Life After Death...

[Aa_Doodaa]

For a while i've had this question in my head, but no one to explain it to. The question is:

Do people of different religions experience the same afterlife?

In further detail, let's say there was a religion which harbored the idea that after death, a person experienced his/her own life again, and there was another religion that said people were reincarnated as a different person in a different time and place. Let's also say that there are two people that are very orthodox one of these religions, to each their own.

Would the person belonging to one religion experience what he was taught that he would experience after death, and the other person what he was taught? Or would they each experience the same as everyone else, what universally happens after death?

Also, an attached question, what do you think the afterlife consists of?

[~One~]

Re: Life After Death...

i think when you die. you die. there is no 'afterlife' and theres nothing we can see as to what the afterlife would slightly be like. theres no clues or anything.

[devonin]

Re: Life After Death...

Do people of different religions experience the same afterlife?

Terry Pratchett says yes, you get exactly what you expect.

Most religions say: We have one kind of afterlife for true believers and one for everyone else, and you go to whichever one applies.

So if we assume one is right, then no you don't each get what you believe at all.
Of course there is no evidence to support -anyone's- particular theory of afterlives, because nobody has ever conclusively proven that they've gone to one and come back.

[Master_of_the_Faster]

Re: Life After Death...

For a while i've had this question in my head, but no one to explain it to. The question is:

Do people of different religions experience the same afterlife?

In further detail, let's say there was a religion which harbored the idea that after death, a person experienced his/her own life again, and there was another religion that said people were reincarnated as a different person in a different time and place. Let's also say that there are two people that are very orthodox one of these religions, to each their own.

Would the person belonging to one religion experience what he was taught that he would experience after death, and the other person what he was taught? Or would they each experience the same as everyone else, what universally happens after death?

Also, an attached question, what do you think the afterlife consists of?

If I was a god, I would try to allow a person to be reincarnated the way they would keep their faith in, but only if they valued allowing everyone to have life, liberty (not the liberty to unreasonably take life, liberty, or property), and property. If the people were to defy my requests, I would simply not allow their reincarnation, after life, or belief to be the way they expected except I wouldn't destroy someone from existance for ever unless it really had to be done. I wouldn't really punish everyone, but simply not give them what they want (unless you consider that punishment). Every religion is so one-sided. Each religion with it's own reality that might be completely true, somewhat true, or completely false. There is only one reality and you must value that your own reality may be wrong to any degree considering people with many different realities (that may or may not be true) share the same one reality. The idea of an afterlife really relies on the combined thought of one's own reality and atleast acknowledging that your reality might be wrong unless your reality is completely proven. For example, I place 99% in living for ever so I don't have to worry about afterlives, but 1% in any other possibilities ( this statement comes out of not having any evidence on what would happen after death and is not a true statement).

Edit:

Terry Pratchett says yes, you get exactly what you expect.
So if we assume one is right, then no you don't each get what you believe at all.

This idea isn't exactly true if you keep all possiblities in mind. Let's say that I was God. I might give one person an after life in heaven (which they believed) and another person reincarnation on Earth (which they believed too). Sure these two ideas are different, but they can both exist togather in the one reality that we live in. They don't exactly contradict each other unless your talking about the exact same person. Since Aa Doodaa mentioned two seperate people who strictly believe in their own religions (which are different), as far as reincarnation goes, it is possibile that both of the people's beliefs can exist in the same reality.

[devonin]

Re: Life After Death...

So if you believed in reincarnation, but the christian God was real and you were a rapsit and murderer...does God send you to hell which you don't believe in, or reincarnate you?

[Aa_Doodaa]

Re: Life After Death...

Well, Master said he was God, right? Let's just ask him =o

But really, who's to say that rape and murder are wrong? I mean, yeah you get in trouble because it's a law in the US, but who 'made up' that rule? When we think of rape and murder, we think things like trouble, jail, consequences... But the people who told us that we 'can't' do that were just people, with no real authority over us.

Suppose that the afterlife, for everyone, was reincarnation, and the time from when you died to when you were born felt like a second, like when you get a really good sleep and it feels like you slept for less than five seconds. Then would death really be bad? You don't even know what's happening, then you die, then you have life again. Torture is a different matter, having to die in pain and agony is just wrong, but if you just 'respawn' (because i know that word will play over better with FFR'ers) right when you die... are you really losing much?

[devonin]

Re: Life After Death...

Torture is a different matter, having to die in pain and agony is just wrong, but if you just 'respawn' (because i know that word will play over better with FFR'ers) right when you die... are you really losing much?

See, I've always felt that discussion about the prospects of reincarnation was a complete and utter waste of time, for the following reason:

Nobody I have ever met in the entirety of my life has ever put forward a solid assertion that they have direct and confirmable memories of a past life. In fact, nobody I have even -heard about- has put forward a solid assertion that they have direct and confirmable memories of a past life -INCLUDING- people who -have- put forward "some kind" of claim of direct and confirmable memories of a past life.

(The usual downfall of people claiming to have past life memories is that they always claim to be, or be directly connected to some well known historical figure, because it is easy to gain outside knowledge of their lives, but universally fail to possess any memories about the more esoteric mineutia of the life they claim to have [famously someone claiming to have been Cleopatra's hairdresser could talk at length about Cleopatra, but did not actually have any memory or knowledge whatsoever about the tools used by hairdressers in ancient egypt])

From this I can only conclude one of two things:

1/ Regardless of how many past lives you've had, you never retain any memory of your past lives.

or

2/ By some incredibly freak coincidence -every single person I have ever associated with, spoken to or heard about- just so happens to be a "new soul" who has never reincarnated.

If 2/ were the case, there would still be millions upon millions of people who had clear discernable and confirmable past life memories, certainly sufficient numbers to establish reincarnation as an outright fact, but so such phenomenon exists, so I do not believe that reincarnation exists with persistant memories but just by pure happenstance I've never met someone who reincarnated.

That leaves /1, the statement that if reincarnation exists, we retain no memory whatsoever of our past lives.

If that is so, then the concept of reincarnation is meaningless. It simply -doesn't matter- that you "come back" as someone else, because in this life you have no confirmable knowledge that you will reincarnate, and in the next life, you retain no memories of this life, and thus -still- have no confirmable knowledge that you reincarnate.

[Ice wolf]

Re: Life After Death...

See, I've always felt that discussion about the prospects of reincarnation was a complete and utter waste of time, for the following reason:

Nobody I have ever met in the entirety of my life has ever put forward a solid assertion that they have direct and confirmable memories of a past life. In fact, nobody I have even -heard about- has put forward a solid assertion that they have direct and confirmable memories of a past life -INCLUDING- people who -have- put forward "some kind" of claim of direct and confirmable memories of a past life.

(The usual downfall of people claiming to have past life memories is that they always claim to be, or be directly connected to some well known historical figure, because it is easy to gain outside knowledge of their lives, but universally fail to possess any memories about the more esoteric mineutia of the life they claim to have [famously someone claiming to have been Cleopatra's hairdresser could talk at length about Cleopatra, but did not actually have any memory or knowledge whatsoever about the tools used by hairdressers in ancient egypt])

From this I can only conclude one of two things:

1/ Regardless of how many past lives you've had, you never retain any memory of your past lives.

or

2/ By some incredibly freak coincidence -every single person I have ever associated with, spoken to or heard about- just so happens to be a "new soul" who has never reincarnated.

If 2/ were the case, there would still be millions upon millions of people who had clear discernable and confirmable past life memories, certainly sufficient numbers to establish reincarnation as an outright fact, but so such phenomenon exists, so I do not believe that reincarnation exists with persistant memories but just by pure happenstance I've never met someone who reincarnated.

That leaves /1, the statement that if reincarnation exists, we retain no memory whatsoever of our past lives.

If that is so, then the concept of reincarnation is meaningless. It simply -doesn't matter- that you "come back" as someone else, because in this life you have no confirmable knowledge that you will reincarnate, and in the next life, you retain no memories of this life, and thus -still- have no confirmable knowledge that you reincarnate.

Well said.

It seems like if 1 were true, then reincarnation wouldn't exist, (In a way) because you wouldn't have any knowledge of reincarnating. It would happen, but you would live like it didn't.

*Hopes that made sense*

[devonin]

Re: Life After Death...

That's what I'm driving at: Even -if- that is precisely what happens, since nobody has any evidence for it happening, it might as well not from a "how do we live" point of view.

[Master_of_the_Faster]

Re: Life After Death...

Yeah, I would agree that the topic of reincarnation is a bit pointless for the same reasons of any lack of evidence even if it was true. The only reason I was using the hypothetical instance of if I was a god was to show that I could make two different people reincarnated in the ways that they believe in the same reality. Such an instance is hypothetical and anything beyond that statement is just an opinion of mine of if I was a god (I'm not really a god, atleast I don't think so). Considering you were talking about the fact that I would be a sinner in terms of what the Christian God would want, then I probably would go to hell. If you know that a god exists that can control your afterlife, then your own thoughts of reincarnation are virtually useless unless they are the same of that god or if that god could be defeated/removed from having such authority (assuming that we are talking about god as a being with authority).

[obie32one]

Re: Life After Death...

You go to Heaven or Hell depending on whether or not you believe Jesus was the Messiah and you accept him as your personal Lord and Savior.

At least, that's what my pastor tells us.

[Master_of_the_Faster]

Re: Life After Death...

You go to Heaven or Hell depending on whether or not you believe Jesus was the Messiah and you accept him as your personal Lord and Savior.

At least, that's what my pastor tells us.

Your pastor isn't God. God hasn't met your pastor, given consent to such a statement, or has given any proof of his existance. Before you post something like this, go to Heaven or Hell and even still, I would be looking for proof! A mere statement without evidence doesn't have any impact on society unless all you want to do is manipulate people.

[Aa_Doodaa]

Re: Life After Death...

Well... I thought of a theory.

Maybe there was once a God, but not the type of god we think of today. Maybe "God" was the person who created souls, the billions of souls that recycle themselves by reincarnation. This would mean that a soul is like a battery, or energy source, for a living thing, and when it senses that there is no need for a being to be alive any longer, it moves on to a new body, thus giving the new one life and the old one death.

[devonin]

Re: Life After Death...

That would also imply that a finite number of souls were created all at once, and unless souls can move across from humans to non-humans and back, there should only ever be a finite number of humans possible to exist. I'm not sure how you could support that unless some arbitrarily large number of souls were created, and just sit, unused.

[Master_of_the_Faster]

Re: Life After Death...

I'm not sure how you could support that unless some arbitrarily large number of souls were created, and just sit, unused.

Well, all the unused souls could remain in Heaven or Hell for the remainder of the time. Of course, such an instance would only be hypothetical as there is no real evidence.