I recently read of one very real possibility for the
"afterlife."
You may have heard of the "time dilation" effect which an astronaut would experience as he fell into a black hole. As he got further and further into the hole's gravity well, he would see time "sped up" such that he would see the entire future of the universe zip by as in an instant... from "now" until the "heat death of the universe" would seem to pass in an eyeblink.
Indeed, he might see the black hole "evaporate" before his very eyes (as he falls closer and closer to it) and would never fall into it... even black holes will one day "fade away" according to quantum cosmology.)
And there he'd be in his starship, trillions and trillions of years into the future... alone in a dead universe. But to HIM, only a MINUTE might have passed. (Unlikely though, he'd be dead from the tidal forces which tore him and his ship apart.)
For observers on Earth though, something FAR more
gruesome would transpire... we'd see him locked in time, perhaps screaming as tidal forces tore him apart... "plastered" on the black hole's "event horizon"...
FOREVER. (Or at least "forever", so far as we can visualize it! Maybe every couple million years or so, we'd see a slight change in the contortions of his Munch-esque, screaming visage...)
Enough science fiction - onto the GOOD stuff.
Imagine that when you die... something analogous happens, but in REVERSE.
To observers at your bedside, the last few minutes of your life after you lose consciousness go by as, well... MINUTES. But unknown to them...
As your consciousness fades, you begin to... DREAM.
(As in all dreams, you are at the mercy of your SUBCONSCIOUS mind.)
You have the "life review" which stretches first into DAYS, then maybe years, centuries. Time STRETCHES during what is (objectively) 5 or so minutes. Perhaps if you had great mental discipline and thought only HAPPY thoughts during your life, you'd experience "heaven."
But if you had a lot of PAINFUL experiences, or boring experiences, or (perhaps worst of all) GUILTY FEELINGS, for whatever reason...
You'd find out what REAL HELL was, as your subjective sense of time stretched out to...
INFINITY.
And the worst part is... your "afterlife experiences" could very well be largely be the work of OTHER PEOPLE (who you'd meet again, as constructs of your subconscious mind... but you WOULDN'T know that, as your rationality would not be there for you...)
Perhaps you might FORGET you'd died. NOW for some old-fashioned HELL, folks. Imagine we are talking about a five-year-old boy who has been abused his whole life, and step-daddy got drunk and walloped him a bit too hard... the boy dies, AND all the kid knew his WHOLE LIFE was... FEAR. Guess what his "afterlife" will be filled with, and who he'll get to deal with for the rest of a functional ETERNITY? (Yup, you guessed it... fear, and step-daddy!) This scenario happens EVERY day, people..!
It doesn't have to be this way for US though, if we take an elementary precaution.  A very SIMPLE expedient can at least spare me, and the rest of you, from this possibility. What is it, you ask?
Heavy surgical anesthesia. If you've ever been "put under", you know that the DREAM CENTER of your brain is shut down. You don't dream when you are drugged strongly enough.
Therefore, I am thinking of a living will which specifies that I be given surgical anesthesia as I begin to die (say in a hospital or hospice.) A "Mickey Finn", a knockout cocktail.
If what I just wrote about IS the "Real Afterlife" (and there is no way to prove that it ISN'T) then I DON'T want to experience it. I wonder if the doctors/nurses would honor my request for a knockout shot???
(BTW, my cousin pretty much destroyed his brain when he shot himself, as I heard it. There wasn't much left. Hopefully he was spared the above-mentioned experience, as you'd need a FUNCTIONING brain to dream. In any case, stay away from pills, wrist slashing, hanging, ect. if you ever commit suicide, and make DAMN SURE you don't commit murder and end up on Death Row..! Those criminals may have something infinitely more horrific than even Clive Barker could envision awaiting them, as they'd have GUILT... at least subconsciously... and that's all they'd need to unconsciously create a rip-roaring eternal Hell-nightmare for themselves - not to mention the miserable early-life memories that they'd have... as many, if not most murderers do!!!)
Does any of this make sense to you, folks?

B-man

Chumley:

Perhaps instead of devoting a lot of time imagining how bad the afterlife might be, you might devote some time imagining how wonderfull it can be.

Check out Bruce Moen's 4th book and Michael Newton's books. They show that the afterlife isn't just some big unorganized mess. In fact, it's much more organized than the physical, because things like greed, the belief in transiency and ego don't get in the way. Also, they have a much better communication system going on.

Some people experience a negative afterlife because that's the reality they create while here in the physical. What kind of reality do you want to create for yourself?

Question # 1: If you were God, how would you plan the after life?

Question # 2: Did God have a choice when he planned it?

Mr. S

          I do believe you have something there.

                      Best, Tim

Question # 1: If you were God, how would you plan the after life?
*****************
If I were "God", the afterlife would have ALL the good stuff of this life, and then some. (It would also have RISKS for those who choose to take them..!) I would also include the *OPTION* of oblivion for those who got tired of conscious existence. (Forever's a long time, child.)
It wouldn't be no dark dusty cave, I can assure you of that.
But then... I'm Not God.

Question # 2: Did God have a choice when he planned it?
*****************
Assuming "God" exists, why wouldn't he "have a choice?" He's God, after all...

B-man

Chumley

Go ahead w the crionics.  There is nothing wrong w that.



I see everything as evolving upwards, despite the creation/maintanence/destruction cycles.  Take as an example the institution of slavery.  It was officialy used for centuries before two slightly more enlightened nations decided to put a stop to it.  If indeed the afterlife was changed as i suggested, and within the timeframe which you suggest above, then that situation is totally understandable.



The primordial (natural) afterlife state may have been as described by those ancient cultures, or worse.  Edgar cayce said that first there was light, then chaos.  After emergence from light, knowledge, experience, everything is in a lost, disorganised state.  Knowledge and organisation takes time to evolve.  Lacking the standard eternal, omniscient, omnipotent god to create all, why should the afterlife be any different?



Well, you are assuming, of course...


Through beings who evolved to higher levels of conscousness. 

MS
*******************************
Perhaps the development of LITERACY... and the written word, education and so on had something to do with it...
Writing (and with it, EDUCATION) only developed over the last 6000 years or so, BTW.
Perhaps the spread of the written word, enabled people to share ideas, and apply THOSE to the betterment of the other side (i.e. how would Buddha, Confucius, ect. have been able to get their initial knowledge base, if they had been illiterate?)

B-man