The Afterlife... How Does it Work?

[ghostestwiththemostest]

Forgive my ignorance but I am thinking of believing in the afterlife and have a few questions about the logistics....

In my mind, the afterlife consists of a nicer version of life on Earth. No death, no having to go to work, sunny with a gentle breeze, verdant, relaxing, no housework, and surrounded by loved ones. In essence, my life now only better.

However, I realise that I have oversimplified things. Assuming that I reach (fingers crossed) old age, does this mean that I will be trapped in eternity in the mind and body of an 80+ year old? Does this mean that I could potentially be sat on a sofa with my elderly mother, my elderly grandmother and my elderly children all bickering and shouting "you what??" for all of eternity. Will Heaven turn out to be akin to one of those god awful retirement communities in Florida, all golf carts and incontinent pads?

So, my biggest question is will we be the age that we die with or do you think they will let us pick our own age?
If the latter, do you think that it will be full of idiotic 15-18 year olds at a perpetual disco? If so, who is going to clean up all their shite? Will they end up irresponsibly procreating and who will be stuck dealing with it all?

What would happen if my mother decided to come back as a baby and I ended up stuck looking after her. She would deliberately be as difficult as possible by way of revenge.

Can I choose my own house and plot do you think? If pets go to Heaven (which I've always believed that they do), will I suddenly be greeted by 7 cats, 8 dogs, 11 rabbits, 4 hamsters, 100+ fish and a horse, all elderly and incontinent! That's a big commitment, particularly for an 80+ something.

Even if we are ghosts without bodies (which would be a real shame as I'd miss the cuddles), surely our spirits/personalities would remain and we would largely be fairly world weary and cantankerous. Or could we chose our spiritual age?

What if I end up with crap neighbours? What if Jeremy Beadle or Paul Daniel's live next door? There's nothing to say that you can't be both sufficiently pious to get into heaven, but also seriously annoying. In fact, most pious people I know are exactly that!

The more that I think about this, the less heavenly the dream.

Can someone please help explain the logistics of all of this. No cynics please. I want to believe. I want it to be nice and fluffy, so please don't shatter my delusions. I just need help visualising the reality of it.

My mother would also come back as a deliberately obnoxious baby from sheer spite. Perhaps we could form an afterlife mother-baby crèche?

My afterlife will be on an island fully of dogs, cats, horses, cows, sheep etc all living in peace and harmony and just a few selected family and friends. There will be no rap music and food will be abundant and free.

I'm definitely in purgatory right now. No way is this my life. Im definitely dead

Thought this might be about the Ricky Gervais comedy “Afterlife”. Disappointed. 😭 That show is really funny.

Unless you have a coin to pay Charon (the Ferryman) you will not be crossing the river Styx to the other side and will be floating around on the mortal plain unable to cross over for eternity and will end up haunting your old house and dealing with Beetlejuice

My mum was skeletal and bald when she died, far too young, of oesophageal cancer. For some months after her death, I kept having dreams of her and she had reverted to being young and healthy and sitting in the garden of our family home. She always had a different outfit on. However, what was strange was the conversations we had were about things that happened after her death. Eventually, she'd ring me from a red phone box to chat and I could see her in the box but couldn't reach her. The box got further and further away and then eventually I could barely hear her. In the last conversation she told me she was going now and the dreams stopped that day. As ridiculous as it sounds, I take comfort in that she was well again, she still had "mum things" she wanted to say and when she finished, she went off to heaven. So that's what I hope happens.

Oh my god that made me laugh aloud!

😂😂😂😂

Hahahahahahahahaha

I'm inclined to agree. I've always thought it odd that people can believe in god and heaven but immediately become derisive if one were to mention that they worship Zeus.

You need to watch The Good Place oo.

I dont want there to be an afterlife. Eternity sounds exhausting tbh.

I like the buddhist way. Nirvana is actually a release from samsara ( the cycle of life) rather than perpetually living it.

Op

You need to read 'Over My Dead Body' by Maz Evans. I think you'd really appreciate the humor.

Hopefully he takes Apple-pay now

great thread op

I vary between wanting an afterlife or just being completely dead. I know I don’t want to live my life again - Disabled and unwell the last 40ish years with good blips in between.

No thanks no reincarnation for me. Unless I come back as my beloved dog who really has the life of Riley!

Are you saying 117 billion is a myth?

So if there is one thing scarier than oblivion, it is eternal life.

What's so scary about oblivion anyway? You didn't exist for the whole of time before you were born. If there's oblivion after death, you'll be just as unaware of it then.

You sound like you’re describing The Sims.

What's so scary about oblivion anyway?

For me, it's the anticipation of oblivion that is the scary part.

@Diversion

Oo, thanks for the tip. I'll make sure that I start to carry a coin on me. That would just be my luck to get to the ferry and not have the correct change, having left my card behind.

In my mind, the afterlife consists of a nicer version of life on Earth. No death, no having to go to work, sunny with a gentle breeze, verdant, relaxing, no housework, and surrounded by loved ones. In essence, my life now only better

Think about this. If this were the case, then a lot of people would be necking themselves within the hour. Do you really believe this is realistic?

Anyone mentioned reading Will Self's 'How the Dead Live'? Might give you some ideas: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Dead_Live

Also 'Beyond Black' by Hilary Mantel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Black

I like the atoms idea (which is physically probably the truth- that your body just becomes part of something else- a tree for example, if you are buried somewhere, either as ashes or a body, you become food for something else, but I like the idea that your spirit is the same. YOu cant speak to anyone, as that would be annoyingly noisy, but you become part of the wind, or the sea and just float around, part of everything where you can see and do what you want, anywhere in the Universe. My late dad loved to travel, but wasn't able to do it when he was old. I scattered some of his ashes in the sea, and its nice to think of him wandering around on the Gulf Stream going all over the world. But really, as I think for the existence of God, who cares if it really exists or not. You'll be dead. If the thought of God or the afterlife helps you live a better and happier life on Earth, then it doesn't really matter if its true or not.

I used to be atheist and believe there was nothing after death.

Having had a period of taking psychedelics though I changed my view. I now think that it is so beyond our comprehension that saying 'it's scientifically impossible' there is life after death isn't valid. I still don't believe in any kind of God that intervenes in our every day life though, there are just energies we don't understand.

I think we become spirits, just points and slivers of coloured light, in a vast open void. We don't have concrete memories of our 'personality' or most recent life. We do however know the lessons we have learned, and what we still have to learn. Our next life is tailored towards what we still need to learn, and we are reincarnated into a situation and personality that will allow us to learn it. I think 5-6 of the people in our life reappear in future lives but in different guises, so your son now might be a close friend in another life etc.

Alternatively life as a simulation seems believable to me. We have decided the life we want to 'try' and on death return to our real selves. Though that leaves the issue of what our 'real selves' are. Could be a spirit, or humans in the far future recreating their lost world.

'Are you saying that the 117 billion is a myth?'

I read it as the myth being that there are more people alive today than ever lived. This is clearly not true. There have been many more than 8 biilion people who ever lived.

@crabbyoldbat when I was reading Beyond Black I saw ghosts everywhere. They were teeming all over the lawn. Stopped when I finished the book. Very weird. Brilliant novel, if you can bear the long descriptions of conference halls and business hotels and dull Surrey housing estates.

This is not a competition and God and the afterlife(presuming they exist) are not like political parties whose reality can be argued for and against. All posters can do is put their viewpoints on here and some may resonate with some people.

Briefly, my view:

The reality as understood within the human experience, may not be the full reality. There are so many things outside our knowledge and understanding that I don't see how anyone can argue with confidence that we should look at reality within our experience, and conclude 'this is all there is'.

Even reality as we experience it is unreliable. It has been shown that the things we perceive as solid (time and material reality) are actually something entirely different; just as we perceive the sky as blue even though it actually isn't.

Just because things are real to us doesn't make them objectively 'real' within a bigger picture. So believing in something further beyond our life experience doesn't seem a big stretch to me.

These are things that have been considered and meditated on for millennia. I think we should be really careful not to write off all previous generations as being ignorant, superstitious and not knowing any better. Anyone who thinks highly sophisticated people didn't exist throughout the past is themselves the ignorant one, and we have the benefit of earlier accumulated insights as well as our increased scientific knowledge. So presuming people in the past didn't know any better is an arrogance which does us no favours at all.