallyreallyreallyreally don't want to live again.

I'm with you on that. It would be a great relief to know that it would just be completely over, nothingness is a kind of equilibrium. But the world is just too crazy for me to make that assumption.

We are walking around here making sounds and touching things and feeling and seeing and dancing with each other and nobody have a freaking clue how or why. We can't prove anything regardless of how much technology or science we have because there's always a "what if" that can discredit every attempt.

Nothing/something is 50/50 to me. Anything is possible and it gives me great anxiety.

 

[Trashcan]

I was religious as a child, but became an atheist by the time I was a teenager. I realized it didn't really make sense, at least imo. And I don't think NDEs are sufficient enough proof of an afterlife because they're not brain dead and NDEs have been stimulated even when someone wasn't close to death.

 

[thetwilightzone]

I've heard from NDE's that people wake up in a bed filled with worms, maggots, cockroaches around them. Keep in mind this could be chemicals released during death along with the fact that they're probably trying to create fear-mongering.

But I heard a NDE from a suicidal person who said that they were in a realm (not hell) but almost a place where their suffering continued but not at all physical but emotional.

 

[millefeui]

I think NDEs are just the brain flipping out because it is well, dying. But what do I know.

 

[TheFool]

I was raised by Mormons, and they really got in my brains and mixed things around. That kinda turned me off to believing in anything I can't determine with logic and reason. I don't think there's an afterlife, at least not in the way most people imagine it, mainly because I don't think that we have individual spirits or souls, which I would think is the only conceivable way that an individual would survive the death of their body.

Beyond that, I think that our sense of being an individual self, even without assuming that the self is a soul, is entirely an illusion. I have experienced brief periods on psychedelics or during meditation where the illusion faded briefly, or at least I think it did. It's been a while since I felt that way. So in a way I do believe in an afterlife, but more in the sense of, I believe I am an inseparable piece of the entirety of being, and therefore I am existence itself; I'm only tricking myself now into believing I'm this individual with a name and a story and all that jazz, and when I die, I'll simply snap out of this strange dream and remember who I really am: the great, immortal... *vague gesture*

Putting this all to words makes me feel like some hippie weirdo, and most of my family would probably agree with that assessment, but I don't think believing that I am everything and nothing is any more absurd than believing that some 14-year-old con artist named Joe restored the one true church, or that Allah wants me to blow myself up to take out the infidels, or that, when I die, my essence will seep into the ground, where I'll soon be reborn as a big beautiful tree, or some stupid bird. *Cue "The Circle of Life"*

 

[millefeui]

I was raised by Mormons, and they really got in my brains and mixed things around. That kinda turned me off to believing in anything I can't determine with logic and reason. I don't think there's an afterlife, at least not in the way most people imagine it, mainly because I don't think that we have individual spirits or souls, which I would think is the only conceivable way that an individual would survive the death of their body.

Beyond that, I think that our sense of being an individual self, even without assuming that the self is a soul, is entirely an illusion. I have experienced brief periods on psychedelics or during meditation where the illusion faded briefly, or at least I think it did. It's been a while since I felt that way. So in a way I do believe in an afterlife, but more in the sense of, I believe I am an inseparable piece of the entirety of being, and therefore I am existence itself; I'm only tricking myself now into believing I'm this individual with a name and a story and all that jazz, and when I die, I'll simply snap out of this strange dream and remember who I really am: the great, immortal... *vague gesture*

Putting this all to words makes me feel like some hippie weirdo, and most of my family would probably agree with that assessment, but I don't think believing that I am everything and nothing is any more absurd than believing that some 14-year-old con artist named Joe restored the one true church, or that Allah wants me to blow myself up to take out the infidels, or that, when I die, my essence will seep into the ground, where I'll soon be reborn as a big beautiful tree, or some stupid bird. *Cue "The Circle of Life"*

I mean, I believe I can be born in a "fictional" world of choice (and I have plenty of bullshit theories to back me up), so who I am to call you a hippie weirdo. I am the queen of weirdos. I know very well the crazy nature of my beliefs, but I will die believing in them. Not unlike religious people, it something that helps me keep going through the everyday nonsense of life.

 

[TheFool]

I mean, I believe I can be born in a "fictional" world of choice (and I have plenty of bullshit theories to back me up), so who I am to call you a hippie weirdo. I am the queen of weirdos. I know very well the crazy nature of my beliefs, but I will die believing in them. Not unlike religious people, it something that helps me keep going through the everyday nonsense of life.

I think I may actually believe the same thing more or less, if I understand you correctly. I think perhaps the world I'm living in now is a world that I knowingly invented for myself (which I suppose would make me some kind of masochistic sicko), and once I'm tired of torturing myself, I'll just play a new game. But I'm curious if you mean something different.

 

[TheCrow]

My best friend passed away this summer. Do you think I will find her on the other side?

 

[Justanotherconsumer]

My dad died by suicide 20 years ago and his ghost was able to find me 1500 miles away travelling in a car, on the same night, so I would say the chances are good. They obviously have access to info a human in body form does not.

 

[Jblack]

I believe that when we exit this world and enter the world on the other side, we will again meet up with everyone that we knew in this life. I really do not believe when we exit here that there is simply nothing. The suffering that we have in this world is left behind when we enter the next.

 

[Anon1337]

I don't believe in the afterlife. I think when you die, that's it. If you 'woke up' from death after a century, it'd feel like no time passed. I see death as nothingness. It's a scary and peaceful when I think about it.
I'm not saying it doesn't exist. Just my opinion.

 

[worldexploder]

After life is death. That's my belief.

 

[Jaygee]

I seem to have always had it in me to want to die and during this one period of my teenage life I would buy tins of butane and crawl up into an attic space in the shed and start chroming with the hope that each time would be my last. Always while chroming I would get a sense of horrific infinity echoing through my head. The last time I tried it (about 20 years ago) I had a mental argument with god (who sounded like my father) and at one point I questioned gods very existence and he shouted (in my head) just look where you are. I became instantly sober and saw I had crawled onto a beam barley a knees width in the middle of the shed a three story drop onto hard cold cement. Not the way I wanted to die (and not certain to kill). Could have been the last defence of an oxygen starved mind. But am convinced of the higher power and kinda think have seen a sliver of hell.

 

[TheCrow]

My dad died by suicide 20 years ago and his ghost was able to find me 1500 miles away travelling in a car, on the same night, so I would say the chances are good. They obviously have access to info a human in body form does not.

Wow, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. I'm really sorry about your father.

 

[TheCrow]

I seem to have always had it in me to want to die and during this one period of my teenage life I would buy tins of butane and crawl up into an attic space in the shed and start chroming with the hope that each time would be my last. Always while chroming I would get a sense of horrific infinity echoing through my head. The last time I tried it (about 20 years ago) I had a mental argument with god (who sounded like my father) and at one point I questioned gods very existence and he shouted (in my head) just look where you are. I became instantly sober and saw I had crawled onto a beam barley a knees width in the middle of the shed a three story drop onto hard cold cement. Not the way I wanted to die (and not certain to kill). Could have been the last defence of an oxygen starved mind. But am convinced of the higher power and kinda think have seen a sliver of hell.

Fuck. I am really counting on there not being a hell.

 

[TheCrow]

After life is death. That's my belief.

Right?! We are our brains. So if our brains stop working, how the fuck does that work? Where is that information transferred to? Sometimes I just think realistically there might be absolutely nothing but dirt after this.

 

[TheCrow]

I believe that when we exit this world and enter the world on the other side, we will again meet up with everyone that we knew in this life. I really do not believe when we exit here that there is simply nothing. The suffering that we have in this world is left behind when we enter the next.

Thank you. I hope so. I never realized how much I couldn't live without her until I lost her.

 

[Lil_Intro_Vert]

God doesn't allow your life problems to be more than what you can handle. If that person gives their life over to God they will change and get better despite their horrible past.

I really used to believe this, for so long I really hoped and prayed God would help things get better and if I stuck with him things would be ok. Eventually I realized I couldn't look past all the fucked up shit in the Bible and the concept of hell, but losing my faith almost felt like losing a friend cause God was a big reason for me staying alive and having some sort of hope/purpose. And if God gives you hope that's all well and good, but it's almost insulting to tell people who've been through hell on earth that all they need to do is trust God and things will get better, as if everything is their fault.

 

[bigj75]

I really used to believe this, for so long I really hoped and prayed God would help things get better and if I stuck with him things would be ok. Eventually I realized I couldn't look past all the fucked up shit in the Bible and the concept of hell, but losing my faith almost felt like losing a friend cause God was a big reason for me staying alive and having some sort of hope/purpose. And if God gives you hope that's all well and good, but it's almost insulting to tell people who've been through hell on earth that all they need to do is trust God and things will get better, as if everything is their fault.

True.

 

[Sick Boy]

I feel like im already in hell,i just hope dont get worst in the afterlife

 

[Lra888]

No. Even if one believes in the Bible there's no mention of hell as punishment for suicide. There are several people who commit suicide in the Bible- Samson for example who is seen as heroic. He even asked god for strength so he could ctb.

Jesus never mentions suicide. And for most Christians their faith is that Jesus died for all sins we've committed and will commit - including suicide. By definition Christians have faith that Christ died for humanity's sins and that faith alone is required to go to heaven.

 

[Maravillosa]

No. Even if one believes in the Bible there's no mention of hell as punishment for suicide. There are several people who commit suicide in the Bible- Samson for example who is seen as heroic. He even asked god for strength so he could ctb.

Jesus never mentions suicide. And for most Christians their faith is that Jesus died for all sins we've committed and will commit - including suicide. By definition Christians have faith that Christ died for humanity's sins and that faith alone is required to go to heaven.

I don't know whether or not you are a Christian or come from a Christian background, @Lra888, but that is a very consoling post to me. I already knew about Samson and Saul, and of course Judas Iscariot. I think that because Judas ctb after betraying Jesus is an important reason why the Church has traditionally condemned ctb -- ctb is perceived as betraying Jesus all over again. Poor Judas! Perhaps his ctb was a way to show that he was truly sorry for his betrayal. Who knows? Maybe God forgave Judas long, long ago...

 

[mattwitt]

anyone believe in going to hell for this

If physical suicide was unforgivable then no one would go to heaven because there are 2 types of physical suicide (slow and fast) Everybody is slowly physically killing themselves by what they eat, drink, or by other things they are putting into their body. A person could also be slowly physically killing themselves by overworking, under sleeping, under eating, and by many other ways.