Is there life after death?

[forever socialist]

This is a large part of my A-Level philosophy course and I'de appreciate your thoughts and feelings on this.

[Fodman]

Is there life after death?
No - such a place as heaven and hell is not materialistically possible

[bloody_capitalist_sham]

In the sense you mean whether humans live on after their bodies have ceased to live?

I think its pretty conclusive that no life exists after death.

I'm not sure how useful philosophy is even for talking about it, because death means the end of living. and you can go through all the different words which are linked to Dead or Alive and they would likely suggest that if something is dead it cant also be alive and vice versa. But that's science.

Past that, i think we don't have the language to coherently say anything meaningful on the subject.

[apathy maybe]

Of course there is no fucking life after death. What a stupid fucking suggestion. You should beat your teacher/lecture slowly to death for even seriously suggesting such a brain-dead idea.

OK, working from a materialist position, there is no way that there could exist a soul or similar that continues to live after the body exists.

And I've done some other stuff on if it is a bad thing for a person if they die (assuming no life after death), but it isn't relevant here so I won't post it.

[Question everything]

Yes of Course it Is! As soon as you Die the Sky fairy will take you to a Magical Kingdom with Unicorns and Clouds and Free Harps!!! Unless you've been bad in which case you will be cooked on a george Foreman Grill for all eternity...













PS. I'm Being Sarcastic.

[la-troy]

assuming that there is something after their death eases the pain of peopling thinking of death or those about to die. Other than helping the weak feel safe, the notion makes no sense ( even the bible says that the dead know nothing)

[Pow R. Toc H.]

Yeah Life after death is complete bullshit. Death is also the end of existence...hmm.

[midnight marauder]

Of course there is no fucking life after death. What a stupid fucking suggestion. You should beat your teacher/lecture slowly to death for even seriously suggesting such a brain-dead idea.

seriously...even if we were to ignore everything we already know about science and assume that there COULD be a life after death, there wouldn't be any point. the only way that one could ever tell conclusively is to die, and people who die don't tend to have a very good record of telling us the results. ;)

it would seem to me that if you couldn't prove that it exists there wouldn't be much point in discussing it.

this is why i've always been afraid of taking a philosophy class... questions like this strike me as less than worthless.


Yes of Course it Is! As soon as you Die the Sky fairy will take you to a Magical Kingdom with Unicorns and Clouds and Free Harps!!! Unless you've been bad in which case you will be cooked on a george Foreman Grill for all eternity...

:lol:

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by forever [email protected] 30, 2007 09:39 pm
This is a large part of my A-Level philosophy course and I'de appreciate your thoughts and feelings on this.
No.


Death is also the end of existence...hmm.
Existence of what? A functioning organic creature? Yes. Atoms and molecules? No - they live on forever.

[syndicat]

You would need to ask yourself the question, Life of what? Humans certainly appear to be animal organisms. An animal organism has homeostatic tendencies that keep it alive, like the mechanism that keeps your body temp at 96 degrees F. Eventually they can no longer maintain themselves and the structure of your component molecules decays to the point you live no longer. You're dead. The atoms may continue but they will go on to make up some other object other than you. Actually this is true now. The stuff that makes up your body only stays there for awhile and then flows out (as waste). So you are really just a structure in a stream of matter flowing through you over time.

Presumably the question makes sense only if there is something to a person other than their body, their animal organism existence. Usually the idea is that your consciousness is a "soul" or entity apart from the body. This was the entity that allegedly could live on. But the best current understanding of what conscious events like thoughts and perceptions are is that they are goings on your brain that have the function of mediating between impacts on your sensory receptors (e.g. lighting hitting the retinas) and you taking action. Just because you can seem to introspect your thoughts and feelings without "seeing" your brain doesn't show that these events are not just brain events you are feeling from the inside, so to speak.

And if your consciousness is just brain activity, then it dies when the brain does.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

The answer's obviously no, but if you're doing this at A level I'm betting you'll have to do one of those horrible "Argue both points" things.

In which case, mention perhaps that energy can't be destroyed, where does the energy go, all that crap. But also remind them that a 'life' after death would be vastly different. You'd have no brain, and therefore no memory, no consciousness, no senses, no skills of any kind, no thought, no awareness of any kind. So what exactly are you, as a pure 'soul'? No one has ever effectively answered this.

-Alex

[Demogorgon]

Unless you can die, experience what is there afterwards and come back and tell us, it is not possible to know and therefore barely worth talking about. You can discuss the probability of it being the case of course, what do you think it is? It doesn't seem very likely to me.

Is there any evidence suggesting that there is life after death? Any kind of positive reason for believing in it? Again I can not think of anything beyond anecdotes regarding near death experiences, so there is no reason to start thinking that there might be life after death.

So we have no positive reason to believe there is life after death and no way of going there and finding out (and coming back anyway) so it is a pretty pointless thing to presume.

To other people in this thread, it is also pointless to be unquestioningly dogmatic in your answers to a question like this. Simply giving a kneejerk "no" won't get us anywhere.

[apathy maybe]

Bah, I fully support the move of this thread to Religion and Theology. The question is as pointless as the one about "do we have free will?".

OK, once you have attacked the notion that life can continue after it has died (from a materialist perspective), you could then attack it from a linguistic perspective (life after death is a fucking contradiction) and finally from a point perspective (what the fuck is the point of discussing this?).

As has been pointed out, the only way to know if life does continue after death is to die. Unfortunatly for those who would suggest life does continue, no one who has died has come back and told us about it. The question is not (answerable) by the living, therefore the question is pointless (ignoring the fact that it can be proven, by the simple application of a bit of materialism).

I can't say that you well get a good mark, but you will have the satisfaction of being correct (make sure you research and reference all the ideas too if you can).

Of course, show the other side (thus showing that you have read the course literature), but ridicule it after presenting it fairly.

"There are a number of religions that put forward the idea of a life after death, these include ... They think that life continues after death because ...

However, they present no actual proof, and you would have to be brain damaged or similar to actually believe in their propositions. Here is why ... [proceed to explain the materialist/scientific position]."

[KC]

The question is inherently flawed. There's no such thing as "life after death" because after you die you're no longer living. That's what dying means; going from living to dead. So to ask "are you alive after you die?" is an incredibly stupid question to ask.

[RedAnarchist]

Life spent looking for a life after death is a life wasted. You can only prove that we have one life, and its pointless to speculate about another. Its something we cannot know, and therefore we should learn to think about our present life.

[Eleutherios]

There is nothing to suggest it is anything more than the wishful thinking of beings who are, naturally enough, afraid of their own mortality. As far as we can tell, all the functions of the mind are functions of the neural system inside our brains. The complexity of our neural systems is sufficient to explain the complexity of our minds, and there is no serious reason to think that anything else is at play here.

Expecting your conscious experience to outlive your brain is as ridiculous as expecting your heartbeat to outlive your heart. Once the heart is dead, it doesn't beat anymore, and once the brain is dead, it doesn't think anymore.

How can you have conscious experience without the physical body? We know that removing the neural connection to any one sense organ will cause a person to stop experiencing that sense; what do you think happens when you have no neural connection to any functioning sense organs? We know that various functions of thought such as understanding speech, doing logical reasoning, and feeling certain emotions are dependent on certain specific parts of the brain. When that part of the brain is damaged or removed, that causes the person to stop experiencing that function of thought. What do you think happens when all these thought modules are deactivated?

At death, your consciousness ends. Your afterlife will be exactly the same experience as your beforebirth was.

[CurlyTheCommunist]

First post! (I was introduced to the forum by Romantic Revolutionary).

Whilst I do believe in life after death, I would subscribe to the Aristotelian logic that any debate on the existence of an afterlife is, from a perspective of discovering the truth fruitless at best.

I think a more interesting and original topic would be "if God does exist then would that neccessitate an afterlife?".

[forever socialist]

Thanks for your thoughts.

I don't believe there is any life after death because it matters more how you live your life today, than holding on to some vague belief. Unfortunatly I do have to argue both sides, which is difficult when I don't think its possible.
However I certainly don't think it's a pointless or worthless question. Billions of people around the world hold a belief in life after death, be it ressurection, reincarnation, heaven/hell or rebirth, so the idea obviously has great appeal and I my self find it interesting. Maybe it offers some sort of security or to feel safe through religion, that motivates this belief. As Marx said " religion is the opium of the people".

[Black Dagger]

Your life = your consciousness.

Your consciousness is a product your living brain.

When you die your brain dies too.

And so if your brain is dead your conscioussness is dead too.

If you no longer have consciousness your 'life' is over.

Post-death your consciousness cannot via magic fly out of your brain and settle somewhere else - it's a direct product of your brain, without a brain 'you' = dead as a door-nail.

No more 'life', no more consciousness, no more 'you'.

[pusher robot]

Is there life after death?

Yes, of course. Just not the life of the individual who has died. Other people, animals, and plants continue on, though.

[Rawthentic]

I'm not sure if that was sarcastic, or you're just that stupid.

[ichneumon]

if you can handle the science, this link will give you DAYS of pondering on the possibility.

Orchestrated Objective Reduction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orch-OR)


Even at the dawn of Newtonian science, Leibniz and many others were suggesting physical theories of consciousness. Modern physical theories of consciousness can be divided into three types: theories to explain behaviour and access consciousness, theories to explain phenomenal consciousness and theories to explain the quantum mechanical (QM) Quantum mind. Theories that seek to explain behaviour are an everyday part of neuroscience, some of these theories of access consciousness, such as Edelman's theory, contentiously identify phenomenal consciousness with reflex events in the brain. Theories that seek to explain phenomenal consciousness directly, such as Space-time theories of consciousness and Electromagnetic theories of consciousness, have been available for almost a century, but have not yet been confirmed by experiment. Theories that attempt to explain the QM measurement problem include Pribram and Bohm's Holonomic brain theory, Hameroff and Penrose's Orch-OR theory and the Many-minds interpretation. Some of these QM theories offer descriptions of phenomenal consciousness, as well as QM interpretations of access consciousness. None of the quantum mechanical theories has been confirmed by experiment, and there are philosophers who argue that QM has no bearing on consciousness.

if you can't determine what consciousness IS, you have no business making predictions.

(not that i believe in such as awareness after body-death, but you can make some interesting arguments)

[pusher robot]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 02:53 pm
I'm not sure if that was sarcastic, or you're just that stupid.
Ditto!

[freakazoid]

The complexity of our neural systems is sufficient to explain the complexity of our minds, and there is no serious reason to think that anything else is at play here.

I.e. you have faith that science will explain it. :P

I think that I wold have to agree with most here on saying that the actual question is pretty pointless in that generally when someone dies, the body, that they don't come back to tell us what is after and that the only real way to find out is to die.

[Comrade J]

The complexity of our neural systems is sufficient to explain the complexity of our minds, and there is no serious reason to think that anything else is at play here.

I.e. you have faith that science will explain it. :P

Faith in the sense of absolute confidence that it is correct, based on logic and reason. Not faith as in religious faith, in which ideas are held despite vastly contradicting evidence, or lack of any evidence at all. There is a huge difference.


I think that I wold have to agree with most here on saying that the actual question is pretty pointless in that generally when someone dies, the body, that they don't come back to tell us what is after and that the only real way to find out is to die.
The question is pointless? Surely for you, the belief in an afterlife is absolutely integral to everything you believe and the way you live your life? That's far from being pointless.
To the rest of us (the rational atheists), it's a pointless question because it makes no sense, it's like asking (as Dawkins puts it in The God Delusion) "why are unicorns hollow?" - some questions just aren't worth asking.

Also, didn&#39;t <s>Mithras</s> <s>Horus</s> Jesus die (sorry, got confused, they&#39;re all very similar myths) and come back after death and tell us? You&#39;ve just dismissed everything the good Lord has ever revealed to us&#33; :o

[ichneumon]

Faith in the sense of absolute confidence that it is correct, based on logic and reason. Not faith as in religious faith, in which ideas are held despite vastly contradicting evidence, or lack of any evidence at all. There is a huge difference.

expecting science to understand everything or technology to solve your problems is still faith. there is all kinds of evidence AGAINST this idea, yet it remains a pillar of scientific positivism.

still, faith can move mountains. when a population is of one mind, one expectation, a result is assured.

[freakazoid]

The question is pointless? Surely for you, the belief in an afterlife is absolutely integral to everything you believe and the way you live your life? That&#39;s far from being pointless.

Pointless as in it doesn&#39;t really matter. Yes I do believe in an afterlife, but it is pointless, to argue over, as in you can&#39;t prove it without dying first. Maybe scientists will eventually prove it, that would be interesting.

[ichneumon]

quote freakazoid


Pointless as in it doesn&#39;t really matter. Yes I do believe in an afterlife, but it is pointless, to argue over, as in you can&#39;t prove it without dying first. Maybe scientists will eventually prove it, that would be interesting.

freakazoid is making sense - what does this mean?

[freakazoid]

freakazoid is making sense - what does this mean?

eh? I am making sense or I am not making sense? You are not making sense, :P lol

I mean that since we can not actually prove that there is "life" after death, because people don&#39;t usually come back after dying, that it is pointless to argue over it. At least for now it can&#39;t be proven, maybe scientists will eventually come to the conclusion that that there is, like that article that you had posted about the possibility.

[Question everything]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 09:53 pm

freakazoid is making sense - what does this mean?

eh? I am making sense or I am not making sense? You are not making sense, :P lol

I mean that since we can not actually prove that there is "life" after death, because people don&#39;t usually come back after dying, that it is pointless to argue over it. At least for now it can&#39;t be proven, maybe scientists will eventually come to the conclusion that that there is, like that article that you had posted about the possibility.
What about those guys they bring back with the Shock Paddles? :P

[freakazoid]

What about those guys they bring back with the Shock Paddles? tongue.gif

:P Your right, there is life after death, :D Makes me think of the movie Flatliners. lol

[Question everything]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 11:23 pm

What about those guys they bring back with the Shock Paddles? tongue.gif

:P Your right, there is life after death, :D Makes me think of the movie Flatliners. lol
:lol:

[dbzfanl]

Objectively-

There is no sure way to tell if there is an "afterlife" per se. I use the term afterlife broadly because there is no real term to describe something like that.

Anyone who says that "well there can&#39;t be an afterlife because of~" or "there has to be because of~" without actually dying is just being hypocritical and you can&#39;t listen to them to bias your paper. You will have to weigh both points. (Most have been said previous to this post.)

Reasons for: There is no "proof" that there isn&#39;t. Why would there be nothing after a certain time period? How can a world be created without some plot behind it? (That is predestination.) How can the world be so beautiful without someone? How can there be love? Hate? Anger?

Against: There is no "proof" that there is. Humans cease to exist by medical standards. There is no way that their body lives on.

Subjectively-

Yes, I believe there is an afterlife. I believe in fate and that everything we do has a meaning behind it. Everything that happens has an effect on somebody else and they need to realize that. I believe in love to keep us going and hate to keep us learning.

If someone eventually wants to have an intelligent conversation about this in the future (I&#39;m too tired now, I&#39;m an insomniac atm), feel free to IM or PM me.

Also, I suggest that you people read "90 Minutes in Heaven". It may change your ideas.

And please, keep the flaming to a minimum. Any future posts should start "I believe that", since there is no true proof for either side.

[Eleutherios]

Originally posted by [email protected] 01, 2007 05:35 pm

The complexity of our neural systems is sufficient to explain the complexity of our minds, and there is no serious reason to think that anything else is at play here.

I.e. you have faith that science will explain it. :P
Science is the only possible way to explain it. You tell me some other way to discover how consciousness works. If science can&#39;t explain it, nothing can. No, not even your book of fairy tales that you like so much.

It doesn&#39;t take faith to believe in science, any more than it takes faith to believe in arithmetic. There is plenty of reason to trust the results of the scientific method, but there is no reason whatsoever to take seriously stories of magical ghosts that inhabit our brains and continue our conscious experience in some magical happy land after everything that we know to produce consciousness has ceased to function.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but there is no evidence anywhere of anything existing except for three things: matter, energy, and spacetime. Consciousness is a product of a very complex interaction of these three things. There is no magical soul-stuff out there that makes you immortal. You, like everything else in the universe, are temporary. Accept it and learn just how precious this life really is, instead of deluding yourself into under-appreciating its value by thinking it&#39;s just a place to wipe your feet before you live your eternal life in magical happy land with your invisible friend Jesus.

[Councilman Doug]

Also, I suggest that you people read "90 Minutes in Heaven". It may change your ideas.

That book is about a guy who hallsinated before he was revived from death after a car accident. what does it have to do with anything?

[graffic]

I think there is

but our human minds are no way near capable of understanding it/ or how it works etc

[Black Dagger]

Originally posted by [email protected] 06, 2007 12:15 am
I think there is

but our human minds are no way near capable of understanding it/ or how it works etc
So you dont think that your consciousness is the product of your brain?

If not, what produces your consciousness? Where does it come from? Some kind of spiritual entity that exists inside your body?

[EwokUtopia]

Personally, I look foreward to the state of non-existance after I die....shame I wont be around to experiance it. But, in my thinking, all things extend from, and eventually return to the nil, thats what you were before you were born, thats what you&#39;ll be after you die. So since your going into nothingness, which preceeds and surpasses all things, this offers a state of eternity that the mind cant grasp, since it will never journey there.

There will be no you after you die, but there is a transition from something to nothing (unless you get your head blown off or some crazy shit like that) which could be described as an afterlife. In reality, its the last little bit of life your brain has, the shutting down period. And apparently, you have really really intense and vivid dreams during this point.

There is your afterlife, to the outside world, it lasts 6-10 minitues, to you it would seem like an eternity, but of course it would eventually end and you would have nothing. So its very possible that Freak could go to the Christian heaven when he dies...but it only exists as a figment of his imagination, a show his mind puts on to ease the transition into the nil.....that is unless of course he is shot in the head, then its straight to nothing.

[Comrade J]

Originally posted by [email protected] 04, 2007 01:05 am
Also, I suggest that you people read "90 Minutes in Heaven". It may change your ideas.
:lol: And I suggest you read The Three Little Pigs as evidence for the symbiotic relationship between wolves and pigs, and how natural selection benefits the more intelligent of the species who build their house out of bricks, as opposed to straw.

If someone&#39;s imagination can be counted as evidence now, then this section of the forum has indeed taken a turn for the worst.

[Vargha Poralli]

Is there life after death?

I don&#39;t know. Better ask who is already dead. :wacko:

[Goatse]

No.

[freakazoid]

that is unless of course he is shot in the head, then its straight to nothing.

What are you trying to say? :P lol

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Well, it&#39;s fairly obvious that the brain is the source of consciousness - damage or destroy it and consciousness is altered or damaged depending upon how severe the physical interference with the brain structure is.

So the answer is no.

[beneath the wheel]

this goes against the grain a bit , but oh well;

when you die, what happens to your memories? do they just dissapear? to answer this, i believe, would answer your question. memories are made in a moment, and can be recalled in the future. therefore, if you are expierencing moments, then there is a future. as you expierence moments, they are almost instintainoulsy turned into memories, even if it is a memory of what happined 1 second ago. so you are expeirencing life now, with the ability to call on past expierences. when does this ability stop. if it stops at death, then would you be expierencing moments now, because as soon as you die, all recolection of life ends, and therefor it is as if you never expierenced life. so, i do not know if there is life after death, but maybe there is a way to recall the moments. this sounds really wierd and made more sense in my head, but whatever. i would like to add that i do not believe any religion, including atheism.

now for my point

why should it matter? even if i knew that there was life after death, i would not live my life any differently. i believe that we need to live every day to its fullest, regardless of what tomorow brings. life is life, and we should live in the moment, not in the future

[Comrade J]

:blink:

when you die, what happens to your memories? do they just dissapear?
Yes. Why wouldn&#39;t they?


to answer this, i believe, would answer your question. memories are made in a moment, and can be recalled in the future. therefore, if you are expierencing moments, then there is a future.

Not necessarily. My brain may one day be in the process of encoding the image of a bus coming towards me from a very short distance, but as soon as the bus hits and crushes me, and my brain then stops recieiving oxygenated blood, it can no longer function so I have no &#39;memories&#39;


as you expierence moments, they are almost instintainoulsy turned into memories, even if it is a memory of what happined 1 second ago. so you are expeirencing life now, with the ability to call on past expierences. when does this ability stop.
When the brain no longer recieves the necessary energy to complete this process. Ie. at death.


if it stops at death, then would you be expierencing moments now, because as soon as you die, all recolection of life ends, and therefor it is as if you never expierenced life.
Of course you would be experiencing life now because memory stops at death, what a ridiculous question. As for it being as though you had never experienced life, that too is nonsense. Just because you are not there to remember your life, it doesn&#39;t mean it never happened, you would clearly have made some sort of impact on the world whilst alive.


so, i do not know if there is life after death,
You don&#39;t seem to know much at all, really.


but maybe there is a way to recall the moments. this sounds really wierd and made more sense in my head, but whatever.
I&#39;m glad it made sense to somebody, anyway. When you are dead, and your brain can no longer create and use chemical signals and so on, then you obviously have no memory. Even a 10 year old can figure that out.


i would like to add that i do not believe any religion, including atheism.
Well atheism is not a religion, it is a lack of belief in a deity, nothing more. Many Buddhists are atheists, are you arguing that they are in fact part of two religions?
What exactly do you believe anyway?


now for my point
Wondered when it was coming.



why should it matter? even if i knew that there was life after death, i would not live my life any differently.
I&#39;m sure you would. If you knew for a fact that after death, you would be judged by Allah on the plains of Arafat, you would probably bury your face in the nearest Qu&#39;ran as soon as possible. The same reaction would apply to whatever sort of afterlife you knew about. Clearly the belief in an afterlife is a huge issue, seeing as it lies at the very foundation of Christianity, Judaism and Islam (as well as most other religions) and shapes the way people live their lives.


i believe that we need to live every day to its fullest, regardless of what tomorow brings. life is life, and we should live in the moment, not in the future
Well, as profound a statement as that it, it makes absolutely no sense. Are you genuinely saying that we live life with absolutely no regard to the consequences of our actions? Even the most simple tasks, like shopping for food, are taking future needs into account, of course we need to pay attention to the future, whether it be next week or a thousand years.

Oh by the way, there&#39;s this thing you should check out some time. It&#39;s called &#39;science&#39;.

[Comrade_Scott]

if by life after death you mean the animals living off youre corpse then technically it does exist, but seriously now does it seem logical that after death we all go up to the sky or hell and live? no its a fariy tale told to us to make us not so scared of death thats all

[KC]

Personally, I look foreward to the state of non-existance after I die....shame I wont be around to experiance it. But, in my thinking, all things extend from, and eventually return to the nil, thats what you were before you were born, thats what you&#39;ll be after you die. So since your going into nothingness, which preceeds and surpasses all things, this offers a state of eternity that the mind cant grasp, since it will never journey there.


You&#39;re not "going into nothingness". You&#39;re shutting down. You&#39;re dead.

[Rawthentic]

Good thing someone can point it out succinctly.

There is no "God." Thats just foolishness.

[EwokUtopia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 05, 2007 10:31 pm

that is unless of course he is shot in the head, then its straight to nothing.

What are you trying to say? :P lol
That if your brain is destroyed immediately as a cause of death, you do not experiance the dreamstate which occurs after the body shuts down. This is essentially my view of what the afterlife is, 6-12 minitues of the most intense dream ever...the brain releases all of its reserves of a chemical that is slightly released during normal dreamstate.


Zampano-

You&#39;re not "going into nothingness". You&#39;re shutting down. You&#39;re dead.

Well I did say
I look foreward to the state of non-existance after I die....shame I wont be around to experiance it.. What is there after you die? Same as what there was before you were born: nothing, a concept which superceedes human imagination, because humans never experiance non-existance because humans by necessity do exist.

[freakazoid]

That if your brain is destroyed immediately as a cause of death, you do not experiance the dreamstate which occurs after the body shuts down. This is essentially my view of what the afterlife is, 6-12 minitues of the most intense dream ever...the brain releases all of its reserves of a chemical that is slightly released during normal dreamstate.

:( You didn&#39;t get what I was joking about.

[EwokUtopia]

Originally posted by [email protected] 07, 2007 04:37 am
:( You didn&#39;t get what I was joking about.
Nope, sorry.

[freakazoid]

I meant it as if he was implying about shooting me in the head.

[EwokUtopia]

Haha, dont worry...I may be morbid, but I&#39;m a very non-violent person.

[Tower of Bebel]

Too bad people get frustrated when they hear a question like: "is there life after death?" Because it&#39;s a very interesting question and a very interesting discussion. Life after death was a part of human history since the begining of rational thinking (as humans are inable to explain everything they just make things up. Just like the concept of God).

And to answer the question: there is no such life after death (like heaven or hell, etc.) as many people may think. But there is something else.

[Question everything]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 09:13 am
Too bad people get frustrated when they hear a question like: "is there life after death?" Because it&#39;s a very interesting question and a very interesting discussion. Life after death was a part of human history since the begining of rational thinking (as humans are inable to explain everything they just make things up. Just like the concept of God).

And to answer the question: there is no such life after death (like heaven or hell, etc.) as many people may think. But there is something else.
Enlighten Us, what is after death?

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by [email protected] 08, 2007 09:13 am
And to answer the question: there is no such life after death (like heaven or hell, etc.) as many people may think. But there is something else.
What on earth could make you think that?

[EwokUtopia]

Originally posted by Question [email protected] 08, 2007 11:12 am
Enlighten Us, what is after death?
Depends what you mean by death. After the body dies, the mind is still alive, but shutting down, and this produces an intense dream/death trip. This only lasts 6-12 minitues in the real world, but to you can seem like an eternity (those who have done Salvia will know a little bit what this time perception can be like). This is what I think the "afterlife" is.

After that I imagine it being very much like before birth...that is nothingness, which is totally unimaginable because imagination requires existance.

I think that the dream is essentially allowing the mind/self to make the transition from a living human to nothing.

[Question everything]

Originally posted by EwokUtopia+May 09, 2007 03:48 pm--> (EwokUtopia @ May 09, 2007 03:48 pm)
Question [email protected] 08, 2007 11:12 am
Enlighten Us, what is after death?
Depends what you mean by death. After the body dies, the mind is still alive, but shutting down, and this produces an intense dream/death trip. This only lasts 6-12 minitues in the real world, but to you can seem like an eternity (those who have done Salvia will know a little bit what this time perception can be like). This is what I think the "afterlife" is.

After that I imagine it being very much like before birth...that is nothingness, which is totally unimaginable because imagination requires existance.

I think that the dream is essentially allowing the mind/self to make the transition from a living human to nothing. [/b]
... that sucks... But I responding to raccoon... somewhat sarcastically

[Jazzratt]

Originally posted by EwokUtopia+May 09, 2007 03:48 pm--> (EwokUtopia @ May 09, 2007 03:48 pm)
Question [email protected] 08, 2007 11:12 am
Enlighten Us, what is after death?
Depends what you mean by death. After the body dies, the mind is still alive, but shutting down, and this produces an intense dream/death trip. This only lasts 6-12 minitues in the real world, but to you can seem like an eternity (those who have done Salvia will know a little bit what this time perception can be like). This is what I think the "afterlife" is.

After that I imagine it being very much like before birth...that is nothingness, which is totally unimaginable because imagination requires existance.

I think that the dream is essentially allowing the mind/self to make the transition from a living human to nothing. [/b]
I assume this process doesn&#39;t occur if the brain is utterly destroyed in the death process ( or even significantly damaged - like say a head shot from any number of firearms.)

Also, what is the proof for this process, how and/or when has it been observed?

[Tommy-K]

Originally posted by beneath the [email protected] 05, 2007 11:55 pm
this goes against the grain a bit , but oh well;

when you die, what happens to your memories? do they just dissapear? to answer this, i believe, would answer your question. memories are made in a moment, and can be recalled in the future. therefore, if you are expierencing moments, then there is a future. as you expierence moments, they are almost instintainoulsy turned into memories, even if it is a memory of what happined 1 second ago. so you are expeirencing life now, with the ability to call on past expierences. when does this ability stop. if it stops at death, then would you be expierencing moments now, because as soon as you die, all recolection of life ends, and therefor it is as if you never expierenced life. so, i do not know if there is life after death, but maybe there is a way to recall the moments. this sounds really wierd and made more sense in my head, but whatever. i would like to add that i do not believe any religion, including atheism.

now for my point

why should it matter? even if i knew that there was life after death, i would not live my life any differently. i believe that we need to live every day to its fullest, regardless of what tomorow brings. life is life, and we should live in the moment, not in the future
Memories are made through chemical processes in the brain. Obviously, when you die, your brain stops working, and so these memories cease to exist.

I am 100% certain that life after death does not exist, and I for one find that quite comforting. Just think, nothing more to worry about once you&#39;re dead.

[The Advent of Anarchy]

I believe not in a specified religion, but in reincarnation at least. There is actually scientific evidence of such a thing existing, and I believe that&#39;s the "afterlife". I know, it all sounds superstitious, but there have been reports of children recollecting memories they never experienced, things children/adults know about a subject they don&#39;t even know the name of, etc. This has been at least a reasonable debate about, and it&#39;s alot more reasonable than going up to a mythical utopian kingdom of dieties.

[SecurityManKillJoy]

Linear reincarnation makes no sense, because how can there be so many individuals with many different lines of reincarnation where each line is absolutely separate from the other reincarnation lines? We might as well use subjective idealist philosophy then, and say that our line of reincarnation is the only one and the rest are illusions because we are so cut off and disconnected from them.

I&#39;d say the only consistent idea, then, is to say that we are the descendants of every single past being (experiencers and users of the world), rather than one line of beings. Otherwise we have to take some weird philosophical stance, the most vulgar of which being that we simply cease to exist and become atoms, even though many beings continue to exist&#33; And we also have to consider that if all beings ceased to exist, all the years in between beings not existing would pass instantly because there wouldn&#39;t be anyone to experience all that time.

[Spirit of Spartacus]

Is there a life after death?

I don&#39;t know. And I don&#39;t like to comment on what I don&#39;t know.

It is important, however, to note what Zampano said. If "death" is considered the termination of "life", then the only way for you to live again after death is re-incarnation.

Does this happen? We do not know.

What is it like to be dead? We do not know.

Whatever we say at the moment is mere speculation.

But there is a way to find out. We could find out right this moment if we wanted to...by just dying. Fortunately, we all value life too much to waste it trying to find out what happens after we die. :P