Do you believe in Life after Death.

[Scrutinize]

My eyes my eyes

 

[Scrutinize]

NOTE: I honestly didn't set out to write this much, and it's a bit of a wall of text.

The physical world we see and experience with our conscious mind is a creation of our own ultimate mind. From our limited human perspective it appears that the world happens to us, and that we just experience it (or suffer it) as if we were corks floating about an ocean. However, I would assert that in fact the world is a concept, or creation of, our own consciousness and that, to coin a phrase, "that which is thought, or mentally imagined, is manifested as physical actuality".

Very good point

I know that I haven't explained myself very well.

No doubt most people reading this won't "get" what I'm saying at all. Fair play. I don't ask you to believe, heck I don't even care. As I said you have your own path and you can believe what you like. Just afford me the same courtesy. That's all I ask.

I thought you have done a pretty good job and I understand what you are trying to convey.

 

[Dutch Guy]

@dmpoole, the movies about Piramids, are those about the fact that the three large piramids in Egypt mirror the stars in the sky 1000's of years before they were made?

 

[Rainmaker]

Very good point



I thought you have done a pretty good job and I understand what you are trying to convey.

Thanks, I'm glad it made some sense (even if people disagree with it). I think most of the misunderstandings about 'religion' and the afterlife stem from our limited perspective towards it. Since 'time' and 'space' are constructs of the physical mind and this particular universe/dimension, it seems silly to wonder where all the souls fit in heaven, or why it hasn't run out of room. In fact I'd say time isn't linear but actually runs simultaneously, we just experience it as linear due to our perspective. Once outside of the physical shell, and in the 'afterlife' or spiritual dimensions, time and space no longer apply and as such you can't measure them as such.

 

[kedge]

You are spouting rubbish about something you clearly know nothing about.

I know something about something which accounts for something right?. Evolutionists have taught for over a century that as an embryo develops, it passes through stages that mimic an evolutionary sequence. In other words, in a few weeks an unborn human repeats stages that supposedly took millions of years for mankind. A well-known example of this ridiculous teaching is that embryos of mammals have “gill slits,” because mammals supposedly evolved from fish. (Yes, that’s faulty logic.) Embryonic tissues that resemble “gill slits” have nothing to do with breathing; they are neither gills nor slits. Instead, those embryonic tissues develop into parts of the face, bones of the middle ear, and endocrine glands. Embryologists no longer consider the superficial similarities between a few embryos and the adult forms of simpler animals as evidence for evolution. Ernst Haeckel, by deliberately falsifying his drawings, originated and popularized this incorrect but widespread belief. Many modern textbooks continue to spread this false idea as evidence for evolution.

Evolution only suggests a literal interpretation of genesis is false and that there was no involvement of a supreme being to create a diversity of life forms.

Evolution requires an old Earth, an old solar system, and an old universe. Nearly all informed evolutionists will admit that without billions of years their theory is dead. Yet, hiding the “origins question” behind a vast veil of time makes the unsolvable problems of evolution difficult for scientists to see and laymen to imagine. Our media and textbooks have implied for over a century that these almost unimaginable ages are correct. Rarely do people examine the shaky assumptions and growing body of contrary evidence. Therefore, most people today almost instinctively believe that the Earth and universe are billions of years old. Sometimes, these people are disturbed, at least initially, when they see the evidence. Actually, most dating techniques indicate that the Earth and solar system are young —possibly less than 10,000 years old.

I know many evolutionists that are theists.

Spontaneous generation (the emergence of life from nonliving matter) has never been observed. All evolutionists recognize that, based on scientific observations, life comes only from life.

I'm an evolutionist and I'm agnostic.

The Arguments for Evolution Are Outdated and Often Illogical. A common designer is a much more likely explanation than evolution.

I know some evolutionists that are athiests.

One product of radioactive decay within rocks is helium, a light gas. This helium enters the atmosphere at a much faster rate than helium escapes the atmosphere. (Large amounts of helium should not escape into outer space, even when considering helium’s low atomic weight.) Radioactive decay of only uranium and thorium would produce all the atmosphere’s helium in only 40,000 years.Therefore, the atmosphere appears to be young. Evolutionists have taught for over a century that as an embryo develops, it passes through stages that mimic an evolutionary sequence. In other words, in a few weeks an unborn human repeats stages that supposedly took millions of years for mankind. A well-known example of this ridiculous teaching is that embryos of mammals have “gill slits,” because mammals supposedly evolved from fish. (Yes, that’s faulty logic.) Embryonic tissues that resemble “gill slits” have nothing to do with breathing; they are neither gills nor slits. Instead, those embryonic tissues develop into parts of the face, bones of the middle ear, and endocrine glands. Embryologists no longer consider the superficial similarities between a few embryos and the adult forms of simpler animals as evidence for evolution. Ernst Haeckel, by deliberately falsifying his drawings, originated and popularized this incorrect but widespread belief. Many modern textbooks continue to spread this false idea as evidence for evolution.

As for no objective evidence... good grief.

As an Evolutionist, is it possible you could provide some objective evidence please?.

 

[Uriel]

Kedge, please be careful about this. I'm a Christian (Trinitarian, literal resurrection of Jesus, believes in inspiration of Scripture type) and believe that the young earth position is not supported in scripture.

I would put it to you that the genre of Genesis (and Job, Psalms plus other bits of the bible dealing with creation) does not lend itself to being read historically or scientifically. Genesis 1-11 appears to be a theological work (mostly poetry), critiquing the prevalent worldviews in surrounding societies.

I also am a professional geologist working in the civil engineering industry. On a scientific basis, most of your statements regarding evolution and the age of the earth are simply mistaken. There is no credible scientific evidence for a young earth and no evidence for it in the bible either if you have much of an understanding of the original language or the genre and context into which it was written (even assuming the 2 Timothy "God breathed" bit applies).

I would recommend a quick read of the following: http://www.asa3.org/ASA/resources/wiens.html , which is an evangelical Christian writing on radiometric dating.

Also have a look at Denis Alexander's book Creation or Evolution: Do we have to choose?. I've not read it but have read his book Rebuilding the Matrix, which is one of the most reliable books on the relationship between science and religion (Christianity in particular) I've read so am recommending on that basis. I've heard him lecture on the subject so have a pretty good idea of the book's content.

Edit: I put it to you that the entire 6000-10000 year old dating is based on a fallacy anyway. It's based on the assumption that the Hebrew word "yalad" means 'begat' directly and that "ben" means 'son of' directly in one generation. Well wasn't Jesus "the son of David"? Weren't all Jews "sons of Abraham". Look at the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew and Luke. Some people get hung up on the number of generations being so different that they are contradictory (not to mention direct names). It's not a problem at all. Begat and son of simply relates to anscenstors and descendents. I would suggest that following the methodology leading to Young Earth Creationist chronology actually forces you to chose between Matthew and Luke - meaning you cannnot accept the veracity of the bible as a whole.

I would suggest reading this too: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/may/22.39.html It's Alistair McGrath (not particularly a fan of his but I agree with him here) discussing St Augustine's view on Creation. In the 3rd to 4th Century Augustine concluded (from the Genesis text alone) that the Creation days could not possibly be chronological. An extract:

Augustine draws out the following core themes: God brought everything into existence in a single moment of creation. Yet the created order is not static. God endowed it with the capacity to develop. Augustine uses the image of a dormant seed to help his readers grasp this point. God creates seeds, which will grow and develop at the right time. Using more technical language, Augustine asks his readers to think of the created order as containing divinely embedded causalities that emerge or evolve at a later stage. Yet Augustine has no time for any notion of random or arbitrary changes within creation. The development of God's creation is always subject to God's sovereign providence. The God who planted the seeds at the moment of creation also governs and directs the time and place of their growth.

The above could describe an evolutionary process. However there is still a significant epistemological difference between natural selection in a theistic and an atheistic perspective. I'm certain Nightfly wouldn't accept what I consider to be natural selection but it comes down to a difference in worldview. Ultimately, if God is active creator and sustainer then nature itself is continually miraculous. It's all or nothing. If you allow a dichotomy we're into god-of-the-gaps stuff.

 

[Castiel]

Someone once said "I don't have a belief in God, I have an acceptance of god [deliberate lower case]". That's pretty much my take on things, the 'afterlife' included. I think you're actually very much along the right lines when you refer to it being more of a natural phenomena than a supernatural event.

This is my view, while I do not accept any specific human interpretation of god, or have a belief that any of the religions interpretations are really valid to me, I do however have an innate acceptance that our corporeal existence is not as pragmatic as Science supposes or as predestined as Religion does.

I don't particularly wish to go into great detail on here, but I've experienced enough to formulate my own beliefs through my life events so far. My current understanding (which is always open to change and 'evolution') is that we are - for want of a better word - multidimensional beings. By that I mean that the physical body and mind (which is a product of interaction between the body and the physical world) are separate to the deeper-seated and more permanent 'spirit' or 'soul'.

I contend that the corporeal or material body is simply a vessel for the universal energy that is ones unique self. That universal energy is as immortal as any other form of energy, it can change and transform, but it cannot be destroyed.

I would classify the 'gross' consciousness as something existing as an interface between this physical body and the world around us, and this is the thing that dies at the time of physical death. I do believe, however, that each entity/person/soul/whatever has a permanent (but not fixed) spirit, or soul, which from our perspective 'survives' death.

I use a lot of quotes and slashes because I think essentially at the moment mankind as a whole looks at things rather two-dimensionally and from a very limited perspective. It's like asking a frog born into a well what the ocean looks like... As such using mere words and hypothesising on a forum can never really get at the crux of the matter.

My main platform is that mankind has, unfortunately, greatly confused what you could call 'true spirituality' with religion. They are not the same thing, and in my opinion religion can actually interfere with the former; though not always of course. Being less religious and more spiritual never does any harm, in fact personally I would say I have no religion, but I definitely strive to be a spiritual person.

I would say that artificial constructs such as Religion get in the way of our innate spirituality and attempt to enforce a specific mindset when in reality there is none. Science unfortunately is being co-opted by certain sections of the Atheist movement to do a similar thing.

I feel that spirituality is a very personal thing that is different for each individual and I would agree, I have no religion or culture, I have my own independent self and while materialistically I follow a lifestyle much in keeping with British culture (and it's Christian/pagan roots), intellectually and spiritually I ascribe to no such specificity.

I don't really like elaborating on forums, but essentially my views in a nutshell are along the following lines:

* We each (spiritually not physically) stem from the same Source. You can call it universal consciousness, the cosmos, 'God', the Great Spirit, dharmakaya, whatever. It's pretty much the type of thing Jung used to talk about. This is where the misconception arose about "God created Man in his own image". In his SPIRITUAL image, not his physical one. God is not a man, or an individual, and he doesn't sit around in a place called Heaven. God is a living, all-pervading thing manifested in each one of us as that spark of life often called Mind, Soul, Spirit etc. God is also love, light and all things associated with goodness. We are essentially all kin to each other, all a part of 'God' and you could say (superficially) that we are all thoughts in the mind of 'God'. God is not a physical being, has no 'physical' existence and as such is more a concept than a person.

I would say that God was also all things Bad, Evil and Dark. I do not see that God as a universal conciousness can be anything but all things. I think that some ancient cultures with their pantheon of Gods hinted at this. The oldest of the organised religion, Hinduism shows this with the Brahma and his lesser God structure, each showing a specific trait of the overall Brahma entity.

* We are spirits having a human experience, not humans who have spiritual experiences. People take 'spirits' and the like to be some supernatural sci-fi airy-fairy nonsense, but in fact I would assert that quite on the contrary it is not only natural, but a fact of live we've come to overlook. Castiel talked about science leading us away from spirituality and I think to a degree that's correct. Not that there is anything wrong with science, quite the contrary, but rather in future I think that science will become more adept at measuring the things we currently refer to as 'supernatural'. As such a homogeneity will arise between science and 'religion' (spirituality) as we come to see them as sides of a coin and two ways of looking at things.

That is how I see it. Religion dismisses or invents ways of explaining things it cannot understand or do not fit into their world-view, Science to a lesser degree is also guilty of this, especially in recent years with the advent of Dawkins and his Memetics and such like conjecture.

We see similar traits in Climate Science at the moment, where conclusions are made and then evidence is then made to fit those conclusions, instead of the other way around.

* The physical world we see and experience with our conscious mind is a creation of our own ultimate mind. From our limited human perspective it appears that the world happens to us, and that we just experience it (or suffer it) as if we were corks floating about an ocean. However, I would assert that in fact the world is a concept, or creation of, our own consciousness and that, to coin a phrase, "that which is thought, or mentally imagined, is manifested as physical actuality". Unfortunately it doesn't work on a very gross level (you can't imagine yourself a Euromillions win!) but it's essentially true. This physical experience is ultimately illusory, transitory and very much dream-like. The appearance of an independent 'self' or 'I' is illusory. Quantum theories now abound on this very issue.

Solipsism is the philosophy I think you are referring to here. That the only thing we can ultimately prove is the contents of the observers own mind.

* During physical life, our experience becomes very single-pointed (limited) and we tend to see ourselves as individuals, amongst a sea of other individuals, with a short finite lifespan. Conversely, I believe that we are all manifestations of the same source, nobody is truly individual except at the very grossest level, and that we exist in several 'dimensions' simultaneously. I see our physical mind as a TV set, receiving our consciousness (soul/spirit) from a separate dimension/multiverse. Amalgamating this with the 'interface' between the body its external environment creates an illusion of 'self' which is in fact the grosser physical 'mind' that dies at physical death. The true personality experienced internally to each physical being exists independently and continues (with all memory and experiences intact) after physical death of the individual body/unit.

Ultimately the entire universe and everything within it has a common ancestor. Can that commonality be called God?

* Meditation, prayer, introspection and so on are all useful tools. None is particularly superior to another but all provide valuable 'grounding' to our spiritual self and the 'source' (godhead, God, Buddha-nature, dharmakaya, cosmic consciousness). Losing touch with our spiritual side doesn't necessarily provide very evident 'symptoms' but by maintaining a spiritual 'life' as well as a physical one, we strengthen our experience, transform our minds and ultimately progress along the path and gain more valuable insight.

You can live a purely physical life, ignoring the spiritual, and that doesn't necessarily have to be a problem. We all grow at our own rate. I do believe in multiple lives, not necessarily in the reincarnation sense but that explanation will suffice. The only harm from denying our spiritual nature comes when we allow it to grow into malice, hatred and other such negative emotions. "Physical life is all there is, screw everyone I'm building gas chambers and I will rule the world for my own benefit!!1!". You don't need to be religious to be spiritual, and you don't even need to be spiritually aware to live a good life... however that can't alter the fact that you HAVE an ultimate spiritual nature, and eventually you will have to confront that fact and build upon it.

Interesting concept. So basically you can lead multiple lives across multiple universes, each with a slightly different aspect, be it spiritual, materialistic, religious or scientific and that the soul or energy that is common to all the multiples of you learns from all and ultimately adds to that overall conciousness that is you.

Are we just aspects of a Godhead? Do we simply represent some higher self, like a priest represents a church, or a scientist represents a branch of science, do we represent a greater whole?

* There is no religion except service. Whilst religious ritual can be helpful in many ways, we shouldn't make it the primary focus - rather use it as the tool that it is. Confusing religion as the goal rather than the tool has caused untold harm and horror, and is contrary to all that is good. Provided we do 'good', serve others with no regard for self, and try to do no harm as we accumulate experience and progress ourselves spiritually, no more could be asked of you. Anything much beyond that is a mechanism of control dreamed up by 'religious' figures.

Agreed completely. Buddha's words I quoted earlier come to mind.

Believe nothing just because a so-called wise person said it. Believe nothing just because a belief is generally held. Believe nothing just because it is said in ancient books. Believe nothing just because it is said to be of divine origin. Believe nothing just because someone else believes it. Believe only what you yourself test and judge to be true.

especially the emboldened part.

If there is no afterlife, no 'God', no so-called supernatural and no karma etc, why live a moral life? Why serve others? Why do 'good'? Surely it's better to be scientific and Darwinian to the end; fall out of your mother's womb, use her resources to fight your way to the top of the world and slay anybody who stands in your way? Is it only fear that there are others stronger than you that stops you descending into this kind of society? Are rules, law, justice and 'morality' all a shield to prevent the even stronger from slaying YOU? Or is it that we are inherently good, there is more to life than this physical 'dream' experience would suggest, and that our very basic tenet is service to others, the progression of our 'soul' and ultimate reunification with the godhead?

I have often wondered why we feel the way we do, Humanity, it can be argued is a highly evolved Darwinian creature that collectively has no morals (look at how we change the world to suit us rather than changes ourselves to suit the world), but then individually we can do acts of great sacrifice and moral judgement. Why is that?

My mother's people believe that life is a Dream and that the end of that life is not death, but awakening. They also have a belief that we in essence lived in two locations according to them we have a Earth Occupation and a Sky Occupation each adding to our real life.

* The only heaven and hell exist in your own mind. I use mind here in the ultimate sense - the emotional, spiritual and immortal mind that never dies with the physical body. Once the physical self falls away, we find ourself existing in another dimension/plane/realm/whatever. Each dimension exists in the same space as the others, merely at a different vibration. The faster the vibration, the 'higher' and 'purer' the existence. Your own emotional state, your level of development and your actions will determine the nature of our "after death" existence. The more 'advanced' you are spiritually the higher the vibration of your "soul" and the higher and purer your plane (dimension) of existence.

There is no judge but yourself, and the "spirit world" or "afterlife" exists here and now congruent with our own physical world. We just can't usually experience, see or measure it. The best way to explain it, I think, is to imagine a pyramid that is dense and heavy at the bottom and progressively becomes lighter and more etheric towards the top. If you lived a very material life, can't conceive of the spiritual and so on, you'll migrate to a very earth-like existence after death and in many ways the 'new' existence or afterlife will be as solid as this one.

More experienced souls, or those who have progressed greatly in one life, will naturally be much less materialistic and will be able to conceive of (and be comfortable in) a much less material existence - or even a formless existence as part of a communal "spirit group". We are essentially sparks from the consciousness of that which we call 'God', experiencing the world(s) ultimately to return to our source and amalgamate our experiences into it. We will retain our ability to form independent thought and mind, but are essentially a cog in a much larger machine. The "spirit world" is just another dimension, as real as this one, and the people are just as alive and just as normal as you are. They just exist on a different vibration after 'physical death'

* Essentially, we are co-creators with God rather than his (its) subjects. We just tend to forget that while incarnate in this life. Such forgetting is inherent in the limitation of the physical form, as the physical mind simply can't process such things. This is where meditation and "reconnection" to our "higher self" come into play as it frees us from this single-pointed physical-only perspective, albeit temporarily.

My brother and I have talked about something similar in that we are all Gods in training if you like.

I often wonder if each life is an experience that upon death is then absorbed into the overriding Godhead.

I know that I haven't explained myself very well. An old Zen master once said you can't write an essay about how a banana tastes - you just have to shove it in the other guy's mouth... He was right. Our experiences make us unique, but ultimately contribute to the whole. We all have our own path, and our own place on the ultimate path of progression, and it's not my place, nor yours or anyone else's, to 'convert', convince or try to push beliefs on another. Science is as valid a method as any, but we must remember that heart transplants would have been 'supernatural' 200 years ago, too...

No doubt most people reading this won't "get" what I'm saying at all. Fair play. I don't ask you to believe, heck I don't even care. As I said you have your own path and you can believe what you like. Just afford me the same courtesy. That's all I ask.

EDIT: I should also add that I think we are living a physical life for a reason. For that alone, it can be just as bad to spend too much time spiritually as too little. Or to put it another way, it's as dangerous to spend too much time with your head in the clouds, as it is to spend too much time with your head up your own arse. We have a physical life to lead, so don't spend it all meditating in a cave or with 24/7 lofty 'ideals' and 'mind states'. I just 'know' that you can't die for the life of you, and once you embrace the fact that you are actually an eternal being and part of a much larger picture, you tend to find that you can live this life with much less fear, much more enjoyment and much more gusto than before. It should be paradoxical, as you'd think that the belief you only have 'one go' would lead to this result. However, I tend to find the opposite.

I think you explained yourself eloquently and intelligently. I do think that in all things, be it spiritually or materialistically there should be balance.

 

[jumpy]

Do I believe in an afterlife? No.
Do I believe in God? No.

Does that mean I believe in nothing? hmmm...

What's it all about? I think it's safe to say 'I don't know, any more that you do.' Does that make me agnostic, or an atheist?

Perhaps 'unbeliever' best describes how I think.

pat says it better (and with more humour) than I can

For me, the world is far too complex as it is, without having to put the lens of faith in front of everything. If others derive comfort from having faith, that's ok - in many ways faith lends great strength and resilience against all the unknowns and small fears of life; I can understand and even envy that to some degree, but I don't search it out.
Looking at the chaos of our world, I find that there is precious little to support the moral need for anything other than being a decent human being to those around you - and for that you don't need a church, a temple, a mosque or a pyramid, a priest, imam or rabbi or l ron hubbard

 

[Castiel]

Do I believe in an afterlife? No.
Do I believe in God? No.

Does that mean I believe in nothing? hmmm...

What's it all about? I think it's safe to say 'I don't know, any more that you do.' Does that make me agnostic, or an atheist?

Perhaps 'unbeliever' best describes how I think.

pat says it better (and with more humour) than I can

For me, the world is far too complex as it is, without having to put the lens of faith in front of everything. If others derive comfort from having faith, that's ok - in many ways faith lends great strength and resilience against all the unknowns and small fears of life; I can understand and even envy that to some degree, but I don't search it out.
Looking at the chaos of our world, I find that there is precious little to support the moral need for anything other than being a decent human being to those around you - and for that you don't need a church, a temple, a mosque or a pyramid, a priest, imam or rabbi or l ron hubbard

Or indeed Richard Dawkins.....

 

[Rainmaker]

I contend that the corporeal or material body is simply a vessel for the universal energy that is ones unique self. That universal energy is as immortal as any other form of energy, it can change and transform, but it cannot be destroyed.

Very similar (in many ways, identical) to my own viewpoint then. I would view each human life as a transitory experience and the body inhabited for its duration as a set of clothes, for want of a better term. Your true 'body' is your spirit/soul, which is immortal but (as I said earlier) not fixed. In this regard it can grow, evolve and change (becoming more subtle with growth) but it is immortal nonetheless.

I would say that God was also all things Bad, Evil and Dark. I do not see that God as a universal conciousness can be anything but all things. I think that some ancient cultures with their pantheon of Gods hinted at this. The oldest of the organised religion, Hinduism shows this with the Brahma and his lesser God structure, each showing a specific trait of the overall Brahma entity.

I differ in interpretation from you here, but only pedantically I suppose. My viewpoint is, I suspect, 'tainted' from my years as a Buddhist and Spiritualist, in that I see the Source ('god') as immutably pure ('Buddha nature'). It is merely the delusion of ourselves as perceived materialistic individuals which makes us believe (and sometimes act) contrary to this pure nature.

So yes, on one hand you can say God is only good, but on the other we are not just a creation of 'god' (the universal source/energy) but also a part of and expression of him/her/it. As such anything we do, out of deluded sense of self or otherwise, is also an expression of god. Paradoxical, but it makes sense when you think about it (imho).

A Zen monk once told me that there are good Buddhas and bad Buddhas in this life (physical realitiy; referring to other people not etheric beings). Both can teach us if we can only maintain our equanimity. All are Buddha.

Solipsism is the philosophy I think you are referring to here. That the only thing we can ultimately prove is the contents of the observers own mind.

Yes it seems to fit that mould, though as above I confess it stemmed more from a slightly bastardised form of the Buddhist concept of shunyata (emptiness). As you have quoted previously, Lord Buddha taught that we should test and invesigate everything, and accept only that which makes good logical sense to us and that we can accept as being true regardless of its source. Emptiness makes perfect sense to me on many levels, and amalgamates well with Spiritualism as well as current quantum theory. My understanding (spiritual not academic) of it sort of slips around the mould of my current experiences thus.

Ultimately the entire universe and everything within it has a common ancestor. Can that commonality be called God?

God, Dharmakaya, Source, Great Spirit... All different words for the same concept which is ultimately impossible to define in real words. IMHO of course.

Interesting concept. So basically you can lead multiple lives across multiple universes, each with a slightly different aspect, be it spiritual, materialistic, religious or scientific and that the soul or energy that is common to all the multiples of you learns from all and ultimately adds to that overall conciousness that is you.

Are we just aspects of a Godhead? Do we simply represent some higher self, like a priest represents a church, or a scientist represents a branch of science, do we represent a greater whole?

As I said I was being intentionally simplistic, but that's one way of explaining it yes. I believe that we exist multi-dimensionally in the fact that we are apparently living our lives here on Earth but at the same time a part of us remains in what we call the spirit world, or after life. Actually that's too simplistic; it's better to say we live in the physical world and the spirit world contemporaneously (i.e. we live multidimensionally with only the grosser aspects of our consciousness manifesting in the physical body).

This ties in quite well actually, if I understood correctly, with:

My mother's people believe that life is a Dream and that the end of that life is not death, but awakening. They also have a belief that we in essence lived in two locations according to them we have a Earth Occupation and a Sky Occupation each adding to our real life.

This is why you don't tend to remember former lives, or all the universal truth your soul/spirit has collected, while incarnate. Your physical form can only hold so much! However we all maintain access to our higher self, or deeper soul, via things like intuition, gut feeling, meditation and so on.
We sometimes call it a higher self, which our present incarnation may (or may not) be a complete or fractional part of. We maintain our personality after death, as it is the immortal part of us, but depending on our level of development we may indeed 'belong' to a larger, 'higher' aspect as well. Some call this 'soul group' or 'group soul', an amalgamation if you will, somewhat emulating the final destination which is reunification with the source/godhead.

So during physical life we are both there AND here. Buddhism alludes to this somewhat when it (especially the Soto school of Zen, Ch'an and a few others) says that we are all Buddha and that our ultimate goal as deluded sentient beings is to work our way back to Buddhahood, our true Buddha nature; a place and a state we have never actually ever left. If only we could recognise it!

Destruction of the false ego, or 'I', shatters so many misconceptions and makes so much 'room' in the mind that one can finally come to see the true nature of self and reality. We must see past the apparent duality of existence, and come to appreciate the way things truly are. The universe is a manifestation of mind, which again science has caught up on - things exist as infinite possibility and all things in all places; until a conscious observer measures/sees it, at which time it takes form and position etc. We are not just observers but participants, or co-creators.

As such we are in fact the masters of our own experiences and reality. By recognising this, coming to realise the false nature of self and 'I', and by realising our true nature, we can effectively transcend this delusory existence and its trappings. Science tends (tended?) to measure things empirically while ignoring the subjective, or the mind. Paradoxically it turns out mind is the originator not just the observer - we're participators not experiencers. By examining our mind we can ultimately learn more about our world and ourselves than by using other means which ignore it.

Mystics have said this across most traditions for thousands of years. It's satisfying and very interesting to see physics playing 'catchup' in this regard.

I could literally discuss this type of topic for hours, and as I said I have purposefully been brief and in many ways vague. OcUK isn't really the place for such discussion in a lot of ways. You may find a series of lectures interesting, by B. Alan Wallace. He's a physics graduate who spent over 20 years living as a Tibetan Buddhist monk in India before returning to complete his science education and then a doctorate in religious studies. Quite a nice balance!

"The Conscious Universe" and "Is the Dalai Lama an atheist?: Experience, Reason & Faith in Science and Religion" are two interesting ones. You can find the free MP3s on his site here.

I suspect there is much more we could discuss but as I said the venue isn't the easiest (not the attitude so much as the format). I'm rushing too, as I'm currently late for picking up the youngest from school. Or is school early for me?

Always happy to delve a little deeper if your interest is maintained, and please forgive any incongruity due to my rushing. I had to cut/paste a little to rearrange the flow of my text. Hopefully I didn't break continuity. Adieu.

 

[Biohazard]

Having seen the walls of text, I will simply answer 'maybe'.

 

[Captain_Slick]

In the form of a zombie apocalypse, yes I believe in life after death.

It's only a matter of time...

 

[jumpy]

Or indeed Richard Dawkins.....

'Science be praised!' lol

Indeed not
I kind of like most of what Carl Sagan has to say about 'the long childhood' and all that the 'democracy of the intellect' has to offer (though these are not his labels, or mine).

 

[Castiel]

'Science be praised!' lol

Indeed not
I kind of like most of what Carl Sagan has to say about 'the long childhood' and all that the 'democracy of the intellect' has to offer (though these are not his labels, or mine).

Carl Sagan was not an atheist exactly though definitely not in the same mould had Richard Dawkins for example, he was as he said, a critical thinker and open minded sceptic. For example he once said:

The Hindu religion is the only one of the world's great faiths dedicated to the idea that the Cosmos itself undergoes an immense, indeed an infinite, number of deaths and rebirths. It is the only religion in which the time scales correspond, to those of modern scientific cosmology. Its cycles run from our ordinary day and night to a day and night of Brahma, 8.64 billion years long. Longer than the age of the Earth or the Sun and about half the time since the Big Bang. And there are much longer time scales still.

and he also said something that I feel that Richard Dawkins needs to consider,

Intellectual brilliance is no guarantee against being dead wrong.

 

[jumpy]

hehe I remember that last quote

 

[Castiel]

hehe I remember that last quote

Another couple that that I feel is apt are these:

Our ancestors worshipped the Sun, and they were not that foolish. It makes sense to revere the Sun and the stars, for we are their children.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Carl Sagan was a brilliant and critical mind and one that was open to all possibilities and one that is sadly missed.

 

[semi-pro waster]

Having seen the walls of text, I will simply answer 'maybe'.

Not like you to shy away from wall of text arguments. Although this one has been remarkably civil for the most part, maybe as people are still recovering from the last time.

Carl Sagan was a brilliant and critical mind and one that was open to all possibilities and one that is sadly missed.

He was indeed brilliant, I'd put him up there with Richard Feynman for his critical and intelligent view on the World as well as his delight in learning about new things.

 

[ChrisJSY]

I don't, I believe it is impossible to ever know it exists even if it did, until you were dead and there. I think near death experiences are simply hallucinations of the body/brain going through a lot of chemicals imbalances and changes during injury. As we all should know what some drugs can do to our perception, enough naturally occuring substances are no different.

But I believe it is entirely possible and a non religious thing, but there's nothing to suggest it does.
That we all came from what was essentially nothing to what we are today is amazing itself, who's to say there isn't more to existance, life or beyond.

 

[FlamBango]

belief in religion and belief in a soul are 2 totally seperate things. its just religion has been butting in and claiming responsibility for the soul over the centuries. Balls to them! Death is the ultimate personal experience and to ridicule anyones particular belief as to what happens is just ignorance and rudeness.

I dont beleive in a heaven and hell or any of the other "lives" after death that various religions propose. The thought of the Hindu version where youre reincarnated again on this lump of rock is frankly scarey as hell.

As far as existance of a soul goes, im all for that. I mean, what makes you you? What is that spark of consciousness behind your eyes? Why is that consciousness here now rather than 100 years ago or 1000 years into the future? Why are you male instead of female or a fish or a bird. What makes you you? And thats where the soul comes in. Once we die i beleive that energy disperses out into the universe perpetuating its growth. We all come from star matter and we will all end up back out there again.

Of course if there really is nothing after death then who cares, you wont be aware to be annoyed about it! The transition from life into the next step is a little scarey though, feeling yourself die isnt the most appealing though and thats where out of body situations come in. Scientists have produced the same effects by stimulating areas of the brain and i think thats just a mechansim of the body to ease the transition once the times comes, so maybe death isnt something to be too worried about

 

[ThorpedoUK]

No, because when you die you have no feelings or emotions due to your brain and senses ceasing to function, this is why heaven does not exist nor hell (morality)

how can anything exist outside of these things?