What do you think happens after you die ?

[Ella2001]

I’m waiting on “you’ll be dead and that’s that“ 🤣
but genuinely curious as to what everyone else thinks happens , I know it’ll be like before you were born , you won’t know but what if after life/recantation is a thing ? I’ve come to terms with the fact tomorrow isn’t promised but what if there’s afterlife and we get born into a horrible abusive family ? In that case I think I’d rather just be nothing ? What you all think ? Love to read these threads thought I’d make one myself 😆

Nothing.

This is the international language of a particular kind of irony-free Christian fundamentalist.

I literally quoted Him.
John 3:16 are HIS words.

Here are a few more from the same passage, a conversation with Nicodemus.

“Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ “

John 1: 11-13 explains it well
“He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.”

Whoever wants to be forgiven, to be sure that they are born of God is welcome to come to Jesus and receive Him, to believe on Him, putting their faith in Him. He has promised that He will not turn anyone away who sincerely comes to Him.

Hear some more of His words from His conversation with Nicodemus-
“ He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.”
John 3:18-19

And as John himself testified
“He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him.”
John 3:36

I don't think there is any consciousness after death. It doesn't make sense, unless you think every gnat and amoeba and bacterium is also going to enjoy a glorious afterlife.

But we are made of matter and I like to think I will linger on in that sense.

God needs a better speechwriter.

Our souls leave our bodies -they weigh about 21 grams it seems. By souls I mean energy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/21_grams_experiment

I feel like we all desperately want something to happen and all hate the idea of our whole lives being for nothing. However I’m pretty sure nothing actually happens. We are one of
billions of animals that come and go.

I heard part of a Radio 4 programme where a Dr was explaining why we should try to revive for longer in certain deaths. Apparently this is based on some evidence that consciousness does continue for 20 minutes after apparent full death - I didn't hear enough of this programme to be fully clear but the 20 minutes awareness was clear, unfortunately to my mind!- as to be honest the thought freaks me out - 20 minutes of people thinking you are dead but you're not 😳 If anyone knows the full story behind this please correct me - I put off looking it up.
However, I do think this would make some sense of NDEs - still don't want to think too hard about it though.
I can't find any logic in us living this life prior to a better one, just seems a bit complicated for no reason - eternity of anything is too vast for my brain too. I do believe energy goes on somehow. Also odd things have happened after bereavement- maybe, or maybe it's leftover energy making it seem that way, or just my own brain seeing patterns.
We will all find out one day I guess but not bothered about the extra 20 minutes to ponder it.

Exactly this. It’s so difficult to accept life has a hard stop. But it does, and no-one has ever been able to prove otherwise.

Uhhh no.

If you read the Old Testament God does exactly that in certain places, when people have displeased him. Actually a couple of places in the NT as well. Just kills those people, in very unpleasant ways! However what you are failing to take into account is that we are ALL horrible, not just some people. We are all separated from God by our sinful nature, so if God was to sort us out now, he would have to kill us all. Sounds harsh, but we deserve it.

There's a lot of 'HE and HIS and MAN' in that. I don't really get why women are so pro religion when it is so against us.

So God has killed people for displeasing him. I haven't killed anyone, but I'm horrible and have a sinful nature?

Of course I've heard that before, but it's not even internally consistent is it.

If when "they turned back in repentance, then He would forgive them" is true then the claim that god had to produce a son and then arrange to have him killed to forgive them isn't.

And it's hardly an incredible gift when an all powerful being marks you as a sinner because of something an ancestor did and then decides not to torture you for eternity after all.

Remember this is the god who drowned babies because their parents had sinned and murdered 1000s of children in their beds because the Pharaoh of that country didn't do as he was told.

I know some claim that Jesus ended that kind of thing, but that only makes it worse. It suggests that Jesus realised his dad was a monster and changed things and that believers agreed that changing it was a good thing.

It was too late to help any of god's victims for all those 1000s of years.

Oh and the Book of the Law requires you to stone gay people unless you want you, your children and your grandchildren to pay the price of his anger.

Anyone who refused to obey that was punished (according to believers) , but we can now say that they were the decent people and god's laws a travesty.

There's a lot of 'HE and HIS and MAN' in that. I don't really get why women are so pro religion when it is so against us.

Yes, God defines himself as masculine. That shouldn't be a bad thing! To be honest I did have some issues with a male God for a time as I never had a father figure, my bio dad was a bit of a waster so I couldn't identify with 'God the Father' for quite a long time. Unfortunately human maleness (and femaleness) is not expressed perfectly as we are all broken, basically.

@CitizenZ Yes, you are born with original sin, as is everyone. This separates us from God. You don't have to kill someone to qualify! Think back over your life. Have you always done the right thing? Of course not, no-one has. I do think some of the problems people have with Christianity are with accepting that they have a sinful nature. It's easy to think 'well I'm not that bad, never killed anyone nor committed adultery. OK not perfect but I'm not Jimmy Saville either, I've done quite a few good deeds.' Thing is though, we are ALL sinful without exception. You don't have to be a mass-murderer to qualify. Where would you draw the line, anyway?

It’s different as before birth you haven’t had the human experience of life that you need to have. So the existence/experience before birth is very different to the existence/experience after death

You don’t exist in either case, so it’s identical!

You do just not in a human form

I believe that being a human / having a human life experience is just a small part of what each individual’s energy / soul / whatever you like to call it has to progress through

Nothing. I was a Christian for a while when I was younger, but gradually realised that the idea of an afterlife was terrible, and as time went on, it became obvious that it made no sense at all either. We are animals that live a physical life, with very complex brains.

It was interesting learning about Judaism with a view to conversion for a year or so (I didn't convert and am an atheist) as there is so much less focus on an afterlife in Jewish theology. It isn't nonexistent, but it isn't really a big feature either. It really brings home that Christianity was one of many extreme Jewish sects, with a group expectation that the world would end very shortly and hence a focus on another life. Christianity since then has to spend a lot of time whipping up end-times emotion in a way that doesn't really fit normal life.

If there’s an eternal afterlife then to me that takes away the value of our present life. Our life is so valuable because it’s over in a flash 🤷🏻‍♀️

It doesn’t take away the value of this life - the purpose of life is to have a human experience and it is so valuable.

We go to sleep every night . We drift off into the blackness . That is what will happen to us all . We will just close our eyes , then just eternal darkness . Or do we ?

Yes, I used to find this interesting when talking to Jewish friends. And yes, Christianity developed out of a particularly apocalyptic ‘end times’ sect of Second Temple Judaism (which had lots of schisms and subjects under Roman rule, as well as lots of people claiming to be the messiah, not just Jesus) — the focus on the afterlife makes a lot more sense if you see it as the belief of a sect that expected the end of the world imminently.

I would like to think we are reunited with loves ones on a different plane. I really hope so.