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Original poster

If it was proven that there is no afterlife

234 replies

magicalkitty · 13/08/2023 21:17

No heaven, no reincarnation, no seeing our loved ones again...
Would it make you live life or see things any differently?

I think a lot of everyday life things may suddenly seem very meaningless. A lot of us like to believe there is something else to come, even if not religious.

OP posts:
XDownwiththissortofthingX · 14/08/2023 00:29

Annaishere · 14/08/2023 00:17

I don’t think you would have attachments in the same way or romantic feelings

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Well it seems the main selling point of the typical notion of the afterlife appears to be seeing 'loved' ones and friends again, so if there's no attachments or romantic feelings those former associations have ceased to exist, so surely you'd just find yourself among a sea of random souls, none of which are of any more significance than any other.

To be honest, one of the reasons I don't believe in it is the absurd nature of it. Not from a how/why science/physics point of view, but the absurdity of being condemned to spend eternity in the company of people, some of whom I'd be tempted to die to get peace from, given the option. I'm not sure whoever came up with the concept realised that the notion of 'heaven' is not universally appealing.

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:29

@Lightningspeed

Well it's not as cut and dry as that. I think If you studied the topic and other topics like this like astral travelling you'd be surprised. I think it's good to have an open mind. It's amazing that we're even here so to think these things are far fetched or impossible is a little ignorant.

WantingToEducate · 14/08/2023 00:30

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:22

Well I fully believe there's an afterlife.
I enjoy listening to peoples experiences on YouTube like this man's
When my grandmother was in her final days She told us very coherently that her parents were in the room, and in her final hours the feeling of being close to 'god' or something indescribable was so intense, I can't explain it.

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See this is what gets me… I imagine your grandmother was elderly so how old were her parents when she saw them in the room with her? The same age they were when they died? Or were they even older because the passing of time continues in the After life?

And what if a man lived to 80 yet his parents had died in their 70’s, would the son actually be older than his parents when they were reunited?

None of it makes sense to me.

MsRosley · 14/08/2023 00:31

Lightningspeed · 14/08/2023 00:26

Meh, they didn't actually die though.

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In many cases they were actually clinically dead. Heart stopped, everything, sometimes for up to half an hour. Modern medicine can revive people who definitely would have stayed dead half a century or so ago, and social media means we can now hear about their accounts of what happened to them.

Annaishere · 14/08/2023 00:31

@WantingToEducate I think we will still love each other but it will be like we were playing roles. Like we were acting out a dream and we will be in a state of euphoria and not need anything from each other knowing all is well

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:32

@MsRosley yes apparently it is common. I think if you've ever worked with dying people it would be hard not to believe something.

CallieQ · 14/08/2023 00:32

Sadly there is nothing else to come

Annaishere · 14/08/2023 00:34

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:27

Apparently it's more like waking up from a.bad dream and suddenly you feel like 'oh yeah I remember this now' and when people have been resuscitated they don't actually want to go back.

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This happened to me, not that I didn’t want to come back but that I didn’t see how I could ever come back from knowing that reality. It’s freedom and simple happiness that you don’t get so much in this life

Lightningspeed · 14/08/2023 00:34

Not at all, they literally didn't die though so can't say anything about that experience. I had a stroke and honestly when I had no clue what was going on, I really felt my mother's presence close to me. Don't think I have ever said that to anyone, but it's true. Like I say I'm agnostic I have no fucking clue.

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:36

@WantingToEducate I didn't ask her how old they looked. But according to near death experiences there is no time in the after life. Time is a human concept. That's why flies sense of time is a lot slower then ours. It's a complicated subject. But time is actually happening all at the same 'time' really.
There are scientists working on this topic as it's so deep, there's so much we have yet to discover.
Another thing NDE people say is that when they came back they didn't have the vocabulary to describe what fully went on, almost like trying to describe a colour that's never been seen before. Blows my mind but very interesting.

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:38

@Annaishere that's amazing you've experienced that, obviously not good that you were unwell etc but fascinating you're someone who's experienced it first hand.

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 14/08/2023 00:39

MsRosley · 14/08/2023 00:31

In many cases they were actually clinically dead. Heart stopped, everything, sometimes for up to half an hour. Modern medicine can revive people who definitely would have stayed dead half a century or so ago, and social media means we can now hear about their accounts of what happened to them.

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This is not brain death though. People who undergo brain death do not get revived, they stay very much dead.

Now I can accept the 'logic' of an argument that says the soul is intrinsically part of the brain, or resides in the brain, so until the brain dies the soul does not 'depart', but then I'd question why some people's accounts of 'near death' in this state are interpreted as some sort of evidence of an afterlife, yet people who experience nothing remarkable whatsoever are not cited as evidence of no afterlife, and are conveniently ignored.

WantingToEducate · 14/08/2023 00:40

MsRosley · 14/08/2023 00:31

In many cases they were actually clinically dead. Heart stopped, everything, sometimes for up to half an hour. Modern medicine can revive people who definitely would have stayed dead half a century or so ago, and social media means we can now hear about their accounts of what happened to them.

Show quote history

If you are clinically dead then you're dead. You can’t come back from being clinically
dead.

Okay the heart may not be pumping by itself initially but it’s artificially being pumped by CPR and the body and the organs are still being ventilated and perfused with oxygen. It is not a dead body.

“Coming back” from being clinically dead would involve a dead body that’s been in the morgue for a few hours miraculously waking up.

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:41

@XDownwiththissortofthingX
Maybe some people don't get to that stage of death in order to experience anything.

Annaishere · 14/08/2023 00:44

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 14/08/2023 00:39

This is not brain death though. People who undergo brain death do not get revived, they stay very much dead.

Now I can accept the 'logic' of an argument that says the soul is intrinsically part of the brain, or resides in the brain, so until the brain dies the soul does not 'depart', but then I'd question why some people's accounts of 'near death' in this state are interpreted as some sort of evidence of an afterlife, yet people who experience nothing remarkable whatsoever are not cited as evidence of no afterlife, and are conveniently ignored.

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What I find really interesting though is that the experience appears to take place from the vantage point of a higher dimension that seems more real than this one

Lightningspeed · 14/08/2023 00:47

What about all the bacteria that are literally a part of us? They won't die when the heart stops pumping, I like Rupert sheldrake and his morphogenetic field idea. I'm so bored of all the closed minded people shutting down every idea that doesn't see us as flesh machines.

WantingToEducate · 14/08/2023 00:48

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:36

@WantingToEducate I didn't ask her how old they looked. But according to near death experiences there is no time in the after life. Time is a human concept. That's why flies sense of time is a lot slower then ours. It's a complicated subject. But time is actually happening all at the same 'time' really.
There are scientists working on this topic as it's so deep, there's so much we have yet to discover.
Another thing NDE people say is that when they came back they didn't have the vocabulary to describe what fully went on, almost like trying to describe a colour that's never been seen before. Blows my mind but very interesting.

Well your last paragraph goes
against the idea of all these YouTubers and “friend of a friend” who seem to very accurately described what happened to them in their NDE.

Ultimately it doesn’t matter what any of us think or believe because there’s only one sure way to find out which is actually dying ourselves.

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:50

@WantingToEducate

My last paragraph doesn't go against anything. There are parts of their experiences that are heard to explain, but it doesn't mean they can't explain other parts.
Are you always this black and white?

LuckyPeonies · 14/08/2023 00:50

I’ve believed that it’s “lights out and end of” for a long time. It doesn’t make me feel any particular way, just annoyed that I won’t get to see how everything turns out. 🤷‍♀️

Lightningspeed · 14/08/2023 00:50

Well unless what you believe influences your experience, who the fuck knows Grin

continentallentil · 14/08/2023 00:52

inky1991 · 13/08/2023 22:39

What a load of crap.

People would have believed the earth was flat for centuries until proven otherwise. Any civilisation prior to 200 years ago couldnt possibly even fathom the concept of electricity/ipones/aeroplanes etc. We have no idea what we will discover in the future.

No one KNOWS there is no afterlife. It is only a belief and it's their prerogative.

Maybe if the afterlife was proven, we would take less value in our earthly lives. More suicides etc...

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It’s pretty fucking unlikely though eh?

XDownwiththissortofthingX · 14/08/2023 00:53

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:41

@XDownwiththissortofthingX
Maybe some people don't get to that stage of death in order to experience anything.

What 'stage of death'?

Having your heart temporarily, deliberately stopped during surgery is essentially the same thing as randomly suffering cardiac arrest and being revived. I would have thought, that being the case, that it would be a fairly simple matter to induce 'Near Death Experience' in anyone wishing to experience it.

The other thing I find remarkable is how frequently and quickly the experience of 'floating/ascending' and such is put down to the divine, and the fact there are often all sorts of pharmaceuticals involved ignored. I've had plenty of out of body experiences myself, none of which where in any way aided or prompted by anything supernatural. Adrenaline is known to cause a 'rush', it's used to treat cardiac arrest, anaphylaxis, and so on, so I hardly think it's in any way surprising to hear of people reporting odd or unusual cerebral experiences in trauma and operating theatres.

Oblomov23 · 14/08/2023 00:53

No.

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:54

@continentallentil

Why is it unlikely?
Don't you think it's incredible that we come from a microscopic egg and sperm and somehow turn into these strange creatures that can think and feel and create huge buildings and invent the atomic bomb. Everything is pretty outrageous and weird if you think about it.

WantingToEducate · 14/08/2023 00:55

fullbloom87 · 14/08/2023 00:50

@WantingToEducate

My last paragraph doesn't go against anything. There are parts of their experiences that are heard to explain, but it doesn't mean they can't explain other parts.
Are you always this black and white?

When it comes to things that have no logical explanations, yes.

I just cannot accept that when we die we all go somewhere else and we stay there
forever and ever and ever and ever for eternity.

What on earth would be the point in that?

There has to be an end at some point and I don’t see why death isn’t that end.