What do you think happens when you die?

Question

I know that nobody can truely know for sure, but I'm truely scared of death.

If nothing happens when you die, it's just blackness for eternity. And eternity is a long time, and you're soon forgotten. I can't even wrap my mind around how long forever is.

If you go to heaven or something of the sort, sure you're happy and with people you love, but don't you think you'd get bored? Remember, we're talking FOREVER here.

If you're reincarnated, then everything that you've loved and all the great memories you have are forgotten.

I need some clarity in this subject, any answers are welcome.

Answer 1

When it comes to death, everything requires a "leap of faith"...none of these beliefs can possibly be "proven" so you have to decide how far and in which direction you are willing to leap!

If "nothing" happens when you die, then how would you even be aware of that blackness? If everything you are ends when you die then there is no such thing as "eternity"...you are just dead! Shouldn't be anything particularly scary about that...I mean really, how would you know you were dead if your brain was dead along with your body?

The only way death could be truly scary is if you believe (even in some small way), that some part of you WILL continue to exist after your body dies. OK, what part? Is it your soul, your spirit, the "essence" of your mind, ???...

You make the call...leap toward nothingness or leap toward the possibility that you will exist in some way after you die.

The next leap is whether or not to believe that you can influence the nature of your existence in the "next life". If you can't influence it, then that eternal darkness thing sounds like one possibility...yes, that would be scary. If you can influence it, then you need to figure out how you might do that.

The concept of heaven is just another leap in the direction of believing you can influence your next life. To believe in heaven is to believe in God and if you believe in him then you need to accept that he promised that his kingdom was better than anything we can imagine...few of us would imagine "boredom" as even good let alone the best thing we can imagine! In eternity, time has no meaning..."forever" has no meaning, at least not one we can understand. Why not just accept the promise that you will be happy there?...not that much more of a leap than believing it exists.

To me, the concept of reincarnation sounds a lot more like hell than like heaven. Like being stuck in an eternal loop where you have to keep living on this earth with all its pain and sorrow and danger for all eternity without having the benefit of anything you learned from previous lives.

Answer 2

When I die, others will still be alive getting on with their lives. Perhaps I'd like to think some may mourn my demise, but that will depend on what I did in life. When I die, I shall be no more, so I won't be conscious and therefore I won't be in a position to know what happens following my death. So there is no point worrying about it.

Answer 3

Hebrews 9:27

Answer 4

You are in Heaven with the people you love for eternity, but the thing is that time really doesn't exisist in heaven. IN gods eyes our time here on earth is only a blink of an eye. So yes you will be in Heaven for eternity, but you will have no concept of time while you are there.

Answer 5

And my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be. Revelation 22: 12

When we live, if we live a life pleasing to God, there is reward for our work.

47 And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell, 48 where "'their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched.' Mark 9

Jesus is only one who came down from heaven, and He is serious about heaven and hell.

I have not known about the reality of God for a long time. I have become very depressed to the end of loosing my hope in life sometimes. But when I have cried to God, He lifted me up. I pray He will do the same for You. We surely wont have a boring heaven even if its for eternity, because our God is a great God. He could create anything. Look how the world wud be without sin/pain/evil. Thats why angel and the elders who are before God's throne cannot but continue to praise Him without ceasing because they continue to see His might works continuosly.

Day and night they never stop saying: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come." Rev 4:8

Please read here how God changed my life,
http://www.protectinghands.com/ladder_to_heaven.htm

Hi AMANDA,
I read this recently and I thought of you,
http://www.insightsofgod.com/downloads/visionsofheavenandhell.pdf
Love, Brinda

Answer 6

Jesus Christ spoke about the condition of the dead. He did so with regard to Lazarus, a man whom he knew well and who had died. Jesus told his disciples: “Lazarus our friend has gone to rest.” The disciples thought that Jesus meant that Lazarus was resting in sleep, recovering from an illness. They were wrong. Jesus explained: “Lazarus has died.” (John 11:11-14) Notice that Jesus compared death to rest and sleep. Lazarus was neither in heaven nor in a burning hell. He was not meeting angels or ancestors. Lazarus was not being reborn as another human. He was at rest in death, as though in a deep sleep without dreams. Other scriptures also compare death to sleep. For example, when the disciple Stephen was stoned to death, the Bible says that he “fell asleep.” (Acts 7:60) Similarly, the apostle Paul wrote about some in his day who had “fallen asleep” in death.


The Bible teaches that the dead “are conscious of nothing at all.” They are not alive and have no conscious existence anywhere. The account of Lazarus confirms this. Upon returning to life, did Lazarus thrill people with descriptions of heaven? Or did he terrify them with horrible tales about a burning hell? No. The Bible contains no such words from Lazarus. During the four days that he was dead, he had been “conscious of nothing at all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:5) Lazarus had simply been sleeping in death.
The account of Lazarus also teaches us that the resurrection is a reality, not a mere myth. Jesus raised Lazarus in front of a crowd of eyewitnesses. Even the religious leaders, who hated Jesus, did not deny this miracle.

Think about this too: If Lazarus had been in heaven for those four days, would he not have said something about it? And if he had been in heaven, would Jesus have made him come back to earth from that wonderful place? Of course not!

Yet, many people say that we have a soul, and they say that the soul lives on after the body dies. They say that Lazarus’ soul was alive somewhere. But the Bible does not say that. It says that God made the first man Adam “a living soul.” Gen. 2:7, Adam was a soul. The Bible also says that when Adam sinned, he died. He became a “dead soul,” and he returned to the dust from which he had been made. The Bible also says that all Adam’s offspring inherited sin and death too.

The Scriptural teaching of the resurrection, however, is not compatible with the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. If an immortal soul survived death, no one would need to be resurrected, or brought back to life. Indeed, Martha expressed no thought about an immortal soul that was living on elsewhere after death. She did not believe that Lazarus had already gone to some spirit realm to continue his existence. On the contrary, she showed her faith in God’s purpose to reverse the effects of death. She said: “I know he will rise in the resurrection on the last day.” Likewise, Lazarus himself related no experiences of some afterlife. There was nothing to report.

Clearly, according to the Bible, the soul dies and the remedy for death is the resurrection. You enjoy the best sleep ever, until Jesus resurrects you, sometime in the future.

Answer 7

Amanda,

If you are afraid, that is the Holy Spirit quickening you that you are not ready for death. I am not afraid because my life is wrapped within the One who has the keys to death and the grave.

Revelation 1:18
I [Jesus] am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of the grave and of death.

John 14:2-4
In My [Jesus] Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.

All you need to do is to have Jesus come in to your heart as Lord and Savior, and your eternal life after death will be 100% secure based on the promises in God's Word. The more you fellowship with Jesus, the more it becomes a reality, and the afterlife becomes a place not to be feared, and you can live in sound mind and peace.

http://www.billygraham.org/SH_StepsToPeace.asp
http://calvarychapel.org/?show=TheGospel

As for boredom, you are thinking in terms of this limited physical existence that is governed by time. In eternity, you enter timelessness which is a product of the spiritual, not the physical. We do not know what that is like, however, one thing is for sure, boredom will no longer exist.

Feel free to write me... Schneb
http://answers.yahoo.com/my/message_do?kid=AA10002921

Answer 8

if you are saved, and you go to heaven, that is only the beginning. God will make a 2nd earth, one rid of all evil, and we (Christians) will have a new earth to have an eternal life on. How would you get bored with another life? that would be like getting bored with this one? are you?

Answer 9

Time is a concept for us to live around here on earth. There's not TIME in Heaven--it's eternity--which we can't really conprehend--all we know is time and everything revolves around it. Eternity won't be boring in Heaven because bordom stems from sin and there is no sin in Heaven. There won't be "TIME" to bored in Heaven.

Answer 10

I think you fall like a tree and decompose, unless you are cremated. I'm not scared of death, but I hope to die in a painless way--maybe lethal injection??/