Afterlife?

[hansel]

putting cancer and religion aside for a moment, do you think there is an after life or is it something we just make up to calm our pain and worries?

I googled the term "reality" and:
there is nothing that we can observe and name, and then say that it will exist forever. Eternal beings, if they exist, would need some other method to describe them other than the scientific/religious one.

Individual perception can be based upon an individual's personality, focus and style of attribution, causing him or her to see only what he or she wants to see or believes to be true.

can anyone attempt any thoughts on this?

[BeanieRN]

I am going to reply to this post later, when I have had a lot of time to think about it, but I just wanted to let you know that someone out here was listening.

[1speeder]

My personal opinion is that there is no afterlife, but what I think is more realistic, and probably disturbing to most people, is that we can't know. I think it's fine to admit that there are things we just can't know.

If anyone has ever studied physics or mathematics, they know the Flatland story. I won't go into it here, but will say that it's an important read. Can a lab rat know the hypothesis for the experiment forced upon it by the experimenter? Does a fish understand the chemical properties of the water in which it lives? Some things are just beyond our or the fish's or the rat's understanding. I think I'm just ignorant as the fish and don't know much of anything and my lack of ego allows me to admit this in a public forum.

[Big Ryan]

You hit the nail on the head!
Science is great, it is also my religion.

[SarahSmile]

I think it's fine to admit that there are things we just can't know.

Can a lab rat know the hypothesis for the experiment forced upon it by the experimenter? Does a fish understand the chemical properties of the water in which it lives? Some things are just beyond our or the fish's or the rat's understanding. I think I'm just ignorant as the fish and don't know much of anything and my lack of ego allows me to admit this in a public forum.

My feelings exactly. I know that I feel that there is an order to the universe that man disrupts, and I know that I find something akin to God in our earth's beauty, animals' and humans' capacity for love, and exchanges and moments of almost perfect humor or compassion or caring or understanding and so much more.... I don't know anything at all about an afterlife. I know only that I am very small, that I know pretty much nothing, and that I am just one of so many organisms and energies living and moving within something so much greater than I.

I'm ok not knowing -- I kind of don't presume to. I don't strive for enlightenment; I strive instead for compassion and humility and openness and flexibility. I'll just let the universe continue to unfold as it will and try to remain open and willing.

[cougarguy]

I had an amazing experience earlier in my life that entrenched in me a belief that there is something beyond what I would consider our normal day to day lives.

I'm not sure if what I experienced points towards an "afterlife" or some other phenomena, however, it is certainly real to me. I've made no attempt to understand it on a higher level than that because the experience was so far beyond the normal "connection" I have with this world in my day to day routine, that I wouldn't even know where to start. I also don't believe I would have the capacity to understand it on anything other that the pure emotional level in which I experienced it.

So yes, I believe that there is more to our lives and our connections with each other and our environment than what appears on the surface. What that means, I have no idea nor do I really need to know at this point in my life. I'm perfectly content having experienced something that provided me that level of faith in this particular belief.

[Snappy_Smurf]

Afterlife?
Can be debated until the end of time, because no one has come back to provide a solid answer.
It's personal -
For me, I am confident that there is something higher than me, many things that have happened in my life are proof positive.

[ag2006]

Good but very debatable question. In my personal opinion, I cannot put God or religion aside or even put my cancer experience aside because it is based on those beliefs and my cancer experiences that I feel strength within my heart that there is a power much higher and powerful beyond my comprehension. An afterlife? No solid answers can be given by anyone alive, but I can tell you that between my recent illness and my personal experience during childhood, it impressed me enough to believe in my heart that our souls never die.

Best Wishes,

[BeanieRN]

Even though I don't belong to any religion, I still believe that there is some greater power out there. I pray to it every now and then. I suppose I call it god, but really thats just so I can call "it" something.

I think I have to hope that there is an afterlife. Or better yet that the life we live and the lessons we learn in this life are passed on to the next one. Maybe like reincarnation of some sort. So me being so miserable right now...will make my next life a little easier??

Maybe its not for us to know...

[izzydoesit]

Hey Cliff,

The Wiki blurb on Flatland is very interesting; I'd never heard of it so thanks for the mention.

What’s most striking to me about this story is how societal status is arbitrarily defined by an individual's personal characteristics. This designation is determined by those in power, who I assume, without reading the entire book, are white men with money and land and/or religious figures. More important is how belief and acceptance of these superficial designations restrict and inhibit the openness required to grasp higher states of consciousness. It is not difficult to see how this same situation exists in our society today and how by buying into the consensus reality you limit your ability to see what exists instead of what those in power would have you believe. I believe it’s a biological imperative for those in control to manipulate the masses to retain their power. William Safire, the New York Times word maven whose politics I do not share, said something once that will stay with me forever. He wrote:

The tension between the governed and the governing is what makes the world go ‘round. It’s not love, it’s that tension because that tension exists in love affairs. The whole idea of control is that the heart of human relationships. Control and resistance to control.

If there’s one thing I’m grateful for—aside from being healthy—it’s my early realization that all was not what it was cracked up to be, and I resisted heavily believing anything unless I could prove its existence for myself. That said, although I do not believe in the intrinsic goodness of institutions (blind acceptance, rigidity, enslavement), I have had experiences that have irrefutably lead me to believe that there is a power at work in life that cannot be seen or proven, that requires a faith (personal freedom). It requires humility, acceptance that I am, as someone mentioned here earlier, a speck of dust in the universe, but also an acceptance that I am responsible for whatever I do in response to what happens to me.

Man’s folly—and his downfall, no doubt—will be because he refused to accept that he is not as powerful as he imagines himself to be, that is, for example, he cannot reverse gravity. However, he does have the ability to pollute the atmosphere, which in turn DOES influence the melting of the polar ice caps. He’s very much in control of taking responsibility for this and so far, chooses to do nothing! Man is a tragic figure precisely because he desires control over that of which he is powerless, and refuses to exercise control over that which he has complete power. As Rousseau said, Man is born free, yet everywhere he is in chains.
And as great as our scientific discoveries are, all of science must bow humbly before the sight of new life, or by the awesome destruction of it by nature’s mightier forces.

As for the afterlife, I decided after agonizing for much of my life over the answers to the mysteries of the universe, that it was SUPPOSED to be a mystery. Answers to questions like what happens after we die? were not terribly important if one believed that the purpose of life was to do the best with what we had to raise ourselves up to our highest possibilities because we could.

Best,

Kim