death and an afterlife?

Question

I personally do not believe in an afterlife or a "god" of any kind. I am a very scientific thinker that way... I believe that when you die everything shuts down, your body stops, brain activity stops, heart stops... so nothing can run anymore and you die. That's it...

but I would really like to know what everyone else thinks happens when you die.... so please.... let me know.....!

Answer 1

One important fact of science is that energy never goes away...it changes form. When I think of my "essence" or "soul", i think of it much like the energies and impulses that make their way through my body and nervous system. When you die, that energy has to go somewhere...it doesn't just die with you.

I've had a few too many experiences with my deceased mother and stepson making things happen to believe there's "nothing beyond".

Answer 2

I am a computer engineer. The scientific side of me is great for questioning the spritual side and vice versa. The body is a living mechanism. When the heart stops the brain carries on until it starves for oxygen. But what gives us this life essence? What gives living things the intrinsic will to survive? Scientifically speaking, energy cannot be destroyed. So when the body stops where does the energy go? I believe this energy is the soul. Whether the soul is reincarnated or not is a philosophical question for another thread, but I choose to believe that this is a possibility. Ive always been intrigued by past life regression. Many people have repressed memories that are not consistent with their current lives. How then does one explain existence? As a man of science I never say never. Rather I always ask why. As a man of religion I never ask why. Rather I always say thanks. (then I ask why and go look for answers) ;o)

Answer 3

Salam!

I am a Muslim so i can tell you from a Islamic point of you.
First of all, i hope that you would really reconsider your beliefs about God.

Death:
Dying Moment
When a person is dying Shaytan (satan) comes to one of his side and tries to convince him to disbelieve in God by telling the person to believe in him as God. The person with a low iman (faith) will submit. And the one with strong iman (faith) will not submit to him. And on the other side, the dying person will see the angel of death. For the disbeliever the angel will come in the most scariest form and to a believer, he will come in the most handsome figure.

Grave
Once the person is in the grave, 2 angels (munkir and nakir) will come to him to question him. The angels will be in either a scary or a handsome face depending on the person's deeds and beliefs. They will ask him/her these 3 questions:
Who is your Rabb (Lord)?
What is your Deen (Religion)?
Who is the last Prophet (and that person will see Prophet Muhammad peace be upon him) ---- a believer will recognize him and a disbeliever won't.
So the one with belief will answer these easily and the disbeliever will have no clue.

Waiting in the Grave
After the questioning the person will either be punished until the Day of Judgment (when Allah will decide our fate --- heaven or hell) or rest.

There's a lot. But i hope this brief description is of benefit to you.

Answer 4

I think everything is belief and perception about afterlife and god until someone directly experiences this stuff for themselves. There are a very very small percentage of people in the last couple of thousand years who have sufficiently trained their minds to the point where the psychological self dropped away and their experience was such that all duality was seen as illusory (and concepts such as life, birth, death, afterlife, soul, reincarnation, rebirth, karma, heaven, hell, god, etc. all became meaningless). Because the experience is completely non-dualistic, it's impossible to describe. But all experiencers walk away with the same result: a direct realization that answers the questions of life and death which makes them incredibly joyous. But, because our self concept is so strong (one realizes how strong and subtle it is when one starts working on oneself), it takes a great deal of effort and 99.99999% of us (especially me) don't want to give up our psychological selves. So ... the answer to the question is that anyone who labels themselves or attaches themselves to any position on this is engaging in beliefs and concepts which are all untrue. The only way to resolve this is to have a direct experience (3 Pillars of Zen provides a good description of this).

Answer 5

I don't really like the term "Afterlife" because that makes it sound like it's a Heaven or Hell kind of thing, and I don't believe in either of those concepts. But I don't think it's too much of a stretch to believe that at death, whatever's left of us -- our consciousness, energy, spirit, whatever you want to call it -- just moves on to whatever lies after this. I don't think there's anything religious about it, really... I think that this world we live in now is just one step in a series of many, and we're all moving along the same path, trying to gain as much knowledge and wisdom as possible. I don't believe that everything ends altogether at death, and I try my best to take a scientific approach to this subject... but I suppose we'll all find out for sure someday.

Answer 6

First if this life is all we have, then what's the worth of living? there's no point to life. Our is a waste. But there tends to be something out there that's unexplainable that says there's more to live for. We know it's possible for a body to live without a life, also called "Brain dead". The body is fine but where's the life, the soul? Second, can you imagine no life after death. although there are many things in this universe we can't explain, we can at least imagine and guess. death is not one of them unless you believe in something afterwords. Even if all it is, is a spark of energy that returns to where it came from, there has to be something more that drives us to live and progress. At the very least you need to consider that no life after death is just as plausible as life after death. And many very top scientists do believe in life after death in some form.

Answer 7

it is something like this, we are here to evolve in consciousness, consciousness is unity and diversity, almost synonymous with evolution. As humanity evolves we become more unified and accept diversity without judgment. This is one of religions job, to teach love and forgiveness. When we die our consciousness does not die, the level of love/unity we have learned. The hate, anger, shame, and pride etc. is part of that lack of unity in our consciousness. It must be purified, this purification state is the after life of hell, on the other hand if we have evolved our personal consciousness to be pure (loving and non-judgmental) then our afterlife is pleasant. The egocentric/selfish part of us (which is oppsed to unity) does not live for very long after death as i said it is purified.
When we die we are still intact as a thinking entity, call it the energy of life, Our emotional composition is the most important part of our afterlife.

The purpose of humanty is to evolve into one being of consciousness, can you imagine what we would be capable of being united in love as brothers and sisters. We would be a God entity.

Answer 8

Grandma Susie is wrong when she said that you will go to heaven or hell and that is biblical. That is not biblical. In the bible it says that:
For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing" (Ecclesiastes 9:5 RSV You are dead you don't think or move until the second coming of Christ, the people that had died in Christ will rise and the ones that are still alive that live their lives according to Gods will, will go up to heaven. I can go on but the best and true answer is in the Holy Bible.

Answer 9

I think there's a lot more to the idea of life continuing after the physical death than just wishful thinking or fear of dying. I believe the life source slips into another form, on another plane.

Answer 10

Science has not yet figured out that in our bodies there is this thing called a Soul or Spirit and that it is this which makes us different from all other created things and that it is our Soul our Spirit that bring us in communion and in a personal relationship with God. It is our soul/spirit that seek to be with God.