If you have read such books as Mark Fisher's "Instant Millionaire", you know that people who live their life fully are not afraid to die, no matter if there is an afterlife or not.

Therefor those who are afraid to die, they just do not live their life full enough.
They have betrayed themselves and their plans to the routine.

As for no facts that prove afterlife, and what about NEDs and OBEs?
Of course, some can be written off as hallucinations, but yet...

Was it king Solomon who had a ring with a writing on it?
"Everything passes, so will this."

So why worry about something that will pass?

The Bible, Torah, Quran etc... are virtually impossible to write without any kind of divine intervention, especially considering the intelligence of the time they were written in. OK maybe they were books written by humans BUT surely the words and laws came from a much more divine entity. Personally my holy book states things such as life starting from water, there are parallels with the big bang theory and other stuff about the sun, moon and earth having all their own orbits etc... which we only came about to discover recently. There are many miracles both mathematically and theoretically as well as the poetic fashion of the literature of the holy book which somehow I doubt will be impossible to imitate so I rest my case..!!

Hmmm interesting comment BUT I still stand firm by my opinion because an atheist really doesn't have to oblige to any code of ethics or laws, whereas somebody like me is constantly under pressure to abstain from drinking alcohol, eating certain foods, smoking etc... we also have to read daily prayers as well as refraining from fornication and base desires, and many other prohibited things, some of which I find very difficult to stay away from and always feeling guilty afterwards... So I guess end of the day it boils down to personal opinions and even if an atheist does have it harder I still don't think they would get the same satisfaction as a believer

how can a person be free if they have to worship god?

to be free. you worship no1

Wrong. To be free, you worship whoever or whatever you, presonally, decide to.

Saying you have to worship nobody is a kind of control.

You worship the god within you...

Not everyone believes the bible knows what its talking about...



How so?



Which holy book do you speak of? I know many people that interpret things different ways... Norman here think that the bible talks about aliens, for example. Plus, there is many other explenations than "god".



Oh yes, cuz, we all know that atheists are not bound by the law.

Not really. because when you start reading the bible. God states that you MUST worship him or you dont go to heaven n all that.

So you see. that isnt exactly being free is it. Where you have to do and believe everything the bible says.

if GOD wanted freedom he would say. believe in me or dont, you will still go to heaven.

But god says that you have to believe in him to go to heaven. that is control

Yes. Using your logic, Putte, people in SH's regime were free also. They could badmouth him all they wanted (they actually could) but they were tortured/killed because of it.

Let's not forget that Bible was re-written and edited by god-know-whom during 2000 years, so probably now it is rather far from original and what we now know as "christianity" is more like induction the feeling of guilt to make people more sheep-like.

You're missing my whole point.

If you're free to choose, you're free. I think we all can agree on that. If you, while being free, choose to believe in the Bible, are you still not free? You've had the possibility to choose once, and you still have the possibility to choose. You believe in something that by some people is something that controls you, but it's still your choice.

Stellar, I fail to see the similarity of this logic and Saddam Hussein. Care to enlighten me?

BUT the Quran/Koran has not changed a single iota since it was revealed..??

Well, you're saying we're free, right? Well, if the bible is true, then we're not free like you portray, because if we dont choose the biblical god, we're going to hell. Sure, we can still choose to not believe the bible and biblical god... Just as the Iraqis were free to badmouth Saddam Hussein all they wanted.... But again, if they do, they're tortured/killed for it.



No one ever said that... where'd you come up with that? It changing too doesnt suddenly make things alright...

That is assuming the Bible is true, and you don't believe in it. For the Iraqi people, they knew very well what is true and not in their case, they never had to doubt it.

If I say the Bible is false, nothing will happen to me, because I don't even believe there is some kind of punishment for not believing in it after we die.

This is all just twisting the words though, we won't get very much further on it here, and we've strayed from the original topic.

It doesnt matter whether the bible is true or not because we're assuming it is in this case.



But if the bible is true and you say its false, you're violating one of the 10 commandments.

We are never truely FREE if a God exists. Because he will punish you if you dont believe in him.

If a GOD doesnt exist. only then are you free.

anyway, thats what I feel.

this question is easily answered for religios people...i find THEY are the ones taking the easy way out..those who beleive nothing happens are the ones who have more to live for really...i am atheist so i beleive wen we die..were dead and gone...what i dont get is like 100 year old people who cling to life like crazy...yes i was sad wen my grandmother died but i know that it will be my fate as well...but if i end up being wrong about religion then ill be screwed and have an eternity to "think about what i did"



i fell the same...its the whole "you are gods sheep" thing...do you really wanna be a sheep?





if this is true will we see it from our eyes or someone elses?

I believe that we are god. That we all are pieces of god and our destiny is, sooner or later, to blend with the whole god.

Therefor, potentially, we are free. The only limits are within ourselves.

Now why would the whole god want to punish a piece of it, if it starts behaving in a certain way? To me, it sound like this idea was made up by people to control other people, sometimes maybe in their best interests.

Like i've said previously it is incomprehensible for mankind to understand the existence of god, you have to remember that we're only one of his many creations and that there are far more superior creations than us such as angels and spirits (jinns) that exist in different realms/dimensions to ours. I find some humans very annoying when they just give up on something merely because they don't understand and thus they don't believe in it... I believe those that are atheist have been blinded by their own ignorance and lack of mental strength to have a firm conviction in faith, to them, only seeing is believing... I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion though so let it be....

Your state of consciousness explode or implode?

i grew up to believe for myself that when one person dies, somewhere in the world, at the exact same moment, another life is born.

YEP....with a GOD...there are rules and expectations from you.

Mind you....if he kept us as pets....it wouldn't be so bad LOL

There is a nice book ( free -- online) titled "Life Beyond Physical Death" based on Hindu beliefs on what happens after death.

This book can be downloaded/read from:

http://www.awgp.org/english/books/life_death.pdf

Hope you enjoy the book..

Vipul..

Where do we come from before we are born? And where do we return to? Before we are alive we exist in a place that prepares us for this life. The final prep is in our mothers womb for the next 9 months before we exist here. Everytime we die, we advance to the next level like we do here on earth. From a baby, pre-school, to junior high then high school, from young age to an old age ect. Life levels! Our life force is like the electricity in a wall socket, our bodies are like say, a lamp. When the plug is in the socket, we are on and when the lamp dies and is thrown away, (our death and burial in the ground) the electricity is still on in the wall waiting for another lamp or another electrical device to enter the socket to begin to flow into.
If you don't believe me wait till you die, you'll see.....

God! I don't fancy watching my WHOLE life again. Only the good bits. If we have to watch it all again, the worst bits I'd have to endure AGAIN would be my mother's guilt trips which I've been trying to shake off for the last few years. To watch myself go through all that again would only make me feel angrier than I do already over it!

So, in this case, kzkid, I hope you're wrong.

we go live in the spirit world. In my personal belief.

I hope your kidding. Please tell me your kidding. If your not. Please be nice. What did thug ever do to you.

We have to go somewhere don't we? Probably the spirit world like McKenna said or we get reincarnated if we want to return to earth for whatever reason.

Maybe thats why the world is so rotten these days. The good guys die and go to heaven and STAY there up until God knows when. Maybe till we clean up our world or something.

You no where we go when we die, we go into a box and rot in the ground until we are nothing.
There in my opinion is nothing after we die, and as hard as it is to fathom it is true. The afterlife is just mans way of coping with his/hers eventual demise.

Whether or not people except it, it is the truth, on that note life is to short to worry about death just have fun.

Wow... You sound like a fundi Christian. Stop passing your non-proven beliefs off as truth please.


I personally sit on the fence. I hope there is an afterlife. I don't blame anyone for hoping they are rewarded after death; life is nothing easy.

1. You can't prove it either way at this moment.
2. *In my opinion* there is more to support life after death, than there is to support nothingness after death.

3. The only thing to support nothing after death, would be something similar to the following:

If you believe the brain is all there is to consciousness(Which is VERY much up to debate), then you have to *assume* once the brain dies, the personality dies, hence the "person" no longer exists.

Stop passing yours then... The OP asked and I answered if you have a problem with this take it up with a mod

So your an agnostic then which is basically an athiest w/o the balls...


No but the laws of energy transfer etc. suggest otherwise.

Other then beleif and faith in one there is no evidence to support an afterlife.


I can proove right now that the consciousness is infact nothing more then mere biochem/electrical reactions in the brain...

When you take LSD for example it alters your consciousness via chemical stimulus. If it was energy as they say it is it should not be altered. You know just by cutting a peice of someones brain out you can completely remove their mind as well. Again if it is not in the brain and it is energy then how come you can destroy it by physical means.

There is no soul and there is no afterlife but again whether you beleive it is your choice. I'm just telling it the way it is from a logical and scientific stand point.

Agnostic has nothing to do with the belief in an afterlife. Afterlife and God does not have to be synonymous(sp?).



Elaborate. Because energy can't be destroyed. So the energy in your body still lives on.



Incorrect. There can only be a certain type of evidence. An afterlife would be a "spiritual dimension", so if you wan't evidence, don't expect to find physical evidence, that would be illogical. We have NDEs, OBEs, Astral Projection, etc.. All debateable, but none discredited to the point where it's fact or even almost fact that they are false. Hence still *very possible* evidence. No reason to just brush all of these off so easily.



You do know that the above does not prove that consciousness is a biproduct of the brain right? That only proves that altering the brain, can also alter your consciousness. Read my consciousness topic for more insight on what I'm getting at. One theory is that consciousness uses the brain as a tool to *experience* "physical reality" rather than observe it.

NDE/OBE/Etc claims should be looked into instead of just brushed off. NDEs, why should we believe they are just halucinations? Especially when some have then when the brain is clinically dead.





And my topic: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...showtopic=79284

Doesn't have to be but it is none the less.

Your right energy doesn't die but it is also not a conscious being either. Technically everything is made of energy but that is for another topic.

Again it is all heresay there is no evidence of an afterlife or a God. Astral Projection etc is brushed off as no one who claims psychic ability etc ever prooves they can do it.

If altering the brain alters consciousness then yes the consciousness resides in the brain. If the consciousness did not reside in the brain then it could not be altered.



No one has ever come back after brain death, they have when their hearts stopped but once the brain activity ceases and the brain dies that person is dead. The only thing keeping someone alive after brain death is a life support system.

The brain activity does not instantly stop after the heart does. There is a window in which if you get pulse back that person can live with little to no brain damage. Any longer then just a few minutes will result in the brain beginning to break down.

Have to disagree with you on this point I'm afraid, GanjaGuru. The consciousness would not have to reside in the brain for an alteration of the brain via chemical or physical means to alter your consciousness. It could be, as Zero says, the brain is simply the 'eye of the mind'. Also don't rule out the possibility that only part of the consciousness may reside in the brain.

In that case, the brain can't be conscious either. So why are we conscious? Everything is made of energy.



No, you'd like to believe there is no evidence. I bet you haven't ever looked into any of these phenomena, but accepted what other "skeptics" said. I could go on forever discussing the afterlife, NDEs, and OBEs with you, but let's do it on another topic.



Wrong, you're limiting the possibilities too much, hence stunting the possibility to actually know the truth, even if the truth is that consciousness is physical. And why could it not be altered? It's simple logic. If the consciousness uses the brain as a tool to experience physical reality, then altering that tool, will also alter the way which we view physical reality.




http://www.near-death.com/

Read it before you bash it. Also, I never stated anything about the heart. I said some have NDEs WHILE BRAIN DEAD. Meaning how can someone experience something as vivid as reality(Even if it's a trick of the mind), when the brain is either not working correctly, or not working at all? Does that mean we don't need the brain to experience?


I don't have much time to get deep into it, but I might later tonight. (If I don't get addicted to FFXI again tonight XD)

It would be pointless for any species to be created with no purpose other than existing for only one lifetime, and then become nothing when death comes.
There should be a soul inside every body, and the purpose of life in my opinon, is to grow, learn, acquire as much knowledge and experience as a person is willing to. Then when death comes, a person transitions from one realm to another. What realm, I guess you can say spirit realm, as that is what most people call it.

I think that we all deserve something of the sort. Life isn't easy. I'm not a Christian, but I felt for a woman I heard speak to my mom the other day. She was telling my mom how her mother is dying and she has to take care of her. She was discussing all the things she has to go through, then she said "I sure hope we go to Heaven when we die" and she had tears in her eyes.

Zero,

Here is another site you might want to check out.

I know it's a few years old, but I'm fairly certain it still remains that no-one who has ever suffered brain death has recovered. The accounts in the site you linked to were probably in a coma or persistent vegetative state. People have recovered from these, but they aren't brain death.

I agree with you though, that consciousness does not have to reside in the brain.

BurnSide, None of the things that you mensioned will happen to me!
After I die, I will be sent to a lab, where Intelligent Nerds will perform scientific experiments.
That way, I will continue to help humanity even after my death!

Usually a grave or an urn or something like that.

Of course nobody can prove if there is anything more in the afterlife, but based on what we know its more likely that there is nothing. Souls and afterlifes are things made up by man, while the anatomical side of death is proven. People make up so much crap bt it all ends up the same....there is proof that when a person dies there brain and heart stops working, no proof of the spiritual side.

You end up in Mephisto's Realm

P.S. Get the reference get a cookie.

Burnside may be the moderator, but pay no attention to him. He is a strict believer in the articles of faith of the religion of science, sometimes called scientism.

I am delighted to report that the evidence for reincarnation is reproducible and rigorous. Prof. Ian Stevenson, of the University of Virginia has devoted a lifetime to studying reincarnation in two different ways, and each allow us to rule out everything but true reincarnation of the spirit. Meanwhile NDE experiences with veridical details show that we first go to the Bardo, Tibetan for "the between." Most of the time, it is a pleasant experience. But in the details it is different for everyone. We don't stay there forever, so it is nothing like the Christian heaven and hell, which are pure superstition.

There are astounding consequences of the reincarnation and NDE studies by the Societies for Psychical Research (SPRs), first founded in 1882. Firstly, it means that the spirit has no interactions Via the EM force, and is thus invisible and can pass freely through physical objects. This is the foundation and grounding point for all further research regarding the mind, consciousness, life after death and so forth. It means we can forever separate investigations of the brain and investigations of the mind. They are two quite different things, composed of different kinds of matter.

There is an enormous amount of good scientific work by members of the SPRs, and much that isn't, especially by parapsychology, which is a pseudo-science, IMHO.

Hope this gives you a starting place for further research.

~~Cebrakon, master of forbidden sciences

Not true. One of the more spectacular recent cases was Tanya Liu, who was "brain dead" for at least two months.




Right. It takes about 20 seconds for a person's EEG to flatline. At the risk of pointing out the obvious, many victims of cardiac arrest have been resuscitated.

I always thought that one's personality was limited in time just as it's limited in space, and the thought didn't particularly bother me. I didn't feel a need to fill up more time any more than I feel a need to fill up more space. If death was the end of my personality in time, what did I care? I'd be unconscious. But now I'm finding the evidence of survival too strong to ignore. Others are welcome to disagree. That way, one of us has to be right.

No one knows what happens after death ...

But i guess, that there is nothing after death ... because it is the brain that is responsible for perception ,,, and once it dies ,, perception cease to exist ...

who knows ??!

Excuse me !!!

So, what researched found ??! What "Tanya" said ??! did he experience anything during the "brain dead" state ?!!

Im very curios to know ...

Do a Google search for "Tanya Liu."

I don't know what she experienced during her months of EEG flatline. The point is that she returned to consciousness after being in a "brain dead" state.

When people dead and come back, can they act like someone else thats way different their personality that they had before?

Here is another interesting perception of what lies beyond our lives in this world as presented by Michael Newton, a past life regressionist who inadvertantly discovered some people were revealing to him what happened in between life incarations:

http://www.near-death.com/newton.html

I have read both of his books. The information he was receiving through his clients was really interesting, but what I found even more interesting was how Michael changed his percpetion/line of questioning. In the first book he was really irritating to me as he questioned because he asked the most unimportant questions (in my opinion) and didn't fully respect the wisdom he was tapping into. He kept trying to pressure them to tell him stuff that didn't matter or wasn't possible to be shared. His line of questioning of course was reflective of his personal belief set about paranormal or mysteries of life.

By the second book I could see a change in the questioner. It was easier to read.

I have had a nde and know others who have also. I know that the energy that makes us live and breath in these wonderful amazing body creations does not come from this realm but another and when our life is over we return to the energy from which we came.

This source of our energy is also the source of the power that fuels the whole of the universe. We are not separate from it, but on earth we can certainly deny it completely.

I have no problem with the rejection of "God" as humans have chosen to define in terms of human personality.

But there is no doubt for me that we come from something far beyond our comprehension and it lies beyond the walls of this dimension. We have all chosen to come here for the experience of the 3rd dimension with its unique qualities like gravity, time and sensation. Human life provides incredible growth for the souls consciousness through experience of human emotions and physical sensations.

The soul is basically ethical. Morality does not come from religion, in fact, religion messes with people big time in trying to define morality as one set code or standard, simply because it leads to war when there is no agreement on this. Humans are amazing because they can show such extreme characteristics, from cold, heartless destruction to deep mountain moving love and compassion for one another. This is why we choose the experience, it is unlike any other. It is difficult here, but what is gained can never be underestimated.

While the work of Michael Newton is quite detailed and a fascinating read for those who are not locked in a box on the topic of life and death and rebirth, I believe deep inside we all know we have our own soul and that once we leave this life it goes on.

For those who are locked in the box that says, you live, you die and then there is nothing, they will certainly gain what they need from their experience of limitation.

We all choose what to believe and how to live, whether we want to admit it or not.
And when we are done we do have accountabiilty for what we created here in our choosing. But the judging is done by ourselves, through our human lens mixed with our soul wisdom, after we leave this life. How we judged life and ourselves and others while we were here will influence how we judge our own life when we stand before the council to do so. In the end we make amends with all we have done. But we also receive all that was good to keep forever.

Peace!

I would say yes, it might seem as though a complete personaity change has taken place. This has been noted in NDE studies. It doesn't happen to everyone. What it is reflecting is the experience of having done a review of their life actions (these reviews are complete, not like movies we view here, but full of all that you caused others to feel and you feel it from inside them and not from the outside just guessing). Because this can be quite profound in impact it can cause a complete about face in people.

It has also been noted that some people have greater psychic abilities after a NDE. Being able to see energy fields around people (auras) or hear other peoples thoughts when you previously could not do it before can be quite unnerving at first. This would definitely affect personality, since human personality is formed by how we view ourselves, how we view others and how we view the world around us to a great degree. We come with a basic soul personality, but life then shapes who we present ourselves to be based on impressions we have received.

More soul awareness is often possible for those who have gone past the perceived reality of this dimension to death and then back with a more complete awareness and memory of the journey and its purpose.

Thus it could appear to one who has not had the NDE experience that the other has changed 'personality' as a result of their experience.

Peace!

You wake up on the Nebuchadnezzer and take all your orders from then on from a guy named Morpheus - until your latent abilities swing back into action.

Wouldn't that be cool though?