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Original poster

To ask about the afterlife

113 replies

el1zabeth · 18/10/2019 23:36

I'm hoping that someone will be able to explain to me how the whole idea of an afterlife works (if there is one) I am not religious at all, but my genuine question is this. Does everything that has ever lived, from the smallest insect to the largest animal, including dinosaurs live for eternity in the afterlife? Do they age, and if so would that mean there's a whole load of people, animals etc etc possibly millions of years old?

Also, and this is one thing that really baffles me; if I die when I'm 80 years old, well my mum died when she was 70, dad at 72 (I was mid thirties at the time) so, how then would they know who I am in the afterlife because I would be older than them when I get there or will they have aged too?
It's a lovely thought to believe that you'll meet your loved ones again, but it just doesn't make sense to think that every single thing that's ever lived since the beginning of time will be there too.
My mind is blown!

OP posts:
WineOrGinOrBoth · 21/10/2019 22:52

@ParkheadParadise Flowers I’ve read about your daughter before & feel so much for you. I hope for your sake there is an afterlife & you will see your dd again.

I think there is an afterlife but I wouldn’t want to be reincarnated. I just hope I get to go to heaven.

xJodiex · 23/10/2019 17:51

@SomeoneInTheLaaaaaounge

Thanks! I'm intrigued by it all but it's also kind of scary, lol!

I don't belong in any religion as I have many questions about them all. Jordan Maxwell talks about them a bit on youtube, interesting alternate perspective.

I just think death is not some final end where everything stops. I do think it is a shift of frequencies, where your energy continues elsewhere without your body.

KarmaStar · 23/10/2019 18:13

Hi op,
Spirit form is energy,but you can choose your ideal 'she's to live at.
If you have a look at the magazine take a break,fate and fortune,towards the back is a page by a medium(Sandrea Mosses)who contacts a loved one in the spirit world and they describe a day in their life.truly incredible to read.
Children who have passed are often cared for by grandparents etc,but to answer one of your questions,of course your family will recognise you!they will be popping by to keep an eye on you and know exactly how you look.
I appreciate many don't believe,that is their choice,of course it is.
Reading books on the subject would be the best place to answer all of your questions.

Ellisandra · 23/10/2019 18:13

I find it fascinating not that people believe in an afterlife, but that some people describe aspects with such certainty.

3000 people from 9/11 sat in a waiting room because the afterlife wasn’t ready?

Just... why? There are millions of people dying unexpectedly every day. Why would 3000 be some kind of processing nightmare? Confused

KarmaStar · 23/10/2019 18:14

Age not she's!

FabbyChix · 23/10/2019 18:28

I’m an atheist so for me once I die that’s it. I don’t fear death. We are born we die it’s really that simple.

AllStarBySmashMouth · 23/10/2019 18:36

I'm an atheist, but I believe in an afterlife. I don't see it as a religious thing. I just feel like, after millennia of stories of a hereafter, and countless tails of supernatural experiences, there must be some truth. What the afterlife is, though, I can't answer. I don't think it's a world or a parallel Earth or anything. I think our energy moves on. Our spirit. I don't know, it's hard to explain.

Maybe I don't want to believe that there is nothing after death. But what's wrong with that? If believing in an afterlife helps you deal with loss and with your own mortality, what is so bad about that?

Ultimately, nobody can answer the question until they die. And that's weirdly comforting, in its own way.

chuffoff · 23/10/2019 18:49

I think I have to be open minded and say there could be an afterlife or there couldn't be. We just don't know. I think it is a distinct possibility. We really don't have a plausible explanation for why we are here, how we are here or how the universe came to be in the first place. It is arrogance to say with confidence that there is nothing.

contentedsoul · 23/10/2019 21:51

Great post OP

Personally I think religion in all its forms is fantasy
Just a tale….a fable that was whispered between simple people. To even think that 2000+ years later people will stand and swear blind what they preach is true - despite there never being a shred of evidence to support any of these theories - shows how little we've evolved as a race.

We can put man on the moon, create AI yet somehow this buffoonery called religion lingers still. Is it not true that the kingdom of god has created more bloodshed on earth than all the famines, diseases etc etc combined.

Having said all that, there has to be something...we call it soul, but I prefer the term spark. We are nothing but flesh and bone, yet we are alive?? A jellyfish has no brain, heart or blood...yet is alive in water....take him/her out and it becomes a congealed mess??

A fascinating topic, that no one van ever answer.

PebblesOnTheMountain · 23/10/2019 22:31

Warning: I'm weird.
I don't believe in an afterlife, certainly not in the simple Christian model, but I can believe in consciousness as energy, and a universal bank of that life energy. Sometimes the energy might be assimilated into the universal bank after death: sometimes it can hold itself together and recycle. It comes from Taoist and other eastern thought patterns, sometimes the energy is called Ki. No doubt I've corrupted the idea or only understood half of it.

Ellisandra · 23/10/2019 22:39

What’s weird about that?

PebblesOnTheMountain · 23/10/2019 22:45

Well, thank you! Smile. I'm usually told I'm weird. Christianity and conformism both seem to be back on the march, and there often doesn't seem to be much room left for others.

IamHyouweegobshite · 23/10/2019 22:50

I believe that we can't just die and that's it. I feel our body is our vehicle whilst alive, and when we die, we no longer need the vehicle, but what makes us, us, lives on somewhere. Whether it's heaven, whether it's reincarnation, I don't know, but the thought of not seeing my mum, my beautiful, 18 year old goddaughter and anyone else who goes before me would be too much to bare.

Gertie75 · 23/10/2019 22:55

I don't believe in any kind of afterlife, our body dies, the brain switches off and we're gone.
I'm perfectly fine with it too, I hate the thought of hanging around for eternity, Sunday afternoons drag and the thought of living forever somewhere scares the hell out of me!

The only way we 'live on' it's via the dna we pass to our children.

StormBaby · 23/10/2019 23:01

Energy in all its forms cannot be destroyed, only changed or assimilated. The energy within us has to go somewhere. Where that is, who knows?

LilyPinkNoah · 23/10/2019 23:03

My aunt commit suicide (sorry triggering). My younger cousin who did not know her well was only around 13 when she passed away. Started getting visions and vivid dreams of my aunt. My aunt was reaching out to her for help.

Obviously my cousin was only a child at the time and also a very young 13 year old that - she had much to do with our mutual aunt.

My cousin would talk vividly that my aunt kept telling her she was stuck and they wouldn't let her through - she was stuck in a room and wanted to enter a holy house but the people of the holy house would not let her in because she had taken her own life.

These nightmares/visions went on for years then one day my cousin said she's gone she's gone - and then the visions stopped and she said she had helped her to get through that she prayed for her to leave her alone and that she had to pray to help her to get through.

LilyPinkNoah · 23/10/2019 23:04

*Didn't have much to do with our aunt

RedSheep73 · 23/10/2019 23:06

Op, if you are not religious at all, then there is no afterlife...that's part of what not being religious means. I'm now an atheist, and I am sure death is the end. No afterlife. But when I was a Christian, I believed heaven was only for those who were saved, not those who were not religious at all. They don't get an afterlife, unless you also believe in hell, which not all christians do. And even if you did, you wouldn't be having joyful reunions there.

But I think the standard answer is, it's the essence of each person that lives on, and your essence and your loved ones essences will magically recognise each other and the laws of time and space do not apply because god bla bla bla.

Don't twist yourself up in knots over this. No one actually knows anything about any afterlife. Concentrate on living a good life.

TSSDNCOP · 23/10/2019 23:08

I think it is a comfort to those that need it to be so; does it really matter to the non-believers that others have a need for that comfort? None of us will really know until the moment after our last moment.

Butterflycookie · 23/10/2019 23:09

I never believed in heaven or hell etc. I always thought it was for those who couldn’t cope with death. I’ve always though when you die that’s it. However, I recently lost my cousin. And the idea of them just being dead and never seeing them again is something that I can’t deal with. In my religion we believe in reincarnation ...I don’t know much about it. It sure is easier to cope with death if you believe in heaven and that you will meet them again.

quincejamplease · 23/10/2019 23:19

everyone needs to ask God for forgiveness

Nah, he needs to ask my forgiveness for the horrific things that have been inflicted on me.

Proselytising is grim.

Woodlandwitch · 23/10/2019 23:21

I believe in the afterlife and reincarnation.

Not in the religious sense but in a way my mind has made it plausible

Woodlandwitch · 23/10/2019 23:23

Ps - I don’t believe in a heaven as such. I am not religious.
But that doesn’t stop me having my own beliefs of what happens after we die

Woodlandwitch · 23/10/2019 23:25

I think @PebblesOnTheMountain ‘a analogy is a similar concept to when I beleive

Cruddles · 23/10/2019 23:45

My mother almost died when i was young. She floated out of her body and looked down on the hospital staff working to keep her alive, she felt content, at peace. She then looked at my sister and i and said she couldn't leave us, so floated back into her body and came to.

She still doesn't believe in an afterlife. She thinks this is just the brains way of putting itself to rest, a burst of adrenaline if you like, but sometimes not all the wires are getting the same message, so people come back from near death experiences.