Why do we die, and where do we go afterwards?

Well said. I know we debate religion a lot but there are many things I can agree with you on. Our body and soul are one and the same and upon ressurection, our bodies will take form of a healthy young or middle age adult unless you're a child in the grave. We are all children of God for He created us in his image.

reply to post by jmdewey60 & miriam0566


It is an awakening, however I feel it is an honest one. What is right for one spirit can be wrong for another. My world view accepts that the physical body and the world around it is an illusion. My spirit seeks to work it's way out of the "contemptible" environment. This body of flesh and bone limits my spirit much like a prison.



No one will hide a beautiful and valuable object under a lovely cover, but often vast monies are held in a bag worth only a penny. Consider the soul. It is a precious spirit and it came in a contemptible body.

from the Gospel of Philip

It is an awakening, however I feel it is an honest one. What is right for one spirit can be wrong for another. My world view accepts that the physical body and the world around it is an illusion. My spirit seeks to work it's way out of the "contemptible" environment. This body of flesh and bone limits my spirit much like a prison.

why would god create you and put you in a prison?

the bible is very clear. the soul is you and the soul dies when you die.

even if you want to define the body and soul as separate things, the soul cannot survive without the body. it is not immortal.

the soul sins and therefore dies. i included some scripture below to back that claim up

--------------------------------------------------------

gen 2:[7] And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul

the adam is a soul. doesnt have one. the soul is dependant on the breath of life.

exodus 30:[16] And thou shalt take the atonement money of the children of Israel, and shalt appoint it for the service of the tabernacle of the congregation; that it may be a memorial unto the children of Israel before the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.

this goes against the gospel of phillip. the gospel implies a beutiful perfect soul trapped in sinful flesh, but the soul is the thing that sins.

lev 4:[2] Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a soul shall sin through ignorance against any of the commandments of the LORD concerning things which ought not to be done, and shall do against any of them:

again, a soul can sin

lev 17:[12] Therefore I said unto the children of Israel, No soul of you shall eat blood, neither shall any stranger that sojourneth among you eat blood.

can spiritual soul eat blood?

josh 10:39] And he took it, and the king thereof, and all the cities thereof; and they smote them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein; he left none remaining: as he had done to Hebron, so he did to Debir, and to the king thereof; as he had done also to Libnah, and to her king.

how can a man destroy a spiritual soul?

josh 11:[11] And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them: there was not any left to breathe: and he burnt Hazor with fire.

souls can be killed with a sword

psalms 22:[29] All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.

returning to dust (death), kills the soul too

psalms 33:[19] To deliver their soul from death, and to keep them alive in famine.

the soul is not intrinsically immortal

psalms 78:[50] He made a way to his anger; he spared not their soul from death, but gave their life over to the pestilence;

souls can "die"

psalms 89:[48] What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? shall he deliver his soul from the hand of the grave? Selah.

when a man dies, so does his soul

prov 8:[36] But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.

isa 55:[3] Incline your ear, and come unto me: hear, and your soul shall live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, even the sure mercies of David.

ezek 18:4] Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

matt 16:[26] For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?

1 cor 15:[45] And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

first adam being adam, the second being jesus

james 5:[20] Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

revelation 16:[3] And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.

reply to post by miriam0566


This is great research. People have to understand that confusion in life and death didn't exist until the catholics and their man-made doctrines created a "Heaven or Hell" scenario when you die. When you die, you remain in a coma-like sleep until Jesus returns.

i think its just human wishfulness that something lives on. its like we live for this short period of time and then *poof* everything we are and were is gone. it sucks.

i think people have this need of filling the void. something of us survive death, there has to be something after, maybe death is just change. but its simply not true.

unfair? of course it is. but god NEVER intended for us to die. the original purpose of man was to live forever.

ok man screwed that up but god fixed it, now we just wait for the completion.

It is a fact that nothing fade away and nothing cease, every thing is just taking on a subtle changes and replenishment of his core. And if this is applicable for matter it is also valid for the soul.
The bible and other new ( new as: compare to Egyptians „book of the dead” and Indian” Kapila”) spiritual books have quickly found ground to disproof the immortality of soul - which was the teaching of many earlier so called pagan customs - because of the power of independence that this teaching could have in people.
In refuting this principal of the Immortality of the Soul, the people that had gather the Bible (old and new) has shown the political agenda behind the sorting out of this scripture.
If we believe to have energy in us and made from energy then we are immortal. Because energy never cease to exist.

Kacou.

reply to post by miriam0566

thanks miriam-----i enjoyed reading thru your thread.
there is a verse from the book of ecclesiastes by solomon that might explain why people think that they will live forever(cannot conceive of death) ?
this is from the interlinear bible which is supposed to be a literal translation.
ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time.also He has set eternity in their heart,without which man cannot find out the work that G-D makes from the beginning and to the end.
when i read this verse i perceive that G-D has put something a little extra in our brains besides the human intelligence.
from my earliest childhood recollections i remember wondering why i was alive but at that time receiving no satisfactory answers to my questions to parents or others.
somehow this drive to find out why we are alive gets perverted in this crooked world into a false belief that we can never die?

Wow.... I'm impressed. Did you come up with all of this on your own? What is your inspiration, Miriam?

reply to post by miriam0566


Wow, you are just a tunafish can of information on this subject. I wish I was a kitty cat so I could just lick you all up, then rest peacefully in your knowledge!

I"ll actually read the whole thing later when I'm not working on my computer.

Thanks for the info.

Maybe this is good for someone, but it is way to long for me. I have read the bible, many timesand many versions, and studied it my whole life. All you offer me is your opinion, which is fine, but it is not fact. The bible is interpreted over and over and every ones version is different. Let me give you and example, you said:

"another thing to note is the warning god gave adam and eve. ch 2 vs 16+17 says: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. "

If we are to take the bible for fact, in God keeps his word, he would of lost it here. They didn't die on the day the ate of the apple. Now I know the whole 1000 year to us is a day to God and all that, but the fact is they lived.

God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul. That means to me that God put the soul into man. See what I am saying? What you believe is not the ultimate word, it is how you see it Miriam. I am not saying your wrong, but I am not saying you are right either.

You have to take into consideration the fact that you are reading from a certain bible too. I am sure you believe yours is the right one, maybe it is, and maybe its not. Some of the verses you quote are different in each bible. But I can guarantee you this, that each of us have a personal relationship with God. It is though this personal relationship that God judges us and no other.

Death is seen as a bad thing, but it's not. During the translation of the 'bible' many things were changed. Fact: The world 'hell' never existed in the original bible, it was the world 'Sheol', which also means grave and death. When they translated the bible they used words that would work in a sentence. The word food in the bible also means fish, bread and several other things. The translations of the bible are not pure.
(As a side note here, you know the words in your bible that are in italics? The reason they are like that is because they did exist in the original, they were inserted to make sentances work.)

Death is part of life now. It does happen, does it matter why? How about we use death as a friend and live our lives fuller. Death encourages us to grow faster and enjoy the moment, be here now.

I do want to say one other thing here. Why did God create us anyway? Does he have low self esteem and need to be worshiped? Was he bored and had nothing else to do? Is he an artist and deliberately sabotaged his own art? Are we his toys? Was he lonely and while making us to keep him company screw us up so he would have something to do?? What do you think Miriam?

Originally posted by yahn goodey

there is a verse from the book of ecclesiastes by solomon that might explain why people think that they will live forever(cannot conceive of death) ?
this is from the interlinear bible which is supposed to be a literal translation.
ecclesiastes 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time.also He has set eternity in their heart,without which man cannot find out the work that G-D makes from the beginning and to the end.

actually, if you think about it, if adam and eve werent ment to die, then this would make sense. its difficult to deal with death because we were never ment to.

Originally posted by Myrtales Instinct
Wow.... I'm impressed. Did you come up with all of this on your own? What is your inspiration, Miriam?

i made the thread because at the time there were alot of threads about death and afterlife, but the information is from notes ive accumulated over the years.

reply to post by Zaimless

...Are we his toys? Was he lonely ....

You are not asking me, but I want to answer, anyway.
This is my opinion.
Einstein did not like the quantum theory because it was too unpredictable.
Well, the universes was created to be that way, on purpose.
What existed before, was made to order, to fulfill a specific function. (angels and things)
God was lonely and wanted someone like himself, to be His friend.
God knew that in order for this friend to be really like Him, there had to be a built in randomness and a freewill.
God is smart enough to be able to figure out that the whole thing could go wrong, so he had a plan B.
That does not mean that God wanted it to fail, or slanted things in the direction of failure.
But, fail, it did and God put plan B into affect.
We, are not given the same advantages as God's original creation.
We are born into a fallen state, but we exist for the sake of the original inhabitants, that their bloodline will not be snuffed out.
additional remarks:
I had a phone call and I did not finish.
I am not sure where I was going with this, but I will make an attempt.
We are here because we were born, that is the direct cause.
We were born because God did not destroy all humanity.
We will rise again, into a new world and with un-corrupted bodies.
We will all have the opportunity to be God's friend, so there is an upside to all this.


[edit on 8-7-2008 by jmdewey60]

Originally posted by Zaimless
"another thing to note is the warning god gave adam and eve. ch 2 vs 16+17 says: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. "

If we are to take the bible for fact, in God keeps his word, he would of lost it here. They didn't die on the day the ate of the apple. Now I know the whole 1000 year to us is a day to God and all that, but the fact is they lived.

so you agree that god's definition of a day is different, but you simply feel it doesnt apply here.

God breathed into Adam and he became a living soul. That means to me that God put the soul into man. See what I am saying? What you believe is not the ultimate word, it is how you see it Miriam. I am not saying your wrong, but I am not saying you are right either.

the original hebrew simply says that adam became a soul. the usage happens in many scriptures after especially when saying how many "souls" died. (see judges and exodus)

it is in harmony with ezek 18:4. if adam died, then so did his soul since adam was a soul.

my point is that it is layed out in a simple fashion, interpretation is not needed.

if the bible says that a sinning soul will die, then that is what happens.

if the bible says that a dead person doesnt think, then who are we to theorize otherwise?

You have to take into consideration the fact that you are reading from a certain bible too. I am sure you believe yours is the right one, maybe it is, and maybe its not. Some of the verses you quote are different in each bible.

i use online king kames bible, sometimes i go to scripturetext.com to see all the translations side by side. i assure you, you can read any version you like and the scriptures say basically the same thing.

scriptures like john 1:1 may be controversial but they are the exception, not the norm.

But I can guarantee you this, that each of us have a personal relationship with God. It is though this personal relationship that God judges us and no other.

adam's sin alienated us from god. that's why the world is the way it is.

jesus provides that bridge for us to have a relationship again.

john 14:[6] Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Death is seen as a bad thing, but it's not. During the translation of the 'bible' many things were changed. Fact: The world 'hell' never existed in the original bible, it was the world 'Sheol', which also means grave and death. When they translated the bible they used words that would work in a sentence. The word food in the bible also means fish, bread and several other things. The translations of the bible are not pure.
(As a side note here, you know the words in your bible that are in italics? The reason they are like that is because they did exist in the original, they were inserted to make sentances work.)

Death is part of life now. It does happen, does it matter why? How about we use death as a friend and live our lives fuller. Death encourages us to grow faster and enjoy the moment, be here now.

1 cor 15:[26] The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

death is not a friend. what kind of friend kills you? does a friend separate you from those you love? does a friend rob you of everything you love just when you have finally found happines?

i lived in pain my whole life. i was a prostitute until i was 16. my life didnt begin until i was 19. now im 26 and chances are that i will not live to my 30th birthday. what kind of friend takes away my life just when i have finally found some kind of happiness?

im sorry but that isnt fair. and the bible agrees. thats why jesus gave his life as a ransom, thats why there will be a resurrection, and that why the bible promises that god will undo this garbage of a world we live in where people are destroyed by those stronger than they are.

I do want to say one other thing here. Why did God create us anyway? Does he have low self esteem and need to be worshiped? Was he bored and had nothing else to do? Is he an artist and deliberately sabotaged his own art? Are we his toys? Was he lonely and while making us to keep him company screw us up so he would have something to do?? What do you think Miriam?

i think i will answer you later when i calm down because i feel like i want to explode.

It was a good read, and I admit I skipped over one section about the Lake of Fire, but I still don't see where you come to a conclusion about the "where do we go afterwards" part of the thread's title.

I see in a later post that you talk about your belief that the soul dies, and that's that. Do you believe in a resurrection of the soul? I must have missed that part if you mentioned it. If you believe in a resurrection, how the hell would a dead and gone soul be resurrected?

reply to post by miriam0566

im 26 and chances are that i will not live to my 30th birthday

It seems like a long time ago, when I was 29.
I got sick and almost did not make it to the hospital.
I spent two months there and it was touch and go.
I had to go back four other times.
I am 53, now and I do not want to die.
Sometimes I feel like it, but really, I just want the pain to go away.
I wish I had something to say that could make you feel better.
When I was sick, about all I could do, that I had any interest in, were humorous books.
P. G. Wodehouse, Douglas Adams, George MacDonald Fraser, and Harry Kemelman's "Rabbi Books" are ones I enjoyed.
Thanks for using your energy to share your thoughts with us.

Having read the posts I feel I want to say this, that Jesus says in the bible that it is better to celebrate death than to celebrate life. So I don't understand why you say that death is the enemy. Can't go to the party in the here after if we are still here.

It is a crewl trick by satan to control us using death as a means of threat, but there is no evil in death. In reality the only way home to God is through death. So how is that a bad thing? Personally I take responsibility for all may actions here on earth, but I am looking forward to the rewards that death will bring. But I will also say this, I am not in a rush, but if it happens I am in the good with God and Jesus... so I am not worried.

reply to post by InterestedObserver


Your soul dies with you but upon ressurrection, God breaths life back into you thus bringing your soul back to life because your body and soul are one. Body and soul are not separate. It's not like a pile of bones has a soul right next to it. The soul is in the body... is part of the body. Think of the soul as our concience guiding us through important decisions and choices.

Originally posted by jmdewey60

I am 53, now and I do not want to die.
Sometimes I feel like it, but really, I just want the pain to go away.

thats kind of how i feel about it.

but thanks for the kind words

Originally posted by Zaimless
It is a crewl trick by satan to control us using death as a means of threat, but there is no evil in death. In reality the only way home to God is through death. So how is that a bad thing? Personally I take responsibility for all may actions here on earth, but I am looking forward to the rewards that death will bring. But I will also say this, I am not in a rush, but if it happens I am in the good with God and Jesus... so I am not worried.

that whole train of thought is based on certain beliefs.

if one believes that god put us on this earth to live a test and then go off the heaven or hell, then i can understand why you feel that way. i would probably feel the same way too. afterall god is merciful and im sure heaven would be wonderful.

and if thats what you believe, and that makes you happy, then i am happy for you.

but for me, it doesnt work. the bible doesnt agree. i didnt get too much into the resurrection because it is a deep subject with scriptures that support both a heavenly and earthly resurrection. its actually a thread onto itself.

but the question is, a resurrection from what? death is nonexistence. if you have a candle and you blow out the flame, noone questions where the flame went. its gone. it doesnt exist.

proverbs 13:9 The light of the righteous rejoiceth: but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.

the fact that death is a punishment is clear

gen 3:3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

2 sam 6:7 And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah; and God smote him there for his error; and there he died by the ark of God. (for touching the ark)

job 2:9 Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.

proverbs 19:16 He that keepeth the commandment keepeth his own soul; but he that despiseth his ways shall die.

ezek 3:18 When I say unto the wicked, Thou shalt surely die; and thou givest him not warning, nor speakest to warn the wicked from his wicked way, to save his life; the same wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood will I require at thine hand.

if death is a companion, why is it important to save lives?

ezek 4:4 Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

if death is a companion, why is it linked with sinning?

romans 5:8 But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

if death is good, then why would jesus need to die for us?

-------------------

1 cor 15:22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

death is an enemy, otherwise jesus wouldnt have had to die for our sins

if death is a friend, then why would jesus resurrect lazarus? or the little girl?