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Do you think there is an afterlife?

89 replies

Whenismumhome · 13/10/2020 23:16

I find this so interesting.

I don’t know if I believe in it or not. I’d love it to be real.

Do you think that we have spirits inside us that are released and just float around when we pass on?

Interested in everyone’s thoughts.

OP posts:
PhilCornwall1 · 14/10/2020 04:29

Wouldn't it be really crap if the afterlife meant you came back here again. It would be a case of "oh bollocks, not this shit again!!!"

Cumbersome · 14/10/2020 04:31

Of course not.

I struggle to see how a belief in any supernatural phenomenon is 'comforting'. If God exists, so do demons. If God exists, there really are monsters under your children's beds, and you will never be able to comfort them.

supersky · 14/10/2020 04:32

If I really think about it, then no there isn't but I don't like thinking about it because the thought of there being nothing terrifies me

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PopsicleHustler · 14/10/2020 05:34

Yes, absolutely. I am a converted /reverted muslim and before that I was a christian. I couldn't find my place in church and christianity, hence why I reverted to Islam. As so many things made sense and was put into place for me.

Even as a Christian, 1000000% believed in God. And believed in after life.

As a muslim, we believe that by doing good deeds such as helping the poor, helping others and praying regularly is our pathway to heaven. We also believe in hell (hell fire which in Arabic is Jahanam.) We believe that Allah, God will decide on the day of judgement who will go to heaven and who will go to hellfire.
I find comfort in hoping that when I die, if I have been a good woman and a good muslim, ie completing my 5 daily prayers and giving to charity that I will go to heaven. It has been beautifully described in the Quran.
So yes, I do believe in the afterlife.

PopsicleHustler · 14/10/2020 05:36

@Cumbersome demons, devil and evil spirits do exist.

But as a muslim, we have verses in the Quran that we say aloud to protect us from that .....

You might not understand or believe which is your choice.

SexyGiraffe · 14/10/2020 06:11

No, I really don't believe in an afterlife. It just makes no sense. I don't believe in any religious definition of god either, although I'm very open to the fact that we are certainly not the highest power in the universe.

HeronLanyon · 14/10/2020 06:31

No. Dead is dead. Recently lost both parents. The thing about people living on in memories is huge though. I sometimes think things like ‘mum would love that I did this’ or ‘that Way of dealing with something came from dad’ etc. They do both live on in friends and family but that’s because of who they were and what they did when alive!

HeronLanyon · 14/10/2020 06:34

philcornwall1 agreed ! I’m pretty happy my parents died before all of this 2020 shitshow (although it is odd not to talk to them about it and caught myself wondering if mum needed more face masks the other day) - imagine if they popped back now !

LaurieFairyCake · 14/10/2020 06:42

I'm a Christian and DON'T believe in an afterlife

chatterbugmegastar · 14/10/2020 06:45

I'm not a Christian nor am I religious

I believe in a god/higher power

I believe we have many many lives and there is definitely a place we go between each life

To imagine one life which ends and then that's it - is ludicrous to me.

What on Earth is the point?

Do people who believe this think we just pop out, live for a few decades for no meaningful reason (unless you're David Attenborough Grin) and then pop off never to be seen again ?

It feels crazy to me to even contemplate that Confused

Pelleas · 14/10/2020 07:53

I think it's unlikely there's any kind of afterlife.

There's no way of being certain. Reincarnation has always seemed more likely to me than an afterlife in the sense of going to a heaven type place, but I don't think even that is very probable.

GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER · 14/10/2020 08:11

I don’t, but the odd anecdote, including from entirely down to earth people, does now and then make me wonder.

Most striking not long ago was a friend telling me how a little grandson* immediately exclaimed, ‘I used to live here!’ - when the whole family was visiting a site of Graeco-Roman antiquities where none of them had been before.
He went on to point out (the outline remains or former site of) his house, and his friend’s house, and a cave where they used to hide, and a pool (bath) where they used to swim. And he told them the slightly garbled but entirely appropriate name of his friend.

He was very happy but matter of fact about it, and when they finally left, said, ‘Thank you for bringing me home.’

*a preschooler, unable to read so couldn’t have read about it.

As is typical in any such cases I’ve heard of, the memories had disappeared by the time he was about 5.

pointythings · 14/10/2020 08:21

No, and I find that idea comforting. I will make the most of the life I have while I'm here and that's that - no need to worry about what comes after, because there's nothing, just an ending.

acatcalledjohn · 14/10/2020 08:36

The Good Place: the way they ended that was very beautiful. I cried buckets. I won't say how it ended because if you haven't seen it I'd be spoiling it.

My personal belief is that dead = dead and the memories of a lost one, and the finding of comfort in those memories, is the real afterlife.

Ylfa · 14/10/2020 08:43

@Hatscats

No. You go back into the earth and atmosphere as carbon, oxygen, etc. Repurposed! Fine with that 😂
Exactly! We’re made of the same basic stuff everything else is, look at a leaf - the same water the same sunshine we soak up too. It’s beautiful.
MrsKingfisher · 14/10/2020 08:48

@chatterbugmegastar

I'm not a Christian nor am I religious

I believe in a god/higher power

I believe we have many many lives and there is definitely a place we go between each life

To imagine one life which ends and then that's it - is ludicrous to me.

What on Earth is the point?

Do people who believe this think we just pop out, live for a few decades for no meaningful reason (unless you're David Attenborough Grin) and then pop off never to be seen again ?

It feels crazy to me to even contemplate that Confused

This is also how I feel, it's also interesting that MN is a such a large collection of people who are 100% sure there's no afterlife, no spiritual aspect to life at all.

HeronLanyon · 14/10/2020 08:59

No afterlife doesn’t at all mean ‘no spiritual aspect to life at all’ !! Although I suppose it depends on what we all mean by ‘spiritual’.
I Am frequently moved by what I call the spirit of a place or music etc can feel ‘the présence’ or thé ‘spirit’ of generations before me in various special (and indeed humdrum) places. Definitely doesn’t lead me to believe in an afterlife in what I take to be the meaning of that word as used by some who do. Think it’s much more about this life and this time and a recognition of what has gone before.

DioneTheDiabolist · 14/10/2020 09:18

it's also interesting that MN is a such a large collection of people who are 100% sure there's no afterlife
TBF, it's also home to a load of people who are 100% sure there is one. And many more who aren't 100% sure either way.🤷‍♀️

pastandpresent · 14/10/2020 09:25

I'm quite spiritual person so like to think things like my grandad is my guardian angel looking over me.

But I don't know if I believe in afterlife or not.

BiBabbles · 14/10/2020 10:03

I think there is a possibility, but not the individualistic one commonly given by most religions. For me, just as our personalities and sense of self changes with time and experience, and brain damage and other changes in the body can make huge alterations in that, I can't see a reason to expect death to leave that intact. Even in dualistic or pluralistic models, the concept that we have one consciousness frozen at the moment of death doesn't work for me.

I'm philosophically monist, mainly in the materialist / physicalist / metaphysical naturalist / pantheistic naturalism bends. Just as I view 'my body' a handy way of saying what's visible of me and 'my mind' a handy way of discussing my thoughts, but no actual division - it's all me, my body is generating the thoughts I'm typing - I view no real division between the divine and non-divine even if it's handy to discuss some things as sacred or spiritual and some as profane or mundane. It's all one.

We may never have the technology to know, but in either a divine or non-divine model, as many others have said, there is the possibility that all of what remains of us just returns with the rest of the materials around us and we continue to develop that way and in the thoughts of others. In divine pantheistic models, there are possibly functions in death that we can't yet perceive where some of what remains of us are more connected to that divinity and we continue to develop across that together, in visible and not-yet-visible materials/energy.

My current funeral plans involve a natural burial with a tree marker, so I regularly say that when I die, I'm going to become a tree (though I'd prefer recompose/human composting for growing a tree if that becomes available in the UK before my death).

I find comfort in the idea that what remains of me will be useful and part of a greater whole. I do not get any from the idea of remaining stuck in whatever personality I happen to have or choices I've made when I die, many 'choices' through circumstances I had little to no say in, personality affected by biological and environmental factors out of my control and being stuck as individual me for eternity. This may be why one of my favourite fictional versions of an individualistic afterlife - in the Otherworld series by Kelley Armstrong, particularly the book Haunted - while having different afterlives dependent on behaviour, has opportunities and even encouragement for growth and reinvention.

Someonesayroadtrip · 14/10/2020 10:11

Nope, I used to be religious and had certainly there was an after life and now I feel the opposite.

I believe believe there is an afterlife as much as I believe that Saturn is made out of chocolate, as in I can't actually be certain but all things and knowledge point to it not being made out of chocolate.

Somethingunderthebedislurking · 14/10/2020 10:16

I’m hoping that there isn’t an afterlife. The thought of me dying and then meeting up with people who had such a negative effect on my life is taking over my everyday life.
If there was actual proof that there was an afterlife then I would be afraid to die.
Bit grim eh Sad

Chocolatedeficitdisorder · 14/10/2020 10:17

'No. Death is the end, there is nothing else.'

Spiritually, I agree. Physically, we persist forever in different forms. Our atoms don't disappear and will disperse into millions of different places and life-forms. Parts of us will trees, flower, rats, elephants, rain and even politicians. A part of everything and not too much of anything.

Sounds good to me. I'll take that over any theory involving judgement.

H1978 · 14/10/2020 10:30

As a Muslim, our whole existence is to achieve the ultimate success of going to heaven. There’s no question of there being no afterlife.

hexmeginny · 14/10/2020 10:31

I am increasingly exploring the idea of re-incarnation. I'm not religious or even spiritual, but I am curious to learn more about it. Unfortunately, I am very skeptical person by nature so any books or articles I read about it, I take with a pinch of salt Grin

I'd like to find some people to talk to about it though, just as like an open forum.