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Do you believe in life after death of any kind?

If you believe that life keeps going after you die, please explain what you mean.

paul1967 8 May 27
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44 comments

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2

Belief could be a strong word for it as it is temperd with a scale tipping amount of doubt. I have and do study some Buddhist philosophy and technics and it feels plausible when I’m in meditation. I think of it as a energy net that we come from and return to, I can invision this being part of the natural world not requiring an intelligence or creator, this can lead to a feeling as if reincarnation is plausible. It’s what I would like to believe but without better evidence than simply how I feel, I can’t trust it as an actual reality.

9

Yes. Existence will continue, it’ll just be without me.

Oh you will be around in some form . Maybe just dust for a while.

7

Remember what it was like before you were born? It's like that.

Nope, absolutely no memories of that, but you're still not wrong. It's exactly like that.

A friend's grandson was listening to a conversation about something that happened before he was born. He asked, "where was I?" He was told, "you weren't born yet." He said, "yeah, but where WAS I?" He was about 5 or 6 at that time. We told him, "you weren't born yet so we don't know where you were. Try to remember. Maybe you can tell US where you were.

He was in thought about that for quite a while but then he announced, "I know where I was, I was on the space channel!"

It's a cute story, and it's true. It illustrated something to me at the time: our natural difficulty in imagining the world without ourselves in it. I wonder if this might help account for the widespread belief in an afterlife. No, it's religion. (:

7

There most likely is not but if there is I think it's an energy of sorts. Just don't think we know everything.

It's possible, but our bodies release energy from the moment of conception. That energy is out there yet I have absolutely no knowledge of it and it would be absurd to think it has any knowledge period. So if the afterlife is a release of our final energy then that's no different than saying there is no afterlife.

@paul1967, I disagree, it's not absurd to think it could have knowledge. There is so much we don't know, why should we even speculate? And if we do speculate, we need to be open about the possibilities.

@BeeHappy I wasn't saying you were being absurd. I was say the energy my body is putting off right now doesn't have my awareness and I don't have any reason to believe it has any awareness. If I'm to have an afterlife the energy my body releases would need to be self aware and not just self aware it would have to have my awareness. Since I'm unaware of my energy I would have no reason to assume that could change after my death.

@paul1967 I didn't think you were attacking me. So we are cool there. I understand what you are saying, you make a good point and you may very well be correct. Still, I just don't think we have enough information to say for certain, either way.

@BeeHappy
What we can say pretty much for certain is that there isn't at this time enough supporting evidence to give us reason to suspect any such thing occurs. The only reason we might have to still hold that door open is simply because it gives us comfort. Nothing wrong with comfort, but it's good to call it what it is: not science.

@skado @paul1967 Guys, I don't believe that there is an afterlife but also don't know that for a certainty. If, a very big if, there is, I don't have a clue how it would manifest itself. Either I'm not making myself clear or I'm misunderstanding what you both are trying to say to me, which is highly likely! 🙂

@BeeHappy
I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m just adding that, while yes, there may be anything, like there may be a giant candy cane through the middle of the Earth, we don’t feel compelled to leave a space for that possibility in our worldview because there is just no reason to. If someone asks, “Do you believe in the giant candy cane?” we just say “No”. we don’t say “There could be.” even though there is the same amount of evidence for either, and either equally “could” be.
No one cares if there’s a giant candy cane, but there is motivation to care whether some aspect of our “self” survives death.
Just a thought.

@skado But isn't that exactly what an agnostic says in response to "is there a god"?

@BeeHappy
Yes, and my response is the same. There is no reason to be any more agnostic about a literal god than there is a giant candy cane, but nobody claims agnosticism regarding the candy cane.

7

I with the idea of reincarnation it’s too interesting to ignore
And a part of me believes that we dissolve back to nature so somewho we are immortal in a tree or the ocean
Lastly it’s not a belief per say it’s a skeptic obsession with ghost stories
For me it’s a maybe that our energy is transferred into another form
I sound silly but there is always room for doubt

I accept reincarnation of a sort. After I die the life left on Earth consumes my physical body and that is absorbed into those life forms as energy. My consciences is lost forever. I will be unaware of existence as I was before my birth.

@paul1967 They just proved that plants have senses so there is still hope.

@Marine They may have an awareness but not my awareness.

yes there alway from for doubt but that doesnt make it true..
This is why scam artist work on the doubt i know it not impossible but there doubt...
The best way to free yourself is to remove doubt absolute certainly is a red herring

6

Life before death is what counts, right? I forget who said this when asked what life after death would be like, but the answer was "exactly the same as it was before death, but without you".

I was dead for billions of years before I was born, and suffered no inconvenience. - Mark Twain

great

you got it

6

I believe there is much we don't understand about the universe and it's entirely possible our consciousness lives on in some other form.I suspect that's not the case,and we simply cease to exist when we die.

Who knows what happens ? Nothing will give us a hint!

@Marine Indeed🙂

This is the same nonsense that believe thinks... i don't know so i assume..
This is broken logic...... there zero evidence that we live after our death

6

The worms will get a tasty meal after I die. Does that count?

5

I've yet to have anyone give a reason why any form of consciousness extends beyond the death of the mind that creates it that isn't wishful thinking or playing 'what if'.

5

Plenty of life after death.
You just aren't in it.

5

Yeah, your atoms

5

Its a nice idea really, but no.

5

No..
It like believeing a battery has a after life once it energy is depleated

Good comparison. Well said

5

I think we would all like to believe in our existence continuing on in some form after our physical death but there really isn't any solid evidence to substantiate the idea, regardless of how attractive the concept is to our ego. If such a state exists then I can only hope that there is no angry old man in the sky controlling the process because you just know that it will be a foul up.

We will all return to the environment. and become something else.

@Marine True but the ego wants more than that. Guess the ego is SOL. 😀

@Surfpirate ego or foolishness?

@Rdurham There's a difference between the two? One always seems to lead to the other.

@Surfpirate it can but until someone prove a god or after life is something real than it nothing more then make believe.

5

Nope, I have no experience nor know anyone who can tell me of it. So till something tangible is presented I will stand firmly accepting that there is no afterlife

Your new life may be a plant ,grass or so many other things. Do not give up hope.

5

I believe there is not enough information about our brains and the electrical imprint in them to know for sure one way or another. However I do know that after my grandfather died we and the people at the store he worked at, have experienced a vast amount of unexplained phenomenon

4

Any positive assertions, even negations requires proof for me. LOL, yeah I've read too much bullshit 🙂

I cannot claim to know what happens when we die, there are a lot of possibilities and I'm fine if my atoms are merely recycled into the universe or parts of my conscience go on in
some other form.

Sometimes I attend a Japanese Buddhist temple, they never talk about reincarnation or anything woo, everything focuses on making this world a little better.

4

Hmmm, wish you would have made it a poll. If the people here don't believe,or tend not to believe, in god or religion I'm wondering how they can believe in an afterlife since no one has ever comeback to prove that such a thing exists.

lerlo Level 8 May 29, 2018
4

Not sure I believe in life after death, but I DO believe in life after love.

4

No, we go back to being stardust. Sometimes it seems like a nice idea, but when you think about it a bit more the whole concept becomes so ridiculous that you simply have to dismiss it.

4

Only through the make up DNA itself that may continue on.

Donna Level 6 May 28, 2018
4

Is there life, some or any sort of life after death? I don't know and nor does anybody else 🙂

4

I with the idea of reincarnation it’s too interesting to ignore
And a part of me believes that we dissolve back to nature so somewho we are immortal in a tree or the ocean
Lastly it’s not a belief per say it’s a skeptic obsession with ghost stories
For me it’s a maybe that our energy is transferred into another form
I sound silly but there is always room for doubt

We will all return to the environment. It just upsets me that many of us are placed in coffins which delays the process. My ashes will be scattered to the wind along with the ashes of my favorite dogs.

Reincarnation is not different then believe there a afterlife... i want to live forever..
Sorry that not real life.. You don't believe until you have evidence that it real otherwise your not different that believe in all of the thousand of claims of afterlife.

4

All I can say is I'm agnostic on it... I doubt it, but I don't know. However, I see no reason humans should be any different to any other critter. And if there were any kind of post-death 'existence' for human consciousness, what's to say that it's anything we could recognise and identify with from our corporeal view? Maybe human souls are cultivated purely to power digital watches in a higher dimension?

3

No.

3

Of course I believe life will keep going after I die, just not with me.

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