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.

Yes, Its a pretty nasty philosophy. Fine if you are at the top of the tree and waffling on about ' believing in Karma' from you r 6 bedroom townhouse in St Ives but not so good when you live in a slum as an untouchable in India and cant get a job because no one wants you in their house- because 'Karma'

I hope it wasn’t the Fred Dibnah statue as he’d have been watching you while wearing his flat cap 😆

I am now wondering which statue though.

Why click on a thread about such a topic if you find people's thoughts on it so boring?

As it happens, I actually have an post-grad degree in philosophy. Therefore it's unsurprising I find these topics interesting or have contributed to the discussion. But if you think a few posts on an internet forum about some basic ideas on the nature of existence are remotely comparable to what would pass as an "essay" even for an undergrad then I presume you don't hold any degrees in the subject and know very little about it. Maybe you'd be better off sticking to threads about cats or style and beauty or something more simplistic if you find these discussions so boring.

Although I do not believe it exists, I like to think it is like a big cocktail party with lovely canapés, where you circulate from one group to the next. Eternally.

Hey op, well I’ve never believed in it until I’ve visited mediums and tried angel boards. It’s the same as a ouija board, but I use a medium hopefully to protect me. I use to think people moved the glass until I tried it myself. I spoke to family who’d passed, it was like they was actually in the room having a conversation with me. I can’t say if there is an afterlife but I believe in something after we die. If I’m completely honest, I’d rather hope it’s like just going to sleep and not waking up.

@ghostestwiththemostest this is one of the funniest pieces of writing EVER

@ghostestwiththemostest my poor daddy died earlier this year and I cringe thinking he can see me straining the on the loo!!!!

Towards the end of her life my widowed mother had a companion who had been recently widowed. Sadly she died within two years but was very happy with him.

When he died a couple of years later his rather dim DIL said that she was very worried and upset because she was afraid that my mother would meet his wife who would be very upset that he had been involved with another woman.

I read that to but surely if there was no past we wouldn’t have a present as nothing will exist

If you're Christian, for starters, you're supposed to be the same age as Christ was when He died - 33. There's no marriage in Heaven which is a blessing if you've worked your way through a swatch of spouses. If you had none anyway, then presumably you can connect with whoever you like - but not physically of course. My understanding is that it's about progressing in terms of your character and talents; love and decency being primary. If you love animals and pets you won't be fretting that you have to care for everyone from Great-Grandma's old Tiddles (died 1930) to your last puss (via multiple four-footed other "family" members who died up to November 2023) and look after a farm's-worth of them in the next world. There will be no shops in Heaven flogging Whiskas or Kit-e-Kat, or any Kennomeat or sawdust for Hamster cages, etc... so the pets will, presumably, be self-sufficient, devoted loving family friends MINUS any labour; and, since the Good Lord in his mercy, takes care of all His flock the other side of the mortal barrier that is death - they'll never get sick either; so; - mop the sweat from your brow - no vet bills! (Who the heck even asked these questions? With ignorance so close to madness - they need sectioning!). It's all about learning; and above all, it's all about loving and trying not to do evil. Life is just a great big - actually, THE BIG - exam. We have to hope we all pass it.

Last time I looked into this I was informed there are no people there at all, only dogs. Then it all made sense!

If you're Christian, for starters, you're supposed to be the same age as Christ was when He died - 33

Where did you get this from, @Sarrho3 ?

I once directly asked the vicar about whether animals and pets go to heaven, and he said no of course not, because they don't have souls.

Well that's it, I thought. I don't want to go there then.

Yes I'd like to know the source for this proposal as well

I felt the same. But then I thought what does a vicar know, really? The early church though women had no souls. They wouldn't dare say that now, even if they still think it. If we are allowed souls and heavenly access, my ginger tom certainly is. He's the first one I'll be looking out for on the way. What's the point of heaven without animals? I intend to spend a fair bit of eternity conversing with them.

I think it's just a transfer of our energy. We'll transfer without our bodies so our understanding of our own being will be different.

@HibernianHibernator what about children? Are they meant to be 33 too?

It's very interesting that other cultures have this concept too and if you get visited by a loved one who has passed away (older loved one) in a dream, then they tend to be around that age too. Fascinating.

Where have I seen or read that? It's hard to remember as it was from different sources and, I understood, a generally accepted thing in some Christian circles. When I just Googled it there was quite a lot about 33 years old being the age of Heavenly dwellers, but nothing I could find that seemed specific. I need the time to look up more, but it's there for anyone else to investigate.

What makes my head hurt re the afterlife is predation:

If humans go to heaven then so do non-human animals. We're all the same, really.

My cat's idea of heaven would be somewhere where there are many mice, rats and birds to catch, but i can't believe these animals would be quite so thrilled at thr prospect. Do how does is play out?

• she doesn't get to spend her afterlife predating, and thus loses a huge part of what being a cat is, and doesn't get to enjoy heaven as much as other animals (seems unfair)?

• she hunts and eats replica mice, but then thus can't be as good as the real thing; stand-ins never are?

• she does hunt and eat real prey, but then they are reincarnated? Doesn't seem fair for them, and the high doses of fear and adrenaline can't be within their version of heaven.

• something else?

I have pondered this many a time and have no answers.

It's an important part of Christianity that they don't, so that man had dominion over animals, and could use them as he wishes. If they had souls, it meant they would suffer when we treated them badly or cruelly. Cats at one stage were emissaries of the Devil and were burnt alive or thrown off buildings. If they had souls then this cruelty would have been a mortal sin.

I don't have much time for Christianity given it's self serving credos. The afterlife is just one of the issues.

This thread reminds me of nothing so much as those prelates who, in past centuries wasted hours of their precious time debating and agonising over how many angels could stand on the head of a pin. Wherever we go after being here it is DIFFERENT and the whole structure of pretty well everything will be different - save that no matter where you go in this world or the next there will always be hierarchy.

In fairness, you're the person who introduced the idea that everyone is apparently 33 in some people's imaginary afterlives!

It's pretty clear to me that we are far more likely to cease to be when our bodies die, consciousness being, as far as we are aware, an aspect of embodiment, and that after lives, and religion as a whole, are human inventions to appease our inbuilt fear of death.

Ironic really, since cats were worshipped as deities by the ancient Egyptians.

I have no truck with any religion which treats animals as objects to be made use of.

My cat's idea of heaven would be somewhere where there are many mice, rats and birds to catch, but i can't believe these animals would be quite so thrilled at thr prospect. Do how does is play out?

??? I think, with the Christian concept of heaven, cats would genuinely not be interested in mice, rats or birds. Maybe they just look at dandelions flying around?

I think it fits in with the following from the Bible, as to how things are ‘ideal’- ‘The wolf will live with the lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the young goat; The calf and the young lion will graze together’.

Just popping up to say it is absolutely not the consensus view of Christianity that we are all 33 in heaven nor that animals don’t have souls/don’t go to heaven.

If it were any good, why are there so many ghosts still hanging around, even in places like Preston?