To ask about the afterlife

[el1zabeth]

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!

“The energy within us has to go somewhere”

No it doesn’t. Where does a candle go when you put it out?

Where does a fire go?

Where does the energy in a battery go once it’s gone flat?

Is there an afterlife for flames and batteries? 😏

It is called the law of conservation of energy, or the first law of thermodynamics. Its fairly well known and states that the universe itself is a closed system, so the total amount of energy in existence has always been the same. It is just the forms that energy takes are constantly changing.

Conservation of energy as a western thought seems to work quite well with those eastern thoughts around life energy. States change, the way energy holds together changes: the energy itself does not.

I really cannot get on with the simplicity of Christianity: there are similar ideas around god and energy flowing back and forth buried deep within it, but it has been used, abused and taken over by the western needs to maintain existing social order and hierarchies. That is the principle reason, in fact, why we're suddenly hearing a lot more about it again from the higher social classes, in my view.

We're not fire nor are we batteries, lol

@xJodiex - nor is there any reason to believe we survive after death. Lol.

🙄

Yes i definitely believe there is. Our existence would be pointless otherwise. There’s so many things we don’t know yet, but our brains aren’t working to full capacity in our earthly bodies. We are here to learn, but we can’t comprehend the universe and how it started. There’s an intelligence, (God) who created us.

I lost my husband at 38.
People say to me “when you meet again” meaning the afterlife and I fucking hate the thought of it. Don’t get me wrong I would do anything to see him again i still love him
Dearly. However realistically in my head I am a changed person so would we still get on? He was 38 and gorgeous hopefully I will be older but can’t see him liking me if I’m an old woman. Is he up there’s judging me on everything that i do? It’s almost impossible
To move forward thinking that he is there somewhere watching this all.

It’s almost impossible
To move forward thinking that he is there somewhere watching this all.

So sorry for your loss, but I truly believe that people who have died won’t suffer any anguish (or it wouldn’t be heaven) looking down on their loved ones. Heaven will be a place of perfect peace and happiness, we won’t join our loved ones looking old, but how we are to them as they remember us best.

I believe we will all be beautiful, both inside and out, but not in the same way as here on earth. All accounts I have read about “near death experiences” describe meeting loved ones as they were before illness and old age, and feel the most exquisite love and peace all around them. It will be nothing like it is on earth, we won’t feel, alone, rejected, sad or any of the things that burden us on earth. All our pain and earthly concerns will be gone. I don’t think we’ll just feel love for our earthly family, but for everyone, we will all be as one.

So what's the difference between the energy in a fire or battery or that in the human body?

Gods! I just had a horrible thought. I hope there isn't an afterlife. Can you imagine the endless fucking bickering about Brexit that must be going on there if there is. And It'll go on FOREVER - whichever way it turns out.

We're not fire nor are we batteries, lol grin

You've never seen The Matrix then! Many past metaphysical explanations suggested everything was built on fire: I've heard Judaeo-Christianity is may have started with a fire god. If you're asking me for a precise account of exactly what type of energy Japanese ki might be, sorry, no can do, I'm not a physicist. There are various accepted forms of energy in human bodies: thermal, kinetic, chemical and electrical, that's not in doubt.

@RedSheep73 not true. Atheism is the absence of a belief in deities. You can believe in an afterlife and not believe in a god or gods. They are two different things.

@AllStarBySmashMouth Ah, but the op's post read like she was imagining a heaven type scenario, not some kind of ghost-energies wafting around-new agey kind of afterlife. And I would disagree with you - I don't think atheism does just mean nonbelief in gods, I do think nonbelief in all supernatural entities including ghosts and afterlives is included. It's about rationality and looking for answers in the real world, not an imaginary one.