Quantum Theory has some interesting things going on. We are probably just another form of energy that moves on when we die. I don't know about our "personality package". I think we do have a genetic memory passed to us. But for the time being the only answer I can grasp is that we will find out when we get there. Peggy Lee sang it pretty well.
Is human death permanent?
by The Berean 22 Replies latest jw friends
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PEC
Still haven't heard from anyone.
Philip
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Uzzah
I am content in believing that this life is all there is. I live my life with that in mind. Being worm food is guaranteed nothing after that is.
If there is something else after this, I can just be pleasantly surprised ... hmmmm ... I hope pleasantly .... wouldn't be too happy to come back as a goldfish or the like
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jaguarbass
No one can say on this side.
From what people can see the answer is death is permanent.
From what some hope the answer is death is not permanent.
The Budhist look and hope for permanent death, they feel we are reborn again and again
and being born and having a life is the root of all misery.
The seek to end the karma of being reborn.
At the same time the Budhist dont believe in God they believe being reborn, reincarnation
is just a natural phenonoma.
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Mary
I tend to think that our conscienceness/soul/spirit survives the physical death for a few reasons:
- There seems to be scientific evidence that NDE's are not just the dying brain hallucinating, but are real experiences.
- Millions of people throughout history have had some sort of contact or experience with spirits/ghosts, etc. I sincerely doubt that each and every person who has experienced this is either lying or on drugs.
- With the exception of the odd religion like the WTS, all religions teach that there is an afterlife. If there is a God and if He did create us, then it appears that we are a combination of flesh and spirit, as it says in Genesis. Once the flesh dies, the "spirit returns to the true God who gave it."
I have no absolute proof---no one does. One things for sure though: we'll all find out once we get there.
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Narkissos
Mythology aside, I can't think of death as a "state" or "condition" that could be "permanent" or "temporary". Whose condition would that be? Only that of a mythological entity precisely (call it "soul" or anything else) which would have not to be (really) dead to be dead... In the phenomenal world death happens of course (as an event of life!) but I'm not sure "anybody" is dead (even though bodies are).
Iow the thought of death is mythological (or poetical) in essence. No less so when we envision it as "nothing" than as "soul" or "resurrection" for instance. It calls us to relate to what "we" are not. Be it a "soul" in heaven or hell or another body -- or the "universe," the "cycle of life," or even more simply other people. "We" are made of many elements which once belonged to others -- not only atoms, molecules and genes but language, words, ideas, gestures that we got from others and are constantly passing on to still others. Perhaps we see better the continuity if we do not focus on the "biological individuals" but on much more tiny elements, such as a particular expression (a smile, for instance) running from face to face from the dawn to the twilight of mankind. Yes this is mythology (or poetry) as well, just one I feel like relating to.
Homme, ne crains rien: la nature
Sait le grand secret, et sourit."Man, fear not: nature
knows the great secret, and smiles."
(Victor Hugo) -
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VoidEater
To what are you referring when you speak of the permanence of death? What about you is "you"?
What happens to that part of "you" that is "you" when you die? Where does it exist before death, and after death?
Are you thinking of your body, a part of your body, your personality, your "soul" (where it that "soul" now, and where is it after death)?
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The Berean
I am thinking of any form of Awareness
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MissingLink
The chemical processes in our brain --IS-- who we are. Our personality is just a side effect of those processes. Adjust the chemicals a bit (hormones, drugs, or damage), and you got a totally different person. Stop the chemical processes completely, and that "person" is gone.
If our "spirit" existed outside the physical brain, then the above things would not affect it.