life after death
Wednesday, 21. December 2005, 07:21:59
the question of life after death was impartially surveyed by barbara walters tonight. very interesting.
one of the last statements made on the show which aired on the west coast from nine to eleven p.m. was that of people surveyed, 90% believe in life after death.10% definitly refute it as a soporificism of religions.
honestly i don't know how anyone can know that heaven exists or that we transmigrate as souls.
are we such babies that we choose to believe these fantastic ideas for their comfort value alone? or as some near death experiencers claim, it exists because i was there and came back.therefore i believe. people of religious fervor rely on faith in their religions especially faith in god. and the tibetan buddhists (walters interviewed the dalai lama on the subject of heaven and hell.) say that we keep coming back in varying forms depending on how we behave in this lifetime. he's been the compassionate buddha 14 times and denied that he was enlightened.
some scientists said that these near death experiences are simply dying brain hallucinations. i've had hallucinations that i believed so that makes sense to me. but i really do not know. i'm not an atheist. just a 'doubting thomas' i need verification. also i don't think it really matters to me. i will still behave according to my conscience and conditioned integrity.
one thing was interesting to me... that the near death believers in life after death hadn't gone to hell. not a single one of them had an experience of hell when they were dead. what's that mean?
enough... what do you think? oh ye denizens of opera.
also, while i'm here i just want to wish everyone a merry christmas and a happy new year. [URL=http://my.opera.com/I_ArtMan/homes/albums/22840/Nativity12.jpg]for a larger picture click link.
http://my.opera.com/I_ArtMan/homes/albums/22840/Nativity12.jpg
one of the last statements made on the show which aired on the west coast from nine to eleven p.m. was that of people surveyed, 90% believe in life after death.10% definitly refute it as a soporificism of religions.
honestly i don't know how anyone can know that heaven exists or that we transmigrate as souls.
are we such babies that we choose to believe these fantastic ideas for their comfort value alone? or as some near death experiencers claim, it exists because i was there and came back.therefore i believe. people of religious fervor rely on faith in their religions especially faith in god. and the tibetan buddhists (walters interviewed the dalai lama on the subject of heaven and hell.) say that we keep coming back in varying forms depending on how we behave in this lifetime. he's been the compassionate buddha 14 times and denied that he was enlightened.
some scientists said that these near death experiences are simply dying brain hallucinations. i've had hallucinations that i believed so that makes sense to me. but i really do not know. i'm not an atheist. just a 'doubting thomas' i need verification. also i don't think it really matters to me. i will still behave according to my conscience and conditioned integrity.
one thing was interesting to me... that the near death believers in life after death hadn't gone to hell. not a single one of them had an experience of hell when they were dead. what's that mean?
enough... what do you think? oh ye denizens of opera.
also, while i'm here i just want to wish everyone a merry christmas and a happy new year. [URL=http://my.opera.com/I_ArtMan/homes/albums/22840/Nativity12.jpg]for a larger picture click link.
http://my.opera.com/I_ArtMan/homes/albums/22840/Nativity12.jpg
(13%)
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your topic is written in one of my favourite books "Das Medaillon" - "The locket"? written by C.C. Bergius 1971. I don't know, if it translated in english.
The book includes 4 stories: started in the old Egyptian culture, continued with Middle age and the Inquisition till the modern time. Short subject matter: Humans must live her life like predetermined - otherwise they have to get rebirth ... so long as they are going the right way.
It's easy to read, sportful and make me meditative over that topic.
Finally there is a happy end in the book - in our real life also (we will hope).
Oh, a nice painting, that you included.
Best wishes
Elke
By ALLY_G, # 21. December 2005, 13:04:09
lokutus
By lokutus_prime, # 21. December 2005, 14:19:48
I believe souls do manifest into others, I feel there are old souls and new souls.
I also believe God would not create a spirit to allow it to fade and not recycle into a new dimension or era.
Love your painting nice colours
Love
Eve
By zenya, # 21. December 2005, 23:52:20
thank you sternchen for the 'heads up' recommendation of "the locket".
i'll look for it the next time i'm at our esoteric book store 'the bodhi tree'. surely if any civilization functioned with a clear certitude regarding death, it was the egyptians. i read this book called "her bak" by isha schwaller which was very enlightening on the egyptian way.
lokutus my good friend, you say "I know I will not find it until I have drawn my last breath." and you imply that we are not able to understand an idea of this magnitude through philosophy. i agree.
but i just don't believe that we have to wait until the end to know.
zenya, dear lady, thankyou for the comment.
"God would not create a spirit to allow it to fade and not recycle into a new dimension or era."
it's just the import of that word recycle... i don't want to be recycled with no memory of this life or self. it seems an unnecessarily unending cycle of energies without a purpose i can take advantage of. yes, i'm sure the creator has hidden another possibility. but i want to know the path to immortality for my self.
don't you? isn't it a wee bit irritating to exist with such a vague and uncertain knowledge of our dynamic reality?
By I_ArtMan, # 24. December 2005, 19:59:06
By Nyingje, # 25. December 2005, 19:42:00
Smiles to you and your beloved ones.
By zerog, # 4. January 2006, 19:56:30
i don't want to wait until my last breath to know something true about death.
how do i know how to live my life if i don't understand why i have to die?
if i just try to cram willy nilly as much as i can into this life it seems a little desperate. furthermore it would mean that i was created for myself.
and the idea that it is all an illusion points to the possibility that nothing really matters. so why should i care. and you still have the problem of who is creating this illusion and why.
thankyou zerog for grasping the handle of this inquiry.
By I_ArtMan, # 4. January 2006, 22:41:53
In my opinion one has to choose between ignorance and belief.
Admitting ignorance in this case is like admitting that we simply cannot fly or breath underwater. It's just the way we are built. Considering that often we come to think of death when it is happiness that we miss, I proposed searching for a bit of happiness in the short time we've been given on this earth. Happiness built on true relations.
Belief on the other hand is a totally different thing. Either you believe or not. Evidence is out of question for a true believer. It might make the difference for the skeptics but a believer FEELS more than he/she thinks (which might not be a bad idea as long as he/she stays connected to the huge stream of love).
Any way you choose, you can't say that anything is really lost. Not a bit of matter (or energy) is being lost. Transformation is the key word. Even by the most cruel materiallistic theories our bodies get recycled. We, as matter, get recycled to other forms of organic and inorganic matter. We are built out of the nature (plants, animals, humans, etc) that died before us. It's what happens to our thoughts inside our heads (that is our consience) that we don't know. But what if even this thought-mesh isn't lost too. What if, being energy as EVERYTHING ELSE in cosmos, is just being transformed? Are you the same person you were yesterday? A percentage of ourselves dies and we gets reborn (that is it gets transformed) a million times every single day. Maybe death is 100% transformation, a total reboot.
Anyway, I wouldn't be sure about "all-ends-there" stuff. This whole thought implies that time is just a serial thing. Things start, things end, fullstop. It's years since physisists stoped being so sure about the nature of time and if you underline this factor as an unknown X then everything is possible.
I pointed out that the whole thing may be an illusion to say exactly this. Everything is possible. Maybe equally possible. Maybe there is no point. Why should the whole universe, part of which we are too, have to make sence to us. Our logic is just a tool. Great for some things, poor in some others. Why should we be able to understand the very essence of the universe?
I talked too much and got you tired. I'll finish here with a last thought. Let's say you're on vacations, fishing on your boat. In 10 days you must go back home and open your letters. Would it be wise to be anxious about them while fishing? Would you ever spoil your afternoon, loose that big fish coming, because you don't know what's in the letters that may have been mailed to you?
Hope 1000000 reasons for you and your beloved ones to smile.
By zerog, # 5. January 2006, 20:13:07
I think that it is a little vain for someone to want to know everything. Can a program realize its own parameters? Can it know when it will overflow? We can only be brave enough to admit that we can never know the whole truth. Gödel showed that there are mathematical sentences than no man or computer can ever prove, or prove wrong.
Pure, simple, mathematical, set theoretic sentences! and you want man to be able to find out whether there is a heaven or not!
No, the universe must be too complex for us to understand or else we would be too simple beings into a simple universe witch I am sure is not the case.
You should choose to believe what makes you happier. “Faith is the antithesis of the prove”
Hope you have a
And zerog, what a talk!
By Blu Crisalide, # 6. January 2006, 01:22:40
you said zerog,
"In my opinion one has to choose between ignorance and belief."
i say, one has to choose between ignorance and knowledge. belief is a third choice. i'm not knocking belief for others. let them be(lie)ve
what they like but it leads to arguments that can't be won and wars over words which is a terrible waste of human lives.
and,
a program must know its parameters
maybe not when. but some say that shamans, medicine men, wizards etc. always know when they are going to disappear to the world.
and not caring, the program doesn't 'need' to know
who says we can't know?
"You should choose to believe what makes you happier"
as if it makes sense that we are here to be happy. i think people tend to pretend that they're happy all the time. but admit, not courageously, to themselves on rare occasions that something is missing; that something is wrong.
"the un-examined life is not worth living." socrates
happy new year to you too blu crisalide... may the wind always be at your back.
By I_ArtMan, # 6. January 2006, 02:20:41