What do you think happens when we die?

by cognac 58 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  Ucantnome

  i'll rot
• 

  XBEHERE

  I dont know. I lean towards you are dead period. WT might be kind of correct on this one.
• 

  The Scotsman

  We continue - but I do not know more than that.
  
  As for proof - very difficult. I have read several books on NDEs and at the very least it is thought provoking.

  One of the books was written by scientists who approached the subject from the scientific perspective - and they successfully debunked a number of the NDEs mentioned.
  But in the end, all of the scientists were of the opinion that "something" survives death - even though they were not religious and perhaps had a pre-conceived idea on the subject.

  There is only one way to find out for sure ........
• 

  slimboyfat

  I don't see why anything special should happen when we die.
• 

  steve2

  What will happen? My otherwise decent and loving family will fight like cats and dogs over my awesome Dusty Springfield vinyl and CD collection. That's what will happen when I die. B*rstards!
• 

  Sammy Jenkis

  I had a brother who almost died in an accident and he only remembers seeing some sort of "light" before waking up in the hospital about a day later.

  The truth is that what many of us believed was that we would only be there- suspended in sleep. But now anything goes, I'd like to think we all meet those we treasured most and live happily ever after.
• 

  Seraphim23

  I think the answer to the question of this thread lies in consciousness. A deep analysis of the subject is always good because otherwise one can get side-lined into thinking that so called emergent behaviour explains consciousness away, when it doesn’t. I’m really talking about the contrast between two fundamental positions regarding existence which are materialism and dualism. There are many forms of these basic positions but I won’t bore anyone with those. Materialism basically says that all things are composed of material and all phenomena, including consciousness, are the result of material interactions. Dualism holds to the belief that there are two elements of existence which are the Physical and Spiritual. There are other views but they always seem to lead back to these two basic positions in one way or another.

  If consciousness is real and cannot be reduced to a mere process, then this itself is evidence that there is more to existence than mere matter and so there are more things in heaven and earth, so to speak. Of course the arguments for and against these positions are tedious to say the least, but I would submit that there are few things that require less proof of being real than consciousness does in order to be excepted as real.

  So if we get to the place of being able to accept the reality of consciousness, which is a no brainer in my view, it leads one to the conclusion that more things are existing than this universe, explained in terms of physical/scientific terms, which opens up the possibility of life after death is some way; life in this case being defined as continuing consciousness.

  If this is the case we would expect to see or experience evidence in the universe of non-scientifically explainable phenomena, or to put it another way, phenomena not reducible to particle interaction. Being more specific we would see things like ghosts or hear of such from credible people. There would be other forms of ESP also, probably it would often be associated with people’s deaths in some ways, that don’t make sense in the normal way, and we see this in a great variety of ways also. Near death experiences are a case in point and sometimes people who have no brain function report, after resuscitation, real world information not always local to their bodies’ physical location which gets verified.

  If all this is true, which I think it is, it means what we do here has relevance to the next life because one affects the other.
• 

  punkofnice

  My JW daughter asked me a question after I told her I'm now atheist/agnosticy thingy. 'Then what is the point of life?' (Meaning god must exist or life is futile)

  Me: 'Just because we want there to be a point to life doesn't mean there has to be one.'

  I don't know what comes after death....if anything at all.

  Christians will tell you one thing as a 'fact', Muslims will tell you something else as 'fact', Scientologists will believe their fantasy as 'fact'.

  We have to make up our own minds right or wrong.

  Personally, I don't hold any hope of surviving death.
• 

  cofty

  Seraphim23 - You have created a false dichotomy.

  Consciousness is "real" and it is a result of physical processes.

  There is no ghost in the machine. The onus is on those who say otherwise to provide the evidence.

  To say the arguments are tedious and your position is a "no-brainer" is not going to earn you any prizes for rational argument.
• 

  Seraphim23

  You can have the prize if you can explain how emergent behaviour works or the processes of particle interaction causes consciousness. If not the onus is just as much on those with your position to make your case, particularly in the eyes of those who have experienced interesting phenomena of the kind I touched on before. I did wonder how long it would take you to respond to me. Looks like I was right in thinking almost instantly. However this post was directed to cognac so he can consider this view and of course yours also.