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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To ask if you believe in the afterlife?

232 replies

recklessruby · 14/09/2018 13:08

My dm and I believe when you pass there is another better place you go to. Df disagrees and says when you are gone that's it.
I nearly died giving birth to ds (complications and pre eclampsia) and I know I was drifting somewhere lovely but was told I was too young and it was not my time and turned back. I awoke to chaos and pain and was very disappointed.
Some people will say it's the drugs you get in labour but I have had a few woo encounters over the years when I have been in a clear mind.
So what do you believe? Aibu there is something more after we die?
And that dearly loved pets will be there.
(Maybe not heaven but something).
Sorry this is long and weird.

OP posts:
Gersemi · 14/09/2018 23:53

It always puzzles me how people believe the afterlife will work. If it's meant to be a better place but all or most people end up there, how is it better? For instance, my ex was a fairly unpleasant man whom I have no wish to meet again; however, he didn't do anything dreadfully evil so presumably when I snuff it, if I am sent to be reunited with everyone I ever knew, there he will be. Along with that little group of school bullies I had to deal with in my teens, my idiot and deeply unpleasant ex-employer, and Margaret Thatcher and her ilk. But that will mean it's definitely not a better place for me, rather the reverse.

Oldaintallthat · 14/09/2018 23:54

My son (not religious) believes we move into another energy link. Its always struck a cord with me.

sweethope · 14/09/2018 23:54

The warm and wonderful feelings described by people experiencing near death are scientifically explained as the brain flooding with endorphins
I don’t think they have been scientifically explained. Scientists don’t actually know much about NDEs. If we think about it there’s shouldn’t be any reason for nature to give us such a smooth transition from life to death. Even if there are endorphins at play that doesn’t discount that they are there in place for a smooth transition into the next life. If we are to believe in God, as I do, i believe that endorphins are just one of many miracles of our creation. Everything in place for a reason. The majority of people tell of similar experiences, where they don’t even want to come back, so happy are they as they “slip through” into the next life.

sweethope · 15/09/2018 00:06

Gersemi can i just give you my take on that. If we are to believe in God and that he created us and the world and all the universe around us, that means he/she is pretty awesome right. So if he is that capable of doing all that and that he wants us to dwell in His house when we’ve left this life on earth, i’m pretty sure that he’s not going to throw us in amongst people we’ve never liked or got on with. Jesus said “there are many rooms in my father’s house”

I’m sure that heaven will be different to each person, but it wouldn’t be heaven if it was going to be full of all the trials and tribulations that we get here on earth. I think heaven and earth will be literally beyond comparison, and we will never know true happiness until we get there.

Gersemi · 15/09/2018 00:44

But how can it be as neat as that, sweethope? I would hope that I would be in the afterlife with my DH, I guess he would want to be with his parents, I never liked my FIL. It wouldn't be resolved by some sort of rota system, because whoever missed out would be unhappy.

But then, if God exists I don't actually think he's that awesome. Otherwise those people killed in the Carolina storm would still be alive.

Bigmomma88 · 15/09/2018 00:52

I believe that when we die we will be held accountable for our actions in this world. That our purpose in life to believe in God and obey Him. If you believe in God without associating partners with Him your abode will be in heaven for eternity. If you do not then it is everlasting hell. We seek refuge in God from it.

StopCloudSeeding · 15/09/2018 00:57

I find this fascinating but I don't have time to read everyone's comments I need to go to sleep.

I had an out of body experience (not a near death experience) when I was about 9. There was no alcohol, drugs or trauma, involved as such.

I felt euphoric, free. As if I had just got out of a whole day of maths and onto the school playground. I was then surrounded by about five orbs. I heard one voice say to me 'you shouldn't be here', then another, 'you have to go back now'.
While I was out of my body I was up in the sky and I could look down and see myself, through the walls of the building where I was. Much like you do in the Simms where the walls are cut out.

There was then this whoosh feeling and there I was, back in my body.

Bearing in mind I was about 9. I never heard of such things. I found myself upright, slumped in the corner of my local fish and chip shop. Highly embarrassed.

I have no doubt that we go on. Only our bodies die.

There are many dimensions and other entities occupy those. In my deepest despair I attracted one. If my daughter had not been present I would think I was crazy but she heard the same as me. Do not meddle because you do not know what you may attract.

Don't bother to question me. I know what I experienced.
I'm sure there is a creator and I now believe we are living through biblical end times although I'm not, or never was, particularly religious.

Bigmomma88 · 15/09/2018 00:59

Death is not the end, it is the beginning of a new and eternal stage in one's life. There are three stages. The life of this world. The life of the grave, between this world and the next. And the life of the hereafter.

The first two are temporary lives, but the third is forever.

Bigmomma88 · 15/09/2018 01:02

Stopcloud, fascinating.

Padparadscha · 15/09/2018 02:10

That our purpose in life to believe in God and obey Him. If you believe in God without associating partners with Him your abode will be in heaven for eternity. If you do not then it is everlasting hell. We seek refuge in God from it.

Heaven and hell were ideas created by humans (as are all gods and deities). Heaven, to placate the human ego - we cannot stand the thought of one day ‘not existing’, so we made up stories long ago about ‘living after death’. Hell created to install fear and force people to believe the stories being told to them. Not just Christianity of course, other old fables from history as well.

I love Storm by Tim Minchin, one of my favourite lines is

‘Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex, wonderfully unfathomable, natural world?
How does it so fail to hold our attention that we have to diminish it with the invention of cheap, man-made myths and monsters?’

RedneckStumpy · 15/09/2018 02:50

I think there is something after death. Otherwise it’s depressing to think it’s endless and endless expanse of Black.

sweethope · 15/09/2018 05:24

that we have to diminish it with the invention of cheap, man-made myths and monsters

Far more diminishing to unquestioningly take it all for granted i’d say. I always think that if eminent scientists are perplexed by the universe and it’s beginnings then it seems odd and rather arrogantly foolish that we, who know far less should be so dismissive.

Physicist Paul Davies speaks for many scientists saying, "The temptation to believe that the Universe is the product of some sort of design, a manifestation of subtle aesthetic and mathematical judgement, is overwhelming. The belief that there is "something behind it all" is one that I personally share with, I suspect, a majority of physicists.

TomPinch · 15/09/2018 05:44

Yes I do. There's a variety of reasons for this but one is that DW has flatlined on a number of occasions and each time remembers having very vivid out-of-body experiences. I won't share what she said because it would be outing, but it's both scary and fascinating.

Another reason is that I don't find athiests' reasoning convincing. They say that a thing can't exist if it can't be empirically proved: an argument that assumes everything that exists can be empirically proved, ie, it begs the question (in the traditional meaning of the phrase).

In my view, there's something out there, it's benevolent, and we get to see what it is after this life. More than that I couldn't say.

cece · 15/09/2018 06:50

No

BertrandRussell · 15/09/2018 07:11

Presenting Paul Davies as a creationist is doing him an injustice. Here's a quotation "If there is an ultimate meaning to existence, as I believe is the case, the answer is to be found within nature, not beyond it. The universe might indeed be a fix, but if so, it has fixed itself."

Itchytights · 15/09/2018 07:16

Yup I believe in it and I have a faith.

Some of the comments on here are just ShockShock

Merename · 15/09/2018 07:18

I believe in reincarnation, ie your mind is like a bird flying from one nest to another and taking up residence. For me there is clear logical evidence of this - each moment of mind is created by mind, by the previous moment. How can a mind just come into existence from nowhere? Western science believes that the mind is produced by the brain, however there is no clear scientific evidence of this. In fact neuroscience calls the question of how consciousness is produced ‘the hard question’. It is merely an assumption that our mind comes from our brain. Once you allow yourself to consider that it does not then past and future lives make perfect sense.

I also believe that the existence of past lives explains the way we have inexplicable feelings about other people - whom we automatically like and dislike, based on no clear reason. Or why siblings are so vastly different when raised in very similar ways. Again western science has some poorly evidenced assumptions but I think karma and the tendencies that we bring with us from previous lives is a far better explanation (although not evidenced either I realise).

Gottagetmoving · 15/09/2018 08:04

*@Storm4star Ooh, I will definitely check that out then. Thanks for that. As I say, as he got older he forgot whatever it is he “knew” back then so i’m Still quite baffled by it all

I've heard this before, where young children have spoken of who they were before or talking about their other family.
My grandson was three when he stated talking about the plane he used to fly. He described a WW11 plane in quite a lot of detail and talked about his mate,...He used words that we hadn't heard him use before. He was always saying ' when I was a pilot' He had no interest in aeroplanes other than recalling that.
He doesn't remember that now he is 11.
Could be vivid imagination but there was something in the way he spoke about it that was not like when he talked about anything else and it was just statements, nothing to do with games he was playing.
Anyway, who knows?

Bigmomma88 · 15/09/2018 08:11

Padparad, we shall all find out once we are dead. We can't all the right. But there is one thing I am certain about and it is that there is a purpose to our life. That justice will be done in the next life and that every soul will reap that which it has sowed.

Thisgirlcant · 15/09/2018 08:19

@babdoc my stepdad was a devout Christian, pillar of the community he could also be a very nasty man at home. My mum loved him, I didn't so if we both go to heaven how would we cope with that? even in his many mansions.

Strangely my stepdad was at his grumpiest after a church service he'd go all, holier than thow.

I've lost two people who I thought a lot about these past few months and I'd love to believe they've gone somewhere else. I still talk to them.

Biker47 · 15/09/2018 08:33

No.

Padparadscha · 15/09/2018 08:35

That justice will be done in the next life and that every soul will reap that which it has sowed.

It could be the case, if there were such things as souls. However, there isn’t, just another human invention of the imagination.

BunsOfAnarchy · 15/09/2018 09:09

@BonnieF

Im not saying animals are less 'special' giving birth to litters.
What im saying is i just find it awe inspiring that we can bring new life into the world. Animals too.

RoboticSealpup · 15/09/2018 09:11

Maybe, but I don't think you will have any memories of your life on earth. Your energy might be transformed into something else.

Severide08 · 15/09/2018 09:49

We all believe what we believe. To say someone who does believe is stupid in my eyes is plain rude .We are all entitled to believe what we choose ,course there are going to be differences of opinion. In my own opinion ,yes I think there is something we don't understand .I cared for my DF in the last two months of his life and I had experiences that I cannot be explained away,I had an object thrown on the floor In the middle of the night and pictures fell of the wall amongst other things. I didn't dream this I was wide awake .We also had in hospice nurses to give us a night off a couple of them also experienced things they. Myself and my sibling were by my DF's bed when my sibling felt a touch on their shoulder,my DF then said your DD has just been stood behind you .This was before my sibling even spoke. These are my experiences I know they happened .Whether people choose to believe me,I don't mind I know it happened.