Is There Life Ever-After?

[AsylumSeeker]

I'm a PK (traditional Methodist preacher's kid). I attended Sunday School and when in high school even taught it (an inkling to my future as an adult educator). But to be completely honest, I'm torn about what happens after death. Please understand I mean no disrespect to Colleen or any others that may be recently deceased. for posting this now. It's just that now we all seem sensitized to the subject.

I've been a Christian all my life. I guess I lack faith, yet I believe in evil, and angels, so I'm confused and very frightened about the "end". What really does happen? Are we accountable for all our actions? And how judgmental is the God we believe in?

I've been thinking of this more and more lately. Just wondering if I'm alone. Are we wrong for using the gifts we were born with?

I don't think so.

That's my thought, right or wrong. I guess I'll find out in 'the end'.

 

[Recidiva]

I know that I don't know. That will have to do for now. If I'm supposed to find out, I will after I'm dead. Nobody sent me a personal invitation or memo, so I have to assume, it's just a mystery for me.

I hope to be to a place where I have my questions answered. I hope to find peace. I hope to know part of a plan. Or see my place in it. But I don't know.

 

[CharleyH]

I'm a PK (traditional Methodist preacher's kid). I attended Sunday School and when in high school even taught it (an inkling to my future as an adult educator). But to be completely honest, I'm torn about what happens after death. Please understand I mean no disrespect to Colleen or any others that may be recently deceased. for posting this now. It's just that now we all seem sensitized to the subject.

I've been a Christian all my life. I guess I lack faith, yet I believe in evil, and angels, so I'm confused and very frightened about the "end". What really does happen? Are we accountable for all our actions? And how judgmental is the God we believe in?

I've been thinking of this more and more lately. Just wondering if I'm alone. Are we wrong for using the gifts we were born with?

I don't think so.

That's my thought, right or wrong. I guess I'll find out in 'the end'.

I do not aspire to Christianity, I respect you and many do also believe in Chrisianity - I respect it as I do all myths. I believe in an adventure after this one, a growing.

What is evil, exaclty - if not for men? Lucifer really only was a rebellious child in the bible, and mans end comes because of men, not Lucifer. The end? Is there one? God created in his image - us, and we are cyclical from season to season, time and again, and ironically, in the body of woman. Something to think about.

As for the God we believe in? You are already trained to believe there is a Christian God and no other. What happens in death? Is it so ultimately a Christian theology? Just an ask, not an argument.

 

[3113]

I've been a Christian all my life. I guess I lack faith, yet I believe in evil, and angels, so I'm confused and very frightened about the "end". What really does happen? Are we accountable for all our actions? And how judgmental is the God we believe in?

I've been thinking of this more and more lately. Just wondering if I'm alone. Are we wrong for using the gifts we were born with?

There's a strange "logic" to Christianity. Not that it's at all logical--any and all religion is matter of emotion and faith, not reason or science. However: on the one hand, the religion preaches that God is omniscient, omnipotent, creator of EVERYTHING (devils and evil included...how not?), AND that God is primarily about love, forgiveness, etc.

Yet on the other hand, many branches of the religion present restrictions that are narrow-minded, small beyond belief. They don't want you thinking or questioning. They don't want you doing certain things. Why would the creator of a UNIVERSE be so petty? Worse than that, why would He play childish pranks (dinosaur bones are just there to fool you! Test to see who hold to the Biblical truth and who doesn't! And if you don't...to hell!). Um...wait...to hell for believing in convincing evidence that God, himself, planted? To hell for loving as you were born to love? To hell for thinking, questioning, exploring?

This is beyond ridiculous. And it's pretty transparent as well as something small minded humans are doing and have always done to maintain control and power.

So. To answer your question, I think you must first step as far away as you can from the small minded humans who want to control you, who will press any emotional buttons of fear and doubt to make you bow to their will. Have you stepped away yet?

Now consider this: anything that knows everything, the feelings in your heart, your needs, wants, desires, your angers and frustrations, the forces that make and mold you along the way along with the stumbling blocks you come up against, the walls you must go around, go over or go under....ANYTHING that knows all that...how could it not understand what you've done and why? How could it not forgive? How could it make human beings with needs that it doesn't want you to fulfill? Gifts that it doesn't want you to use? What would be the point?

I'm not saying that there aren't right or wrong choices--good or bad things that we do. Merely that anything so infinate as the divine must be able to understand the what, the why and the wherefore.

And if, in the end, we transend to reunite with that infinate, then I really don't think we need fear it's judgement. Perhaps it's more like a dance or a play. And we have whatever part we have in that dance or play. And when we're finished, and we get to step off the stage and join the audience and watch that continuing dance or play, then we'll understand ourselves why it all happened the way it happened.

Perhaps God will offer some critiques and praise for our performance, but as the director of it all, the one who created it and set it into motion, there is, I think, no way for Him to be as small-minded and judgemental, as unable to see the big pictures as our fellow actors/dancers--the ones who aren't always on stage, and who can't see it from the outside.

If there is a God, He sees the big picture. And so will you when the time comes.

 

[CharleyH]

any and all religion is matter of emotion and faith, not reason or science.

Now here is a line to hang on to , but further to? Why do athiests cling to faith more than the supposedly religious? So terribly round about, no?

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I'm confused and very frightened about the "end". What really does happen? Are we accountable for all our actions? And how judgmental is the God we believe in?

I don't know what happens, but to me, it doesn't matter. Heaven is here right now. (So is hell ) I think we are infinite. Bodies come and go. I don't have a clue if we're "reincarnated" or are just reabsorbed into a divine glob of goo in the sky...

but god is here... all around us... like Colly is here, still... all around us...

I've been thinking of this more and more lately. Just wondering if I'm alone. Are we wrong for using the gifts we were born with?

I think we're wrong NOT to use the gifts we were born with.

I think our gifts are the reasons we are here.

 

[Oblimo]

In classical analysis, fear of death is fear of losing control. Death is the end of the self, the Ego, the little control freak in each of us (the Ego is closely bound with the body and body-image, so the classical analysis is compatible with belief in the immortal soul). So when you find yourself obsessed or panicked by morbid thoughts (the analysis goes), you are actually facing something out of control in your life that's upset you so profoundly you've confused it with your death.

At least, that's the classical analysis. It happens to fit the pattern of my death-panics, but I doubt it's as universal as psychoanalysits wanted it to be.

 

[Roxanne Appleby]

I kind of hate to say it at such a time, because the last thing I want to do is take away from the comfort that the idea gives to those who believe it, but I don't think so. Given that there is no evidence to support the idea, I'm extraordinarily suspicious of believing in something that we wish so much could be true. That said, I do take some comfort in a notion that that was expressed very well in a citation aptly provided by Alice Underneath in the R.I.P. thread today:

To those who knew and cherished Colleen, I offer my heartfelt condolences..... and this quote from Boris Pasternak's novel, Doctor Zhivago:


"You in others - this is your soul. This is what you are. This is what your consciousness has breathed and lived on and enjoyed throughout your life. Your soul, your immortality, your life in others.

And what now? You have always been in others and you will remain in others. And what does it matter to you if later on it is called your memory? This will be you - the you that enters the future and becomes a part of it."

 

[elsol]

I've never been afraid of death. Though I'm Catholic, it has nothing to do with a belief in heaven.

It has a lot to do with the way I came to conciousness.

I think that I became 'aware' while I was asleep... thus I have a sense of The Before. Think of the billions upon billions of years of existence before you... I have a sense of that timelessness as more than just intellectual concept.

I remember it.

Most likely it is a delusion of misfiring neurons as the final combination that brought me into being locked into place, but understand the error of the illusion is irrelevant. It's like telling a biologically insane person to 'snap out of it'; I can't... the sense is always there.

It actually gets worse, or better depending on your view.

The day that I came into Being, my cousin was killed by a school bus. Before being indoctrinated in Christian-Judeo though, I had internalized the belief that I was my cousin's Being reincarnated. In essense, I created my own religion wholesale.

Yet another delusion, but if you teach a child of three something, it is going to take radical proof to shake his understanding of the world.

Prove that there is no such thing as reincarnation... I'm not talking about science babble, but PROVE IT.

There's a reason it's called faith.

The combination makes me horribly unafraid of death.

The fear that I have is more like the discomfort towards change... I like me, I like my life, I would prefer it not to change yet; but I understand this body is only a rental.

Sincerely,
ElSol

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Not Christian, but believe very strongly in eternal "true" justice and an after-life. I do think what you do in this life is judged but not neccesarily as modern "Christians" see it but rather to the sum of actions, their intentions, and a variety of other factors that serve to colour a total force that can be summed up as a person's "soul" for lack of a better word.

Under these circumstances and the tenets of my religion Colly is somewhere pretty decent unless she did some horrible things I do not know about and reaching her is dependent on how well we manage in our own lives.

Perhaps utopian in the same aspects of the Christian afterlife, but it is what I believe and to my own senses I have my private experiences which lend it credability.


Does it make me fear death any less or make the pain of losing someone less hard to bear? NO.

 

[English Lady]

Yes, there is a heaven, yes there is a life after death and yes I believe that with all my soul.

Assylum, the sermon i heard yesterday included this verse:

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

John 3:17

He died once for all, love. You're covered, you're forgiven.

don't know what will happen exactly when I die, but I'm going to be with my God and that is going to be amazing.


Anyway, if you want to chat it over with a fellow Christian, just give me a shout

 

[Sex and Death]

I don't know what happens, but to me, it doesn't matter. Heaven is here right now. (So is hell ) I think we are infinite. Bodies come and go. I don't have a clue if we're "reincarnated" or are just reabsorbed into a divine glob of goo in the sky...

but god is here... all around us... like Colly is here, still... all around us...



I think we're wrong NOT to use the gifts we were born with.

I think our gifts are the reasons we are here.

You're a wise, deep, beautiful woman. Marry me.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I believe that when you die, you go back to where you came from.

If you can figure out where you came from, then you know where you'll be going.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[CopyCarver]

I think Laura Nyro got it right: "I'll never know by living, Only my dying will tell."

The huge flaw in that scenario is that, once we know, we won't be able to write the story.

I'm not being a smart-ass, by the way. It really pisses me off to miss the "ultimate scoop."

 

[Guest]

This might sound a little callous and cold, at this moment in time, but I don't mean it to; it's simply what I believe and how I feel...

I don't believe in an "after-life". I believe that once we're dead, we're dead. I suppose I'm coming at this from a purely scientific/rational angle, but when all electrical activity ceases in our brain, we cease to exist.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean to say we don't live on. We do. We live on through our family (especially through our children) and through our friends and loved ones. And, for as long as they remember us and hold us dear to them, we never truly die.

We also live on through our legacy - through the impact we had on the world in the time we were here. Whether that's through our work, our writing, our family, our friends, or just the impression we made on others, we live on through it.

In Colly's case - because she left behind such a strong and powerful legacy - in my eyes, she will never die.

 

[CopyCarver]

This might sound a little callous and cold, at this moment in time, but I don't mean it to; it's simply what I believe and how I feel...

I don't believe in an "after-life". I believe that once we're dead, we're dead. I suppose I'm coming at this from a purely scientific/rational angle, but when all electrical activity ceases in our brain, we cease to exist.

HOWEVER, that doesn't mean to say we don't live on. We do. We live on through our family (especially through our children) and through our friends and loved ones. And, for as long as they remember us and hold us dear to them, we never truly die.

We also live on through our legacy - through the impact we had on the world in the time we were here. Whether that's through our work, our writing, our family, our friends, or just the impression we made on others, we live on through it.

In Colly's case - because she left behind such a strong and powerful legacy - in my eyes, she will never die.

I'm 99.44% certain you're correct. But there's a remote possibility that there actually is a God and that He/She/It does play dice with the universe.
That, of course, begs the new question: would eternal life be a good thing or would it be a school phys. ed. class--expending time and effort to run laps around a track that leads right back to the start line?

 

[SEVERUSMAX]

If our only immortality is in being remembered, that will suffice for me. And, no, Lou, I don't think that you're being callous.

 

[mismused]

delete

 

[Joe Wordsworth]

I think yes.

 

[kbate]

I live as long as our daughter lives and remembers her mothers with love.

I live as long as my writing is read and enjoyed.

I live as long as the legacy of my deeds (good and bad) stands.

Is there an afterlife or an immortal soul? I know nor care not - that adventure I hope to put off as long as possible and when it comes, I hope to experience it as fully as I try to experience my life now.

I think, what were we ever certain of a wonderful afterlife - too many people would give up on their hardships and seek the other side. That is why the question remains a question - after millenia of study.

 

[Boota]

There is something, I'm positive. I don't know exactly what it is and I'm not quite arrogant enough to place rules upon it. It is what it is.

 

[SeaCat]

I do not fear death, nor do I wish to hasten it.

What happens when we die? I have no idea but I'm sure that I will learn it when I finally do pass on.

Until then I live my life to the best I can. I enjoy it as much as is possible, taking my enjoyment from both the big and the small.

I mourne the passing of my friends, I am not inhuman. I miss them, their presence and their laughter. I often regret not telling them how I feel often enough, but I know they knew what I felt towards them.

All I hope for is that when I do die, that I am remembered with the same fondness and love that I feel towards my friends.

Cat

 

[ishtat]

Yes, there is a heaven, yes there is a life after death and yes I believe that with all my soul.

Personally I think it more likely that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden.

What I find interesting about Christian afterlife beliefs is the notion that the undead ego (the soul) must retain its individuality.That seems terribly arrogant and the idea of a number of mystic traditions that we are all parts of a single godness at least philosophically makes for a more interesting and satisfying hypothesis.

 

[English Lady]

Personally I think it more likely that there are fairies at the bottom of the garden.

What I find interesting about Christian afterlife beliefs is the notion that the undead ego (the soul) must retain its individuality.That seems terribly arrogant and the idea of a number of mystic traditions that we are all parts of a single godness at least philosophically makes for a more interesting and satisfying hypothesis.

Believe what you like, love, find interesting whatever you feel interesting, this is what I believe.

I believe there is a Heaven. I believe when I get there I'll be me, but more so. I believe that it will be the most wonderful place, with my God. With the God who loves me so very much that He died for me. I believe that with every fibre of my being, and you can pooh pooh it as much as you like, it won't make one jot of difference.

Right now, more than ever, my faith is vitally important to me. My mum was just sheltered, protected during what was a fatal accident. She is alive, she has no broken bones. She had a wonderfulwoman, whom she doesn't know talking to her, keeping her safe. She's been looked after, sewn up, loved by wonderful emergency servce staff. She has had the prayers of people world wide and she feels it. She was healed by the hands and prayers of her minister and last night when she woke in a great panic, feeling trapped she saw the faces of several people from her church, people who I know were praying for her.

My mum introduced me to my faith, my mum is clinging to her faith as she comes to term with the death of her bestest friend, and I will cling hold of this faith with her.


And I'm sorry, if this upsets you, or you feel I am arrogent, self centred or whatever, but I will believe this always and ever because it is MY truth.


Oh, and if I've over reacted -I'm sorry. I'm a bit sensitive right now