How has believing in or hoping for an afterlife changed you as a person?

My belief has given me very much.

It has given me peace at heart, peace of mind, confidence and the answers I had about the meaning of life, why we are here and how we have to live.
It has given me much depth in my existence. Far deeper then any science or other religion on Earth could give.
It has confirmed the independancy and immortality of my soul. I now understand that I am a spark of God.

The examples they gave how karma works really made things fall into place for me. The life stories of some of the masters of light were very eye opening.

It has made me understand why God is a God of Love and that God truely loves us unconditional.

I am very grateful for all it has given me.

I don't really know how it's changed me because even as a child I always believed and knew there was an afterlife.  I don't know how else I would be not having always felt this way.  But I didn't always automatically know and understand and believe what I do now; that took a lot of work.  I actually remember as a very young child hating being alive simply because I knew the "real stuff" was out there, not in this physical life.  And with all the hardships and bad things I had to tolerate in life, all I wanted to do was get it over with, die, or escape somehow.  I kept wondering why I had to even be here in the first place! 

How I've changed from feeling that way to how I feel now, is learning, feeling, and experiencing love.  When I was young all I wanted was to fall in love, be loved, have children that I could give all my love to, etc.  But it wasn't until just a few years ago that I began learning how to love myself.  I had only ever searched for it outside of myself, not realizing that I was missing something. 

When I experienced and learned that myself here is the same as my higher self "out there", that's what changed me.  It's made me more peaceful, patient, tolerant, and accepting.  It's made me go from being a person who wonders why bad stuff happens to me, to being a person who strives to learn how to make the changes I want to feel, have, and experience in my life.  From feeling sorry for myself to being grateful.  From just seeking help to creating, giving, and sharing it. 

It's always a work in progress though, especially during hard times and difficult situations that can make it easy to give up all hope and sink into despair.  But what I've learned so far carries me through it all.  And that still always surprises me that it works!  But as long as I remember to lift myself from despair with love, it does always change everything.

isee-

For a long time I've had a related question, and often considered posting it but never did. 

My question is, what if we knew for an absolute fact that there was no afterlife.  How would that affect the way we live the rest of our life?

Would our life still have a sense of purpose?  Would we still want to reach out and help others? Or would we become more selfish, thinking more about ourselves?

To me, answers to this question would shed a lot of light on who we really are.....assuming we answer it truthfully and from the heart.

R

As for me, my own values and innate caring for others would remain.  Compassion for those who are sick or lonely or abused would still be there.  I would be concerned if my behavior was affected by a belief in the afterlife.

In fact, I don't think a belief in the afterlife should change us in any way whatsoever.  If it does, then it raises questions as to how authentic we really are.

For instance, someone mentioned karma as having an affect on his behavior.  When you get right down to it, you have to wonder whether that person is acting out of concern for afterlife consequences or whether he would do good works regardless.

In fact, belief in karma can (and does) cause people to actually ignore the plight of other unfortunate people.  Especially in India, beggars are often ignored because others believe that he/she is in that condition based on wrongdoing in past lives, and is merely going through a necessary consequence.  Helping them would thwart the purpose of karma.

In other words, to sum up, it would be a problem for me if I thought the things I do are affected by a belief in the afterlife. 

We should view good works as an end in itself, rather than as a means to an end.  Same thing goes for doing bad things.  Avoiding hurting others because of fear of what our fate would be in the afterlife doesn't really merit a badge of honor.

R
ps- a much more intriguing question is this: does a belief in the afterlife equate to a belief in God?  Can you have one without the other?

Really interesting questions. For a really bleak view this quote from the atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell (1903) takes some beating:

"That man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins- all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built."

And yet Russell was a humanitarian and social activist lending his voice to such activities as nuclear disarmament. Certainly many athiests would be insulted with the idea that religion was needed to 'do good'; humanism is based on that doing good without God. There are also atheists such as Michael Roll (http://www.cfpf.org.uk) who believe in an afterlife (as a branch of physics).What I think the afterlife belief is incompatible is with materialism  rather than atheism. I don't know any materialists who believe in an afterlife.

But to me at least it is no accident that many notable materialists/atheists (e.g. Lewis Wolpert, Stephen Fry) suffer from depression (other factors such as genetics not withstanding). It is not surprising that the essential purposeless expressed above should make one feel depressed !

I don't think its possible to prove definitely that the afterlife doesn't exist - on the contrary there is plenty of evidence that it does; if the experiences of NDEers are anything to go by the Universe (physical and otherwise) positively throbs with meaning and purpose ...

Mogenblue wrote on Feb 12^th, 2013 at 3:36pm:


Is this a serious comment, or am I missing something?

Mogenblue wrote on Feb 12^th, 2013 at 8:34pm:


Do you really mean what you said, or were you being facetious (sorry, I'm not too familiar yet with your views).