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Ok life force or energy that all living things possess.
We will be recycled, our atoms will be broken up and used elsewhere, some of which will be passed on to the maintenance, or creativity, of a new life form. Therefore at the molecular level we will be reborn in many ways, just it won't have your memory or sentience, and this "life force/spirit/essence/energy" will terminate with your bodies life.
I'm an atheist - and believe that we are just flesh and blood - like any other living thing - we return to blackness from whence we came - never believed in ghosts etc
but a few experiences have made me think that all is not a clear cut as that
when my youngest son was about 2 and a half we were driving past through Mumbles towards the pier - when he suddenly pointed out of the window and shouted out - 'that's where I lived with my other Mummy and Daddy' we asked who they were and he replied quite calmly 'it was when I was another boy' -
went out with a girl who had once done Tarot readings - but had stopped for some reason - once when I was spouting off that is was all a load of rubbish - she grabbed my hands and said that there things out there that I didn't understand - as she did so I felt as if I just been plugged into a power socket - like every hair on my body was trying to eject from my skin - I said - what the F was that - she just replied - 'you know what you felt'
so in short - I believe that there is someting else after this mortal coil is shrugged off - my guess is that life force is recycled in the way that physical bodies are - I expect to be some kind of mollusc in the future - or a fungal spore nestled snugly inside Cameron Diaz's gusset
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Life after Death on 23:47 - Jan 18 with 6605 views
Everyone should really do their own research and come to their own conclusion.
Personally, I now believe there is a life after death.
Why? What brought you to these conclusions?
I have found the exact opposite to be true. Even if I had believed in anything spiritual before, the fact that there has never been a single shred of evidence to back it up, either outside my own sphere, or within.
Which is why remaining skeptical and asking questions is the best way to weed out the nonsense apportioned to supernatural claims,and this is important to arrive at as correct an answer as possible.
Read somewhere that I within the next 20 years nano technology inserted into the body will immediately detect changes to cell structure dramatically extending life expectancy and that a little further down the line we'll be able to upload and store our mind. Perhaps we won't need to be thinking about life after death then
Probably the main impediment to the answer to the question of life after death is that too many of the terms and concepts we use have irrevocable religious overtones, and the religious parts usually take over the conversation. Let me try to avoid that as much as I can and still attempt to answer the question.
Before I was born, my body did not exist, but the elements which would become my body did, and were transferred to me through my mother's body.
As someone noted above, there is something about life which we cannot understand - a life force, or in a non-religious sense, a soul. No-one can question the fact that there is a life force that made this pile of chemicals and elements come to life from nothing, and that it had to come from somewhere; and when my body dies, it has to go somewhere.
A very important fact about "life" is that although we can see the effect of its existence, we have absolutely no idea what it is, where it is, how it got there, or what happens to it when the physical body dies.
One most satisfying theory of the origin of my life (or soul) is that it came from my mother, or possibly from a combination of my mother and father. I cannot deny the idea that it becomes the essence of me when the first two cells combine. Because we know virtually nothing about life (soul), I cannot rule out its being placed there from some external source. The latter is what has generally led to a belief in a distinct divine act of the moment.
First, however, if there is a divine origin, our puny intellect combined with our puny imagination cannot consider that "event" except as a specific act at a specific moment in time. That is not necessary. [I might try to explain that at another time.]
Second, however, as I think further about my life (soul), as I realize that it came from my mother or both parents, then it had to have come to them in the same kind of transaction. If I look to my grandparents for the source, that only leads me to my great-grandparents, and so on until I come to a place where I must admit that there is no further I can trace it through physical beings.
I know that there are some who will scoff, and say that it all happened in some primordial stew of chemicals, but I find that beyond belief. The concept of a life force that can - and does - do all of the things it does with my body is overwhelming. It creates life, sustains life, reproduces the cells of life over a long lifetime, gives us senses, intelligence, reason, and more, and replicates itself. To imagine that this immense power came from some random act of chemical reactions is a thousand times more difficult to imagine, let alone believe, than that it was done by some source of creative power that we do not know.
Just as my physical body is ultimately dust and will return to its source as dust , it seems logical that so too my soul will return to its source. [I am not by any means the first person to have seen this, of course.]
What form that return will take cannot be known. Will there be any kind of awareness about it? Senses? Recognition of continued being? That's the question the O.P. would like answered. And it cannot be answered. Belief - or better, faith - can answer it, but with the caveat that neither if purely factual.
Probably the main impediment to the answer to the question of life after death is that too many of the terms and concepts we use have irrevocable religious overtones, and the religious parts usually take over the conversation. Let me try to avoid that as much as I can and still attempt to answer the question.
Before I was born, my body did not exist, but the elements which would become my body did, and were transferred to me through my mother's body.
As someone noted above, there is something about life which we cannot understand - a life force, or in a non-religious sense, a soul. No-one can question the fact that there is a life force that made this pile of chemicals and elements come to life from nothing, and that it had to come from somewhere; and when my body dies, it has to go somewhere.
A very important fact about "life" is that although we can see the effect of its existence, we have absolutely no idea what it is, where it is, how it got there, or what happens to it when the physical body dies.
One most satisfying theory of the origin of my life (or soul) is that it came from my mother, or possibly from a combination of my mother and father. I cannot deny the idea that it becomes the essence of me when the first two cells combine. Because we know virtually nothing about life (soul), I cannot rule out its being placed there from some external source. The latter is what has generally led to a belief in a distinct divine act of the moment.
First, however, if there is a divine origin, our puny intellect combined with our puny imagination cannot consider that "event" except as a specific act at a specific moment in time. That is not necessary. [I might try to explain that at another time.]
Second, however, as I think further about my life (soul), as I realize that it came from my mother or both parents, then it had to have come to them in the same kind of transaction. If I look to my grandparents for the source, that only leads me to my great-grandparents, and so on until I come to a place where I must admit that there is no further I can trace it through physical beings.
I know that there are some who will scoff, and say that it all happened in some primordial stew of chemicals, but I find that beyond belief. The concept of a life force that can - and does - do all of the things it does with my body is overwhelming. It creates life, sustains life, reproduces the cells of life over a long lifetime, gives us senses, intelligence, reason, and more, and replicates itself. To imagine that this immense power came from some random act of chemical reactions is a thousand times more difficult to imagine, let alone believe, than that it was done by some source of creative power that we do not know.
Just as my physical body is ultimately dust and will return to its source as dust , it seems logical that so too my soul will return to its source. [I am not by any means the first person to have seen this, of course.]
What form that return will take cannot be known. Will there be any kind of awareness about it? Senses? Recognition of continued being? That's the question the O.P. would like answered. And it cannot be answered. Belief - or better, faith - can answer it, but with the caveat that neither if purely factual.
[Post edited 19 Jan 2014 0:56]
"As someone noted above, there is something about life which we cannot understand - a life force, or in a non-religious sense, a soul. No-one can question the fact that there is a life force that made this pile of chemicals and elements come to life from nothing, and that it had to come from somewhere; and when my body dies, it has to go somewhere."
Utter tosh.
Do insects and animals have "souls?" Grow up.
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Life after Death on 01:21 - Jan 19 with 6492 views
"As someone noted above, there is something about life which we cannot understand - a life force, or in a non-religious sense, a soul. No-one can question the fact that there is a life force that made this pile of chemicals and elements come to life from nothing, and that it had to come from somewhere; and when my body dies, it has to go somewhere."
Utter tosh.
Do insects and animals have "souls?" Grow up.
For someone like yourself who can and regularly does make relevant and sensible posts, you sometimes do need to learn to respond without personal remarks like "utter tosh" and "grow up."
Of course all creatures have a life force - including not only "insects and animals" but every life form in existence, including plants, viruses, and everything that lives and then dies.
You see, the first thing I wrote above is that some terms have religious meanings that get in the way of intelligent discussion. You used "soul" in a purely religious sense. I used it - and said so - in its non-religious sense as "a life force." You even quoted the relevant passage from my post!
I also wrote that we have no knowledge whatsoever about the life force. But if I were to write about the soul in its purely religious sense - which I repeat that I do not - I can see all creatures in existence having that kind of soul, too.
You don't know. I don't know. Why does that make you correct? And correct enough to tell me to "grow up"?
For someone like yourself who can and regularly does make relevant and sensible posts, you sometimes do need to learn to respond without personal remarks like "utter tosh" and "grow up."
Of course all creatures have a life force - including not only "insects and animals" but every life form in existence, including plants, viruses, and everything that lives and then dies.
You see, the first thing I wrote above is that some terms have religious meanings that get in the way of intelligent discussion. You used "soul" in a purely religious sense. I used it - and said so - in its non-religious sense as "a life force." You even quoted the relevant passage from my post!
I also wrote that we have no knowledge whatsoever about the life force. But if I were to write about the soul in its purely religious sense - which I repeat that I do not - I can see all creatures in existence having that kind of soul, too.
You don't know. I don't know. Why does that make you correct? And correct enough to tell me to "grow up"?
[Post edited 19 Jan 2014 1:22]
How can a "soul" be non-religious? You make ludicrous assumptions - hence "utter tosh."
There's nothing mystical or mysterious about living creatures - or are you a biology denier as well as a science one?
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Life after Death on 04:56 - Jan 19 with 6428 views
"As someone noted above, there is something about life which we cannot understand - a life force, or in a non-religious sense, a soul. No-one can question the fact that there is a life force that made this pile of chemicals and elements come to life from nothing, and that it had to come from somewhere; and when my body dies, it has to go somewhere."
Utter tosh.
Do insects and animals have "souls?" Grow up.
Animals have emotions, they feel love, fear death, so yes I'll say they do have souls. I simplify of course. I have a simple answer, I do not know. But I refuse to confirm or write off what I cannot prove or disprove. I shall just have to wait and see.