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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Life after death?

187 replies

ChooChooBeanz · 07/10/2018 13:14

I was raised Catholic but have atheist beliefs, to me there is no proof of life after death ....but I desperately wish there was.

I wish I could believe that I will see all my relatives again, I miss them all so much & it’s so hard to think and once you die that’s it 😢

So AIBU to ask you all if you have seen anything that makes u believe in a life after death?

OP posts:
themuttsnutts · 09/10/2018 11:00

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Holy Sonnets: Death, be not proud
BY JOHN DONNE
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

dawnmist · 09/10/2018 11:20

Time to go i think, before it descends into the usual nit picking. My statement wasn’t a ridiculous assumption at all, what astounds me more than anything is how small minded some people are who only believe in what they can actually see and refuse to think about the bigger picture. There are more things than what can be seen. At the very least there should always be the benefit of the doubt. I think it shows a lack of intelligence if there isn’t. If renowned atheist physicists and scientists often have doubts this just proves my point.

IAcceptCookies · 09/10/2018 11:50

At the very least there should always be the benefit of the doubt

Again you're only applying this to those who take a different view to you. You can't take that position in a discussion and expect to be taken seriously.

If it's OK for you to say "I know for sure" then it's OK for those with an opposing view ; if you think others must be open to being proven wrong (and scientists and rational people generally ARE) then so must you.

DragonGoby · 09/10/2018 11:55

I don’t believe in life after death. I’m totally fine with the concept that this is all there is.

Padparadscha · 09/10/2018 12:06

My statement wasn’t a ridiculous assumption at all, what astounds me more than anything is how small minded some people are who only believe in what they can actually see and refuse to think about the bigger picture. There are more things than what can be seen. At the very least there should always be the benefit of the doubt. I think it shows a lack of intelligence if there isn’t.

If there is more to life than can be seen, then those who believe this should actually prove it for once. We can’t live with our heads in the literal clouds, giving anything illogical the ‘benefit of the doubt’. I refuse to give anything in this life that has no factual bases any serious consideration, as it’s an utter waste of time if you do not follow through prove it,

Since the beginning of our time, humanity has been stuck between those who believe in the magical and those who pursue the scientific methods of hypothesis/evidence/conclusion. Science has disproved magic and miracles on many occasions, when has it ever been definitely proven that it was certainly a deity’s intervention that was responsible for an event rather than a more logical ex’s?

As for being small minded, this old argument from the religious is both wrong and ironic. Science expands on continuous learning, and will change when new information is found. Belief will always staunchly stay the same, it’s as narrow as you can get as an ideology. The whole premise is to be unquestioning, to accept the information given to you as fact but with no foundation of proof.

themuttsnutts · 09/10/2018 12:46

What is the scientific explanation to spirits and the like? At the moment, we have no explanation either way

Padparadscha · 09/10/2018 12:49

What is the scientific explanation to spirits and the like? At the moment, we have no explanation either way

Probably the same one they have for fairies and unicorns.

Gottagetmoving · 09/10/2018 13:03

I think some people need to believe there is something after death because they just can't get their head around not existing any more or that life for loved ones has ended.
I don't see he we are any different to anything else that dies. Fruit will fall and rot away but leave it's seeds to produce more life, which is basically what we do.
We are just a tiny, tiny part of the universe and here very briefly.

themuttsnutts · 09/10/2018 13:06

Ok, so which explanation would that be? Does it have a name/theory?

How do you know it's the same explanation?

Padparadscha · 09/10/2018 13:10

How do you know it's the same explanation?

Because in all the hundreds of years since humans started inventing fairytales, there hasn’t been one tiny bit of definitive proof of spirits, deities, fairies, unicorns, goblins or ghouls. Not one bit of ‘this is indisputable’ evidence.

DogInATent · 09/10/2018 13:10

Concentrate on life before death.

Life after death is a distraction to maintain the status quo in society and encourage you to put up with all the shit and inequality in the promise that everything after death will make up for you obedience.

Do you play the Lottery?

LifesABeachCoaster · 09/10/2018 13:12

I was driving along yesterday and saw a white feather on the road. That confirmed to me that there is life after death and all my relatives and friends (the ones I liked anyway) will be waiting for me when I die

huh? how?

If there is more to life than can be seen, then those who believe this should actually prove it for once and vice versa?

themuttsnutts · 09/10/2018 13:16

Fairies and unicorns belong in a different category as they are now known to be mythological creatures.

What we need to know is how to prove either the spirit is connected to the body or it exists independently.

We need to prove the exact origin of all of our thoughts and feelings with a theory. It doea not belong with the unicorn theory because we already know the answer to that one.

Unless we can access them and travel with them wherever they go, we can't say definitively what happens after death and back it up with science. At the moment, we can't prove life after death but we cannot disprove it either

IAcceptCookies · 09/10/2018 13:35

Fairies and unicorns belong in a different category as they are now known to be mythological creatures

The majority of irrational beliefs throughout history, e.g. Greek/Roman/Pagan gods have been dismissed as mythology; current religious ideas will be too, some day.

What we need to know is how to prove either the spirit is connected to the body or it exists independently

You assume a universal belief in a spirit. Confused.

At the moment, we can't prove life after death but we cannot disprove it either

Then why believe it? It's a irrational belief based on nothing, no evidence. A triumph of wishful thinking.
It's a stronger position to disbelieve due to lack of evidence than it is to believe despite lack of evidence.

CookPassBabtridge · 09/10/2018 13:37

I believe we just end. We are made of flesh and bone and we just die. This is what I believe but I wish it wasn't so.. I can't believe I will never see my dad again. It's horrifying when I really think about it, and I try not to.

DogInATent · 09/10/2018 13:41

*I was driving along yesterday and saw a white feather on the road. That confirmed to me that there is life after death and all my relatives and friends (the ones I liked anyway) will be waiting for me when I die

huh? how?*

@LifesABeachCoaster - it's a standard medium/clairvoyant piece of BS. I've seen it on Facebook posts, I've heard it from people that have attended clairvoyant evenings. It's a standard line that some time after you read this message/attend this session you'll see a white feather and that will be a message that your gran/mum/goldfish is watching over you. I have heard this from some very intelligent people who truly believe this crock of ----.

See www.google.co.uk/search?q=white+feather+after+life

All it means is that a pigeon had a short, violent, beyond death experience with the front of a truck.

IAcceptCookies · 09/10/2018 13:48

I was driving along yesterday and saw a white feather on the road. That confirmed to me that there is life after death and all my relatives and friends (the ones I liked anyway) will be waiting for me when I die

I assume the original poster of the above was taking the piss. At least, I bloody hope they were!

Padparadscha · 09/10/2018 13:49

Fairies and unicorns belong in a different category as they are now known to be mythological creatures.

Ok, how do you know for sure that fairies and unicorns are definitely mythological, and spirits and deities are not? What scientific evidence do you have to show fairies and unicorns don’t exist?

blurredspeech · 09/10/2018 13:58

I was dead once, for about two minutes, and there was nothing at all. No tunnel, no light, no loved ones gone before or anything at all.

Well, you weren't really dead or you wouldn't be typing your comment here.

SummerGems · 09/10/2018 14:06

IMO religion is a man made construct invented to A, reassure those who are afraid that there is nothing after death,and B, keep them in their place. IMO the majority of people of a faith believe not because of a positive assumption but because of the fear of what will happen to them if they don’t, e.g. if you don’t worship god/Jesus/ then you will not have eternal life.

For me, even if there were a God I would not want to worship him. In life we have expectations of our parents to do the best by us. I can’t imagine telling my son some of the things the bible preaches and then expecting him to keep loving me, or worse, telling him that unless he loves me then bad things will happen to him. And yet those of a faith embrace those ideals in a heavenly being. No thanks.

I think we would all like to think that there is something more after death because the idea that we will one day just not exist is not something we can comprehend. But the reality is that if there is just nothing after we die we won’t know because... well... we’ll be dead.

headinhands · 09/10/2018 15:05

I can't believe I will never see my dad again. It's horrifying when I really think about it, and I try not to.

I hear you. I've just welled up thinking that about my dsis. But then, I've got her with me in my head and heart. And she lives with me through her memories.

themuttsnutts · 09/10/2018 15:23

By spirit, I mean personality, thoughts, feelings - that which is definitely a part of you that exists but is not flesh. We know where the body goes - it rots and goes back into nature but where do the intangible bits go?

Padparadscha · 09/10/2018 15:28

We know where the body goes - it rots and goes back into nature but where do the intangible bits go?

Same place they were before we existed I should imagine. To a place of nothingness.

Topseyt · 09/10/2018 15:42

I'm on the fence here. I'm not religious. I fit more into the category of agnostic.

I would be comforted to think that there was some sort of an afterlife, I don't really want to think of just nothingness and completely ceasing to exist.

I can't prove it one way or another though. The only people who can are those who are already dead.

That doesn't mean that an afterlife of some sort doesn't exist. Equally, it doesn't mean that it does either. I don't know.

themuttsnutts · 09/10/2018 15:51

You should imagine. Yours is a belief, too, just like religion. You don't actually know if this nothingness exists - or doesn't