[Quinny]

There is no 'afterlife'.

Immortality is just the influence you have on future generations and the trees that grow from you remains. Nothing to do with supernatural mumbo jumbo.

[Pops]

There is no 'afterlife'.

Immortality is just the influence you have on future generations and the trees that grow from you remains. Nothing to do with supernatural mumbo jumbo.

Concur.

Think about the people you know who have died, if you think of them fondly and miss them and feel wistful for them, that is their heaven. What could be a better reward than knowing you will be missed? Think about your great grand parents or the oldest people you have heard of but never met, is it a good image you were given? If so that is quite the reflection on them.

Obviously the opposite is true, especially those the living cannot wait to forget.
.

[AgentR11]

Buddhists don't believe in god.

That's too absolute. Buddhism is a non-exclusive religion. You can be Buddhist and practice Shinto or Hindu faiths as well. Or borrow pieces of them as you might wish. Making an offering to a random nature godling in Japan does not make you non-Buddhist. You could however, state that Buddhism does not itself affirm the existence of an active, infinite God.

[There's an interesting political history with the division of Shinto and Buddhism in Japan, lineage of the Emperor type stuff; but the Eastern religions in general are not exclusive in the same sense that Christian/Jewish/Muslim faiths are. Heck you can't even really be Baptist and Catholic.]

[Pops]

Stumbled across this story on near death experience in the Atlantic. It is fairly long ...
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/arc ... es/386231/

[Quinny]

I had a near death experience in the Pacific. Broke my neck and was quadraplegic under the sea, so legs and arms didn't respond when I tried to swim. I was very calm & thought ' Am I dead?' , but as I choked breathing in seawater realised I wasn't. I was very lucky to survive. I remember a 'dream'/apparition while I was submerged that I was in front of an endless bank of black & white TV screens, I was in front of every TV at the same time, and every screen was flashing images of the faces of all the people I know. I didn't feel any pain or fear. I suppose it was my brains interpretation of my life flashing before my eyes.

[SeaGypsy]

Death is the ultimate destiny of absolutely falling in absolute love with the absolute self. True love is sharing this absolute reality absolutely, as I hope this is clear. Maybe one has to be absolutely ready for either total death or total self annihilation through love, essentially the mirror of death, absolutely without fear or prejudice, to actually get "there" (where you have always really essentially been) or perhaps such a state may be virtually stumbled upon. But yes, there is an afterlife, in the sense that the true self is as timeless as the UniverseS are infinite. Wrap your pumpernickel around that & you are home & hosed.

[Timo]

"memory" is a biological artifact of consciousness;

So if I think therefore I am, then for all intents, when I don't think I ain't.
So no afterlife after life.

I've never been a fan of this "I think therefore I am" statement. Its cute, concise, and meaningless. I think, thinking is overrated; again, going back to my theological hypothesis; that this consciousness, this thing we "think" with or as, is merely a biological artifact that keeps a mammal with a brain as large and in control as our is, operating with sufficient efficiency to pass our genes down to the next generation.

My slogan: I think, therefore, my brain will usually fail to kill me. But when we do die; thinking is over. Thinking, memory, emotion... completely biological, no magic or spiritual power involved. Just glucose, metallic ions, and some odd proteins getting zapped along a bioelectric net.

The soul is *NOT* the consciousness. The soul is *NOT* our thoughts and emotions. The soul is an entirely different existence. Not a different biological thing with different thoughts, emotions, and memories; but truly a different existence, unlike that which has thoughts and emotions and memories, and yes, is also our self.

Now, if you define yourself as your consciousness, then yep, that which you call "you" comes to a full stop, end, when you die. That doesn't imply that your soul won't do whatever it is that souls do at the point the biological body dies, regardless of whether you believe in it or not; but that which you thought of as "you" won't have an opinion on the matter, as it will no longer exist.

I think i get your point. Therefore, apparently, i am here to offer the next rebuttal to your point. If the soul is an entirely different existence, and we lose our physical being when we die, then why did God create man in his own image? Do we look like God? Does God look like us? Did God create our souls in his own image? If this is the case, then that would imply that souls are physical entities that are capable of producing an image.

Next question: Does belief in a soul that continues after life imply belief in a religion that establishes the concept of a soul? Is it possible to be an aethiest, and also believe in souls at the same time?

More peyote, please.

[Timo]

Death is the ultimate destiny of absolutely falling in absolute love with the absolute self. True love is sharing this absolute reality absolutely, as I hope this is clear. Maybe one has to be absolutely ready for either total death or total self annihilation through love, essentially the mirror of death, absolutely without fear or prejudice, to actually get "there" (where you have always really essentially been) or perhaps such a state may be virtually stumbled upon. But yes, there is an afterlife, in the sense that the true self is as timeless as the UniverseS are infinite. Wrap your pumpernickel around that & you are home & hosed.

Speaking of peyote...........

[Timo]

I had a near death experience in the Pacific. Broke my neck and was quadraplegic under the sea, so legs and arms didn't respond when I tried to swim. I was very calm & thought ' Am I dead?' , but as I choked breathing in seawater realised I wasn't. I was very lucky to survive. I remember a 'dream'/apparition while I was submerged that I was in front of an endless bank of black & white TV screens, I was in front of every TV at the same time, and every screen was flashing images of the faces of all the people I know. I didn't feel any pain or fear. I suppose it was my brains interpretation of my life flashing before my eyes.

That's quite the vision, Quinny. I trust you've healed to some degree since that accident? Full motion back? Partial?

[Pops]

I had a near death experience in the Pacific.

That sounds quite harrowing, no wonder you went to video tape!

[Quinny]

Pops - Video tape?

Timo - I was shuffling along [50m/hour] in about 6 weeks. Now fully recovered, but wake up to no use of arm. After 10mi OK. Made me welcome every day, Bit weird for a doomer

[Pops]

Pops - Video tape?

Sorry, that is what the news reader used to say before satellite uplinks allowed everything live,
"Lets go to tape!"

[Quinny]

If I had one it wouldn't be on my play list! Flying back to Toronto from LAX, the in-flight movie was City of Angels!! I was dozing when it came on and nearly jumped out of the f&£king plane when I saw the surfers!!

[Timo]

As for my own near-death experience (some of you may remember me mentioning this before), I honestly don't know how near death it actually was. I was unconscious for a while, with a broken skull from the bridge of my nose to my spinal cord. No broken skin, so no external blood loss. I heard afterward that my left eye did get a tad bloody, though. Apparently, the 3mm split in my skull was enough to accommodate the swelling of my brain. Either that, or my brain simply can't get any bigger than it is already. Regardless, no surgery to open new holes in my skull to make room for swelling. I spent a bit over 3 weeks in ICU, and 4 years seeking some viable rehab to solve the mystery of 24/7 motion sickness on steroids (or peyote - take your pick). Turns out that the ligaments bonding my skull to my cervical spine are stretched a bit too much, so my brain stem doesn't fit down into C1, C2 , and C3 like it should. Too much slack.

Anyway, my entire memory of that entire year is gone, so i can't personally say how close to death i really was. My heart didn't stop. My brain continued to function, but the damage done is still debatable. As a matter of fact, when i finally regained consciousness (TMI alert!), my wife came back into the ER to check on me, and the only word that i could barely mutter was "Crotch!" WTF??? I had a broken head and all i could say was "Crotch!" ??? No one could figure out what the hell i was talking about. Finally, after about 15 minutes or so, my wife noticed that i was pulling on a tube underneath the sheet over me, and again, i complained "Crotch!" A-ha!!! Adding insult to injury, the hospital staff stuck a tube up my dick and inflated it clear up in my bladder. To hell with my broken skull! I wanted that catheter outta there, pronto! I can only imagine that felt about as close to death as i've ever been. Who knows?! Maybe this is my afterlife, here and now. Sometimes it sure feels like Purgatory. I do have a headache.

[Outcast_Searcher]

My question is, what were 7 billion souls doing when there were only a few million occupied in corporeal form here on earth?

Or even just two, if you take the Bible literally...

Asking logical, rational questions like that in a formal church environment is considered "impolite" and is politically incorrect.

If you're 8, like when I asked such questions, you are beaten or shunned. If you're an adult, it depends on where you are when you ask them (sitting at your PC is far "safer" than, say, in Sunday School).

Somehow I think the modern church leaders tend to treat such questioners far less charitably than, the Jesus of the scriptures would.

The more I see, the more I'm convinced organized religion was invented to:

1). Make some people powerful.

2). Distract the masses from reality (like the inevitability of death and the end of a person's existence), so they'll be less depressed and easier to control.

My favorite church quote is the standby used by church leaders when they have no good answer, "You just have to have faith". Fabulous -- religion is the ONE place where logical thinking is always taboo.

If it weren't for things like climate change, resource shortages, and science denial, I might think that meant the church couldn't survive -- but sadly it has plenty of competition with the many competitors in the field of human stupidity.

[Keith_McClary]

My question is, what were 7 billion souls doing when there were only a few million occupied in corporeal form here on earth?

The Universe is really, really, really, big. Do you think there is no where else to go?

So we have Extraterrestrial souls? I don't remember such a concept from my SF readings.