What happens to us when we die, is that the end?

Question

Do we know when we are dead?

Answer 1

If you are Christian, u go to Heaven and rule with God, otherwise, you go to Hell.

Answer 2

Very few people around here have actually been dead. So while they may find the idea of oblivion comforting, they would be lying if they claimed to actually know.

Likewise, just as even thousands of living persons cannot be expected to know about everything that is life, how many dead people would it take to know about everything that is death? The are some who have fantastic near-death experiences, and some who experience nothing. We could always write off one side or the other as complete fantasy, but this hardly seems like a rational approach to me.

After all... what is existance? Isn't it at one level the ability to affect and change things? Many people are still influencing events and behaviour of others long after they die. In some cases, for millenia. At least in this sense, then, it would be absurd to assert that death was the end.

What CAN be certainly said is that it's the 'end of the world as you know it'. Your body dies and is reclaimed by the environment. But if gross physical bodies is all we are, then we would have no more meaning than any other gross physical body, would we? What would be the point of anything? Few people live their lives as if they were meaningless... suggesting that deep down, nobody can accept this idea as a true one.

I find that most of the dead people I communicate with are aware that they're dead. They are usually pretty calm folks, and seem to enjoy their new perspective on things. But I can provide you with little in the way of concrete evidence that this communication occurs, so make of it what you wish.

Answer 3

I died on the operating table, twice.my heart stopped beating and i was very nearly pronounced dead (i was in a coma for 17 days), when i died it was nothing. black. like being asleep with no dream. no bright shining light at the end of the tunnel or all that crap, just nothingness. when i came round i didn't know that id even been anywhere. so i think that because Ive been there that i know first hand.
i believe that heaven and hell were made up to hold the people down 100's of years ago and the fear of god began a civilisation and order amongst the people to bring about good and evil
i think that one day a highly intelligent individual wrote a very clever book called the bible and that became the rules of life. thing is if there is life after death we will never ever know anything other than just to cease to be.

Answer 4

How do you reconcile the xth version of the afterlife with different, conflicting versions of other religions? I suppose eah believe their religion is the only real, True Religion. Sure. Just like all the others do too. Consider the following:

Fact: the human race has been around for hundreds of thousands of years.

Fact: the concepts of an afterlife, of gods, spirits, etc. have only been around for a few millenia.

Fact: these concepts were invented and promulgated by ignorant barbarians as an attempt to explain the world around them, before there was a such thing as science or epistemology.

Fact: most of the books of the bible were written by people who were never there, as second- or third-hand accounts decades or even centuries after the events they claim to tell about.

Fact: the books of the bible have been heavily edited over the centuries, with passages or even whole books being re-written or omitted to fit the theological and political climates of the time.

Fact: the books of the bible have also been subject to extensive errors, misinterpretations, and differences of opinion in interpretation as they are translated from one language to another and from that to yet another language.

Knowing all this, how can ANY religion be viewed as anything BUT the invention of men? I know this may not be what you want to hear, and I doubt I'll do much harm to your faith; faith is remarkably impervious to reason. But we atheists are nothing like what the church leaders are fond of charicaturing us as. We are freethinking individuals who are able to see the Big Picture without the blinders of religion. We do not live in despair, quite the contrary; freethought is incredibly refreshing, liberating, and empowering. We are not nihilists, but lovers of life who see it as all the more precious because there's no eternal afterlife. We do not need the bribe of heaven or the threat of hell to be good people, we believe in being good for its own sake. Through science and reason, we know more about the true nature of the world we live in than your religion could ever hope to offer.

While it might be nice to think we'll see our long dead relatives, without proof, its just fanciful thinking.

Answer 5

As a Christian the answer is yes. As a humanist the answer is I think so. As a follow of Sylvia Brown...huh?

We DO continue to exist. It has been said that with our birth we have begun to die and I think that is so. Once I was told of a man who wished that we were born old and grew young until such time as we would vanish in an orgasm. In a since, we pass from this life, as we once did from our mother's womb, into the next life, filled with exciting experiences the same as at our birth.

Golden Streets? I think not.

Floating on clouds all day? Heaven forbid.

"...you are known even as you know". What a beautiful thought, tomorrow filled with new jobs, new expectations and new lives. Never ending, never forgetting and never hurting again.

Answer 6

This is what happens when we die and obviously we don't know we're dead. We like to think that we are alive. Yeah, everything is under control. Oh, will I die and that's it? This brings so much anxiety it eventually becomes almost unbearable, nightmares, fear.

But you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free from all these fears, and you will be able to sleep again. The kingdom of God is within you, pass that fear, deep within, that wonderful place we call heaven is IN you. When you get there, you will fear no more.

There's only one way to get there, and the gate is narrow, and nobody can do it for you. You gotta dig your way into this yourself.

Good luck with that!0!

Answer 7

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.
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Perhaps if death is kind, and there can be returning,
We will come back to earth some fragrant night,
And take these lanes to find the sea, and bending
Breathe the same honeysuckle, low and white.

We will come down at night to these resounding beaches
And the long gentle thunder of the sea,
Here for a single hour in the wide starlight
We shall be happy, for the dead are free.

Answer 8

I briefly died. I was in the white light. It was the most peace I have ever felt. There were no human emotions. No fear. No insecurities. No need. No hesitations. I thought....."cool this is the day I die. Not so bad, although I thought I would be older than this" I was perfectly OK with the fact that I was dead.
then I saw my gran daughters face in my mind and I saw my grandson in my mind. Then when I saw my youngest granddaughter in my mind I had a moment of hesitation. That is when I heard the doctor call my name and pleaded with me to come back. I fought it. Finally I opened my eyes. Then decided the white light was where I wanted to be. But, there was only darkness when I shut my eyes again. I felt pain again. I felt anxiety. I was sick and scared. I never regret coming back. I figure that because of my one grandaughter I needed to keep living.

I believe strongly that there is a spiritual realm where we are no longer earthly beings, but we are in another dimension with the Creator. No one can know what this means. It is only when we get there that we understand our after life.

Answer 9

Philosophically this question cannot be answered. If you were to remove the religious ideology from the equation there would still be no answer. You cannot say if you would feel or are capable of feeling pain, as there has never been a recorded scientifically proven case of someone returning from the dead to answer. If you like the idea of there being something after death that's your prerogative to believe, who am I to say there isn't.

Answer 10

when we die we get buried, to be eaten by the worms,or burnt,and become ash and smoke. the atoms, that once we were, get recycled into something else. in this way we never die, just transform. the only ending is the ending of our thoughts,so no, we do not know we are dead, just as we do not know we are alive.

Answer 11

Since we are souls that have bodies, when we die it is only our physical manifestation, our body, that dies. In our essence we are still intact. We wouldn't know that we are dead because who/what we really, are is not dead. That aspect of us never dies.
You may believe this if you want, or not.