What happens when we die?

[DangerousSausage]

Caution - this is deep!

 

For no particular reason I've been mulling over this question a lot over the last couple of days ... what actually happens to us when we shuffle off this mortal coil?

 

I'd probably define myself as an agnostic leaning towards atheism. I regard the tales in the holy books as just that, tales, which were written to fill the gaps in scientific knowledge at that time. They've given a lot of people peace and comfort, but have also been exploited, resulting in oppression and suffering. I just don't think it's likely that a magical being in the sky created us all - where did He then come from?

 

All the evidence around us points to everything having a beginning and an end. This counts out reincarnation for me. Right now, more humans are alive than ever before - so new humans are being created to keep the numbers growing. Now if something new comes into being, for me it's logical that it also eventually ceases to exist. Otherwise, when the Earth is swallowed up by the sun, where would all those souls go? To another planet? How?

 

The idea that you simply don't exist any more and have no form of consciousness when you die is unappealing and utterly unfathomable to the human brain, but I think it is most likely. But there are doubts in my mind. I think ghosts could well exist. I remember my sister claiming to see an old woman holding a baby in her room, and then giving an exact description of one of our relatives who died when she was a small child (and who looked very distinctive). My sister could not possibly have known about the relative as she died decades before she was born and is never spoken about (until she saw the "ghost" we never even knew she existed). I know it sounds fanciful, but that planted seeds of doubt in my mind. Was it a ghost? Or has she just inherited memories somehow?

 

Anyway, those are my thoughts. What do you all reckon?

[Chris]

I don't believe anything happens, apart from seeing your life flash before your eyes as it happens. I just hope that when that happens to me, I have left not just my family with memories and of course people actually attend my funeral.

It's the wider picture to actually think past the stage I mentioned but I think nothing does happen, you just escape the world and life moves on. I believe we're here to make the most of ourselves and be kind, so when the time comes it continues the circle by bringing new life into the world. I don't believe in reincarnation, it would be nice! Perhaps if it's true, I can come back as the owner of NCFC? No, I don't think so.

Who knows? I'm rambling. Onto someone else! Nice idea, a bit grim but hey.

[PTID1862]

I wish to depart this life as complete as possible... just in case I need stuff afterwards... Why, I have no idea...

I do wish to leave life as I joined it... naked and screaming... hopefully something nice

[liampie]

I wish to depart this life as complete as possible... just in case I need stuff afterwards... Why, I have no idea...

I do wish to leave life as I joined it... naked and screaming... hopefully something nice

yeah this was quite common by romans, egyptians etc.

i dont want to think about what happens tho, i am still young with many, many years ahead of me. unless notts gives me any more heartache!  

[CliftonMagpie]

How about we just move onto another dimension or universe? There has to be more to life than just this.

[Feral Fox]

@PTID1862 naked and screaming? That's an image that will take a while to shift!!!

[lambleypie]

@hissingdwarf @PTID1862 Doesn't sound like afterlife plans to me, some thing very shady about that.   

We just get burried or flamed grilled, not much else to it in my opinion unless the dead rise up.

[Feral Fox]

@hissingdwarf @PTID1862 Doesn't sound like afterlife plans to me, some thing very shady about that.   

We just get burried or flamed grilled, not much else to it in my opinion unless the dead rise up.

Sounds like @lambleypie is planning ahead for a guest appearance on The Walking Dead many years from now. Zombies here we come!

[DangerousSausage]

On the other hand, if you don't want to go out naked and screaming, make sure your other half knows what they're doing with all the ropes and chains 

 

@CliftonMagpie it's hard to get your head around the idea that there's nothing else, that all of our thoughts and experiences are just etchings inside a brain that will one day be no more. There are still things we don't fully understand - out-of-body experiences, ghosts - so maybe there is more. But if we are just "switched off" at the end of our lives and there is nothing else, at least it's more entertaining than watching Notts most weeks!

 

Is anyone here religious?

[Chris]

Is anyone here religious?

No, no, no.... Noooooooo...

Are you @DangerousSausage? Have a look at Ronan Murray's wiki page, I haven't changed it but that's another reason why I can't take it seriously.

[DangerousSausage]

No, no, no.... Noooooooo...

Are you @DangerousSausage? Have a look at Ronan Murray's wiki page, I haven't changed it but that's another reason why I can't take it seriously.

 

I think we should respect people's religious views (unless they're Mormons, of course), after all, we don't actually know for sure. Would be interesting to hear a different perspective!

 

I have indeed seen Ronan Murray's Wiki page and would like to congratulate him on his pregnancy.

[Fan of Big Tone]

I would love to think there is an after life and that we will see our loved ones again but I don't believe there is sadly, when we die we are gone and that's that.

[Northants Pie]

The end of life as far as we can scientifically prove is just that, but, it would be naive to completely rule out any other form of existence after this one has extinguished.

 

For me though the thought of any form of "afterlife" could only be possibly answered when we comprehensively answer the question as to the purpose of our life?

 

As you have said before though, is this a question born out of an inability to accept that everything has a start and finish and we are nothing more than the ultimate evolution of that process??

 

Is also the inability to accept this most simple and effective thought process due to our fundamental learning processes & societies basic principles and laws based upon the greater being narrative and as such we, now being a society firmly leaning towards the science & proven fact base for our understanding that these questions keep being asked and will continue to gather momentum until we can "prove" what happens.

 

Again is our inability to accept other peoples opinions and thoughts about this life never mind any other born out of the learning process that we are given as children?

 

No one can prove conclusively one way or another that a higher spiritual being aka a "god" doesn't exist, for all we know the religious writings and texts could be true, we are able to disprove certain elements due to our greater understanding of the mechanical nature of both our bodies and the natural world around us but we cannot disprove everything conclusively.

 

For me you have to believe in whatever you want it to be thus when you do take your last breath your final thoughts will be of happiness which if explained properly to your loved ones will give great comfort in the aftermath of your passing

[AmericanPie]

I practice faith, yet I cannot say I believe it completely. Its just a common thing here in the states, whilst in the uk I hardly visited church.

I believe in heaven personally, its worth it.

To think that life ends after dying is depressing and it gives both hope and something to think about. Religion is mostly aimed to keep people abiding a certain way of life, so why should it just end?

[Fan of Big Tone]

You can lead a Christian type of life without believing in God, "do unto others as you would have done unto you" is a good maxim to go by.

I believe in everlasting life (in a way), if you recreate then part of you lives on in your offspring and their offspring. We lost our son in 2012, it was devastating but it's a great comfort to see his likeness and mannerism in his children and to think that part of me was our son and part of him is in his children.

[Super_Danny_Allsopp]

You can lead a Christian type of life without believing in God, "do unto others as you would have done unto you" is a good maxim to go by.

 

This is not a Christian moral, it is simply one they adopted.  

A suprising amount of people have lived by this moral without Christianity, and certainly before it. In fact, a lot of animals also live by this, to one extent or another. 

[Super_Danny_Allsopp]

For me, the idea of an afterlife has to coincide with there being a spirit. Seeing as there is no such proof of this 'spirit', other than it being directly linked to the brain, I am driven to believe there is no afterlife. Once the brain dies, so do you.

It is enough for most that they will live beyond their own bodies in the impact they have on other people. Others tend to invent fairy-tales, each to their own.

Regardless, your body will eventually decompose into the atoms that brought it into existence, and eventually, likelihood is that those atoms will form some kind of living being. So reincarnation is not all false 

[Dripsey3]

Which is better for the environment? Cremation or Burial? I reckon I'll go for cremation when the times come.

[AmericanPie]

Which is better for the environment? Cremation or Burial? I reckon I'll go for cremation when the times come.

Surely burial because its natural.

Unless we burst into flames several weeks after our deaths.

[super_ram]

I don't believe in ghosts Did they take their clothes with them when they died?

[Northants Pie]

Which is better for the environment? Cremation or Burial? I reckon I'll go for cremation when the times come.

 

The only problem with cremation is that unless you have a private cremation ie you have the cookers to yourself then your loved ones get a mixture of all the bodies in the cooker that day due to residues etc so they don't so much scatter your ashes as every fecker that was being toasted on that round

[Northants Pie]

For those of you interested in the cremation process, this video is of an american cooker

 

>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHBaCZ3slis

[upthepies]

Would I come back as a Forest fan? that would mean hell exists wouldn't it?