Do you think there's an afterlife?

[RottenDeer]

I believe there's nothing. I honestly could imagine that there is something but the rational side of myself says no.

 

[lostangel]

I always say this ''there HAS to be more to this then just living and dying''. Like you only live once? what about the people who were born into slave families and didn't experience any joy just harshness. It's entirely possible that that is the case, you live with the life you were given and when you die that's it.

But then again perhaps religion or spirituality has to have some truth to it, it all can't be made up or maybe it can because it's a way of coping.

I don't know if I even want an afterlife though.

 

[EssenceFocus]

For me, it's 100% absolutely clear, that our life is only a tiny fraction of what our true reality is. I know and feel it in every cell of my body and nothing on earth will change that

 

[MariV]

i really hope there isnt. the idea of eternity terrifies me. an eternity of suffering for instance...ugh

 

[Dr Iron Arc]

If you see it that way. I like to think it goes like in the Good Place, at the end. Just some dust released into the universe. The 'you' is non existent anymore, there can never be another 'you'. Your dust is just recycled into something else. As De Lavoisier said; Rien ne se perd, rien ne se crée, tout se transforme. (Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed)

Ah, but the thing that makes the Good Place idea of the afterlife even better is that when you turn into dust it seems like your essence becomes the catalyst for a single good deed that somebody does.

 

[waitedtoolong]

I believe and hope it's nothing/no after life. I wish we could choose if we want an afterlife or not. I personally want eternal nothingness but others seem to desire an after life. The thought of an eternal after life depresses me worse...the thought of eternal nothing is comforting.

I think the whole premise of an afterlife would be the offer of eternal bliss and reunification with lost love in this physical form, but that's just me, reading too much Dostoyevsky probably.

 

[LonelyNick]

Ah, but the thing that makes the Good Place idea of the afterlife even better is that when you turn into dust it seems like your essence becomes the catalyst for a single good deed that somebody does.

You nailed it.

Spoiler: The Good Place Spoiler

That even in death, something natural btw, you can bring joy. Because death is natural and part of life. We all die. But the idea that death can bring good? Wonderful

 

[kitee80]

I don't think there is an afterlife and I for one find that really comforting. When I finally work up the courage to CTB, It'd make it easier to know that my last final act would end my suffering and my consciousness forever.

 

[CatabolicSeed]

No, but I'd be pleasantly surprised if there is. I wanna see my childhood cat again.

 

[vacant_n]

Not unless there's something weird and unknowable going on that causes the universe to repeat or something like that. But even if that's the case would it even be the same you? I don't know. I'm pretty sure it's nothing though.

I've always been kinda obsessed with the idea of time and how, like, it doesn't exist. It's just a function of our consciousness and how we experience reality. So if there really is nothing after death, no consciousness, that means time doesn't exist either. If there is somehow something after this (I don't mean anything relgious, more a way that some part of you could become something else eventually), you'd immediately blip into that after death.

 

[watsonsmith]

What makes sense to me is that there are higher (or lower) dimensional planes of existence we cannot perceive with our senses. So from the perspective of a human bound in mortal flesh it is the same as non-existence since she can't experience anything there.

I would like to think this is where our soul goes and its related to my idea of god – a being that's beyond our capacity for experience. It doesn't mean that they are all powerful, but they live under different conditions that might appear to us as divine, such as perceiving time in a non-linear fashion.

That also means that the soul could make its way back here. And that's not necessarily either good or bad. Who knows what these beings in other dimensions endure.

I had a couple of NDEs in my life and it was absolute, complete nothingness. Not darkness, just nothingness. If that's what comes after death then it is indeed absolute peace from the perspective of someone who is still alive.

 

[Trayus]

It would be awesome if there is some sort of reincarnation. Maybe a chance to make everything better next time? I often dream about that, living a better life... i dont think it will happen. Eternal nothingness is still better than the prospects of this life.

 

[Secrets1]

My only experience of nearly dying was when canoeing in the middle of winter. In a nutshell, capsized, couldn't get out, struggled for what seemed an age, then suddenly out the blue thought "oh, I'm going to die now". Went totally warm and cozy, felt really relaxed, stopped struggling and that, ironically was what made the canoe rotate and got me out.

But in that moment the freezing cold was replaced by warmth and cosyness, and the panic replaced by relaxation.

Weird. And not scary or horrible. At all.

Was about 13 or 14 or 15.

Think I know exactly how you felt.

Got into an auto accident and once it started everything became so unemotional, matter of fact. I was just a passenger to the event and acceptance happened immediately. Remember saying to myself "this is it..?..?.. wow, owell" then lights out.

Surviving was weird too. I regained consciousness quickly. At the time I was at a pinnacle in my life, loving everything, yet unmoved by the fact that it almost ended. The laws of physics would argue it should have. Never any panic about death and despite things happening fast it felt like slow motion. My brain was damaged but most of those problems didn't pop up until days, weeks and months later. Everything I worried about yesterday or the day before seemed so trivial, like a joke that I could get so worked about certain matters. Things related to love, resources, career... being human. For a brief moment I realized how meaningless the past is. As time went on I got back to being more human but in a fucked up way. Still, there was more calm than ever while in the eye of the storm.

 

[esse_est_percipi]

How about this: since the very first conscious form of life (maybe the first microorganism found in hydrothermal vents 3.5 billion years ago, maybe another form of life before that on other planet), there has always been subjective awareness, never anything called 'nothingness', since nothingness does not exist, cannot be experienced, by definition. Nothingness is not something we can pass into at death.

Every time a conscious organism dies, a generic subjectivity of awareness (underlying the memories, emotions, psychological specifics of that particular organism) continues in another being through a kind of instantaneous shift of perspective.

In essence, we were all the very first conscious life form on earth (if that was also the first form of life in the universe), and when it multiplied and died, that subjectivity split into all its descendants, and the whole history of life on earth is one of generic subjective continuity which simply shifts its spacetime location through finding nascent organisms as differentiated outlets, without felt gaps of nothingness.

What this could mean is that the typical narrative you hear about '14 billion years before our birth were just nothingness, so after death it will just be nothingness' is mistaken, since it is based on an unjustified reification of nothingness as something into which our nonexistent selves can pass (again, the linguistic logic here is problematic).

Everyone alive today may in fact have always been subjectively aware since the start of life in the universe, we could each have lived billions of lives (as microbes, athropods, molluscs, fish, dinosaurs, birds, all the human ancestry etc) before our birth, but we just don't remember any of them because memories and psychological specifics aren't retained from one life to another.

 

[Spitfire]

What makes sense to me is that there are higher (or lower) dimensional planes of existence we cannot perceive with our senses. So from the perspective of a human bound in mortal flesh it is the same as non-existence since she can't experience anything there.

I would like to think this is where our soul goes and its related to my idea of god – a being that's beyond our capacity for experience. It doesn't mean that they are all powerful, but they live under different conditions that might appear to us as divine, such as perceiving time in a non-linear fashion.

That also means that the soul could make its way back here. And that's not necessarily either good or bad. Who knows what these beings in other dimensions endure.

I had a couple of NDEs in my life and it was absolute, complete nothingness. Not darkness, just nothingness. If that's what comes after death then it is indeed absolute peace from the perspective of someone who is still alive.

Complete nothingness actually being 'experienced' for even a fraction of a second with no true time concept would be the same as experiencing complete nothingness for an eternity.. is how I think it probably is, or would be to us?

 

[esse_est_percipi]

Complete nothingness actually being 'experienced' for even a fraction of a second with no true time concept would be the same as experiencing complete nothingness for an eternity.. is how I think it probably is, or would be to us?

yes, I think you're exactly right.
Makes no difference if it's a millisecond or 5 billion years, subjectively both would seem instantaneous.

 

[Disco Biscuit]

I'm 99% sure there's an afterlife. You only need to do a bit of research into near-death experiences and it becomes obvious that there's more going on with this thing called life than the physical reality we see in front of us. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people have retold their stories on YouTube alone. If just a fraction of them are telling the truth, then there's an afterlife.

 

[DeadButDreaming]

One stupid aspect of near-death experiences is that the overwhelming majority of people reporting them say they went to heaven even though the bible says "The path to hell is wide and there are many who find it, but the path to heaven is narrow and there are few who find it."

 

[ThrownAwayTom]

One stupid aspect of near-death experiences is that the overwhelming majority of people reporting them say they went to heaven even though the bible says "The path to hell is wide and there are many who find it, but the path to heaven is narrow and there are few who find it."

You also have to wonder what would happen if these people had no prior conception of heaven and hell. If they hadn't heard of the notion before, would their experiences be exactly the same?

 

[watsonsmith]

Complete nothingness actually being 'experienced' for even a fraction of a second with no true time concept would be the same as experiencing complete nothingness for an eternity.. is how I think it probably is, or would be to us?

That was my experience. After regaining consciousness the two times I lost it, one was alcohol overdose (I had CPR administered and woke up 3 days later in a hospital) when I was a teen the other a severe concussion, I had no idea how long it was. It could've been seconds, it could've been years. The second time was particularly significant to me, because what seemed like years (eternity?) was more likely under a minute. I literally felt like I was being born again.

I'm 99% sure there's an afterlife. You only need to do a bit of research into near-death experiences and it becomes obvious that there's more going on with this thing called life than the physical reality we see in front of us. Hundreds, maybe thousands, of people have retold their stories on YouTube alone. If just a fraction of them are telling the truth, then there's an afterlife.

My problem with such testimonies is my experience with psychedelics. Whilst I don't want to take away from these experiences, I know the brain's capacity to hallucinate an entire reality. So what happens "near" death may not necessarily be what comes after once the brain is dead.

Also, the reason many NDEs may sound similar (what would give the idea some credibility in a certain sense) might be the idea of collective unconscious as per Jung. We live similar archetypes regardless of our upbringing, so we expect similar things to happen after death.

Still, I do believe in some form of afterlife, but it may very well be that ideas like "life" as we perceive it have no meaning "there". However, remaining here through reincarnation doesn't stay in juxtaposition to my beliefs either. It might be one of the many paths we might (have to) take after we die.

 

[FuneralCry]

I don't. I believe there is nothing. I hope this is the truth as I want non existence.

 

[EssenceFocus]

[...]
My problem with such testimonies is my experience with psychedelics. Whilst I don't want to take away from these experiences, I know the brain's capacity to hallucinate an entire reality. So what happens "near" death may not necessarily be what comes after once the brain is dead.
[...]

But from the point of view, that our brain is only a receiver and doesn't create anything on it's own, it makes sense that experiences while under psychedelics, at night and after death are very similar. So I see those experiences as a perfect addition.

 

[watsonsmith]

But from the point of view, that our brain is only a receiver and doesn't create anything on it's own, it makes sense that experiences while under psychedelics, at night and after death are very similar. So I see those experiences as a perfect addition.

It's the after death part I am concerned about. I think that NDEs are still experiences happening before death and so are still in the same realm as states enhanced by psychedelics or when we sleep (or deeply meditate for that matter). What people describe as NDEs just sounds too much to me like some experiences I had when in a marihuana-induced "psychotic" state.

BUT, these experiences I went through convinced me that there is more to this reality than what we perceive with our limited senses (admittedly blunted because of our divorce from nature) or managed to describe with science. I am opposed to this adamant stance that there is just nothing after death. There's probably nothing in the sense that we can grasp now, but I find it somewhat presumptuous and even conceited to state we, as human beings have the last word in terms of experience. Just as the other camp finds it delusional to believe in a heaven. The truth is perhaps somewhere in the middle.

I like the idea in dharmic religions that we are here to experience duality. What's beyond duality? What's beyond good and evil? Nietzsche would say it's truth. Information. Infinite possibilities. I believe we dissolve into something like that and manifest again, but at this point questions like how, where or when cease to have any meaning.

 

[BipolarGuy]

I am not sure if there is an afterlife.
I have submitted an freedom of information request to my local member of parliament in the hope that they will tell me.

 

[watsonsmith]

And they say trust in government is at an all time low.

 

[Meditation guide]

If there is an after life I hope there is no pain. Please just let there be no pain.

 

[watsonsmith]

If there is an after life I hope there is no pain. Please just let there be no pain.

I think that pain is inherently bound to our physical body. That's one of the things I would definitely count on.

 

[WornOutLife]

I strongly believe it's either aliens or we log out from a simulation

 

[user667]

im not quite sure. i always believed in eternal nothingness until a couple days ago i read a post by someone on this website. ill post the link. i think whether it is eternal nothingness or this sort of spiritual continuation, it sounds far better than life. i dont really care what is after death because i know it will be better.
link

 

[esse_est_percipi]

I think there is no afterlife for a human. It's eternal nothingness

the fact that you're conscious now proves there's no such thing as eternal nothingness.