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AIBU?

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Original poster

What do you think happens when we die?

555 replies

Frosty6611 · 05/08/2018 12:28

Just had this discussion with my DP and mum and we all had a completely different answers.

I believe in reincarnation.

My DP is an atheist and believes nothing happens.

My mum believes in heaven/hell.

OP posts:
lazyhazysummer · 07/08/2018 12:31

naked he is able if he wishes. I've had my prayers answered many times. Indeed many good things have happened in my life that came from evil. Evil happens, God is certainly not malevolent because he doesn't stop it. That obviously isn't his way. We have free will, what on earth would be the point if every time something bad happened to us God immediately intervened and made it right. What's the point in being on earth if it was like heaven.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 07/08/2018 12:37

That's perfectly true, echt, but doesn't alter the fact that some still cling to the belief - and even, in the case of one "spiritual leader" I know, actively promote it

Fallible humankind again, you see - just like all of us Sad

ImAIdoot · 07/08/2018 12:39

theism is the default position as many are too weak to comprehend

Not only is it dangerous to live life thinking others are less awake than you, but it's also arrogant invective. Given the contexts in which people ponder this question, it might not be the best thread to start criticising people for their beliefs.

politicalcorrectnessisgreat · 07/08/2018 13:05

Humans really do think they are very important don't they? I was brought up as catholic but am an atheist now. I always wondered how God could listen to everyone at the same time and their prayers and also how he would let children starve and die in Africa but answer my friends prayer about the new Mr Frosty she wanted.

frecklesMaybe · 07/08/2018 13:16

@echt

The pedophile apologiser did something for good? Well, a stopped clock and all that! And he is god's representative, after all no matter what branch of the Hitler Youth they joined.

Isn't it fascinating that during the papal conclave is the only time there's no one on earth who claims to be infallible.

@ImAIdoot

The belief that religion is free from criticism is surely only the standpoint of the weak / religious?

lazyhazysummer · 07/08/2018 14:20

I'm sure your friend got Mr Frosty because her parents bought it her,nothing to do with God. Children starving in Africa, nothing to do with God either. Blame mans greed and love of war.

Ibelieveinkarma · 07/08/2018 14:27

I do believe people can experience the 'white light at the end of a tunnel' as they are nearing death, and believe they can see their already departed loved ones waiting for them.
However, unfortunately I imagine this experience is just the mind playing tricks (to enable people to cope more easily with the trauma of dying), and as soon as brain death occurs the tunnel, the light and the sight of our loved ones coming to collect us vanishes and its 'boom' gone.

As a pp has already said, I too believe that death is just like being unconscious for an operation, only difference being we wake up from an operation.
I hope I'm wrong and that there is something after this world though.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 07/08/2018 14:48

I imagine the evils committed within some organised religions need no further advertisement from me or anyone else, but to a believer in reincarnation this, too, will have to be paid for ... if not in this life then in a future existence

I'm using the Catholic church purely as one example as there are so many others who've brought their religion into utter disrepute, but while it might seem a pretty clever idea to cobble together a council of fallible humans to declare that their leader is actually infallible, that makes no difference at all if, one day, the evil - not to mention the hypocrisy and the arrogance - has to be accounted for

And on a lighter note (and with due apologies to gastropods) if it brings comfort to imagine one's religious leader forced to live a future life as a snail, then so be it

lazyhazysummer · 07/08/2018 15:25

Of course if people want to believe that the white light at the end of the tunnel is just to calm us before death (how thoughtful of evolution) then that is what they'll believe. (I find it odd how people desperately look for anything to convince themselves that there can't possibly be something else) Surely it's better to think there's something, you can't lose really. But this can't be the case about the "white light". I've read of quite a few who had awful experiences of "the other side", definitely not heaven. Where was their thoughtful white light to calm them.

Bibesia · 07/08/2018 15:55

lazyhazy, if God won't intervene to stop bad things happening or to reverse their effects, and he won't intervene because earth is supposed to be imperfect, why on earth does he intervene to answer prayers? And why is he so selective about the prayers he answers? Every parent of a sick child has prayed for their recovery but, as we know only too well, time and again their prayers are apparently ignored.

Cath2907 · 07/08/2018 16:04

I believe that nothing happens. You live, you die then you are remembered, eventually you are forgotten..... What is important is not what happens after you die but how you live your life whilst you have it.

DieAntword · 07/08/2018 16:22

why on earth does he intervene to answer prayers? And why is he so selective about the prayers he answers?

To cultivate a relationship with us, and because every relationship is different.

lazyhazysummer · 07/08/2018 17:05

Bibesia i don't have all the answers about how God works. But he doesnt always answer prayers in the way we expect him to. People die even though they've been prayed for, but do we expect him to prevent all death, all suffering, where would we expect him/her to draw the line.This earth is full of suffering, one day we'll get all the answers.

Walkingdeadfangirl · 07/08/2018 17:25

If there was some sort of heaven (and there is no reason to think there is), are you forced to go to it? Would you go if it wasn't the one you spent your life believing in? Can you try it out and then change your mind. What if your family was sent to hell, would you leave them there and head to heaven? Would you be bored senseless fine spending eternity just worshipping a deity?

Unless I learn more before I die, the safest option will be to decline any heaven, its just not worth the risk. Hypothetically speaking of course.

DieAntword · 07/08/2018 17:28

If there was some sort of heaven (and there is no reason to think there is), are you forced to go to it?

My church says that "heaven" and "hell" are both the state of being in the unfiltered presence of God. Those who are hateful hating it and those who are filled with love loving it.

Walkingdeadfangirl · 07/08/2018 17:34

My church says that "heaven" and "hell" are both the state of being in the unfiltered presence of God
That doesn't sound any more appetising.

RainySeptember · 07/08/2018 17:48

How do people know all this stuff about how god works and his motives and what he's got planned for us?

DieAntword · 07/08/2018 18:14

That doesn't sound any more appetising.

It wasn't meant to sound appetising... but in that context it's not exactly something you can refuse. God is being itself and is thus inescapable if one is. In this life we hide because like Adam we are "ashamed", but in the next life insofar as we are "clothed" it will be with God himself.

lazyhazysummer · 07/08/2018 18:20

How do people know all this stuff about how god works and his motives and what he's got planned for us?
That's just it, we don't have all the answers, but non believers expect us to give answers we can't give, so that equates to their being no God. We need to stop thinking of God as like us and having human expectations of him.

RainySeptember · 07/08/2018 18:32

"we don't have all the answers,"

I'm not asking for all the answers. Not knowing some stuff is fair enough. Atheists don't have all the answers either, no one does.

I just mean, how do you know when you assert stuff like this :

"God is certainly not malevolent because he doesn't stop it. That obviously isn't his way."

" And why is he so selective about the prayers he answers? To cultivate a relationship with us, and because every relationship is different."

" But he doesnt always answer prayers in the way we expect him to."

How do believers know this? Because their parents told them? Because their church told them? Because they woke up one day and just knew?

Walkingdeadfangirl · 07/08/2018 18:45

but in that context it's not exactly something you can refuse
Oh dear, so after death everyone is forced into an eternal heaven/hell to gaze on the face of god without any filters. I would be very worried if I believed that.

DieAntword · 07/08/2018 19:15

Oh dear, so after death everyone is forced into an eternal heaven/hell to gaze on the face of god without any filters. I would be very worried if I believed that.

Worried about what?

I mean in a sense you’re supposed to be worried but probably not in the sense you mean.

lazyhazysummer · 07/08/2018 19:15

Rainy I can only speak for myself. It's how I feel about God and my interpretation of God and how my life is because God is in my life.

…12Then you will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you. 13You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. 14I will be found by you, declares the LORD, and I will ...

DieAntword · 07/08/2018 19:20

I “know” what the capital C Church teaches because I have decided to take on faith that it was founded by Christ and retains the authority passed to the apostles - I did so after a long and winding personal journey that would almost ceirtainly convince no one but myself (and I do not think it’s my place to convince others of the truth of it either - that honour goes to the Holy Spirit).

politicalcorrectnessisgreat · 07/08/2018 19:28

Oh and just a thought... my brother goes to church every week, he is having an affair, he makes loads of money from deceiving people. I don't go to church, I work in a job supporting homeless people, I took drugs for a few years but have never knowingly hurt anyone- which one of us goes to heaven ? I know that I'd rather go to hell if that's where all my likeminded friends are going. Don't fancy going with the paedophile priests and all the other disgusting people who have been forgiven for their sins.