to me you either go to heaven or hell...

eh, I'm with Plato... If you've been a "good" person, it doesn't matter either way. You are either a) not conscientious and therefore you do not care or b) you get to be with a lot of old thinkers and old friends/ family. Happy times

Personally? Roman Catholic... Heaven, Hell, Purgatory. Although... I don't think anyone goes to hell... I figure God is a nice enough dude that he gives everyone one last chance... That's just me though.

Too much energy is wasted thinking about what happened before we got here and what will happen when we go.

We can get answers on the former but never on the latter.

Furthest I'll speculate would be my final words. Anything past that isn't really important to me, it's not like I'll live to see it, and if I'm reincarnated, limbo'd, ascended, banished or what have you... I can guage the situation from there and adjust accordingly.

Personally I'm betting on returning as a zombie. The zombie apocolypse will EVENTUALLY happen and my corpse will be waiting.

Life is not a video game, you don't get extra lives. Life after death is something people that don't do in life what they wanted to think so they feel they have a second chance to do things they didn't. And the closer people get to death the more they believe it, for obvious reasons. Why else ya think 90% of death row "find god"?

In sort, What happens after death?

Maggots feast.

~Tobe

*in b4 ****storm*

Thanks for your input! =D!

Ask and ye shall receive! :3

~Tobe

I like the idea of reincarnation, as an afterlife just sounds so boring in my opinion. Spending eternity somewhere... =/ With reincarnation I would have thought that you wouldn't remember past lives (well some people claim they do) so it wouldn't be so boring as everything will seem like new. If you do remember your past life though it would be like =/ because you'll miss things.

However my belief is that there's nothing after death. I must admit I can't comprehend nothingness, but that's what I think happens =/

Coming at this from a Biblical standpoint, I simply take what the Bible says on the matter as my personal belief. A few scriptures I found on that matter:

Ecclesiasties 9:5,10 ~ "The living are consious that they will die, but as for the dead, they are consious of nothing at all...there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol, the place to which you are going."
(Itallics added)

Psalms 146:4 ~ "His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish."

So put simply, death in the Bible is nothing more than a state of nonexistance, like a deep sleep, a fact backed up in the account where Jesus raised the man Lazarus, and he used the analogy of sleep.

The Bible also shows that Humans don't have an immortal soul that lives on after death:

Genesis 2:7 ~ "Jehovah God proceeded to form the man (Adam) out of the dust from the ground and to blow into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man came to be a living soul."
(Itallics added)

Ezekiel 18:4 ~ "The soul that is sinning - it itself will die."

So the Human body is a soul, it doesn't posess one that lives on after the body dies. In other scriptures though, the Bible does hold out the hope that God will at some point in the future bring those who have died back to life, to live here on Earth in the paradise he origionally intended it to be.

So, all of theat is pretty much my viewpoint on the matter

Hmm, well, I consider there to be 2 kinds of death.

Death of the Physical body, and Death of the Spirit.

Death of the Physical body needs no explanation (or I hope not >_> ). It is when your body simply is unable to continue it's normal bodily functions and dies.

Death of the Spirit is more complex. This kind of death can be interpretated in many ways. Maybe it is possible that the spirit no longer exists. Or maybe in symbolic form in that no one remembers you or your spirit, so maybe it's dead.

Anyway, who knows? I might be right, I might be wrong.

Those are my 2 cents.

Hi, Steebay.

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As for my thoughts on the matter, I've been thinking that everything just ends. One minute you are conscious, and the next minute your mind, soul, presence, whatever just ceases to exist.

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For more about 60-70% of all people that' it. Once the physical body is dead, you are dead.

They choose to live no more. They cannot handle living as spirits.

Places:

For those fortunate ones (less than 1%), they get a chance of going everywhere around the Universe.(similar to traditional Heaven, but more inclusive of teh Universe. Earth is part of it.)

For the so so: Those commit suicide (25-30 years), do minor to some sort of major stuff (1-1000 years) they are sent to places for Rehabilitation. There are more women there than men.(similar to Catholic Purgatory)

For the Heavy ones (the murderers, psychopaths,....): 1000 years plus. There are more men there than women.(A place of Darkness as opposed to a place of fire as traditonalists call it Hell of Fire).

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I like the idea of reincarnation, where one life ends and you get born into another.

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Less than 5% get this second chance.This is for the ones dyibng young, blind, deaf, mentally challenged,.....

Yet, the problem is that you don't remember anymore. That is, whoever you were, you are not anymore. Your new brain doesn't let you.

I have seen these in my dreams. Here is one where I dreamed I died.

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Ask and ye shall receive! :3

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No, I was talking to V2, but yeah thanks I guess.

Uh, I agree with Wraith...

I don't agree with that at all. Not saying your wrong Yahwist. I just don't agree with that.

Why does Death have to be bad. I mean, who is to say life isn't a Video game. When you come back in a video game after you died and didn't hit any check points, you start over.

You dont have the same gear (body) and you might get robbed while you were dead ( bugs eat you) but then poof you come back, in a new body (reincarnated) or if lucky, the same body (new life) and your mind may or may NOT let you remember stuff, but there are trigger points that will be awakened if you relocate yourself in familiar surroundings again.

That's what I think. I really don't think people die if they don't want to. Most people say they don't want to die-and fear it. I say I'm not going to die, despite whatever may happen.

It may be inevitable that we all die. I'm just not going to waste my time thinking about death and what can come after, Once I die, Im gonna get right back up after however long the reset period takes, and continue on what I wanna do.

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I don't agree with that at all. Not saying your wrong Yahwist. I just don't agree with that.

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There are two deaths, the second one is forever.

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Why does Death have to be bad. I mean, who is to say life isn't a Video game.

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We all have to die physically. In that respect Death is not the bad one.

It is in the choices Death makes. I had my encounters with him in dreams or in real life.

5 years ago in October 2002 I noticed Death was making a choice between my wife's nephews and nieces . I told my wife one of her nephews/nieces was going to die soon because Death told me I could not stop it.

Death is the coldest thing I have ever felt. Not even 3 blankets could warm me up....

I have also seen Death as a Black cloud choosing people in front of me.

More than 300 people from my dreams or what I have seen have died since October 1986. Donnie Moore was the first. He used to be a relief pitcher for the Angels.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donnie_Moore

yeeeeah... Not to start an argument or anything, but for some strange reason that sounds pretty... far fetched.

I also find it a little funny that you have all these statistics for what most of the population experience after death... Sounds almost like the Jehovah's Witnesses. I find it funny that they have a set number of seats in heaven... Everyone else goes to "hell"... The hilarious thing is that there isn't a point in joining anymore, as those 'seats' have been long filled

I hope your wife didn't slap you.

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I find it funny that they have a set number of seats in heaven... Everyone else goes to "hell"... The hilarious thing is that there isn't a point in joining anymore, as those 'seats' have been long filled

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lol not to be picky Hiro, but that isn't quite accurate to the teachings of the Witnesses. It's true that we believe only a certain number go to heaven...Revelation clearly states that number as 144,000...however we don't actually believe in the teaching of hell, as it is not a Bible teaching. As I mentioned in my previous post, the Bible outlines death as merely a state of nonexistance, not a place of etenral torment. The Hebrew word translated hell in some Bibles, Sheol, litterally means nothing more than a hole in the ground, or a grave.

Also, this doesn't nessecerily mean that there are only two options, heaven or nonexistance in death. Romans 6:23 states: "For the wages sin pays is death, but the gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus our Lord." So yes, those who sin and refuse to listen to Jehovah God will end up in death, however there will be others besides these, who have lived a good life and listened to his commandments, whom God will reward with everlasting life. These are clearly seperated from the small group who go to heaven in Jesus' illustration about 'other sheep, who are not of this fold' (John 10:16), and the Bible tells us that they will be granted everlasting life right here on Earth, when God restores the Paradise that he origionally intended this planet to be. Psalms 37:29 is just one of the examples of this: "The rightious themselves will posess the Earth, and they will reside forever upon it."

So while we believe only a certain few go to heaven, many, many more have the hope of living here on Earth under God's caring rule. It's that hope that most of us are waiting for^^

Hope that clears it up a little

heh, still. Isn't heaven the better of the lot? And what about the 144,001st person? Is he SOL, regardless of how good of a life he lived?

Even though this is going to come off as arrogant, I must chuckle at people who take everything in the Bible 100%. Earth was created in 7 days? God just went POOF and created man? You need to forgive someone 49 times?

and hell, I know a lot of us Catholics are ignorant. A lot think that ONLY Roman Catholics are going to heaven.

Serendipity- It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet... because they're all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Your hearts are in the right place, but your brains gotta wake up.

What happens when someone who dies was a 'better' person than one that already filled a seat? Do they... kick them out? That would suck. "Yeah... you hear about Bob? They kicked him to purgatory for the new guy."

~Tobe

It's not really a question of rank. Those who go to heaven are chosen because they have experienced the best and the worst of life here on Earth, and so are in a good position to act as judges and mediators between Jehovah and Humankind, and have the honor of doing so. Those that remain on Earth have the honor of serving Jehovah, and the happiness of living in his Paradice where no sickness, death or evil will plague them any more. Either way, both groups have the privalege of praising God and giving him glory, and that's the main thing. To us, it doesn't matter how we serve God, just that we serve him, and in adition to that we also know he will reward us thoroughly for doing so.

And with regard to taking the Bible 100%: We just figure that the Bible is God's letter to Humankind, to tell us how he created us, and what is best for us. If one buys a new washing machine or computer, do they just start using it straight away even though they don't really know how to, or do they sit down and take the time to read the manual, so they can be sure they aren't using it in a way that would damage the machine? The Bible is our manual to life, and we read it to find out how we can use our lives to the full, and bring glory to Jehovah. It would be rather silly to just take parts of that manual that we like and ignore others, wouldn't it, not to mention the fact that it wouldn't be our place...who are we to dictate to God how we want to serve him?

It's true that not everything in the Bible is litteral too. We don't know wether the creation account was seven litteral days, or a figurative period of time that was much longer. The Hebrew word translated 'day' also has other meanings, including 'a long period of time', so it's possible it was much longer than a literal day. And with regard to the forgivness element (I'm assuming you're meaning the time when the Apostles asked Jesus how much they should forgive, and he replied 'up to 77 times'?), other scriptures along the same lines show that Jesus was speaking figurativley there, just giving an example of a high number. Like 1 Corinthians 13:5 for example, talking about love, says it "does not keep account of the injury", and 1 Peter 4:8 ~ "Love covers a multitude of sins." The important point, though, is that the whole Bible provides a complete, workable and harmonius way of life for everyone to follow, and we simply strive to do so as much as we possibly can in our own lives, since doing so means we're following the one who inspired the Bible, Jehovah God.

Just a small clarification on that last post (forgive the double post, this forum doesn't allow edits), a bad choice of words on my part: I should have pointed out that those that go to heaven will not be direct mediators between Humans and God, as that position is reserved for Jesus himself. They will sit as kings alongside Jesus and assist him in that task though, as seen in Revelation 20:6.

Just a small note I forgot to add, my bad.

Any idea of an "afterlife" sounds so utterly pretentious and dull that I really do hope there's nothing after death. We die, our brains stop functioning, our bodies decompose. End of story.

I hope there is an afterlife. So I can haunt you. *makes ghost noises behind Matt's back*

OOOOoooooOOOO

Sexy time!

Regardless of what happens after your physical being decides to quit, my only true feeling on this matter is that within this life, you create who you are in the next. I do belive in an existence after this one, but I can not possibly fathom how it will be. Everything on this planet which relates to religion was all created by ourselves, and I do not believe anything was intentionally put here, be it man or book, to show us the way to an afterlife. I do believe that something, or someone created existance, by direct intervention or even accidental, but I do not believe that anyone knows the true answer to life after death. All we know is what has been passed down from more people, or written in books. It's rare to find people who believe what they feel is right, instead of what they think is right based on what they have learned whithin this life. You don't know anything about death and what happens after, you can only feel and convince yourself or an answer, it's called beliefs and everyone has their own. Faith in the unknown is a risk everyone takes, but at least most have faith.

While I do not look lightly on religions, I do believe they are nessisary for humans to live, since they give us something to believe in. Call it a popular vote, but at least if gives people comfort and an explanation to the unknow which ultimately is death itself. I don't worry myself with faith through a community of common belief and I don't need guidance to ease my mind in the thought of an unknown destiny. If I spent my life devoted to a religion in a true aspect, I would feel as though I wasted time which I could have spent building my own character. I don't want to dive further into religious talk, but we all know that the unknowns of death are what create religious beliefs.

Anyway, like I said, my only opinion upon death is if you are true to yourself and use some morals, you will shape yourself into great character for the next life beyond what we know.

That is my belief.

Didn't you people ever consider that in heaven all of your desires and fantasy might be fulfilled and you'll live in a state of eternal happiness and pleasure? That wouldn't be very dull at all.

I can't think of anything worse. What would be exciting about a world where everything that you want to happen actually happens? Where's the challenge, where's the incentive to improve yourself or raise the bar?

And how will I beat the devil in that contest so I can have that shiny fiddle made of gold?

~Tobe

I wouldn't say I'm religious, but I do believe in an afterlife. I don't know why. I just hope it isn't as boring as 2001 A Space Odyssey.

I mean things were looking up at hour 55 but what happened in hour 78?

Well matt, you could just disable the part of yourself that needs a challenge or just create a scenario with a chance of failure.

You can't disable some part of yourself on a whim. You may as well say to starving children "just disable the part of yourself that needs food, shelter, and a loving parent."

Also, if we're in heaven and everything happens the way we want it to, of course we'll fail something if we really want to. But you can't really fail something if you've done it on purpose.

So when I goto Heaven Boston will return my affections?

~Tobe

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You can't disable some part of yourself on a whim. You may as well say to starving children "just disable the part of yourself that needs food, shelter, and a loving parent."

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In heaven you probably could.

Also you want the chance of failure but do you really want to fail?

In heaven you can "probably" turn yourself inside-out as well, but we're never going to know. You can't rest an argument on a "maybe" in a place that is already a "maybe" itself.

Do I want to fail? Course not. Do I need to fail? Absolutely. What kind of horribly arrogant, out-of-control people would we be if we achieved everything we set our minds to? We never *want* to fail something, but a constant amount of failure is healthy for us.

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What kind of horribly arrogant, out-of-control people would we be if we achieved everything we set our minds to?

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On a slightly off-topic note, I'd disagree with that statement, personally. Success or faliure has no real bearing on personallity unless we allow it to. A person could be the most successful person in the world yet still be kind, caring and meek, if he so chose to.

Success doesn't necesserily = arrogance...just that those who are successful tend to allow themselves to be arrogant too.

It's all about humillity, a very good quality to have.

That's true, but I don't think someone could learn humility without being humble, and it's hard to be humble when you succeed at every single thing you set your mind to.

Eh, I always kind of believed in the whole Heaven-or-Hell Let's ROCK thing, so. Not entirely sure how it's handled or how much leniency you're allowed to be a prick in the real world, but, well, who does?

Also, we all know that once you die YOU DINE IN HELL

So when I goto Heaven Boston will return my affections?

I now offer two different responses to that...

A) Heaven isn't Imagination Land

B) Your 'type' of people don't go to heaven

Oh, right. The whole gay people are evil thing. I always forget that part. Damn you (Protestant Deity of choice)!

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What kind of horribly arrogant, out-of-control people would we be if we achieved everything we set our minds to?

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Pleased to meet you, I'm Toby.

~Tobe

I'm not sure of an afterlife, but I just can't accept the Christian idea of heaven. I just can't. Having everything I want anytime I want it seems-boring. Unless I have my will removed. Then I won't feel anything at all. I'd be-empty. It would be hell to say the least for me. o.o

If I went to heaven, I would be sad because some of the people I loved would be in hell, so it wouldn't be heaven.

OR, if I went to heaven, I would be without those I love, but I would be blissfully happy anyway because of the effects of heaven. This is contrary to my nature, and therefore that "thing" in heaven would not be me at all.

You die and that's it. You stop existing. The "soul" and "body" are indivisible. I consider this a fact. It's not an opinion, because it is either correct or incorrect. Opinions are subjective. My position is objectively true or objectively false.

What happens when we die? I've always had one solid answer for that.

"I'll see when I get there."

No point messing about in this life for a 'maybe this, maybe that' scenario at the end of it. Enjoy what I've got in the here and now, and I'll sort it out at the end.

I personally belive that after death there's nothing and usually leave it at that.

However, what I want to happen is there's a sort of purgatory that is basically like Earth, where I can spend eternity playing the newest video games.

srsly.

I believe that's what happens but I feel it would get boring. You stay there for eternity, wouldn't you miss having a challenge? Wouldn't you do everything there is to do? It's too hard to fathom forever.

I believe that your body decomposes, everything else is speculation.

I personally I hope to meet a skeletal dude in a robe with a scythe. Then I'm going to inquire how to get a job like his. I mean, it's alot of work for just one skeleton.

I always believed in Christianity, and the whole 'Heaven/Hell' concept, but lately I've just come to find myself questioning it. I just can't get my mind around existing after ceasing to exist. I dunnow. I just feel like nothing will happen when I die, but the thought scares me, so then I revert back to heaven and hell.

Egh.

I don't know what happens. I've always liked the idea of being a ghost and wondering around the world. o.o

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heh, still. Isn't heaven the better of the lot? And what about the 144,001st person? Is he SOL, regardless of how good of a life he lived?

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What happens when someone who dies was a 'better' person than one that already filled a seat? Do they... kick them out? That would suck. "Yeah... you hear about Bob? They kicked him to purgatory for the new guy."

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Which would you rather live in, a perfect earth or outer space? You are talking in cultural terms like hell and purgatory, which are not applicable.