by desib77 23 Replies latest jw friends
So what really happens to us when we die? I know this is probably something most people have some sort of opinion on but I just have no idea. I've had paradise ingrained in me and now that I'm putting that possibility aside I'm curious. What will happen to me? Is there really a hell? Do people other than 144,000 actually go to heaven? Or, when we die is that just the end?
Desi
I have no clue what happens after death, I really think though, my wife and I have lived together before and will again in future lives. I have many things I want to do in this life, but I certainly am not afraid of dying.
I have faith we are here for more than 70 years and that's it! There has to be more.
Bryan
The frisbeeterians say when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and you can't get it down.
Bryan,
If you believe in reincarnation, do you believe that humans come back as humans? Do you feel that some are punished for what they have done wrong in one life by coming back as something less in another?
Desi
I've had paradise ingrained in me
I had it ingrained as well That fact has made it not possible for me to contemplate a heavenly afterlife. Any way I cannot recommend myself to God as being worthy of such a reward
So the answer is , I dont know. I am not agnostic because I definately belief in God the creator, but beyond that I am not sure.
I do know now that God gives us 70 years or 80 with "special mightyness". Rather than putting things off until the New World we should do what we can now because it goes by all too quickly
What I had ingrained into me is that I'm dead. That's what we were taught - no?
So I've simply continued with that as my baseline, figuring that anything else is gravy.
Phatom,
I agree with you. We are taught that once we have left we are as good as dead. However, I am finding a lot of fault with all of the things I have been taught over the years and can't see how some hypocritical JW is going to be better off when everything is said and done than I am. I just wonder what really happens.
Desi
That is a hard question . I am sure you will get a lot of different answers,i assume when a person dies they don't know they are dead and stuck in the ground or even how they died. If they have any ,say spirital thoughts after death i don't know. Do i think they miss their loved ones ,no .Do i think they haunt people, no. KLS
Desib77
It is a very good question....and one which I cannot answer. However, having been raised a JW with the resurrection and Paradise , yada yada; I learned that there were no simple answers to this question once you stop believing in what JWs taught.
When I left 20 years ago; I never gave death a second thought. My father recently passed on and his death was an emotional roadblock for me. Not belonging to any religion; I had no spiritual explanation for the loss. Fortunately for me I had my wife and children to anchor me. After a year; the emptiness subsided; and I can think of my father and smile. Perhaps it is acceptence of the inevitable. I do not know where he is; but instinctively I know that he is ....ok. Sounds strange.
You are in good company with this question though; and it is a question of which no one; realistically; has an answer to.
I just finished reading an interesting book called "The Story of San Michele" ; in this books ending , a doctor is describing his own death. He describes it as death coming to him in the form of a beautiful child. Having seen death come many times with the death of his patients he asked death why it (death) suddenly looked so beautiful. Death replied that it was the religions of man which made death look ugly and feared; explaining that death is part of lifes cycle; and like all things in life is beautiful in its own way.
This seemed to make some kind of sense to me. Death is part of lifes cycle.
...But I would still like to talk to my father....
A lot of people believe that they have had some sort of experience with a ghost at one time or another. (Usually not a JW or ex-JW) I've found that a lot of people don't consider this a bad thing. Some even feel that it is their dead loved ones.
If people don't come back as ghosts sometimes then does that mean the JW's are right and that it really is the demons doing things?
