Do you believe in life after death?

Yes.

I don’t think there is life after death, but as an agnostic…I’m not completely sure.

I’d like to. But no, the anthropology nerd in me says I’m dust in the wind.

I actually think it’s more romantic to think of myself blowing over mountains and settling in the ocean than having an afterlife. What am I gonna do with that anyway? Watch for an eternity? Nah, I’d rather fly.

“I believe in life before death.”
—bumper sticker

I’m with august. Dunno. It’d be nice. Or would it?
The unfortunate thing about being an agnostic is that all of my answers seem wishy-washy.

No. sadly but I stick to the facts.
I feel that if there is nothing but darkness before life why would there be anything but darkness after life?

I’m 99.99% certain there is not. Of course, not being infallible, I leave a margin of error. You never know.

It’s fairly easy to imagine death. I don’t see why people have such trouble with it. Imagine: before you were born! It’s exactly like that.

I have to believe there is, otherwise I freak myself out.

exactly my thoughts kitchen sink! which makes me wonder why the hell you posted it directly after me!
Joking…

I believe for many, the energy of our souls stick around or go and come around…
something like that. I personally feel a lot of that energy around me quite a bit, and have twice seen it.

I believe there is another life after this one, and another one after that, into, possibly, infinity.
In a way I am talking about a form of bastardized reincarnation. I don’t think we live multiple lives just on this planet. I think we live this life here, on Earth, then we move onto another planet, somewhere, out there in the universe.
That is why every person on this planet, in some form or fact, wants to believe, or does believe that there are other life-forms out there, beyond our own galaxy. Everything we do in this life, is the beginning. We have no past experiences, no past lessons. That is why we don’t know what is coming, because we know nothing. But once we die, we move onto the next world, the next life, knowing everything we knew here, on Earth. We then live out another life there, on Plant x, learning and living and loving, just as we are here, but with greater effect, having all the knowledge of one life.
I believe this continues into an abstract infinity, ending at some point of omnipotency, or something similar. In\at, that moment we privileged to all the knowledge ever gleaned. We know everything. By living so many times, and each time a different way, we earn the right to everything.

It is in this believe I have constructed myself, that everything, in my option, can be explained, as pertaining to actions of humans. There is no evil, there is only good, only the perception of both. In that sense, how is it that one can be “good” and kill animals to eat their flesh… to survive? Or how can it be “evil” to take the life of another human… to survive? The mothers of the children that die in every war, never think of the ones who shot their offspring as “good” but “evil.” The same can be said for the mothers of the children doing the killing. Their kids are doing a “good” thing, killing the “evil” people.
That is why I do not believe there is a devision of “Good Souls” and “Bad Souls.” It would make no sense what-so-ever. The only thing that would come close would be a more defined society, resembling the ones already present on Earth, but, more divided with much tighter communities.
It does not matter how live now, as long as you live to your fullest potential. If that means you are to be a rapist, or murder, or a lawyer, or judge, doctor, or writer… As long as you are looking for who you are meant to be, and striving for that above all else, then you are living a “good” life, a full life, and thus, when you move on to the next, you will know far more then any other person, giving way to a better “after-life.”

That may mean, by being a murder in this life, you live one of solitude and quite suffering in the next. Not as a divine punishment, but as a personal realization, and self-inflicted punishment.

So, ya. To answer you question: I do believe in many “after-lives.”

Yes

Yes, I am 100% positive there is life after death. John 3:16 & John 10:28. So now that you know there is life after death, the next question you should ask yourself is “Where am I going to spend eternity?”.

Nope. Personally, I think people made up the idea of life-after-death (looooong before the Bible) to comfort themselves when they realized that not only do other people die, but “someday I will die too!”

I’d rather deal with reality than someone’s made-up story, though. It gives me more information to go on when I’m living my life.

Who knows..

But go read The Lovely Bones. That kinda makes you wanna think so.

@ laureth, are you saying the Bible is made up?

Oh god. Don’t even get me started on religion. Ha.

No.

@Computergenius: 100%? Really? That’s just thickheaded. No matter what you believe in. You can never be sure of anything, and saying that you are is just plain stubborn and dull.

Anyway, it seems really obvious to me. As I said, it’s just like before you’re born. Your brain accounts for everything you do, your thoughts, your actions, etc. Once the brain stops working, the body is dead. Once the brain stops working, the mind is dead. You can’t think without a brain, and that decays away.

@ The Kitchen Sink. It’s called Faith. I wouldn’t want to trust someone or something for salvation 90% of the way. It’s everything or nothing. I respectfully disagree that once your brain and body are dead, that’s it. Every human has a soul, and that does not stop or disappear.

PS. I like your avatar. Is that a ice hockey game?

Do we really have a soul or is that just another thing people invented so as to not feel that there is no purpose in this life? If you think about it is very logical that people came up with the idea of an afterlife because who wants to just die and thats it? No one. I however have to believe that there is nothing based on science. Yes it’s bleak but there’s nothing you can do about it. In the end no one can ever prove who is right or wrong until we learn to animate the dead haha. This would also prove that there is a soul and and afterlife if you could restore life to a body that has ceased living… it’s endless conjecture…

I hope so.

I believe in consciousness after death, for a least a certain amount of time.
Once your consciousness stops grasping at the physical world, you quickly dissipate into a larger energy pattern.

I believe in life after death and its not because I want to feel comfort its because I’ve seen to many things science has failed at explaining.

@Computergenius: I didn’t mean 90%. Look at my post before you ever commented. I went with 99.99% sure. What if you’re wrong? According to you, you CAN’T be, with 100%.

Also it’s a default Fluther icon. I’m pretty sure it’s just a jellyfish.

an ice hockey game?

trying to peer at his teeny tiny avatar, I thought it looked like this. An Ice hockey game.

lol – i remember bubble hockey

@Computergenius: I wasn’t saying that the Bible was made up in that comment, no. However, I have said as much in other places.

I believe we come back based on things that I have actually experienced.

I don’t know. I assume that its one of those things that takes care of itself when the time comes. I don’t worry about it, but I think about it—more so as I get older.

I have a theory that the way the cosmos is constructed I will always be alive in some parallel universe. And in one of those parallel universes I will be you, and you will be me; and in another universe, we will both be someone else. In fact, we may all have a chance to be everyone who ever lived, perhaps sequentially, or perhaps in a state of quantum superposition. In other words, our individual selves may be an illusion—and our “eternal reward” may be the world we mutually create for one another. This is why I concentrate on my actions in the here and now, instead of selfishly looking for personal salvation or nirvana in the world to come.

Consciousness may be a property of time—a dimension which intersects the other three dimensions—and which develops a locus at the tipping points of chaotic phenomena. (The mind making a decision is one such case.) In this respect, we have a dual existence. There is a part of our consciousness that is collective—i.e., our humanity—that lives on in the cultural life of the human meta-organisms we are part of. When you think about it, our humanity is the greater part of who we are. Our humanity is not only the summation of our moral life, it determines our cultural fitness and, ultimately, our survival as a species.

If we live in a society where people act in bad faith, where people tear each other down for short-term profit, we not only become reprehensible characters, our culture goes into a downward spiral and is eventually replaced by one which is more morally fit. So, in this respect, we are all intimately involved in the social and cultural evolution of our species, and the humanity we achieve individually and collectively lives on and is carried forward. I would hope that if we reincarnate in sequential lives, that it would be picking up where we left off on the project of our humanity.

No. While the thought of there being something after this life is comforting, there is no proof whatsoever that it exists. The thought of oblivion scares the bejeebers out of a lot of people, and makes them think that if nothing comes after this, then life itself is meaningless. And they are right, life is meaningless. It is up to us to give our lives meaning.

Every tale or myth I have ever heard about where we go after we die is so ludicrous that I would rather be recycled back into the earth than to sit around in some weird afterlife with a bunch of folks I probably couldn’t stand, because most of the people with a belief in the afterlife I can’t stand NOW.

The problem is that we are conscious of our ultimate demise, and we worry ourselves to death about it. No pun intended. Wherever I was before I was born is where I will be when I die, and that is good enough for me.