After death

Bill Bryson touches on the subject of matter in his excellent and eminently understandable book, A Short History Of Nearly Everything.
It won many awards and accolades for bringing science to a level where everyone can understand it.
Being non-religious, I believe that death is the end of our conscious knowing but our 'atoms' are forever absorbed into earth air or water.

I am not religious at all although I like to think I live by Christian values. I do however believe in ghosts because they have been seen for thousands of years by every culture. They may not be dead though. I have always wondered if it's about time and we occasionally break into the past or future somehow.
My Dad died the day before our son was married. I felt certain Dad was present at that wedding and we had a great day for him as well as the youngsters. Wishful thinking perhaps.
Interesting post eglantine21.

Cheers, Lazigirl

Close Blinko It was Karl Marx.

So many lovely thoughts on here. Totally agree, BlueBelle, that concepts of Heaven and Hell have been promoted to keep the lower orders in check. The poorer ones current life, the more one would need to believe in a better life hereafter.

As Lenin (I think it was him) observed ' Religion is the opium of the masses'.

Life is a biochemical accident and so is death. Those who have gone before – my parents, my aunts and uncles, some cousins, some friends – all had an impact on my life that continues long after their deaths, not just an impact on me, but on my daughter and, through my daughter and me, on my grandchildren.

My idea of "heaven" is that, when I am long gone and they are parents and grandparents themselves saying, "Oh, but my Granna could…", "My Granna taught me…", "I couldn't do that because my Granna would be so ashamed of me…", "You should have seen my Granna…" I loved my Granna so much", "My Granna loved me and was so kind…" and so on.

I am probably fooling myself. In any case, I shall never know.

I am not spiritual and did not believe there was anything after death until I had this experience.

I had lost my father a few years earlier and, though I had been through a lot of grief, was now on an even keel.

I had just arrived home and was sitting in my car getting my things together not thinking about anything more than the evening meal. I looked up and there was my father standing in front of the car smiling at me. He looked about in his mid fifties, and was dressed for work wearing an overcoat and carrying a briefcase. He was there for a few seconds and then just went.

Why would that happen? It was just so odd but reassuring. It made me think there must be another dimension after death.

I think that is a wonderful description Eglantine21 and fits in with what I have always thought. Having seen dead bodies they are very much a shell and the person is not there which makes you wonder where they are. I have once had an out of body experience and so realise they are separate. I certainly don't believe in a heaven in the tradition sense or being reunited in a human type way. If there is life after death it is outside of anything we can imagine.
Either it is the next great adventure or there won't be anything and it won't matter because we won't know!

Keep us from doing the wrong thing Sorry

Well as we have no knowledge of anything before birth I m not expecting to have any after death
As a young person I believed in what I d been taught about heaven, hell, reuniting etc without question but the older I get the less I think that happens I think when life ceases that is it I think hell is an invention to keep us doing the wrong thing and heaven and reuniting are comforts to keep us happy
Our spirit only lives on in our genes in my opinion I wish it was more When life hasn’t been wonderful usually through only the fault of circumstance it would be nice to think there was another chance

I believe that life ceases and that our spirit goes back to where we were before we were born. And our body goes back to fertilise the new growth on earth.

I went through a very religious phase when younger, and I enjoyed the security and fellowship that came with it, but disillusionment set in, and much as I think it would be comforting to still believe that this one life is not all that there is, my logical self tells me that it is. Coming to terms with this has made me more determined to make the best of the life that I have, both for myself and others. I like Eglantine's thoughts on atoms, and also Ginny's, that we live on in the minds of others, and if we have children our genes continue, and so we goes on. It seems the natural order of things.

Beautifully stated Eglantine. I've never thought of it in this manner but your description seems logical. I think that after death, it will be the same as before we were born.

That is so true ginny

I think when you are dead , you are dead. However I believe that we live on in the hearts of those that love us and each of us will have touched other lives in many different ways and so some part of us goes on.

Yes, I'm inclined to think that way, except for this thing about matter.
I feel as if I may be coming around to accepting some kind of higher order could possibly exist. (But I think that its wishful thinking on my part)

My own view is that, when you die, there is nothing. However, I accept that this is my personal opinion and I may be wrong. One day I'll find out.

Couldn't have put it better Eglantine!

Good post Eglantine

That was beautifully descriptive, Eglantine
Thanks.

So they do!

A really good way of putting it?

Lovely thought, Eglantine. After all, fish think there's only the sea.

Science tells us that matter can neither be created nor destroyed. So all those atoms that made up someone we love are still out there somewhere, individually or together in some form. That’s a fact.

What I think is that whole universe is constantly in a state of change and what we call death is just a part of that natural process of change. When we say that someone we loved has died they have actually undergone change. As we all do when matter (which already exists in a different form) comes together to create us in the womb.

You could not explain to a baby in the womb what life will be like after birth. The baby has no language to understand what we would tell him, that will only come when he enters his new state and even if he did how could he comprehend a time when there would be endless space around him, myriad sounds that have meaning for him, colour and shape, heat and cold, texture and scent. All these are meaningless in the womb but what make a life beyond it.

If there is life after death it will be like that. Something we can’t even begin to understand or imagine in our present existence.

And maybe when we have undergone that change, things that are impossible and incomprehensible for us now will be a natural, simple part of our new existence.

Sorry I’ve gone on a bit.......

I believe that when you die your soul is determined as to whether it reaches the next dimension, depending on how you have lived your life. I've booked my cloud MissAdventure! I never take this subject too seriously, life is to be lived and enjoyed every day.

I suppose God and his love would be able to cover all options, soda?