Well, since we know for sure that the body decays eventually. And we know that decay is relative, and conceived differently by the onlookers, then we'd have to say that all we know for sure is that we replenish the food chain at a low level. That's all we know, nothing else, so why dream up stuff? We have 100% knowledge of what happens after death.
What do you belive happens to us after we die?
by Singing Man 59 Replies latest jw friends
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TheOldHippie
Who was it that stated someting like "If it is true that one is reincarnated, I guess this must be my first time around - since I don't seem to remember anything!"
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IronGland
Well, you certainly convinced me chappy.
Logansrun, he was not trying to convince you. No one knows what happens. Perhaps you are just facing that and are experiencing fear of death for the first time and want to be convinced. Lighten up.
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got my forty homey?
I hope my soul doesn't come back as a witness again! Then I would have to sit through millions of hours of meetings, assembles, book studies, and other borefests. I hope I do come back as a breakdancer though. Those guys are cool!
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Abaddon
At one point I was seriously considering having myself cremated, having my ashes mixed in with a large quantity of cannabis resin, and having my friends smoke me...
It's still an option...
I like the idea of having ashes turned into a diamond; there's a few companies that will manufacture a synthetic diamond out of cremation ashes!!
As for any idea of an afterlife... in the absence of evidence I am making the assumption this is it.
NDE's have been shown to be influenced by the belief system and mental dispostion of the person experiencing it (a lot like LSD actually). People who feel good about themseves have nice thing happen in line with their beliefs. People who feel badly about themselves have bad things happen in line with their beliefs. It is therefore, at this time and in the face of the evidence there is, safe to say that NDE's are an internalised experience visited upon us by biology rather than an external experience visited upon us by 'god' or whatever.
There is no other substabsive repeatable evidence for the human personality surviving death; a host of anecdotal ones, but if a person at the edge of death can see angels and loved ones, I see no reason why humans in grief should not find it possible to have experiences which they interpret as the presence of a dead loved one.
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Dansk
I believe in an afterlife too. It's just lived vicariously, through bugs.
The Buddhists are right, then! Don't tread on that beetle because it might just be your cousin!
Ian
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Abaddon
Actually, the idea of some believers in reincarnation that one shouldn't kill animals as they might be a transmigrating soul has always struck me as, well, err... not well thought out?
I mean, if I were reincarnated as an ant I would be only too happy if someone stepped on me so I could be, oh, I don't know, a politician or something in my next reincarnation.
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Dansk
Hey Abaddon,
Isn't it true that our atoms and molecules never die - that they just join up with other atoms and molecules when we die? Well, isn't that a kind of reincarnation? I mean, one day some (all?) those atoms/molecules are going to return in some person. No joking, please, this is serious. I'd like to know your take on it. Obviously, thought transference wouldn't be the same (would it?) as thoughts are transient. But that beetle or ant could very well contain someone's atoms.
Cheers,
Ian
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Abaddon
Dansk:
Hi ya matey
Isn't it true that our atoms and molecules never die - that they just join up with other atoms and molecules when we die? Well, isn't that a kind of reincarnation? I mean, one day some (all?) those atoms/molecules are going to return in some person. No joking, please, this is serious. I'd like to know your take on it. Obviously, thought transference wouldn't be the same (would it?) as thoughts are transient. But that beetle or ant could very well contain someone's atoms.
You are absolutely right in the sense that atoms or molecules don't 'die'. Molecules can be quite transient, but atoms do tend to stick around.
Most cosmological theories point to the heavy elements in our bodies (in these terms 'heavy element' is something like oxygen or carbon) being the product of either nuclear fusion, as found in stars, or (with the heavier heavier ones) supernovas. Essntially the idea is the big bang made LOADS of hydrogen, some helium, possibly some other 'heavy elements', and the rest of everything else is the product of stellar action. It all makes sense if you think of fusion as smaller atoms fusing together to make larger ones.
As Joni sand;
"We are stardust, we are golden, and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden"
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"Billion year-old carbon"
However, this recyling of atoms on a cosmological scale isn't the continued existance of a personality, so it's more recycling than reincarnation. It's not like your newspaper (made out of recycled paper) remembers a previous existance as a copy of Razzle!
All the best - it's munch time here.