Do You Believe in Life After Death?

[BurtWorm]

Poll question: Do You Believe in Life After Death?

[BlueEyedSon]

1. What do you believe in?

Sex and death. Two things that come once in my lifetime. But, at least after death you're not nauseous.

Woody Allen, from "Sleeper"

[Az]

3. More Woody on death

I don't want to be immortal through my work. I want to be immortal through not dying - Woody Allen

[terrya]

2. No.There is no reincarnation.There is no heaven or hell.

You die. That's it.

Terry

[SCDem]

4. If people believe there is life after death

there will be life after death for them... if people don't believe there is life after death there isn't for them. I see it as simple as that.

[SmileyBoy]

13. I like your theory...

I kind of view heaven as that way. If you're good, then heaven will be a place that you want it to be like.

[Az]

5. Personally

I do not fear death. I just prefer to see it as a long term issue. But to be frank that some people believe that life gets better after they die concerns me a bit. It kind of twists how they see the world. And not always in a productive way for those of us looking at it as a one shot deal.

[H2O Man]

6. Energy cannot be destroyed.

Energy changes form. That's all. There is no such thing as death. It's a mere changing of worlds. You do not have to believe in the Christian concept of God. Just accept the sum total of the laws of the universe. The universe is alive. It doesn't die. It is reborn on a constant basis.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

9. Yeah, file me under that category.

I'll be reborn in some form, but I'll probably never be aware of it. I'm looking forward to getting sub-atomic.

[ewagner]

17. That's my take also...

However the universe was created, it was done with a remarkable efficiency. Ultimate recyclling......

If we could just understand the energy that IS LIFE we could probably understand the whole process much better.

[Az]

18. Its not really just energy though is it

I mean a light bulb is not sentient. Its the specific organization of energy and matter that gives rise to our minds. And organization can be disrupted. Matter, energy, and organization. Remove any one of them and the system collapses. Life is a process. Not some inanimate block.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

7. We are a vast information structure

Get a game of chess, for instance, the first one Kasparov lost to Deep Blue. It's just ideas. It didn't "start existing" when the players acted it, in a sense it always existed, along with the bazillion chess games that were never played and never will. Just like "pi" and "Paradise Lost".

The Universe is the chessboard with the rules of the game. Your life is a game being played.

I'm pretty sure that, from the survivors' point of view, I'll totally cease to exist, but I may experience some kind of continuity in other context. And I suspect it will be completely WEIRD and will not resemble in any way anyone's speculation.

Did that sound Platonic?

[Nihil]

8. Reduce, re-use, recycle

Applies to spirituality as well as tin cans :-)

I want to be a hamster next time around, then a labrador, then ...

[jonnyblitz]

10. no. n/t

[Throckmorton]

11. Yes there is,

and at the moment that belief serves my purposes just fine.

[SmileyBoy]

12. One's perception of their surroundings cannot just end.

If you believe that you just disappear, then what does that mean specifically??? Does it mean we just become unconscious eternally???

There HAS to be an afterlife, because of the notion that our perception of our surroundings cannot just cease.

[BlueEyedSon]

14. Why not... it just BEGAN one day, didn't it?

[BurtWorm]

15. Why not become unconscious eternally?

Do you remember being unconscious last night? Was it so awful?

[Az]

16. Do you remember where you were in 1742?

Thats where you go back to.

As to cannot cease... um argumentum ad ignorantiam does not constitute a valid argument. Simply because you cannot fathom nonexistance does not mean it must be so. The argument requires a bit more than that.

[pintobean]

19. "I think that, um....

um, there are more people that are bad than there are good, and um,if you are good, you'll live forever, and if you're bad, you'll die when you die."

[BiggJawn]

20. Sorry, this is it. Don't fritter it away like I did.

If one 20-something reads this and gets motivated, then I will have been worthwhile.

Spend all you life getting ready to be worm food. Hardly seems fair, don't it?