I'm still rather unsure on the matter. I'm kind of warming up to the idea of reincarnation because it seems logical and many people who are far past me on the path of spiritual progression believe in it. It doesn't interest me all that much though. For some odd reason I'm not afraid of death. I'd just prefer not to die yet because I have things to do.

For me its your dead. Your corpse rots. Done.

1) every moment in time we experience is actually a memory since there is always a sensory delay in what occurs and how we perceive it. we don't perceive actual objective reality, we perceive a temporal imprint of it, converted through our senses.

with that in mind, in order for me to experience now, there would have to be a future since transitioning from nothing, to life, then to death, and back to nothing would be a non-existent event without a memory. but my existence is an event, so there has to be a respository for my memory beyond just my brain.

2) all that being said, i have no idea. and i'm content in not knowing and not "believing" in goofy contrived ideas. the absence of a solid idea doesn't feel me with enough dread and fear to require me to join a cult.

I totally believe that the universe exists as a pulsating being, like a beatting heart. Once all matter moves far enough from other matter so that it cannot be affected by heat or energy, an implosion occurs which leads to another "Big Bang." And since we are all energies within the Universe, it is inexcusable to assume that we do not continue on in some way or another. We may not reemerge as sentient beings again, but our energies will slowly diminish until there are only echos left and then BANG!, we will exist again.

huntedannoyed:
I totally believe that the universe exists as a pulsating being, like a beatting heart. Once all matter moves far enough from other matter so that it cannot be affected by heat or energy, an implosion occurs which leads to another "Big Bang." And since we are all energies within the Universe, it is inexcusable to assume that we do not continue on in some way or another. We may not reemerge as sentient beings again, but our energies will slowly diminish until there are only echos left and then BANG!, we will exist again.

the latest theory suggests that dark matter isn't pulling anything back to itself. the explosion implosion idea is losing traction to the 1 big explosion and everything dissipates into an expansive deatched cold dead mess that never comes back together.

I don't believe in it. I look at life from a chemical perspective, simply molecules and compounds mixing in certain patterns to produce sensations. Naturally, when the body loses the ability to produce and process these chemicals, then life ceases. I have yet to see any compelling evidence of the supernatural, so the "you die for realsies" theory seems the most logical at this point.

John Galt:
I don't believe in it. I look at life from a chemical perspective, simply molecules and compounds mixing in certain patterns to produce sensations. Naturally, when the body loses the ability to produce and process these chemicals, then life ceases. I have yet to see any compelling evidence of the supernatural, so the "you die for realsies" theory seems the most logical at this point.

at best i just hope that when i die the slow deterioration of my brain cells happens at the rate of the golden ratio... just to emulate a seemingly never ending hallucination.

BallPtPenTheif:

huntedannoyed:
I totally believe that the universe exists as a pulsating being, like a beatting heart. Once all matter moves far enough from other matter so that it cannot be affected by heat or energy, an implosion occurs which leads to another "Big Bang." And since we are all energies within the Universe, it is inexcusable to assume that we do not continue on in some way or another. We may not reemerge as sentient beings again, but our energies will slowly diminish until there are only echos left and then BANG!, we will exist again.

the latest theory suggests that dark matter isn't pulling anything back to itself. the explosion implosion idea is losing traction to the 1 big explosion and everything dissipates into an expansive deatched cold dead mess that never comes back together.

That's true. Original Big Bang theory held that everything came from one super dense discontinuity (don't ask from whence that came!) which then exploded. Gradually gravity would slow everything down. Many times we measured the rate of deceleration of that expansion, which is important because the rate at which the speed of expansion decreases determines whether the universe will continue to expand forever but at an ever-decreasing rate, slow to a stable point for all eternity, or eventually collapse back into a singularity for an ever-renewing Big Bang cycle.

Unfortunately we made it into space with more sensitive instruments. Now numerous experiments have confirmed that the rate of expansion is not slowing at all; instead, the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Now in addition to explaining gravitational anomalies, dark matter (a.k.a. the bottomless bucket of "Potion That Does Anything I Want") has to have the odd property of attracting or repelling mass according to its distance. In other words, we don't really have a freaking clue how the universe works, what happened before us, or what happens after us.

Personally I'm a pretty conventional Christian afterlife-wise, but it's interesting to note that many early Christians believed in reincarnation. I've not studied it so I don't know if it's reincarnation for everybody, reincarnation for everybody not good enough to see G-d, or what, but it's certainly interesting. One of those things I intend to study one day...

werepossum:

Personally I'm a pretty conventional Christian afterlife-wise, but it's interesting to note that many early Christians believed in reincarnation. I've not studied it so I don't know if it's reincarnation for everybody, reincarnation for everybody not good enough to see G-d, or what, but it's certainly interesting. One of those things I intend to study one day...

That is a tought cookie to crack. On one side hell is never really difined in the bible, but my understanding is that all people are judged. I do not however believe in physical reincarnation in the afterlife. In the bible "heaven" is basicly eternal hanging out with God and i'm not really sure how that would work out in physical form. I guess that I subscribe to the "Allegory of the cave" way of viewing life, only God and spirituality is real and everything else is illusion.

For me I think you become part of nature as your body decomposes. I'm not saying that I will become a tree when I die (although that would be interesting) but something will grow from your rotting body and I suppose that must make you part of it. That's why I'm trying to get buried without a coffin but I think that it might be illegal.

I'm not afraid of death, in fact I think I am very curious to learn what happens when you die. I'm not going to kill myself to find out but I do accept death with a sort of...openess.

You go to Valhala where the halls are filled with a giant feast and kegs of real beer!

Nah, you die. You break down into atoms and flout away, eventually becoming other things. Bet ya didn't know that. You're probably made up of the same atoms as Hitler an Gengis Khan. Well I hope so at least.

I have no idea-- there really isn't any way to -know- for sure, but I reckon death is just death. We live, we die, we rot.

Well, life AFTER death is not possible enless death is reversed... it's really a stupid thing to say, if you think about it. I've died, now I'm living again... how does that work?

I just don't see existence after end of existenc as plausable. Hell, what point would existence serve in non-existence?

Perhaps all of the ghosts and other weird stuff people say they see are only there as mental images, perhaps as echos in an undescovered subconcious network which link all human minds together on a minor level?

shatnershaman:
For me its your dead. Your corpse rots. Done.

Amen brother.

I'm not afraid of death because it seems futile since we're all going to die. I just don't want to die yet, I still need to have more sex.

Fire Daemon:
For me I think you become part of nature as your body decomposes. I'm not saying that I will become a tree when I die (although that would be interesting) but something will grow from your rotting body and I suppose that must make you part of it. That's why I'm trying to get buried without a coffin but I think that it might be illegal.

I'm not afraid of death, in fact I think I am very curious to learn what happens when you die. I'm not going to kill myself to find out but I do accept death with a sort of...openess.

I believe you can be buried in a cardboard coffin that will degrade over time.

death is complex, we cant even say what life really is.

they only way we can tell is if we our selves die and then if we experience nothing after we will have an afferative awnser that there is nothign after death.

To quote Ayn Rand: "I hope I go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that might be."

Actually, I'm hoping to talk Odin into letting me stay for a spell in Asgard. All night long, there's drinking and eating and similar merriment. In the morning, eveybody mounts up and runs onto the field to fight eachother to the death. Then you get reincarnated come supper-time and the cycle repeats.

It would be awesome.

Copter400:
To quote Ayn Rand: "I hope I go to Heaven, whatever the Hell that might be."

Actually, I'm hoping to talk Odin into letting me stay for a spell in Asgard. All night long, there's drinking and eating and similar merriment. In the morning, eveybody mounts up and runs onto the field to fight eachother to the death. Then you get reincarnated come supper-time and the cycle repeats.

It would be awesome.

Man, that gives me an awesome idea for a Norse-themed MMO.

And also, that would be totally awesome. I'll see you there.

Copter400:
Actually, I'm hoping to talk Odin into letting me stay for a spell in Asgard. All night long, there's drinking and eating and similar merriment. In the morning, eveybody mounts up and runs onto the field to fight eachother to the death. Then you get reincarnated come supper-time and the cycle repeats.

It would be awesome.

Yes, it would be awesome.

I'm kind of inclined to believe a system of reincarnation of some sort. I mean, why was I born in the place, at the time, and as the person I am, and not years in the past or future and on the other side of the world as a totally different person? (aside from just pure chance, but where's the fun in that?)

yes an odin type cycle would be nice but I belive that when you die it would be like a dream you would go to your prefect fantasy and control your life (if anyone has read the Pendragon series it would be like lifelight.)

No idea. I spent a good amount of my formative years in bitter anxiety over the subject and received no more knowledge then than my current lassitude gives me. Given my current amount of knowledge and means of processing that knowledge, there is no way I could make even an educated guess as to the state of the afterlife. This question confounds the most brilliant minds the world has ever produced - how can my flawed and deteriorating brain do any better?

On the up side, though, the answer is inevitable. I WILL find out. I cannot do otherwise. The only thing left for me to do now is to experience as much of this world as I can while I am still in it and aware of it - I may not get another chance, and even if so, who knows what wonders might distract me afterwards?

I have no fear of an immortal being judging me after I die. If I can't stand up to their standards, I don't want to be around them anyway. To be honest, the idea of dying and just... ceasing scares the pee out of me. I love being able to think, and remember, and be. I don't want to imagine what that would be like. That's not peaceful, that's horrifying. If it turns out the Catholics are right and when I die God calls me before him and cannot find my name in the Book of Life because I smoked pot or kissed a girl, I'd be most terribly surprised. I would also thank him loud and vigorously as he sends me to suffer in Hell, because eternal torture is far preferable to simple oblivion.

No one knows. But we all know one thing, at least: we defecate ourselves when we die. No matter what your creed or belief is, I think we could all agree that we could have a laugh at the fact that the end product of your biological life is to shit yourself.

They're are things we cant explain.
One of them is death.
Another has much to do with living.

Consciousness.

Science can't explain it. How is it that when some people are supposedly "under" (asleep during an opperation) that those people can recal the entire surgery. Down to what docter said what, when they said it, and can even describe in great detail the instruments the docters used?
How is it that when you go to sleep and lose consciousness that you can wake up and regain it in an instant?

People who've had near-death expirences describe never losing consciousness.

When you die that combines death and consciousness so it's no wonder it can't be explained by science.

As for the universe ending?
Some scientists say it's going to rip apart because they calculated that it's expanding more and more rapidly. And they have PROOF.
Some scientists say it's going to collapse because they calculated that it's slowing down more and more rapidly. And they TOO, have proof.

So whose proof is the real proof?
I have no clue and honestly don't care.

After you die, you become a fuzzy blue ghost that appears and offers cryptic guidance to the protagonist. For awhile, anyway, and then you turn into Hayden Christensen.

If you live a meaningful life, when you die you'll come back as a higher forms of life. If you're really great, like George Washington, you can come back as money.

I'm a bit scared. Not of the death bit, but the aftermath.
Being stuck in an eternal void must get boring.

Has anyone ever seen the movie Waking Life? One interesting bit of information in the movie is that there's 5 minutes of brain activity after death, in which the brain creates its own stimuli (the mind has a tendency to do that when it's deprived of external stimuli). And when this happens, one's sense of time is completely out of whack, so 5 minutes of real time could feel like hours, years, or centuries.

So what this could mean is that if one believes in Heaven and Hell (subconsciously), it could very well be real for them when they die. What an eerie thought - that one may die, and go to Heaven, meet up with all their friends and family who've they've crossed paths with in life, only for none of it to be real.

But I suppose if you believed in it hard enough, you could become the Supreme Overlord of the (your own little imaginary) Universe when you die.

Here's my proof for some kind of after life...

Matter can not be created or destroyed, only have it's state changed.
Consciousness is something intangible, but we know it exists because it is what we are. If consciousness is a reaction of matter in our heads creating something intangible, should that which is intangible be destroyable?

OP, you have the exact same theory as I do.
Welldone.

TheKnifeJuggler:
Here's my proof for some kind of after life...

Matter can not be created or destroyed, only have it's state changed.
Consciousness is something intangible, but we know it exists because it is what we are. If consciousness is a reaction of matter in our heads creating something intangible, should that which is intangible be destroyable?

Intangible for the moment, though there is some research into how energy may be converted to 'information', since consciousness may be boiled down to electrical impulses in the brain (therefore arising from energy not matter) this could on some level explain how consciousness arises...

As for what happens after you die, you go to the big 'Game Over' screen in the sky of course, and get to enter your initials into the scoreboard if you did well enough...

PS3fanboy:
They're are things we cant explain.
One of them is death.
Another has much to do with living.

Consciousness.

Cogito ergo sum, I think therefor i am.

The basis of modern philosophy and one of my favourite quotes.

ah i had this discussion on my bass playing forum last year :P time for some copypasta of my views:

I believe that every single persons beliefs about afterlife are true to some extent. If you believe strongly enough in heaven, reincarnation or hell even Valhalla the moment before you die these thoughts will be so strong that with your last ounce of strength you will see the afterlife you so strongly believed in.

It is like a final dream. A dream is over within 3 seconds but in our consciousness it seems to be possibly hours. A strong enough believer can spend an entire life in that split second they have before death.

The power of the mind is stronger than almost anything else and it mind alone can create the so called "afterlife" but only if you truly believe.

I am a devout agnostic and as of yet see only the power of mind is proven just not the extent of it. According to some this entire existence may be a fabrication of our minds so why can their not be an afterlife fabricated by our minds.

I believe it's a comforting fiction, but nothing more.

Of course, I'd love to be proved wrong, but that's somewhat outside the scope of anyone on this forum.