The afterlife. There are so many different perceptions of it, and there is no way to tell what is or isn't real. It adds a sense of mystery: you'll only know what's to come once your life is over, everything before that point is mere speculation.
I personally don't really know if I believe in an afterlife. I guess I'd quite like to, but the mechanics of such a place always bother me. Namely: Is it another life, from birth to death, like an endless cycle? Is it a sort of paradise in which one can life in peace forever and be happy with all of their dead loved ones?
The second possibility in particular always makes me wonder. How do you appear in such a world? The way you see yourself? The way others see you? In case of the latter, you'd have no actual corporeal form, but I guess that wouldn't be all that strange in context. Or rather, if you appear the way you were in life, what point in your lifetime does your appearance base itself on? Is it what you looked like when you died? Because that would, for many people, not exactly be optimal. How can everyone you love be in the same place with you and everyone they love and everyone all those people love, etc? (Like in Titanic. She'd grown old and had a husband and a child and then she died and in the afterlife she looked the way she did when she was with Jack, and that was who she met in that place. How does that work, logically? Was her husband left alone in there, knowing then that his wife didn't even love him enough to have him be one of the loved ones she had the chance to meet again? How sad is that?) Is nobody actually there, is everything just a figment of memory or imagination?
I always ask myself these questions when faced with the possibility of an afterlife. Maybe that's why I'm not sure I can really believe in it; I tend to want to know how things work before blindly accepting them...
I'm interested in knowing other people's views on the subject. ;).
~Levyathan
Well there are a lot of questions about the afterlife. Most opinions seem to be that if and or when you get to Heaven, you are in your prime. If you die of old age, or say you lose a body part, you are in one piece, as you were at your most perfect. This raises questions though such as what about children who die? If an overweight or quote unquote ugly person dies, are they stuck in a body they don't like forever? There are plenty of questions, and no answers really. I have faith in an afterlife though. I'm in no hurry to get there mind.
ReplyDelete>everything is mere speculation
ReplyDeletePFFFFF then what about all the folks all over everywhere having out of body experiences and similar shenanigans? Plenty of knowledge (and experiences?) we can pull from there!
Also heaven nor hell do exist. This is one of the things where the Bible got translated/interpreted awfully wrong. Wherever we go when we die, we either MAKE it a hell, or MAKE it a heaven. See it as lucid dreams: you can do anything you want. People with evil thoughts will fill it with evil stuff (such as fire, pain, etc), whilst good people will be loving and fill it as such.
...I feel like such a wishy-washy gullible shithead right now, but hey, beliefs.
I am not really sure what I believe. There are so many different theories to turn to (reincarnation; Dante's Inferno; obtaining 72 virgins and eternal supplies of food). But I hope there is SOMETHING, because the thought of nothingness is pretty terrifying.
ReplyDeletethat is what faith is all about--believing and trusting in something---if it is knowledge, we need not have faith or hope----we all struggle with this---great post!
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