Greater Reality Forum
 
Re: life after death


Message written by

Craig
August 03, 2006 at 23:48:48:

In Reply to
life after death
posted by
pieschniff_1992
August 02, 2006 at 18:33:55:

 
Hello Pieschniff,

You wrote,
There is really no meaning of life until you put a meaning to it i.e to aspire to dreams, hopes etc.

That's the existentialist point of view. Life is absurd, the existentialist suggests, so we must just cultivate our garden (Rousseau). That's a pretty dismal view of things. And there's no justification for feeling that way.

Here's what it comes down to. I can restate all the reams and reams of evidence proving the afterlife is just as real as physical life. I've put a small number of points on my Web site. But all the evidence won't convince someone who has been reared to believe that the afterlife is either nonexistent or a "Heaven" thing with angels and harps and such. The belief that the afterlife doesn't exist runs counter to all the evidence, but people hold to that antiquated view just as people believed the Earth was the center of the universe. Everyone believed the Sun revolved around the Earth, not just an ignorant few. They believed it because that was the norm; society taught them to believe it.

The same is true about the afterlife now. Until the seventeenth century, everyone knew the reality of the afterlife, but it was described in terms of a "Heaven." Humankind hadn't grown from that primitive belief into the knowledge that the afterlife is much like this life. Religion stunted that normal growth in understanding that would have occurred. However, the reality was that "atheists" and belief that the afterlife isn't real just didn't exist prior to then.

After the seventeenth century, humankind became caught up in a materialist focus on energy, matter, and forces. We learned so much so quickly that it seemed that all the answers to life's questions would come out of learning more about energy, matter, and forces. And so quickly anything aside from them was abandoned; that included God and the afterlife. Today, we're brought up in a materialist culture with materialist values and materialist explanations for existence. But that is just a temporary state of affairs that has lasted three centuries. Now it's breaking down and we're viewing life differently.

If you believe there is no meaning in life, then you are still caught up in the old way of thinking, but you're caught up in it because of being reared in a culture that teaches it. Believing that has nothing to do with having the right or the modern answers to life. Believing it requires an act of faith in materialism. You have to ignore all the evidence to the contrary to hold to that belief.


You wrote,
These meanings that we put to the meaning of life control us from our subconscious minds.
Then comes death which has as much meaning as life, everyone must die and taking words from the Buddha: death is caused by selfishness and greed etc; this is why death causes upset, we are greedy and selfish about life so we are sad when someone dies. Just to clear everything, yes I am saying that everyone is selfish, there is no way of being selfless- no such thing as a selfless deed.

The Buddha didn't say that we suffer because we are greedy and selfish. He said that we suffer because of ignorance. We don't understand that we are eternal beings, not confined to a bag of flesh. He didn't say that life is suffering; he said that the life in ignorance is suffering. We should cling to nothing we call me or mine, including those who pass away. He found the rulers and the gods lacking and eventually rejected them. However, he did believe in an overarching consciousness that is One with all other consciousnesses and that the One consciousness is not limited to the body—it does not die. So if you believe what the Buddha taught, then you must reject materialism.


You wrote,
There seems to be many skeptical people about life after death including me, i do not believe in a thing with so little evidence and up to now no way of proving any form of afterlife. However, i do believe that after death your mind cannot carry on functioning, but as one cannot remember anything about living, there is no loss and no problem. But if there was life after death I am sure that the dead would not want us to grieve too much and just to let them go, it is hard but has to be done.

You just don't know the evidence proving the afterlife. Most people have had or know someone who has had an after-death communication, near-death experience, or other communication with someone in the afterlife. You have to ignore their experiences and call them crazy or deluded. That requires a quite irrational leap of faith toward believing in a materialistic, dead universe. There is evidence for the afterlife—mounds of it; there is no evidence for the materialist assertions that there is no God and consciousness is limited to neurons in the brain. Believing in these materialist assertions requires that you irrationally believe something with no evidence for it.


You wrote,
Another partial belief of mine is that we have no meaning individually but are the pawns of a much greater power (God, gods etc) and they use us to accomplish their deeds. I do not like to think this as I do not like the idea of being controlled but this idea seems sensible if there are gods, one God or a greater power.

Everything we know proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that we make our own choices. We are provided with opportunities, but we choose. If we don't learn a lesson the first time, we're given the opportunity to learn it again. If we don't learn it in this life, we are given the opportunity to live it in the next.

All of the evidence about the afterlife demonstrates that its underlying characteristics are freedom and love. We are free to act as we wish, without constraint, and are loved unconditionally. Everyone who has a near-death experience describes the presence they meet as indescribably loving. Most don't want to come back from it. Those deceased who describe the afterlife through direct voice mediums describe it is wonderful, free, and full of love. Nothing in what we have learned has anything about a hell, devil, torment, or control. Those are beliefs that grew out or primitive tribal religions and many still hold to them because they grew up in churches that taught those archaic beliefs. They're just not true.

You wrote,
Generally i do not fear death as one cannot remember anything, a bit like sleeping without the dreams so we do not acknowledge the loss of life but i do not like the thought of losing my life. :o)

The most remarkable thing about people who have had after-death communications, medium experiences, and near-death experiences is that they assert, strongly, that they no longer fear death. That is one of the strongest testimonies to the fact that their experiences are real. Their encounter with the afterlife changes their entire belief system. Death is nothing to fear. It is just a rebirth.

Craig
 



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