Is it true that there is an afterlife. I have this feeling that there isn't. I have struggled with this meaning for awhile. It just doesn't seem apparent to me that i'm believing in anything other than my own mentality. I see God, and I think whoa, but i see the word Hell, and I think...the same thing. it's just a word. another false idea. If someone could somehow convince me there was an afterlife I would be happy...if i could even begin to believe in something i already want so much to believe in.

well you are here curious George. do u really think its an accident you find yourself among those who believe, more than believe, they know?
theres no such thing as an accident, there is always a cause for what happens when you find yourself with some people, spending time with them, thinking about things.

theres a saying seek and you will find. ask and you'll receive. so I always follow this saying and found out that it works. you may not get what you want, but sooner or later you will get what you need.

please read everything. but nobody will convince you until you have one of your own experiences from out of your desire to know.
and welcome! love to see new people here posting. alysia

There is an afterlife.

I myself have astral projected quite often, and believable psychic medium books say the writers communicate with astral bodies.

You might ask "well then, how come some people do and some people don't have an out of body experience when they die and are brought back?" In my opinion the spirit may be unconscious for some time after physical death (maybe even days or weeks), depending on the person and how they die.

But we do have a spirit.

Hey there,

but this might by the striking issue, as god nowadays is only seen as what we cannot know (maybe there was the intention to give the name to what we do not know, and state higher beings who guide us).

But it is more than simply not knowing, a belief in something or having faith and trust means actually that it is an intention to have a relationship with the higher one, not simply filling the gaps of "I do not know".
And that is also the simple explanation why religion is put in this place, with the growth of knowledge of our world, the need also disappeared by the claim of humanbeings, that they are capable of living without a divine principle or guide in their life.
It is of course sometimes not fully convincing as it is a matter of emotions, not rational explanations. But who knows that only rationality sets the right direction for reality?
I always had the impression, that this religious matter is too much to be just a convincing thought to overcome our fears and down phases in life. If it was the other way around, it would be just superficial, and there was no meaning at all to religion/faith/afterlife.
I tend to see this visions/obe/retrivals rather as fragments of what we call the afterlife (and not to deny that we are the offspring of evolution, and were once just simple cells that spread their genes, and at this point, it is a bit superficial to say that animals have no knowledge, this is also something we do not know, maybe spirits also grew throughout this process (at least for the I/here part of spiritual growth), and there are stereotypes in the behaviour of animals, must not mean that they cannot experience like we do, it is just the case that there is no communication form we could use to get to know, maybe vague to guess something like this, but if we say there are souls and consciousness, why should it be human bound...for me it makes no sense.

To come back to words...words are that we can rely on, as our mind is most likely not allknowing, it is just we that name certain experiences, to access them easier (the mind works e.g. like google, "type in" a keyword and it is found, you can add information on this, follow earlier ways of thinking concerning the "keyword". Words for themselves have no meaning, only that what we connect with them.

Love,

pulsar

you said: But who knows that only rationality sets the right direction for reality?

____

I know rationality is only a small part of our being. I'll have to respond later fully to your post, just to share my journey, not to convince u of a god, for I am convinced the collective mind is encompassed by an even greater order and collective mind which may be said to be this thing called god.

but in short PUL is beyond rationality, retrievals are beyond description by word. in essence to have an experience where PUL is an energy all around, and has that eternal sense of order to it, PUL encompasses logic and rationality in that way.
therefore, to have these experiences of PUL, we can safely say God is Love, pure and simple, not to complicate the journey, yet experience is necessary and not just bequeathed to the wisdom that comes with it attained through years, but I have noticed those in their 20's are born with certain knowledge I had to wrest from experience, so the world is safe, now that they have come to speak.

here is some rationality: we as souls are 3 in one. the seeker, the finder, and the observer who sits observing the other two. the observer is the higher, rational self and is also above our emotional tirades of the seeker and finder.
the higher self is one with god and does not question that truth.

love to you, you have begun, your journey is already done and you have arrived safely at home. alysia

Curiousgeorge,

Have you read through the awesome and unprecedented verifications provided by Swedenborg?  Why not read through my posts on the Swedenborg thread and let me know if you find those verifications compelling? If not, I can provide a lot more types of paranormal verifications of an afterlife.

Don

Curiousgeorge,


curiousgeorge wrote on Aug 17^th, 2007 at 10:10pm:

If someone could somehow convince me there was an afterlife I would be happy...if i could even begin to believe in something i already want so much to believe in.

From my experience I'd say that no one else will be able to convince you of the Afterlife's existence.  There will always be unanserable questions about the reality of anyone else's evidence.   There will always be, by the very nature of variations in the perception of individuals, differences and apparent conflicts in the evidence gathered by others.  The best shot any of us has, in my opinion, is to convince ourselves through our own direct experience of gathering verifiable evidence of our afterlife's existence.  Gathering verifiable evidence is easier than most folks believe and it happens for some participants in every workshop I teach.

The Basic Premise of the method is:

1.  Find a way to contact and communicate with someone known to be deceased.
2.  Gather very specific information from this deceased person that you have no other way of knowing except via this contact and communication.
3.  Find a way to verify that the information you have gathered is true and accurate.
4.  You now have evidence that the deceased person still exists, some where.
5.  Repeat this process until you are satisfied that you have completed the first three steps above.  Let the weight of your own evidence, put to every test you can think of, be the thing that convinces you.

Now even when the information you gather is very specific and completely verified as accurate there will be still be some folks who doubt the Afterlife's existence based on the evidence you gather.  Often such doubt comes down to two issues: alternate explanations; and to the question, Can I trust my own perception?

In my view all the mental gyrations some folks go through that attempt to prove or disprove our afterlife's existence by comparing evidence gathered by others will be fruitless.  The  actual experience of succeeding in meeting the criteria of the Basic Premise above uncovers a lot of basic understanding about the nature of human perception and its effect on evidence gathering.  Without understanding these effects some key assumptions folks make in analyzing the information will cause great difficulty in arriving at "proof."

So in summary I'd say looking for someone else to prove it to you has almost zero chance of success.  After the invention of the phonograph a famous French scientist came to America to witness the device for himself.  Upon returning to France he wrote that the phonograph was an obvious fraud and the sounds supposedly coming from the machine were no doubt the result of some clever form of ventriloquism.   After Columbus returned to Europe with stories of his discovery of a New World there were some who doubted it.  Some of them no doubt wouldn't believe it without sailing west and landing on that New World themselves.  

For many folks the claims of afterlife explorers supporting the existence of such a New World will argued about, rebutted and refuted based on analysis of the differences between those reports.  No doubt the honesty, integrity and mental capacity of some of us afterlife explorers will be called into question by some.  Some forum visitors who have nothing better to do than use bullying, name-calling tactics will take probably take part this skewering.  It doesn't matter, though I do wish they would be a little more civil and respectful in their posts.  Without any actual, firsthand experience of their own to use in their analysis they will never, in my opinion, be able to arrive at a solid, evidence-backed conclusion.  

Bruce

Quote:

So in summary I'd say looking for someone else to prove it to you has almost zero chance of success.  After the invention of the phonograph a famous French scientist came to America to witness the device for himself.  Upon returning to France he wrote that the phonograph was an obvious fraud and the sounds supposedly coming from the machine were no doubt the result of some clever form of ventriloquism.   After Columbus returned to Europe with stories of his discovery of a New World there were some who doubted it.  Some of them no doubt wouldn't believe it without sailing west and landing on that New World themselves.   For many folks the claims of afterlife explorers supporting the existence of such a New World will argued about, rebutted and refuted based on analysis of the differences between those reports.  No doubt the honesty, integrity and mental capacity of some of us afterlife explorers will be called into question by some.  Some forum visitors who have nothing better to do than use bullying, name-calling tactics will take probably take part this skewering.  It doesn't matter, though I do wish they would be a little more civil and respectful in their posts.  Without any actual, firsthand experience of their own to use in their analysis they will never, in my opinion, be able to arrive at a solid, evidence-backed conclusion.

It is exactly the point why there is so much uncertainty about this topic, the lacking evidence, since there is no things measurable, it is not like picking up a stone measuring its weight and how high you picked it up, then let it fall down and verifying the energetic change through formulas.
But nothing to wonder about, it is where sceptics are trapped in, there must be evidence that can be written down, can be proven through experimental approach.
When it comes to talking to deceased ones, you will be immediately considered to be insane, because it is way out of that, what it is considered to be reality.
Sceptics won't accept the existence of the afterlife as long as you cannot give them the experimental results on a golden plate. Taking a view on philosophy, there once was space for metaphysical matters like the afterlife, and it was also taken serious, today, having accepted only the "thinking after facts", in this case there is no space for afterlife ideas, since they are not rational. So no acceptance of anything that goes further than what we see.
But who really cares about if they start name-calling and sth. This shows only their incapability, but if the arguments are gone, most of them start it the polemic way.
You talked about first hand experiences, I think they would never accept them as evidence, because even if they could find out something using your method of exploring, they would say that it were tricks of their mind, hallucinations, over and out.
It is the same with nde, the only explanation they find is dmt and the brain being less supported with oxygen. But how is it possible to be aware (at least for some nde-experiencers) even if they were braindead, when there is no chance for dmt or oxygen to influence the mind....?
The sad thing is, even if they could analyze their first hand experiences, they would not use them for verifying or falsifying the afterlife, for them it is just a hoax to make money out of it. Some of them would not even consider to try it, they stick with what they learned, rationality.
So no respect for irrational matter....eh...but we will see, who was right. Everyone.

There were experiments with patients in near death states, Schwartz and co. They used psychics/ mediality to retrive the patients, and also did it with success.
So there is an experiment, the conclusion will stick with hallucinations and life playing dices, they just "had luck" to retrieve the persons.

The people who wouldn't believe Columbus could travel to America, but the "America"/New World we are talking about would not even be considered to exist even with the possibility to travel there.

It will always be like it ever was, splitted in the ones who believe and sceptics.

Love,

pulsar