To ask if you believe in an afterlife?

[DisneyDisney]

I don’t know if I do? I want to, I lost my dad (he was young relatively speaking) and never ever seeing him again is a painful thought, we only had 30 years (we never have enough time though so we) but I don’t know if i actually believe in one, specifically in the theistic sense.

do you believe in one ? What do you believe?

Sorry about your dad.

I lost my mum relatively young too, but no, I don’t believe in the afterlife, I think we have to keep peoples memories alive and make the most of the time we have.

I don't believe.

No, personally I don't. However I do like to think about it in terms of a physical process - as our bodies decompose, the atoms are returned to the environment and become part of something else. So in that sense we remain part of the universe.

Yes, Ive saw a ghost, it was day time and definitely saw an apparition for a few seconds. Very unnerving experience.

The same for me for almost all of my life. The last couple of years though I’ve started thinking a lot about reincarnation, with the same sort of thought process that our energy has to continue. It is probably just a comfort thing for me.

I don't believe in an afterlife, but I respect those who do have those beliefs.

Similarly to a PP, I think we're all atoms/part of the earth and become part of that again.

But I think your 'soul' is your personality which is created by your brain and once your body is gone, the person is too.

I'd love to believe otherwise, though.

No.

I dont believe in a pre life either

Sorry about your Dad

I had lost both parents by that age too and I want so much to believe when people say I will be with them again one day.

I don't know what to believe or if I believe in anything. I like the idea of reincarnation. I like to think they will live a new life, hopefully an easier and happier one.

Sorry about your dad. I lost my own too in my 20s and was so envious of my mum's beliefs because I'd have found it such a comfort. I don't believe there is anything once we die. I think there's just nothing, like before you are born. I'd never say that to my mum though. I mean I hope my dad's there waiting for her when the time comes but I guess if he's not, she'll never know.

Thank you and same to you and your mum!

I think that’s part of the appeal of the afterlife isn’t it, being able to make up previously squandered time, heal from regrets etc. For me it is at least

Humans don't tend to believe in things they don't, they can pretend or force themselves to try often that doesn't bring about belief.

I have changed what I believe in and don't believe in through life.

I do believe in an afterlife with Hell, Heaven, purgatory and where Angels aren't human or female.

Love these threads.

It's scary to think there's just nothing but then I also think I'm scared by there being something unknown that isn't just nothing?! Who knows 🤣

Death scares me which is so ridiculous but it always has. I lost 3 friends in traumatic ways when I was 14 & used to have horrid nightmares. I don't think I want to live forever but it worries me how I'll die... urgh shudders

I think it’s very unlikely.

But you know your Dad will be with you as long as you are here.

You see, I’ve never given prelife much thought, guess you can’t really have one without the other

I believe in an afterlife. I have no evidence so that's why it is a belief! I am sorry about your dad OP. I believe we exist in a very different way after death, just our spirit lives on. In another way if we have children we live on in them in a way, through our DNA.

No but I find this a comfort:

You want a physicist to speak at your funeral. You want the physicist to talk to your grieving family about the conservation of energy, so they will understand that your energy has not died. You want the physicist to remind your sobbing mother about the first law of thermodynamics; that no energy gets created in the universe, and none is destroyed. You want your mother to know that all your energy, every vibration, every Btu of heat, every wave of every particle that was her beloved child remains with her in this world. You want the physicist to tell your weeping father that amid energies of the cosmos, you gave as good as you got.
And at one point you’d hope that the physicist would step down from the pulpit and walk to your brokenhearted spouse there in the pew and tell him that all the photons that ever bounced off your face, all the particles whose paths were interrupted by your smile, by the touch of your hair, hundreds of trillions of particles, have raced off like children, their ways forever changed by you. And as your widow rocks in the arms of a loving family, may the physicist let her know that all the photons that bounced from you were gathered in the particle detectors that are her eyes, that those photons created within her constellations of electromagnetically charged neurons whose energy will go on forever.
And the physicist will remind the congregation of how much of all our energy is given off as heat. There may be a few fanning themselves with their programs as he says it. And he will tell them that the warmth that flowed through you in life is still here, still part of all that we are, even as we who mourn continue the heat of our own lives.
And you’ll want the physicist to explain to those who loved you that they need not have faith; indeed, they should not have faith. Let them know that they can measure, that scientists have measured precisely the conservation of energy and found it accurate, verifiable and consistent across space and time. You can hope your family will examine the evidence and satisfy themselves that the science is sound and that they’ll be comforted to know your energy’s still around. According to the law of the conservation of energy, not a bit of you is gone; you’re just less orderly. Amen.”
Aaron Freeman

I'm much like you.

I don't have a religious bone in my body, but I CHOOSE to believe there's an afterlife and I'll see my Dad, Grandparents, other family & friends.

it bends my mind, like I was 13 when my Grandad died, I'm now about the age he was when he died, he won't be expecting that!!

it comforts me to think I'll see them all again, and who knows, maybe I will... but I also know the reality is, probably not & Im fooling myself, but I know I am & yet it still provides some comfort. I rarely talk about it because each time I do, it chips away a little at the 'comfort fantasy'

xx

I’ve seen a few people mainly on social media who have lost loved ones and they often find signs that their loved one is still with them, i often feel quite envious of that faith, but I also find it so desperately sad. Guess what I mean is that I’d love to still feel my dads spirit or essence of whatever but I don’t

Are you? No
Do I? No
I think it’s a comforting lie.

Yes but not as in the concept of heaven and hell

I believe in an afterlife. Actually what I believe about is that our energy is transferred from our bodies when we die. I have to believe in something as I lost my lovely sister too soon, and I need to know we will meet again.

Is that not a bit like god choses who he wants to save.

see there’s certain parts of religions I can fully get behind and then others I find myself raising an eyebrow at. I think I’d quite like to have full robust faith.

I’m sorry for your loss!

i sort of feel the same way about my dad, it just can’t be the end, I just can’t never see him again. Covid ending up taking a lot from us

I don’t believe in an afterlife, but agree with @MrsTerryPratchett ’s quote.

and to misquote the late, great Sir Terry Pratchett, no man is truly dead while his name is spoken.

I believe there is something else but we are too small and insignificant to ever know what that is.