What do you think happens when we die?

[themonsteratemyspacebar]

I'm an athiest but studied AS level Religious Studies at school as i am fascinated by other peoples religions, thoughts and reasonings.

Now every religion and person on this earth has their own theory on what happens. Whether it be God, nothing, heaven and hell etc.

But what everyone didn't seem to understand is that there is no proof at all as to whether there is something or there is nothing. Nobody knows or will know until they die. At which point if there is nothing, then we won't know anyways

I dont want this to turn into a bun fight and i am respectful of all peoples thoughts. Each to their own etc. So what do you think happens?

I do believe we are spiritual. I think on death the spirit separates from the body, but I don't think it goes anywhere, other than where it exists already.

Ah, no, I didn't mean anything special. I meant only what I said, I just said maybe cos I'm not a scientist and I didn't want to write like I knew everything in case I was wrong and folks would go pah, you're talking out your arse, energy isn't used again

I believe there is something after death, im not sure what, but definatly something!

People that think once your dead your dead are to be not awakened, yet :)

I believe like Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita - our bodies are as clothes that we discard.

I'm catholic, raised that way and returned to it as a matter of practice. However, I always believed in reincarnation since very young and thought my body fairly incidental. It's all about the consciousness.

Obviously one cannot find the eternal in the material. The material is in constant flux. Our bodies constantly change, yet we always feel like ourselves. Odd isn't it. Where is ourselves. Who is ourselves? What is this that feels like 'me?'

This is why the 'who am I?' meditation is so foundational. Whether you figure out who you are or not, you are bound to notice you are not your body. Your identity is not located there, and is not an object, like everything else that is material.

So I may not know where I'm headed exactly after death, but I don't see why I would become an object when I haven't been an object yet.

Your soul dies, but memories remain alive with your loved ones.

Your body rots and feeds the earth (if buried). There is no hell, or paradise. If I was cremated I would like my body to be used to fuel the electricity of the crematorium because its a bit more environmentally friendly.

That's all folks. End if my era.

atheist

I think we die into God. What that's like, I don't know -- only one person has ever come back, and he didn't spend his resurrected life giving detailed descriptions, but in encouraging his disciples to build the kingdom of God here on earth. But when we die, we die into God and not, thank God, into nothingness.

To add, that this doesn't make death not terrible. Death is terrible: the end of my physical existence on earth, the end of the me that I've been being all my life, the extinguishing of all my mortal self. The only thing I have to hold against the knowledge that I will have to go into that cold oblivion is the hope that death has been conquered, and that after death, I will be in, with God. I don't have certainty about that, but I have hope.

Niminy - i don't quite understand what you mean by 'die into God'?
As in we become part of him or something along those lines do you mean?
Sorry if i sound ignorant but maybe you could explain it for me if you don't mind?

I know a chap who was brought up as a Catholic. His belief is that when he dies we all cease to exist, so this universe exists purely to amuse him. I like his take on death.

Monsteratemyspacebar: God is beyond space and time, life and death, dark and light. After death we will be in his eternity, which is him. We will be with him and in him.

What exexpat said. Only it was my daughter who died, age 9. That's all, folks, everything else is made up to assuage our fears about the certainty that is death.

I believe in life after death. It makes sense to me about being held accountable for the wrong and evil actions, and reaping the reward for kindness, endless sacrifices and good actions. It gives me great comfort believing I will b reunited with loved ones in the next world.

I find it difficult to accept that a person who was wronged and treated so badly in this world may die without seeing real happiness, and that they will simply rot and become nothing. At the same time we see murderers, individuals commit the worst of crimes to others and children, who occasionally are never brought to justice, and can never be sentenced (look at J. Saville). I believe they have to face the consequences of their actions in the afterlife.

I choose to believe that "we are not bodies with souls, we are souls with bodies" and our physical body is a house for our soul that enables us to exist within the physical plane.
When our house is no longer inhabitable, we become pure spirit, in another dimension perhaps (like the baby in womb analogy, something beyond our earthly comprehension).
I have no proof obv, but I like the idea.

Sam Parnia is doing some fascinating research horizonresearch.org/

Thanks Bella - thats my bedtime reading sorted for tonight

I believe when you die your body dies but your spirit lives on and you do meet up with passed on relatives/ friends. I am really good friends with a medium and she has told me loads to bolster my belief. And since losing my mum I have had a lot of strange things happen like my name called and no one around and I knew it was my mum as she shortened my name and only her said it there has been other things too. But that's my opinion I respect others opinions.

I believe that we do not die, we simply change form- we are spiritual beings living in a physical body and wen that body gets old and dies we carry on living. I dnt think we go anywhere as such, I believe we have always been here and we are at the moment being able to experience a physical world through our physical bodies.

I think our consciousness is individual- whatever a person believes will happen when they die, will happen.

Why is there a need to have the same experience as another person? Or experience of life is our own, why not death?

tethersend I'm with you....i think its about what you personally believe too.

1944 that was a lovely post. I've been having a tough time recently battling with the life-after-death thing, and I have been searching for some positive experiences of death IYSWIM.
I've also heard from a nurse that when a patient dies, she can feel the ages come down to take them. Have you had any experience of that?

When my grandma was dying, she kept saying she could see a little boy; and when a Great Uncle died recently, he kept going an about a dog, as if he thought there was one in the room.

For what it's worth, I don't actually believe in spirits at all, but I was strangely comforted by the sightings those relatives had in their dying days, as it clearly brought some comfort to them.

Thank you for your posts. Reassuring. I know I will face deaths of loved ones in the next few years and I will need to be strong...

Tbh I think that's just it and you cease to exist but at the same time I find it hard to believe that I won't exist. I worry it'll be boring . seriously though I just cannot get my head around the fact that I'll just be gone and never have another thought.