Why do humans believe in an afterlife?

Originally posted by hippomchippo
Why not share that evidence then?
Is it because the evidence has been debunked? Is that why it's evidence for you, not me? Is it because I use rational thinking and evidence to come to conclusions?

Sufficient evidence is subjective because people’s view of what is likely and what is unlikely are different.

If you think the idea of afterlife is completely ridiculous then you need extraordinary evidence to convince you of what you believe to be an extraordinary claim.

However I believe that an afterlife is obvious.

I have no reason to believe that “beingness” comes to an end just because the physical vehicle is destroyed.

I believe it is an unsubstantiated claim to suggest that existence ceases upon physical death.

So in my view, the available evidence (that you dismiss as insufficient) is certainly adequate to prove the existence of an afterlife but only really in support of what is already obvious.

Originally posted by hippomchippo

Originally posted by manbird12000
You're clouded by opinion and personal experience. Don't stop on your journey now.

You have to put some effort into this.

You speak about chakra's and meditation yet know nothing about them or have any desire whatsoever to experience them yourself. What does that say about your desire to seek? Come on man, get up off your hind quarters and jump in the journey. You're still sitting back in the cave going over Rosswell photos and wandering about who shot JFK!

J.K. about the last part, but you really need to catch up on what's happening.

I MEDITATE REGULARLY
For gods sake i've said this over 4 times now, please read a little closer.
I don't do chakra meditation, the problem I have with it, is charlatans who use it to furthur their agenda by saying that it's a gateway to another dimension and usually charge a nominal fee.
Oh, and I don't believe in the roswell crash

Feel as you must. Chakra's are real.

Originally posted by seabhac-rua
hippomchippo, Subconsciously Correct, manbird12000 why can't you speak your minds without turning this thread into a boring read for everybody else? Say what you think and leave it at that, none of you is gonna convince the others that you are right. It like watching kids fight

Talking about the higher dimensions and the so called after life is a very enjoyable topic for me. I'm sorry you find it boring,

[edit on 12-3-2010 by manbird12000]

Why do humans believe in an afterlife?

Maybe they look at the after life like a 1up in mario brothers if it is universal to believe you have life after death you are easier to control then maybe you will live your life more recklessly buying coc aine and huff paint fumes maybe even blow yourself up thinking that your going to get laid in level 2 cause you couldnt save the mushroom princess in level 1

Our existence is a bit of a shock to begin with. You do not have to ascribe to religion to think there is an afterlife. I personally believe in the spiritual world, and I do not ascribe to any religious teachings today.

reply to post by JaxonRoberts

Belief is the stage of the child.
Disbelief is the stage of the adolescent.
Intuitive Radical Understanding is the stage of the Mature Adult who examines His own Consciousness in every moment and lives as Self Sacrifice.

Religious belief is the excuse people use to do evil.

IF YOU SERIOUSLY INTERESTED IN THE NATURE OF BELIEF BEYOND A TYPE-BITE IN A THREAD THEN READ THE KNEE OF LISTENING.
www.beezone.com...

All belief is a form of limitation.-John LIlly,MD





[edit on 12-3-2010 by RRokkyy]

reply to post by JaxonRoberts

Does Science now support this belief? According to Physics, energy never disapates, organized energy never disorganizes, and the entire Universe is composed of nothing but energy, and that it is all connected. If the 'soul' is merely the organized energy of the person, then the loss of the organic computer (the brain) should only force the energy that is the individual to trancend the physical.

Where did you hear physics suggests that? Energy cannot be created or destroyed, and in a closed system it will eventually seek a state of maximum entropy. The only way to increase organization/information into a system is by applying outside energy... such as the Sun's energy transferred to the Earth. It won't last forever, as our solar system can basically be considered a closed system for these purposes... and the sun is continually radiating it's mass out into space.

Science doesn't have anything to say about the existence of a soul, and any electrochemical energy patterns will cease existing once the neurons can no longer sustain their function without outside energy sources... oxygen & nutrients ingested from outside the body and carried by the circulatory system to the brain. When you die, you body will decay and be consumed by bacteria, insects, or simply dissipate it's molecules into the surrounding environment. The energy isn't destroyed, but the pattern and organization which gave rise to you is lost.

Dawkin's quoted a passage from Steve Grand's book "Creation: Life and how to Make it" which I find fascinating and enlightening.

We have this tendency to think that only solid, material things are really things at all.

Waves of electromagnetic fluctuation in a vacuum seem unreal. Victorians thought the waves had to be waves in some material medium -- the ether. But we find real matter comforting only because we've evolved to survive in Middle World, where matter is a useful fiction. A whirlpool, for Steve Grand, is a thing with just as much reality as a rock.

In a desert plain in Tanzania, in the shadow of the volcano Ol Donyo Lengai, there's a dune made of volcanic ash. The beautiful thing is that it moves bodily. It's what's technically known as a barchan, and the entire dune walks across the desert in a westerly direction at a speed of about 17 meters per year. It retains its crescent shape and moves in the direction of the horns. What happens is that the wind blows the sand up the shallow slope on the other side, and then, as each sand grain hits the top of the ridge, it cascades down on the inside of the crescent, and so the whole horn-shaped dune moves. Steve Grand points out that you and I are, ourselves, more like a wave than a permanent thing.

He invites us, the reader, to "think of an experience from your childhood -- something you remember clearly, something you can see, feel, maybe even smell, as if you were really there. After all, you really were there at the time, weren't you? How else would you remember it? But here is the bombshell: You weren't there. Not a single atom that is in your body today was there when that event took place. Matter flows from place to place and momentarily comes together to be you. Whatever you are, therefore, you are not the stuff of which you are made. If that doesn't make the hair stand up on the back of your neck, read it again until it does, because it is important."

We are more akin to that dust devil than many people would like to admit. It is constantly in-taking new molecules of air, picking up debris and dust, cycling them out... always changing, always flowing, but for a time the emergent trend is stable... it exists, and yet it is nothing more than a repeating arrangement of individual molecules and atoms... and when the trend collapses, it is gone. All of the molecules and atoms are still there... but the vortex ceases to exist.


There's quite a few good ideas I've heard as to why humans are religious and believe in an afterlife. One that has stuck with me is the concept that we cannot imagine what non-existence is like. We know the concept, but we're not capable of really understanding. You can't even imagine such a thing, because you have to exist in order to imagine. So when we see a loved one die, especially just after death, we see a the body that we've come to know as someone close to us... but lacking response, personality, behavior... those traits which defined the person they were. They are gone. Why, and where to, if the body is still seemingly so whole and intact... perhaps looking as if at any moment they may awaken and speak to us. So it's a bit of an illusion we are prone to fall for... the brain treating the body as if it were still alive and an agent for interaction, even if we know in higher cognitive processes that they are not there... it still feels as though they are. When you watch an actor on the television, you see the actor playing his role. You may know that what you're seeing are merely arrangements of glowing phosphorous or LED Pixels in the SHAPE of the actor... but that does not dispel the illusion. You still see the actor.

I don't think that's the whole story, of course... but it does play a part. The afterlife as a coping mechanism, similarly, plays a part... but a more subdued role than most attribute it to. Those who believe in the afterlife and those who do not still experience the same pain, the same loss, the same depression. The belief in a life after death rarely seems to bring peace of mind and comfort it is claimed to. I would suggest it's role is more of a longer-term coping mechanism for rationalizing the event and coming to terms with it. I can't speak for others, but a similar coping mechanism for me (I don't believe in an afterlife) is reflection and recalling memories, telling stories, and identifying the marks of their interaction on who I was, who I became, and who I will eventually become. Their influence makes an indelible stamp - changing me forever by that interaction, no matter how small. And if I can identify those traits in me that a loved one past is responsible for establishing and nourishing... then I can see that loved one's influence spread on through my interactions with others, like a ripple on a pond. In a way, an echo of who they were - now past - continues on through me to others, on to others, on to others. The arrangement and priority of the memes may change, and they may evolve, or be forgotten in their original form... but their influence continues to spread, and changes the future irrevocably.

I believe it may be Instinct or some form of pre knowing i didnt believe until i started randomly showing signs of past life regression without any aid as well as Prophetic dreams of things to come.

Besides we can't accept death all our memories,knowledge and things we have witnessed it can't be the end.

I have technically died 3 times from a drowning incident in the Mediterranean and it was the most painful experience i have ever experienced it was pure burning of the lungs.

I saw the fabled "Tunnel" except it wasnt a tunnel for me more like a crossroads with different places to go, thousands were going in different directions..it was..beautiful i felt at peace.

But i was dragged back to Earth i knew from then that i was meant to do something in the year 2036 either on or around my birthday on April 13th..something great and numbers i see frequently have something to do with it.

1) I think that people explaining what they see as they die has led to the exploration of the possibilities of life 'not ending' with death.

2) When observing nature, we see recycling. When one observes the seed grow from the Earth, turn into a tree, which produces more seeds, that return to the Earth again, we have a general concept of 'cycles' of energy.

3) Dreams give us a idea of 'possibilities'. I think many humans just like to keep a open mind and not say that they 'know it all'. The dream world seems to show some people that a whole other world is totally possible. Out of body experiences during dreams could also help the thought that there is life beyond what we experience as life.

Those are just the 3 reasons I would list at the top of all reasons.

reply to post by JaxonRoberts


I'm known to say regarding this life: "Nobody gets out alive." I think part of our particular fascination and fixation with a next life is that we have a relative abundance of time in which to contemplate the possibility. We obviously are not the first generation to consider what comes next, we however have been blessed with leisure. Much earlier generations were more involved with the daily grind of this life.

And so thoughts of life everlasting have always been there but they were pushed to the back of the line by other more immediate issues. Thus the biggest proponents of an after-life were those that had the time for creative sitting around. Religious, academics, philosophers, gurus, monks and what have you. These folks also had much to gain from these musings. They would not be revered and consulted if they only provided advice such as "Hey, nobody gets out alive!"

Now that I've been the downer I will reverse course and tell you I think there's something yet to come. I'm not so sure of what but I don't think it will contain a judgment and correction of sorts. I think our struggles and acts remain here. Our energy moves on in some way unconnected to the goodness or badness that we've experienced in our human forms. To my thinking Karma is just the happy coincidence of a good person experiencing goodness and vice versa while someone else is there to see it. I think our energy moves on from us like radio waves out into the universe. Perhaps ever weakening but never zero.

I suspect we will see, or not. Good thread, good responses.

Sláinte mhaith!

reply to post by cushycrux


I also had a simular experience...I don't kenow exactly what caused this experience to happen. I was in an emergancy room they had me hooked up to several machines. I was out of it and not concious. Yet I was able to look down on my own body and zoom around the hospital corridors it lasted in reality probably only seconds but when in this state of mind it seemed longer. I know deep in my sub concious the only thing that I believe brought me out of this was that I could not stay wondering endlessly I had to get back for my young sons sake. Yet it was not my time to go and I really take this as a lesson and a warning sometimes you nevr get these types of chances ..... NSG52

reply to post by wash222


I dont know what you think but I think this would be a good topic post.
OBE's I have only had several in my wholentire lifetime.... I never was into any fixed religion.. or was reading any type of research on OBE with me they just happened naturally.. I was told I may have been born with exceptional senses, because this goes back into my childhood. It's hard for me to talk about all these terms everyone has because it's like if those of you folks have never experienced certain phenomenas it feels like you are prying into our relm. All i can say mine were very beautiful and the guides that took me there were very intelligent people dressed like normal people and they took me to a very large library and showed me various other places that is all i am going to say for right now.

Originally posted by margaretr
If you want to be convinced I suggest you read the 3 books by Robert A Monroe.
Journeys out of Body
Far Journeys
Ultimate journey
I got them free from scribd

There is plenty on youtube too-
www.youtube.com...

He did decades of research into OBEs- he convinced me

[edit on 12-3-2010 by margaretr]

I have never ever read any books on out of body, One reason is that I personally believe this is a very private matter and dont know that sharing these experiences are something that one should share. I have commented on one experience in a brief way. I feel that this is a connection that is very special and personal.

[edit on 13-3-2010 by NorthStargal52]

Death and rebirth is very possible even likely. I guess it gives us hope incase we become toxic personalities infecting the less intelligent with guilt.

Death and rebirth is very possible even likely. I guess it gives us hope incase we become toxic personalities infecting the less intelligent with guilt.

I would basically say that if we think about something, we usually discuss it with our self in a little abstract thing I like to call the realm of thought. What puzzles me is this. Thought is something that cannot be measured. The waves that certain thoughts produce can be measured, which does prove that a thought gives off a frequency, but cannot measure the actual thought. Only the individual inside of natural reality and outside of physical reality can perceive only their thoughts. No one else s.

That would put it in a realm of no proof in the physical universe. It is taken for granted that it is real because it falls into the natural universe. Some would argue that a change in frequency is proof itself. I would argue that everything we see, hear, touch, smell, feel, taste, and think is just a change in frequency.

We have all these so called Doctor's of Psychology who try to figure out how the mind works using their own opinion of their thought to explain why people are the way they are. We are the way we are because of change. Something changes in your life, it changes your perspective by just a fraction. Something else changes in our lives and the perspective changes again. Whatever you want to call a change in perspective, it happens through the five senses. There are limitations to these vehicles that we call bodies. They die. Death, no matter your view on it, cannot be denied as the ultimate change for these bodies.

The question of whether there is life after death can be answered by the simple fact that death is of the physical universe. It is a change. From the physical to the natural. Do we keep our mind? Well it is already in natural universe just waiting on us.

Originally posted by egosmacker
Death and rebirth is very possible even likely. I guess it gives us hope incase we become toxic personalities infecting the less intelligent with guilt.

It’s not a matter of being less intelligent at all. There are no rules that forbid anyone to believe that there is a higher form of existence after death. Hope and faith is an individual choice for those who have none and even those who don’t believe in after death existence. My opinion is that we all will go into these other dimensions. I sense we have this umbilical cord that connects us somehow to the other dimensions via our soul. I am curious as to your statement of poisonous personalities infecting the less intelligent with guilt.
In what respect would it even matter. Of course here on earth we can make any kind of statements or live any way we chose to. I don’t use the word hope because that pulls me into the reasoning of ( yeah after I die I will see all my friends and everyone and it will be just grand so I don’t know maybe deaths not so bad after all.) I believe it is a spiritual entity that will take hold of all who passed on and will deal with us in its own way. I believe that other beings exists not like us humans that are present in different galaxies or wherever.
It is not through hope or fear or any other cosmetic description that leads me to believe that after death in fact is not a fallacy.
NSG52

Great post!

Why do we believe? Well the scientist in me says that its a reponse to the brain not being able to cope with the thought that one day there will be never ending nothingness.

But the spiritual me say we know theres an "after life" because we already have one foot in the door. I believe we are of both this world and the "next". Anchored in this world by our physical brain.

Originally posted by Lasheic
Where did you hear physics suggests that?

From a couple of guys who I heard were really good at physics. Maybe you've heard of them, Einstein an Hawkings... Of course the latter talks kinda funny...

I am of the beleif that we no there are many parts to exsistence. and this is only one our soul is awake and sees the world beyond our human eyes wow thats pretty far out there im gonna shut up now before i hurt my brain

Be Well