What do you think happens to us when we die?

[CenaFan]

I don’t know how my family and I, got into talking about this, but we were discussing where we would go if we die.

We had asked my grandmother who's (Italian) if she believes in reincarnation, and I think she said “No”.

Some believe that we will get reincarnation but when we come back, we won’t know who our family is.

Do you believe in after life?

Personally, I am not sure where we go but one thing is for sure, that I do hope I will know who my family is and who gave birth to me.

 

[Ferbian]

I quite honestly don't believe in anything in terms of the afterlife.

Seeing as I'm not a religious guy, I can't put myself in the belief that I'll get up to heaven when I die, or go down to hell, that I will be reborn as something else, or reborn as a human, it's a lot of different ways to live with the afterlife, and I think choosing judge one and hoping that happens, will be, well to put it a little rudely "quite a bummer" when you actually do die and it turns out that it wasn't as you expected.

Therefore I personally never get my hopes up, as I said I'm not religious, so there's no need to believe in life after death, and I don't even know how the death through evolution talks about it, I guess the way I see death is there's nothing afterwards.

But that doesn't mean I'll be against the thought of being reborn, or sent to heaven, I'd probably complain about being sent to hell, but nonetheless I wouldn't be surprised if any of it did actually happen, I'm just not believing in it.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

I lean towards there being nothing after death. I was once afraid that I'd die while still being conscious but staring at nothing but blackness for all eternity, but going under anesthesia for the first time made me realize that this isn't the case; you are aware of absolutely nothing, and when you wake up, it's as if no time whatsoever has passed.

With that being said, I truly do hope that there's some kind of afterlife or that we are reincarnated as humans. Life, in my opinion, is way too short; I, just like many tragic literary figures before me, wish that life could go on forever.

 

[Money Inc.]

To be completely honest, I just graduated from Catholic High School within the past 5 years...

Even with 12 years of Religion I don't even know how to answer this question. All I can say is don't make your opinion based on anybody else. This is a subject where you got to believe what is actually in your heart and go with it.

Don't let anything like schools beliefs, parental beliefs, etc get in your way of making the final belief. One of the biggest problems we had at our school was the fact a lot of the time instead of teaching the beliefs, it felt like they were shoving the information down our throat (ha, kind of like forced wrestling story lines...yes even when it comes to Religion we can get a good wrestling analogy in the thread)

Helpful hint to all (I'm sure the majority of you already know this)

Don't start/get in the middle/get involved period with a Religious Debate when you and your friends have been drinking.

I'll tell you a quick funny story... I'm in Kalamazoo (visiting Western Michigan University) and I'm sitting in a hot tub drinking with my friends. Stupid decision on my part that I took the outside of my friend circle to where there was a couple people I didn't know on my other side (Random people-----me------my friends) One of my friends goes on to compliment the guy on his tattoo (it was some type of religious meaning)....

Even after complimenting the guy on his tattoo we come to find out the guy is actually Atheist and the tattoo symbolized his beliefs with the church. Of course as most people do when asked about their religion.. they'll ask you back. (by the way, I'm 14 different flavors of drunk so I'm being nice talking to guy)... boy did I make the mistake in letting him know on my schooling... I then have to sit there and act like I'm listening for another hour while he's trying to sway me....

It was kind of funny in the morning... but at the same time.. I don't care what you believe in.. I just can't stand people that feel the need to try and recruit random people they've never met to do a complete 180.

 

[The Doctor]

That's a tough question.

I mean, I'm a very religious guy. I think that there should be some sort of afterlife, and I hope there is. I like the idea of having a Heaven to look forward to once I've shuffled off this mortal coil. I want to think that there will be an eternal feast and a garden representing our soul, and we'll be able to chill with Jesus and go fishing, and I'll be able to say hi to Billy Mays and all that.

There are times, though, when I'm just scared. It's the fear of the unknown, I expect. I don't want to just go out like a light, to suddenly be and not be, and I sure as hell don't want to be conscious for all eternity in eternal darkness.

I suppose you could say I believe in Heaven, but that's more of a hope. I'm not 100% sure. Just normal fears and doubts creeping into my mind.

 

[Dressler]

The fact of the matter is, no one knows, that's the "fun" part of talking about this sort of thing, you're going to have all sorts of people putting there two cents in and it'll be interesting to see what everyone says because no one knows. No one has died for a week and come back and told everyone. (Still waiting on Jesus mind you)

My personal opinion, once you're dead, you're dead, theres no two ways about it, you don't see black, you don't think, its nothing, I can't explain it really cause like I said no can imagine nothing, no one can imagine not seeing anything or seeing just black or something like that, I believe there is nothing after death, I just can't explain it any better then that because theres nothing in the world that you can compare to it.

The bottom line is no one knows what happens after death, its fun to think about because the possibilities are endless, reincarnation, heaven, hell, purgatory, nothing, all these possibilities, but at the end of the day I prefer not to think about it, I am not afraid of death I am just not willing to waste what time I have on this earth discussing it very much.

 

[FunKay the Inevitable]

An interesting question. Majority of the people in the world believe that there's something post death either it being hell, heaven, re-incarnation, purgatory etc...But there's always the possibility of nothingness. It's a scary thought I know and to be honest it's what I believe. I'm not a religious man and I don't believe that there is much if anything post this world. I believe that once we die, we die. I don't believe that there is anything left for us after we die. I don't think it matters if you were good or bad, I just believe that there is nothing, a dark place where we end up almost as if sleeping. Of course no one will ever be 100% sure until they die and that's just my opinion.

 

[Serious Mozzarella]

I don't think anything happens whatsoever. The whole concept of believing in a life-after-death situation is textbook rationalization of your fear of the unknown. I don't think "belief" is possible if the thing you're "believing" in has never presented itself in observable reality. I can understand why someone would "believe" in something because they've mistaken a certain event to be something of supernatural origin, kind of like Christians thinking they've seen God, but I don't understand a belief in reincarnation, or anything of the sort.

Back to my central point: I don't think anything happens after we die. We lose consciousness, and nothing happens to it for the rest of eternity. The only way I can see this not happening, is if some scientist somewhere discovers that "consciousness" is a matter-based chemical that can be extracted and placed somewhere else. Even so, thoughts and memories can't be placed in a controlled environment and kept stable, so if "consciousness" is an actual, physical concept, it's completely irrelevant.

Then again, it would completely disprove MORE religious theories.

 

[gd]

Usually don't bother thinking about it, and neither should. Just makes you thoroughly confused for the most part. It's not like there's anything you can do about it anyone, unless you believe in some sort of Heavan/Hell system, in which case you should just worry about not being a total dick during your life.

Personally, I'm of the belief that everyone is reincarnated as a different type of insect, based on a multitude of factors.

 

[SorgFamily]

There are times, though, when I'm just scared. It's the fear of the unknown, I expect. I don't want to just go out like a light, to suddenly be and not be, and I sure as hell don't want to be conscious for all eternity in eternal darkness.

It used to scare me as well and at times it still does. The hope that there's reincarnation means nothing to me because I'm not aware of a life I had before this one so being reincarnated does me no good. I won't know it's my spirit (if that makes any sense).

I guess I'm really pulling for heaven or something. The whole idea of heaven existing is hard for me to believe in at this point because I believe the bible is more a "guidelines to live by" rather than an actual story. Therefore if that's the case there's probably not really a heaven since it would be "part of the story".

 

[Ruthless-RKO]

Seen as I am a very religious person...I believe we either go to Heaven or Hell...and then on the Day of Judgement, we will be Judged...But thats my religion and its what I strongly believe in...We do good in our life now, and as a reward our after-life is all good..

I am a strong believer in my religion, however, when someone tells me their religion believe in reincarnation(did i spell it right?), I always say to them, hey, i respect that because that is what you beleive...

 

[The Gribbler]

I wish I believed in something, BUT I dont, it would be so comforting, but I cant bring myself to believe it. I know if I tried it would just be to make myself feel better about knowing I have to die someday.

 

[The Mark of Zur-En-Arrh]

It's the same as going to sleep. You close your eyes, you embrace the blackness, and your brain switches off. End of. There's no 'feeling dead' or 'experiencing death' because your brain isn't active to record such experiences, so even if you did die for a week and came back, you'd wake up asking what the hell just happened, only to find out you've been clinically dead for 7 days, and then you start freaking out because nothing happened.

There's been a number of musicians who've been declared clinically dead in the past, only to be revived and carry on living i.e. Phil anselmo, Dave Mustaine etc and to my knowledge, none of them have turned around and said that they experienced anything during that time frame, and that's when there was still activity in their brains, despite being dead.

My theory? That the universe expands for a certain amount of time and will eventually then retract back in on itself, and when it reaches zero, the big bang will happen all over again and the process will repeat itself, over and over and over and over for an infinite number of times.

Have you ever had a dream where you literally saw like 5 seconds of a truly irrelevant incident like standing in the kitchen and your mum asking you to take the garbage out? Except you notice some random object in the room, i.e. a birthday cake shaped like a guitar?

You wake up the next morning, possibly remembering the specifics of the dream or just remembering a guitar cake?

Then have you found yourself 3 or 4 months later, standing in the kitchen, listening to your mum asking you to take the garbage out, and you notice a guitar shaped birthday cake on the counter, and think to yourself 'Why is this so familiar?'

It's familiar because your brain already showed you this random occurance some 4 months ago, and here it is happening in front of you right now!!!!!

Well i have them frequently. I had an instance like that yesterday in fact while i was downloading an episode of Justice League Unlimited. I'd never seen the episode before (i know because i've never seen an episode of JLU until now), but i had had a dream where i'd witnessed 2 seconds of this episode while lounging across my bed half dressed, and here it was happening exactly as i'd dreamt it some 2 months ago.

Now, other people (who admittedly didn't listen to what i was telling them) kept telling me it was Deja Vu. That my mind was simply recording the information, but one half of my brain is doing it a split second later than the other one, causing me to think i'd experienced these events before.

I re-iterated that i had dreamt this particualr event at least a month ago and was repeatedly told that i didn't, that my brain was recording information at different speeds.

Fuck that! I know when i first saw something in my brain and when i first saw something actually happen to me. I can tell the difference between a split second and 30 fucking days, so i'm not buying that poor excuse for an explanation.

Based on that 'evidence' i'd say the universe simply repeats itself over and over with some massive and some minor differences each time, and when we have one of these 'preminitions' they are in fact an echo of the previous time we did this, and our brains are trying to inform us of something that will happen, and could possibly be an opportunity to avoid completely re-enacting the previous time you lived.

The fact that humans only use 10% of their brains, coupled with countless actual ghost sightings and paranormal phenomena, can only suggest that we don't know shit about death, or even living for that matter. My crazy crack pot theory to throw out there with everyone elses, is that you die, and the very next thing you experience will be coming out of the womb and starting alllllllllll over again, except maybe this time your mum is jewish, or your dad was killed before you were born, or you've got green eyes instead of brown.

But you'll still probably end up posting on WZ about 'life after death' and reading an insane theory (although no more insane than any other theory ever put foward by anyone) from a weird ass batman fan.

 

[Dave]

Here’s what I believe:

I believe that I will most likely to go into a hole in the ground, six feet below the surface and wont be heard of again. Then again, I could be turned into some dust and taken away by the wind. Either way, I wont feel any of it, I’ll be too busy being dead to care.

I know that may come off as being a bit brash but in all honesty, when I die, I wont be caring what happens to me. As a young guy, I fear death but I assume that will change as I get older and come to terms with the fact that I am going to die and when I do, all brain function will stop and I wont see, hear or feel anything again. In fact, there is a very good possibility that I wont even know that I am dead and that is the most comforting thing of all.

As for a place like Heaven, I think that place only exists in the imaginations of people who want some comfort. They want to know that the people they have lost are happy and safe in a place that means they can watch over them from afar. Whether it exists is irrelevant because no one will ever know and be able to tell us for sure. I am pretty damn sure that it doesn’t but if it gives people comfort in some way, then by all means go for it.

My Gran died a couple of months ago and whilst I would love to think that she walked into the light and met all of her relatives and is watching over me, I know that it probably isn’t true. I also realise that her memory will live in me and that is the only thing that really matters. She believed in Heaven and that gave her comfort right to the very end. As I said, if that is your thing and you are quite happy believing that, then more power to you. However, I just think I will die and I wont feel a thing. It’s will just an eternity of nothingness and I am happy with that.

Oh! I’ll also be donating my organs to science to I assume that my organs will be torn from my body. So… Yeah…

 

[People's Champ]

Nothing. As in nothing happens when we die. When we die we losr any brain function and its like a real deep sleep. I don't believe in heaven/hell or coming back as an animal or insect, anything like that. I know when I die I die and that's it. And I won't even know I'm dead. So no worries. Of course, like everyone else, I don't want to die. But I know that's it going to happen and have come to accept it.

 

[Cookie14]

Today (13th July 2010) would have been my brothers 25th birthday. Tomorrow will mark six years to the day that I woke up to find out that he had died.

I have never been religious. Before my brother died, I honestly believed that when you died, that was it. I thought of life almost like a light switch. It was either on or off. You were either alive or dead.

However, since his death, my opinions have changed, and it is all because of strange little things that have happened in the last six years.

Firstly, I'd borrowed a pair of jeans off him a week before he died. I wore them once, had them washed then hung them in my wardrobe. After he died, I spent a week looking for them. They weren't in my wardrobe, or my drawers, or the washing, or anywhere in his room. Then I looked at his old leather jacket, it had beenn hanging on the back of his bedroom door, untouched, since well before his death. For some reasone that I can't explain, I was drawn towards the jacket. I open it up, and, inside I find the jeans I had been looking for.

Secondly, We had his wake at the family home. He had a CD player that we decided to use to play background music during the evening. We had moved house only 3 months earlier, he hadn't even unpacked his CD player. It was a 3-disk multi-changer. We unpacked it especially for the wake. Inside we found 3 CD's. The single of 'Changes' by 2pac, the single of 'One' by U2, and the album that the 2pac had come from. These were the songs that had been played only hours earlier at his funeral.

Thirdly, despite my lack of beliefs, my mother has always been a Spiritualist. For my brothers funeral, we didn't let anyone give flowers, instead, we asked them to donate money to charity, the NSPCC. (we ended up raising over £1000) Everynight , before she went to sleep, my mother would light a candle for my brother. The candle would normally only burn for an hour or two. One night, she lit a candle and went to sleep, as usual. She wokeup to find her TV on, and the candle still burning, 4 hours after going to sleep. She sat upright in bed, and said "Lee, if you're there, give me a sign" within a minute, the candle went out, and an advert fot the NSPCC came on the TV.

I still don't believe in Heaven or Hell, God or the Devil, anything like that.

But I do believe that no-one is ever truely gone. Sharing the memories of a lost one keeps the memories, and in a way, the person, alive. But something else stays here as well. The deceased have their own ways of letting us know that they are not gone.

RIP TO THOSE LOVED AND LOST. OUR MEMORIES WILL KEEP YOU ALIVE. WATCH OVER US, KEEP US SAFE, AND SAVE US A PLACE IN HEAVEN

 

[DiscipleofWrestling]

I believe something happens to us after we die. I don't believe in the theory that when we die, everything goes black and oblivion awaits. I believe something more occurs. As a kid, I was a regular church-goer, attending a local Baptist church. However, our family started to see corruption within the church and decided to move on to another church. Unfortunately, every church we went to since then had some sort of corruption that was the deal breaker. This, along with my parents' illnesses, led me to completely abandon the practice of going to church.

However, I still remain a "Christian" and do believe in heaven and hell. I have heard some weird stuff about the last moments of some of my relatives, how they saw and said certain things. I believe that after we die, there is some sort of judgment on the life that we led that determines our place in heaven or hell. I doubt though that heaven looks like Cloud City in Star Wars as some depictions have stated. The reason I keep this belief despite the church history I've had is because when I pray, I feel something. Bill Maher might call this a neurological imbalance caused by a mental disorder, but I feel something when I pray, like there is some connection during those couple minutes of prayer.

I respect anyone that has a different opinion than I do on this. Everyone has to find their own truth and their own guidance on these matters of faith (even if that means no faith in faith at all).

 

[Goliath Uterus]

Honestly, as much as I would love there to be a Heaven or Hell, or an afterlife of some sorts, I think he just rot, unless of course we get cremated. I honestly don' believe there is some magical place you float to when you die, as great as that would be. But I remember my dad saying something about how the energy in your body HAS to go somewhere when you die, so maybe that energy goes to another form or something who knows.

 

[The Insano Shiekh]

I truly believe in Heaven, and Hell. After you truly get saved and commit to a full time Christian Relationship with the Almighty, something just goes into your heart and you know that there's a Heaven and a Hell. I know there's a Heaven and a Hell, despite what some of you will reply with, and I love the fact that we'll live forever if we live right, although I can't fathom it. Some have gotten accounts of people dying for short periods of time and when coming back to life that nothing happened. I believe that nothing happened because God had determined that it wasn't their time to completely go, and he just let them sort of have a "rest" I guess you could say. I've heard recounts of death experiences from Church members about when dying in Labor or any other experience that they had a personal experience from God. I've even heard tell of a man who's very respected in Pentecostal religion all over the Southeast prayed for a man at his funeral and the man came back to life. The only reason I say "heard" is because I wasn't there when it happened, but there are hundreds of witnesses. I believe that that's the only case of "blackness" in death that you'll receive. While I respect everyone's opinions, I just believe that Evolution and the Big Bang Theory is absurd. First of all, if Evolution truly happened (which it didn't), how is it that a single substance (just my opinion on the substance) form an entire organism, which eventually evolved to the smartest species on the universe? If you look at pictures of the human and of the monkey, it looks like a hybrid of a monkey and of a fish because of skin texture and some features. And, how could something just go "BOOM!" and make planets so perfectly carved out that they are worldwide phenomenons? And HOW could it be that it would just make one planet that can be lived on if there is no oxygen in outer space? It perfectly formed Earth, and if any of you believe this "Pangaea" crap, I'll respect your opinions, but I think that is absurd too. Things just don't happen like that to perfectly form livable land, it takes something supernatural to do it, and there's proof of God all around you.

Just saying.

 

[secret titan]

I think that when we die, then we are just dead. I refuse to believe that some "great" God will send you to Heaven or Hell. How great can He be if He gives out infinite punishment for finite crimes?

First of all, if Evolution truly happened (which it didn't), how is it that a single substance (just my opinion on the substance) form an entire organism, which eventually evolved to the smartest species on the universe?

Evolution happened and is still happening today. It's been recorded for hundreds of years. Plus, you can't say that we are the smartest species in the universe. With all the galaxies in the universe, I find the possiblilty that Earth is the only planet with life is minute.

 

[Razor]

I hold that no matter what religion you live by, the Heaven or Hell you live in is your own.

If your Heaven is being surrounded by friends and family for the rest of your days, then so be it. A friend of mine's Heaven would be Hogwarts and all that Harry Potter-esque stuff (seriously, fo' reals). My own Heaven would be an eternity with my friends.

The Hell you live in is your own, as well. If you act immorally enough, I fully believe you will reach that Hell. It could be perpetual nails on a chalkboard, a everlasting bath in acid, or a gazillion years watching your family be killed over and over again with you being unable to help in any fashion. My own would simply be living in a room, completely comfortable, but by myself. Forever. I couldn't handle it. I'd go insane.

For me the only qualifier is if you yourself have been moral or immoral by your own guidelines. I hold that basic guidelines are bred into you at birth (be it by evolutionary DNA knowledge as Jung has hypothesized, or a integral path of knowledge imparted by God). You have to follow those at least, right?