Wow, I think everyone is confused. I always think about how energy has to go somewhere or transform into something. I'm intrigued by the thought of reincarnation. I like reading stories of children who talk about past lives. Really makes me scratch my head. Life is definately a mystery.

I've always craved an experience that would without doubt prove this notion. It hasn't happened, yet. I do believe we create our own 'ghostly' experiences in ways unexplained. After all we are gifted with imagination.

For what it is worth I think you should take your experience and build your beliefs around that. It doesn't matter if a spiritualist confirms life after death, a christian tells you shouldn't mess with ghosts and things because it would upset God or an atheist tells you there's no such thing. Find you own path and mix and match if you want. Its your life, your beliefs that will get you through. Anything else is a distraction.

I want to believe in an afterlife where we get to be with the people we love, love the people we never got to be with, have all the second chances we needed, and be our perfect selves... in other words, Heaven but without the heavy religious overtones.

Since I want to believe in it so much, I'm certain it isn't there, except in dreams. The best I can do is work toward being my best right now.

I don't think that an afterlife would require the existence of god(s). Obviously, we can have life in this form with out them. However, while the non-existence of god doesn't exclude the possibility of an afterlife; there's still no substantial evidence for it.

I think people are afraid of dying which is why religions have been made up.

In this particular instance , what I believe , doesn't matter . What will happen , will happen regardless of what I believe , and at my age , it won't be too far in the future , so I'll just wait to see (or not ) what happens . In the meantime , I enjoy watching movies with after death spirits returning . Some interesting concepts .

Just like with god, the lack of any evidence in an after life is reason enough to reject the concept in any form.

Life is a confusing business. With all due respect the idea of an "afterlife" is somewhat childish.That the conclusion of life is the absence of it is only from a thinking being's viewpoint dissatisfacting. Strangely most people never ask the question of the "beforelife". Just focus on your life and enjoy it while it last.

I can't bring myself to believe in anything more than that of which i can see, smell, taste, hear or feel

The mystery surrounding ghosts and spirits is often fear based given that they haunt and garner fear. Take the fear out of the equation and rethink it. Your result should be different.

I too have heard a very convincing ghost story. A story is just a story, but in this case various family members repeated the exact same story at different times, many years apart, so I tend to believe. Also I was shown the object of the haunting.

I do not like the concept of the supernatural. Just because a phenomenon is anomalous and mysterious does not mean it is not natural—just that it is not understood. Read about modern physics and you’ll learn that the basic structure of reality is outside the realm of human perception. The paranormal pales in eerieness compared to quantum field theory.

If advances are made in the study of the paranormal, those phenomena may well become seen as just part of nature.

Gods are irrelevant so leave them out of the question.

Is there is an afterlife or an alternate life or a post life....who knows, and that's really the deal. As I don't know what's next, and nor does anybody else, I think it can be fun to muse on the possibilities. but it's only an exercise of imagination it's not a hope or the stirrings of belief.

If there is something to come it is currently beyond our comprehension and so ghosts, spirits etc are based around our framework of understanding what 'life' is and therefore influences what the next bit could be.

My advice would be to step back for a moment, and consider that, if there were a 'realm' of existence beyond that which science has yet to discern, this phenomena would be entirely 'natural' (as in, evolved) vs. 'supernatural.' And if it were 'natural' (as in, a part of nature or our evoution), why be afraid? And, more importantly, why religion?

As an agnostic, I would assert that we do not and cannot know what (if anything) exists beyond our corporeal demise. But as an atheist, I have no belief in a so-called 'divine' being. So, if there is a 'something' out there, as you seem to suspect, it wouldn't be 'supernatural' (God vs. Satan, Spiritualism or whatever) but simply another level of existence we have yet to understand. Does that make sense?

Like you I’ve heard some stories from people I know and trust, and had one experience of my own, which has made me doubt that death is the end. So I’ve decided to leave it open in my beliefs, as a grand adventure we set out on at the moment of death.

I think you are confused. Don't be alarmed. Many of us are confused.

The Christians are so afraid of dying that they made up the "soul" to be the real and inner you. Many people have also made up ghosts for this very same reason. Have I had experiences? Certainly. We all have. It's just that I can explain more of them away as I get older. There is no more proof of ghosts than there is of god.

I agree with you.

Not believing in something isn't the same as believing it isn't or couldn't be so. If there is survival (let's not call it life) after death we still, after millennia of human existence, have no verifiable evidence of it. Lack of evidence isn't proof of non-existence. This is something each of us has to decide for ourself. My own feeling is that we end at death, but I might be happy to learn it isn't so.

Atheism gives us the perspective to seek verifiable truth as opposed to fiction and baseless supposition. Supernatural is on the same plane as Supreme Being. Don't believe in it, too.

nope ghosts would mean those theiving lying charlatans pschics were not a bunch of schemeing self serving scum

Some Australian aborigines, I read long ago, say an afterlife begins when someone dies, and that afterlife ends when there’s no one still alive who remembers that person.

Seeing something - a street, a building, a ship, a town, etc - named for someone who has died reminds of that aborigine belief.

If your husband sent you a new text i'd be impressed. Still cynical but impressed.

I've never heard a ghost story that was convincing. It always sounded like someone's imagination running away with them. BTW, trusting someone is irrelevant to whether or not a "ghost" is really a ghost. I'd be curious to hear what stories you have heard that were so convincing.

Read less, ignore more, realize being absent of worship of mortars is a start to a most pleasant, new life for you, less confusing and more you. Do not worry if there is god, afterlife or aliens... simply live your life as you please and enjoy... intellectuals often enough are zombies wanting to eat your brain as you glorify them... just be you, you will be okay.