...to ask what happens when you die?

[TeaAndAMarmiteSandwhich]

... or more accurately, what you think happens?

I really really don't want to die (a good thing I guess! As I wasn't too bothered either way as a moody teen, but now I love life most of the time and want to hang around).

It's comforting to think there's a heaven, but I don't believe there is (and I'd probably get bored if I had to stay there for EVER). But when u die - is that it? Game over ? I'm not too keen on that idea either.

What do you think happens? and what would you like to think happens?

I believe in life after death but my son who is an atheist said to me, you didn't exist for billions of years before you were born and it didn't bother you then so it won't bother you after death either.

Children have amazing imaginations and the brain is an incredibly complex organ so it’s no wonder they have things like imaginary friends.

I believe consciousness creates physical reality and not the other way around, so we never really die, because we never really exist. I also believe that consciousness exists as a mass pool like a sea and when we "die" our consciousness gets absorbed back into this mass as it does when we are sleeping.

Also, just because you don't remember something doesn't mean it didn't happen. I don't remember being alive before birth but I also don't remember being a a baby or being born, so "memory" of something is not a good indicator of whether something happened or not. Memory, dreams, consciousness are all mysterious. We don't really understand how a chemical process in our physical brain becomes an emotion or a thought or an image. This transmutation from something physical to something ephemeral and non-physical is still beyond the understand of science.

I think science is very limited in what we can know and some things can never be proven one way or another, especially things which are based on subjective/personal experience.

I don't think we will be praying for our loved ones in heaven. I believe that all earthly worries will cease, it wouldn't be heaven if it was the same as on earth. I do think we will get a choice to come back to earth,...[there are many rooms in my fathers house] i think it would be hard to leave but necessary if we want to learn more and so get nearer to God. Obviously i don't know all this for sure, no one knows how it works, but something on those lines perhaps.

I have always said I’d rather be the least significant soul in heaven than the most important in hell or on earth.

What I cannot get my head around is what happens to the truly evil. Do they repent when they see God?

It must be so comforting to be able to convince yourself of all these whimsical scenarios. It almost makes me wish I could suspend reality in such a way.

Unfortunately I prefer to believe things that are demonstrably true in some way.

Yes it’s comforting- stop being so supercilious

imlistening I often wonder that too, i can't imagine it'd be that easy, being able to repent at that stage. Maybe they have to keep coming back till they truly repent, i don't know though. I suppose one day we'll learn the truth.

what happens to the truly evil. Do they repent when they see God?

For we believers in reincarnation, it's not so much about repentance but learning and moving forward. A quick "sorry" won't cut it, but working towards improvement will ... though in the worst cases it may take many lifetimes

For me, it's no coincidence that those we call wise are often the most open to new ideas and experiences; it's this willingness to learn that has not only got them where they are now, but will help them to progress further

Unfortunately I prefer to believe things that are demonstrably true in some way.
A bit like this like

Itchybodbrain I haven’t convinced myself of whimsical scenarios, it’s what I believe! Same as you believe the opposite, but I’m not saying your closed minded etc I’m just saying what if there’s more to come? From what you say it’s like you have definitive proof that what you say is real and any one that believes is in fairy land!

I always find it funny when someone refers to someone as an old soul as maybe they are! And what about when we have a deja vu maybe we have been there before ! And children with imaginary friends, maybe they are spirits.. who knows , I just like to look at all possibilities, even the ones that don’t fully make sense to us.

Or it could be a sliding doors scenario- that’s the whole point. No one knows.

I can see that makes sense puzzled

This reminds me of the question about if a tree falls down but no-one hears it, did it make a sound or not?

If there is nothing after death, but no-one experiences it, is it really there?

has anyone here, ever had a one to one experience with Alison du Bois?
I wont give my experience here but, I came to Alison through reading about her work with the FBI Psychology unit..... Its fascinating..
Years later I had cause to use her for a more emotional reason, and I get it.....
But the value that i give to her ability was from a stone cold, un- emotional perspective........... I would LOVE to hear that someone else on MN has experienced her ...

bigcity I know what you mean, my mum always used to say about my dd when she was younger...."oh she's been here before that one", meaning she seemed too wise for her years.

This reminds me of the question about if a tree falls down but no-one hears it, did it make a sound or not?

I've always wondered about that

Also about my late uncle, probably the wisest man I've ever known, who was born into poverty and forced by circumstances to remain in it. A cynic might ask why, if he was so wise, he had to live like that - but perhaps the point was that he was "working something off" from a previous life and learning as he went along?

puzzled i often think like that, but then i wonder what the super rich are supposed to be learning. Maybe generosity and humility.....its hard to work out isn't it. Too much for our human brains anyway.

That's exactly it, bestthings; there's just so much we don't know, and it seems to me to be perfectly possible to have both personal integrity and a reasonably open mind

Yes, the very rich might well need to learn important things, but even those aren't always obvious unless we know exactly what the circumstances of their lives are - and often not even then. We each have our own individual journey, and just as with learning a subject at school, there are rarely any effective shortcuts

Of course i also wonder about the people on earth who have absolutely nothing, the ones who die through famines and wars etc. I really don't have any answers, but maybe, we all have lived through similar things in previous lives. Maybe we all have to truly suffer like that, maybe some of us have done already, maybe we have it yet to come. I'd find it hard to believe that just a certain amount of people would have to live and die so horrendously. It's mind boggling.

mothertruck3r I agree with what you're saying.
Reminded me of the holographic universe.

*by Michael Talbot.

@bestthings That's right too. Something can't come from nothing.

Puzzled I obviously can't speak for the set-up you describe, but at my church services are free. A donation plate is sent round, just the same as in, say, a CofE church, but there is absolutely no obligation to contribute. Some put in a small amount. Some don't. Any money collected is spent on upkeep, heating etc for the church. The mediums don't get paid other than occasionally their bus or train fare is refunded.

It’s funny though that when it comes to new information the line is terrible (“I’m getting a B, or it could be a D, or an E, or they could be saying Tea - did they ever drink tea?”) - but when it comes to confirming info or repeating things back to the punter all of a sudden it’s as clear as a bell.

Itchy I can see how that looks, but I come back to how difficult it is to receive and decipher the information. It's not like having a conversation with somebody here in life. The information is conveyed in impressions. You might hear some words, but then you might get a feeling or a smell, and you then have to make sense of it all together. All while trying to keep out your own thoughts and feelings, while your mind is desperate to join the dots and make meaning. It's really hard, and often what you see/feel/hear etc seems odd and nonsensical. Then a small amount of confirmation from the sitter makes it all click into place, hence the medium can suddenly say what is being conveyed with greater confidence.

But isn’t a medium disturbing the spirits? I don’t like asking my deceased loved ones for help because of this.