After-life? (for college research)

[Elnidfse]

Unfortunately there is a lot to say on a topic such as this. We'll start first with what religion basically is in its form.

Religion in the begining, I have no doubts, was there to make human kind think they had an important purpouse in life. Its nice when you think about it, that we as people are higher up on the food chain then, lets say, a rabbit. But, think about it.

How many people do you know would lose hope if they found out, in the definite sense, that the human exsistance had no end. That our deaths, the great equalizer, would come and then leave, offering no sanctuary afterwards.

That's a pretty depressing idea/theory. There which comes religion. I doubt I'm the only person who thought of this. Otherwise there wouldn't be any religion.

Religion is the "happy ending" of our story. The goody people go to heaven, the bad people go to hell. That's black and white and that's how happy ending's should be.

Of course, through the time the meaning of it all has been blown out of porportion. I have a firm belief that heaven was just a bed-time story that children heard that made them think they would live after they die because, lets' face it, death is a scary thing.

When you die that's it. You leave everybody and everything behind. Even for people who do believe in heaven and God could tell you this.

And... (Rant's over.)

[AerisHeaven]

Maybe it depends on if you have faith. Faith can either be a tool of hope or can be a tool of the fool. You do not have to believe in something and maybe just have to live life.

[neverender]

I beleive that when you die, what you beleive will happen, will happen to you. And if you beleive certain things will (or deserve to) happen to other people (like if you think other people (will/deserve to) burn in hell) then that's what will happen to you. I don't think that the same thing happens to everyone, but I don't think that once you die you can't change what is happening to you. I think if you go to hell because you wished that other people will go to hell, then you see that it was wrong, I think you can get out of it. (does that make any sense?)

[Dread]

A simple way to put things is that you get what you deserve, regardless of weather its real or not.

The guilt of a sinner will all rush in, or in a more self-centered way, all of the good things you do will rush in. Either way I believe its the state of mind that you have as you die is the state of mind you are stuck with. Its your last memory. If its good, it becomes your heaven, if its bad it becomes your hell. Just depends on how you see things. Like for instance (getting personal) I believe there is no chance of me going to heaven. Weather I deserve it or not. If it exists, I will never see it. Of coarse, that thought would carry with me into death and become my final thought. That thought gets immortalised in my now silent sub-conciousness. Thus becoming my world. Or in other words, my hell. Or if you have a silent thought, with no positive or negative effects you just end in a sort of purgatory. But meh, whatever floats your boat...This is just the kind of stuff I've been studying. Its all that I'VE come up with as theories. Its all impossible to prove. So as many of you have said or thought in some way, its all in your perception of the subject.

My theory of the whole "white light" thing, is the state of the mind being whiped. I've "whited out" a few times myself but as a cause of my blood preassure issues. Still, it causes a kind of brain damage. Its the proccess of your mind being, in a simple term, "deleted". Or even being rebooted. The light could refer to those returning to conciousness. In sci-fi theories, when the universe is destroyed, the black of space is sucked into nothingness and replaced with nothing but the white abyss. So the "white light" could even be a state between the land of the dead and that of the living. Another way of saying, "purgatory". Some used to believe purgatory to be a judgeing grounds. It is where your path will be chosen between heaven and hell. Of coarse, this was in the time of Valhala or sometime before then last I checked. Now its just a place where the rejects of both god and satan get tossed.

I've also noticed that in the times of the norse gods and roman gods there was a war between the giants and the gods. Of coarse both with the giants emerging victorious. The one for the norse gods was known as ragnorok. Where Loki and his daughter Hel led the forces of the underworld with the giants against the gods themselves. Thus ending the rule of gods like Odin and Zeus. Of coarse, zeus was not slain with the help of any spartan, though the game is awsome, kratos was never real. But all of this mindless banter has lead me to say...why is it that only the gods of the present have no names? Alah, means god, Bhudda is not a god. He was a messiah or saint of sorts. In japanese religeons like shintoism there are no gods at all. All the other religeons follow the one nameless god...That sapposadly existed through time and space for the purpose of our existance. Of coarse, there are alot more indescrepincies that make me doubt the faiths of today, but only the fact that I beleve this current god to have only been created to keep people in line. The stories in the bible never happened if you ask me. They are all stories, lessons if you will. Something to keep in mind the next time you think about doing something stupid. The story of noah may not have been exactly about friendship, but if you remember the comandment simply put to love thy SPOUSE, wouldn't that story fit the bill of a MESSAGE? Well...Since I ranted...I might as well reconfirm that this is all my personal theory. I think too much on it...

[eskimotaro]

In a nutshell, when you die, you disintegrate and once again become what you were before your birth, and from that you split, join, and contribute to the creation of another being.

You're only thinking now because your brain's working, once it's stopped, there is no more sense, you can't taste, smell, or feel anything.

The more power we possess, the closer we feel like we are to the supreme forces.

There has got to be something we are incapable of doing, to keep us from impersonating what we look up to, be it or not just our imagination.

When someone I hold close to die, I don't see why I shouldn't be pleading about their death, considering I would never be able to see or talk to that person again.