Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by David Pollard on August 1, 2012 at 10:06pm

Jeff,

I believe we all experience something after death.  Some of us are further along the spiritual path than others. Therefore, our experiences after death will be somewhat different.  In my Father's house there are many mansions.  It seems to me the more we learn in this life the further along we will be in the next one. 

Permalink Reply by LOU LOU B.A.Hons , Dipl on August 2, 2012 at 4:26am

Hi,    I  believe that our souls do go somewhere , I also think we have life on other planets , who knows , we may be reincarnated? hence , Da ja vou.  I think our souls are definately fought for by a higher or lower power.

It can't be birth, life and death  , then, go no where , surely?

There must be a higher purpose for our evolution.

Scientists are certainly looking at spirit differently , especially with the God partical.

What does everyone think?

Best Wishes .

LOU LOU 

Permalink Reply by Peter Kraft on August 2, 2012 at 11:03am

At the moment of our death does our life's memories dissipate as do our dreams do upon awakening? 

The only people who can answer this are those who've had NDE (near death experiences), and the doctors and nurses who've tended to those people.

Over the years I have come across a few people with remarkably credible tales. Can they be verified? I don't think so, and what remains are the anecdotal tales told by those who've had these experiences and their beliefs.

The one remarkable case that stands out for me is a patient who died on the operating table, and instead of seeing the bright wihte light and went to "heaven" he had quite the opposite experience. 

I can only believe in the veracity of one of Newton's Laws of Thermodynamics whereby energy cannot be created or destroyed, and that there is some transfer of energy, and it's up to the artists/authors to bring these tales to light.

As far as what other people believe, that which is universal to us all-death, their beliefs may not have much to do with what occurs. I don't think we have a choice in these things.

Permalink Reply by Jill Celeste on August 3, 2012 at 10:55am

There is an ultimate truth about what happens when our soul chooses to drop it's mortal form...Though we all may struggle to describe that truth in our own terms...In the "end" our beliefs matter not as to where we go and what we do without our body on.

The soul drops it's mortal form as easily as we change our clothes. Similar to what David Pollard said....depending on our dharma and our karma and the page we are on in our soul's script when we leave.....there are many different "places" where our soul may repose until it chooses to put on a body again....or not..

Near death experiences are just that...they are near death experiences...the soul does not permanently leave the body. Near death experiences may have similarities or may be totally individual.....the path of an NDE is paved with many of the beliefs and memories that were held during that particular life. The experience itself is chosen by the soul for learning purposes specific to that individual.

Permalink Reply by Peter Kraft on August 3, 2012 at 11:39am

Jill, I don't know of anyone who has gone on over to the other side, come back, and told us what the deal is. Death is death. The end of life as we know it, all else is speculation, faith, and systems of belief. Some are more palatable, entertaining, and give comfort-others not so nice. It's all what you choose to believe.  

Permalink Reply by Jill Celeste on August 3, 2012 at 5:21pm

Depends on your definition of "Life as we know it"....Life is eternal, the physical body gives up it's Life and disintegrates.....it's the end of nothing..... it is a dissolution of proteins and chemicals that surrounded and was infused by Life....

The truth (in my world LOL) is we have all experienced death and come back from it...that is reincarnation. There are those that remember but most of us don't. I'm hoping that as the human model is perfected we will be able to bring back full memory of the experience into our subsequent lives......I know, you're going to say reincanation is just a belief that makes people comfortable with dying....

Reincarnation does not give me comfort...to me it makes sense...The God I know wouldn't give such an intricate creation as a human being just one chance at mastering all the gifts talents and abilities we all came with.  Can I prove this?  No.... Can we know Ultimate Truth without science proving it to us? Yes

Haven't you ever Known something to be true without science or someone else proving it to you?

Yes we mold what we refer to as "reality" all the time we are creators....

Permalink Reply by jeff herman on August 3, 2012 at 6:15pm

Jill, Not sure if this fortifies your position, but when I was little I would sometimes ask people how I got here and they always said I was born through my mommy's belly, same as everyone else. First, I tried to think about everyone being born through my mommy's belly and then figured that all mommies had babies not just mine. Still, I couldn't remember being born and couldn't recall even knowing when I first knew I was alive, and still can't. But that doesn't negate what happened. So I just went with the flow and thought that Adam And Eve was real, and that kind of worked and no reason why it couldn't work again, I guess. 

Permalink Reply by jeff herman on August 3, 2012 at 11:22am

So, does what a person believe = reality? Or, is what a person believe irrelevant because reality is immune from what human's think? Quantum physics suggests infinite, even parrelel, realities. It also shows sympathetic syncronicity between same subjects exposed to different conditions at same time. So, perhaps what we think really is the result before we realize it? Or, there may be unseen/unmeasured variables that dictate all outcomes separate from know constructs. The first thing I was taught about life was from a Jewish teacher who told me that: "Man plans, G-d laughs". But is that an acceptable answer? 

Permalink Reply by Peter Kraft on August 3, 2012 at 11:34am

When I was back there in Hebrew school there was teacher there who said: "G-d created the universe in HIs image, gave us a guide-the Torah, and our duty is to argue about it for all eternity."

To paraphrase science fiction author Phillip K. Dick: "Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." He must have had a similar teacher.

I don't think anyone "knows" the answer, and because we are bestowed with the ability to create, as in The Creator's image, it'd be a safe guess that G-d may very well check in from time to time for a few laughs because all we can do is make it up as we go along, and follow the basic guidelines. 

Permalink Reply by Sherry Antonetti on August 3, 2012 at 8:42pm

I figure, God is bigger than our imagination, so what we believe about our destination is not nearly as vital as how we lived.  Someone can meander through a city and wind up because they followed their nose, at the best pizzaria in town.  I don't believe we create or imagine heaven.  Did we love fiercely? is the question.  Did we pour out our gifts even if we did not realize in doing so, we were in fact, living out a beautiful life of holiness? 

Permalink Reply by Sondra Sneed on August 6, 2012 at 8:03pm

"eternal echos and memory fragments" -- this is the most descriptive way of saying exactly what happens.  They don't believe in an afterlife because their imagination is too small.  Once they have extinguished this small way of seeing their existence they have a chance at extinguishing the world in their minds.  

Extinguishing the world opens the realm of their imagination, this happens because nothing is capable of collapsing without opening something else on the other side.  So when a soul is able to extinguish the world, it is able to let go and move on.  Otherwise there is nothing but fragments and echos to sustain them.

"Can their soul and energy move on while their consciousness remains in place?"

I think people misunderstand the nature of energy and the soul.  The soul is not in and of itself an energy source, it is a capacitor for energy. It can consume energy and it can disperse energy, but it is not a source of it.  Therefore when the soul has lost its way it loses energy consumption and becomes less and less capable.  It is like the way depression makes us unable to move off of the couch.  A soul that has lost its way, is a soul that cannot do much in the way of energy, unless it derives its pleasure from sucking the life-force out of others and other souls.  

The energy a soul uses, when not in a body, requires access to atmospheric conditions including humidity and static electricity.  If these things are not present then the soul is given its own way of measuring its existence but rarely does that equate to an ability to do anything.  So the point here is that energy is the ability to do work.  Soul without body has greatly reduced its ability to do work until it is able to rejoin spirit form.  Spirit form is connected to the aspect of God that is all light.  All light energy is a source of pure energy and perfect energy without any resistance.  Resistance then is used to create.  Soul and spirit unit in order to build a body.  The body being gone, the soul cannot move well and the spirit has had to go on into the realm of origin without the soul.  Soul is the identification of an individual.  Spirit is identification with God.  If the soul knows not spirit, it knows not God and knows not its own abundance.