Afterlife

[Amenhotep7]

Thought Reverse Psychology would work!
*clamps you down in chair with iron binding-thingys
Now you must read this thread!

Whaddya think the afterlife is like? Nothing, you're just gone, or a huge paradise with St.Peter and the pearly gates, etc?

I don't really agree with this theory I made up. I'd like to think that heaven is St.Peter and the pearly gates, etc. Here's a theory:

Heaven and God is a state of mind. One of my theories of the afterlife theory is that, because you are on earth, you are bound to corporeality, and therefore, can not alter anything. But when you die, the boundaries of this world no longer apply. In essence, you create your own heaven, your own afterlife, since there are no laws to restrict us. This is why heaven is a state of mind. It's because you make it the way you want. Of course, with this logic, after you die, you can create a universe, making you god.

Moderator Action: warned for spam title, from the rules:
"Use descriptive subject lines & research your post.
This reduces the chances of double-posting and it also makes it easier for people to see what they do/don't want to read. Also, scan the subjects of the last several days' posts to make sure you aren't duplicating posts."
Lefty
Please read the forum rules: http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=422889edit: new title submited by author now inserted.
Questions?Comments? Subscribe to my pamphlet?

 

[cgannon64]

It could be that our conciousness just ends.

However, I beleive in Heaven, in which case it would be hard to describe. It would be like the endpoint of your moral and mental evolution - if you were a good person, you become 100% good through and through. There is no time, since it is eternal, so it is hard to imagine what it would be like, since there is no "now". There would be everyone else who is also a good person there.

You may ask, "Why can't everyone be there?" Its not necessarily because they were "bad", IMO, but because as you live you change into a truly good or truly bad person, and a truly bad person would be incompatible with truly good people.

BTW, my beliefs on the afterlife aren't as strong as my beliefs on God, because it is kind of irrelevant, IMO. I'm going to live my life as best I can whether there is a Heaven or not. So I don't beleive in the above paragraph as much as I do in God, but it is how I would envision the Christian idea of Heaven.

 

[anarchywrksbest]

You just die. Don't waste you time on Earth, especially wasting it trying to get into heaven.

 

[anarres]

Originally posted by anarchywrksbest
You just die. Don't waste you time on Earth, especially wasting it trying to get into heaven.

Amen.

 

[newfangle]

When my body stops working properly, my consciousness ceases to exists.

I don't fear this day, I only fear a failed life preceeding it.

 

[FredLC]

I have no reason to believe that I'll still exist, in some spiritual manner, after the decease of my body. And I do not fear the void, I do not tremble at the tought that I am not indispensable for the existance. I am finite and I accept it entirely.

Quoting Tolkien, "All that I can do is do the best with the time that was given".

Regards .

 

[Ilex]

 

[cgannon64]

I beleive Ilex is saying that, after death, we keep on rockin' in the next world?

 

[Narz]

I kind of like the idea of reincarnation. Heavan and hell doesn't seem very realistic to me nor does the idea of non-exsistance (how can the world exsist with Narz!). I personally have not experienced anything that would make me believe in reincarnation but I like to think that I am more than this body & mind, that I have a soul and that this life is not an end in itself.

- Narz

 

[Mescalhead]

I don't know. There is no reason for me to believe anything is more probable than anything else. Humans, it seems, don't necessarily have the right mind or means of perception to truly understand the world. Cartesian Skepticism beotch!

Originally posted by cgannon64
I beleive Ilex is saying that, after death, we keep on rockin' in the next world?

Oh god. Neil Young went religious.

 

[Toasty]

I'd like to think I've yet another life to live. Kind of a reassurance that even if I screw up this one, I get another . When I look at it in that light, it makes me a little worrisome--"You only get one life, don't $%#& it up."

I really don't know what comes after this life. I don't like restrictive religions, so I don't follow them, but I don't really know enough about any others to pledge myself to them. I just like to think I've got another shot, in some way, after this one, and try to reach "nirvana" by having fun and being the best person I can be.

 

[Sarevok]

I go where i want, when i want. tis afterlife stuff is something i dont thinkabout at all.

 

[carlosMM]

afterlife is fun, 14 virgins per man and so on.... oh, wait, I am an atheist, ain't no girls gonna be there for me

on a aside note: I find it interesting that lefty warned, but did not edit the title........

 

[Pariah]

"In essence, you create your own heaven, your own afterlife, since there are no laws to restrict us. This is why heaven is a state of mind. It's because you make it the way you want..."

Was Amenhotep quoting the movie "What Dreams May Come?"

It's a fascinating idea, that mind will eventually free itself from matter - Arthur C. Clarke proposed that it could be accomplished by the ultimate in technology and cultural evolution, as with his ancient Monolith-building aliens in "2001." But if it eventually happens to all of us, as the culmination of our biological lives, there's really no need for millions of years of super-science!

I also like the idea of re-incarnation. Some people claim to be able to recall past lives; could it be that, if we all have latent telepathic abilities, a person who knows they are dying can involuntarily "download" their memories and personality into the blank mind of a newborn (or unborn) child? Since no-one remembers actually being born, or the first year or so of their lives, memories are obviously stored in a different way at that time - on a mostly subconscious level. Perhaps that's why the downloaded images from a previous life are almost never consciously recollected.

 

[Pongui]

The husk rots and all I am that could get in the way of my offspring, prudently, bows out. Yet all that I am that could be of service, that lives on. And of course the acorn never lands far from the tree. There's also my spirit in things material or immaterial I've created, or set loose. These can last a long time, in one form or another.

So the afterlife to me must be not much diminished from what I expect in old age.

If one has real personal ambition for an afterlife, I recommend total preservative embalming - organs all sealed in seperate containers, mummified carcass, the works - and the largest possible pyramid to protect the body in its journey to the future day of ressurection in a world beyond this one. Anything's possible, given time.

 

[Amenhotep7]

O no! I'm trying to change the title to Afterlife, but it won't change! No, I wasn't quoting a movie...Never even heard of it...

 

[Aphex_Twin]

I don't believe I will cease to exist, but I don't think I will still be conscient and aware. Maybe there will be an integration into a Wider intelect, from which I will have no sentiment of individuality, or perhaps it would be an exit outside of Plato's cave...

 

[Kshatriya]

Whaddya think the afterlife is like?

We reincarnate of course...

 

[Pariah]

When people have reported near-death experiences, they usually travel along a tunnel of light to a place which approximates their particular religion's concept of the afterlife - whatever that may be. This would seem like evidence for the "afterlife is whatever you make it" argument.

The one common factor to all such experiences, though, is the tunnel of light itself - variously depicted in films or TV as a glowing mist, an irregular upwards "waterfall", a Deep Space 9-style wormhole etc. Humanists have suggested that this vision is a consequence of oxygen starvation in a brain on the verge of dying.

But a few people have returned from the "tunnel" saying that what they glimpsed at the other end was far from beautiful... that they saw darkness and desolation, and felt great dread. There's an obvious connection there between many religions. Probably none of them have got it exactly right; however, I think death and the hereafter might hold a quite real fear for some. If that's really dependent on whether or not you've lived a good life, is a matter of faith.

 

[polymath]

You die and that's it. Game Over.

That one about creating the type of heaven you want, that's just sooooooo hippy....a little bit glib, a little bit convenient.....bleueuch!!! Straight from the Hollywood Scriptwriters Bumper Book Of Happy Endings, if you ask me.