EDIT: this post isn’t talking “aliens”. It’s talking about ghosts & the afterlife/spirit realm.
Is there an afterlife?
The way I see it, probably not. I'm not happy about that either. Do I know? Of course not I'm not dead. As someone who deeply wants this to be true, I've searched a lot of avenues for answers. In each corner I've found nothing. I'm running out of corners too.
The problem with ideas of an afterlife or a universal conciousness in my opinion. It's just wishful thinking. Of course we don't want to die, of course we want to see our children and parents and spouse again. We want this so deeply, grieve so intensely. It makes total sense that we come up with the idea of an afterlife.
My main argument against an afterlife, is that humans want it. So of course it doesn't exist. How often do we get what we want?
We wanted to feel divinely created and special. Wham evolution! We wanted to be the center of the universe. Wham! Cosmology. We keep thinking we are important, just to get knocked down a peg.
So why would conciousness be any different? Why the bold assumption there is anything special about that? The way I see it, we want to be special. So we place ourselves on a pedestal. Even though if we just turned to look we'd see hundreds of smashed pedestals behind us.
Is there really any convincing argument for an afterlife or universal consciousness? I'd love to be wrong.
(SPOILERS) After the Mi Hermano Jackie Wells passed i asked the bartender at Afterlife to name his drink after him which she agrees to do and then even offers me one but, there is no option to purchase it or even drink it. Why even add the conversation if I can't order it all you are doing is making me sad CDPR.
edit: I won't modify my original argument, but I will just add here that, yes -- this description of religion is incomplete. Religion doesn't ONLY maintain members through threats and promises of future rewards; it also provides an inherent structure for people, and structure is a need for human beings -- so for some people, religion can be an answer to many of their problems. It just works for them.
Religion kind of sucks to be part of. It's full of rules and requirements and punishments for stepping out of line. Many demand moderation or elimination of consumption of arbitrary things, and almost all restrict what you are allowed to say and think (that's kind of part of what makes it religion: doctrine.)
How does religion convince religious people to put up with it? The Future Payout. They will be reborn. Their valiant efforts will be rewarded. Everything will have been worth it. Many religions even explicitly state that your rewards increase proportionally with how much you suffer for the religion during life.
This is very similar to "being on the right side of history." Being part of wokeism kind of sucks (for those who aren't using it to grift). It's full of ever-shifting rules and requirements and punishments for stepping out of line.
How are woke people convinced to put up with it? Well, the threat of excommunication (equally present in religion!), but also very much present: The Future Payout.
You're on the right side of history! It fucking sucks right now, of course, because we're not history yet. But once we're dead, then actually, all this shit will have been good. It'll have been worth it. We will be memorialized as the heroes of history. They gain eternal life in Egelman's sense: they will not be forgotten.
I'm not married to the idea of this model being the one true way of viewing wokeism. I just had this thought after seeing others say "well, there's still no afterlife", which I don't think is fully true.
Shadowlands is still very...confusing in the grand scheme of things. My understanding is that despite their different aesthetics, all of the shadowlands realms are still technically under the realm of “death” if we are referring to the Chronicles Powers chart.
This is where I’m confused. What we see from bastion seems kind of separate from the light we’re used to in Azeroth, so I assume bastion is not affiliated with the light as it is referred to in Chronicles and ultimately bastion is just a part of the shadowlands with a general aesthetic somewhat similar to the light.
But then why do priests have a spell associated with the Spirit Healer model? And what about that Icecrown quests where the light comes down and takes that dead paladin directly? That would seem to indicate a “heaven” type of light afterlife, but Bastion is really more service focused than light focused.
Also, there’s the fact that we know the light struck Revendreth, and this seems completely unaffiliated with Bastion. I just don’t really understand.
As death is getting closer, I do sometime think about my belief about it.
I never believed in a post life judgement, eternal reward/ punishment system. It feels fictional, maybe because most of my exposure to it was from tv, movie and books. I have family members in the church, I always wonder how much of it they actually believe.
I have other family members who believe in the system of karma, eternal reincarnation (until enlightenment). It felt more plausible, but I don't believe in it.
Logically in the light of day, I believe we cease to exist, returning to the condition I was before birth. In the middle of the night, thinking about it, death feel like falling into the depth of a dark ocean. Suffocating, scary and claustrophobic.
Some people who are connected to a larger community (extended family, friend group or whatever) and have minimal ego say they don't fear death, because they are just a leaf on a tree. They may fall, but the tree lives on. For me, I have always lived in my own head, with very few emotional connections to other people.
I feel incredibly grateful to be part of a religion with very little formal scripture (but plenty of commentary) on what the afterlife looks like. I appreciate immensely that this religion focuses on this life. I do good deeds for the sake of this present world, not to prove my worth for an afterlife. I love my family for the sake of this life’s love, not to increase my chance of being judged to enter a heaven.
This might not be a groundbreaking post, but I’m just feeling grateful and wanted to share. I hope you too find light in this empty space of Judaism.
So let's say you are a fierce warrior of a race of immortals( immortals as they can't die of old age but can still be mortally wounded),you litterally spend centuries waging wars from a battlefield to another until one day you meet your end and you get sent to maldraxxus... where you get instantly thrown in a all in arena where your chances of surviving are AT BEST...very slim. Like you are here fighting, you get hit in the back and you die...forever....no coming back... It legit makes ZERO sense to me that for an afterlife where war is everything they don't even have a system in place to keep them from dying permanently in battle,like storing their anima somewhere safe and battling in some kind of constructs or something like that, like maybe in your mortal life you spent eons battling but you get eaten by one of those wyverns outside the theatre of pain and that's it? It's so lame in my opinion
I started working professionally as a paranormal investigator in 2007, when I began appearing on Ghost Hunters, one of the longest-running and highest-rated paranormal television shows. Now, I’m the co-star and executive producer of The Travel Channel's Kindred Spirits. In addition, I’m the owner of strange-escapes.com, a company offering paranormal excursions to some of America's most notoriously haunted destinations. My first book, Life with the Afterlife was a USA Today bestseller and shares stories of my years of experiences with ghosts. Ask me anything!
Proof: https://i.redd.it/sgvybd1qhe561.jpg
...and Blizzard still finds a way to give us a Troll Dungeon.
Not even death can stop the tradition.
I'll start by saying, I'm agnostic. And I dont really believe in absolutes. Because no one can see the future. No one really knows whats happening in someone else's head. And you can't predict who will pull through whatever, or who will be lost to whatever. And there's no way to really know what happens when we die.
In all honesty, that thought brings me comfort. I dont think im a bad person. Sure, ive done shitty things, im human, like you (I assume). But this mindset is what has gotten me through some rough shit.
2019 Is my worst year to date. August 24, a good friend who I really looked up to, committed suicide. I credit him to be a big part in preventing my own suicide. Then in November a great uncle and a high school classmate, both i was very fond of, passed within a couple days of each other. Then December 10, my grandma passed after a stroke the week prior. Her husband, my grandpa passed in May 2020.
That was a bad time, as you can imagine. I had never lost anyone I was ever close to before then. My friends suicide being the big thing im still struggling with today. But whenever I have a beer, or some liquor, I pour one out in his/their name.
I like to imagine my friend in Valhalla. As of all the afterlives that I know of, thats where he belongs. As he is a fucking legend. He lost his battle with depression, but he fought fucking hard. I still laugh and smile at the thought of him in any afterlife yelling at whoever is in charge because they don't understand the rules of whatever afterlife Pathfinder game he's running.
And I like to think that wherever he, my grandparents, my old high school buddy, and my great uncle may be. When I pour one out, a beautiful mug full of that liquid is presented to them.
Which that thought is made better by the fact that often times, im drinking really shitty cheap booze. And they look up from wherever they are and are just kinda "what the fuck? You pour one out in mourning and im stuck with your shitty 1 dollar beer?"
I dont know, just a thought that may help someone in mourning. Hang in there, stranger. No matter how shitty life gets, it will always get better. And despite the fact that life will get shitty again at some point, it WILL get better again.
Hang in there.
Hi, I’m newer to Reddit and this sub, so I hope everyone can be patient with me if I accidentally say something against the guidelines.
My best friend passed away a month ago by suicide, and it’s been occupying my thoughts ever since. I’m devastated, but I was hoping someone could share some information on the afterlife. Does suicide change anything? Will he be at peace? I think I’ve been seeing some signs, but I’m not sure if that has anything to do with where they end up. I love him with all my heart and hope he can feel/see that.
Thank you
A businessman dies and finds himself in The Afterlife. To his surprise, it’s not at all like he’d heard. Every single religion was wrong.
The walls smell like mildew, it’s dark, and the air is moist and pungent.
Suddenly, he feels a tap on his shoulder. He turns around and sees a homeless man he’d passed almost every day on his walk between the train station and his office building.
“Holy crap! What are you doing here?”
“I died, too,” explains the homeless man. “I woke up a few days ago and found myself here.”
“Well, at least there’s a familiar face. What is this place?”
“This crap hole is the lowest level of The Afterlife,” says the homeless man. “You must’ve done something pretty terrible to end up down here.”
“Well, I was waiting to cross the road and this insufferable hipster was standing next to me —“
Just then, a gong sounded three times: BONG! BONG! BONG!
The businessman watched as everyone around them slowly assembled into three separate lines, grimacing and eye-rolling all the way.
“What’s this all about?”
“You arrived just in time for dinner.” The homeless man gestured to the three lines. “That line over there is for a half-eaten, moldy hot dog bun. The middle line is for bland creamed corn that they drop on the floor right before serving it. The last line is putrid sewer water with floating bits of god-knows-what.”
“Ugh,” groans the businessman. They shuffle through each line, find a couple ass-numbing, uneven rock stools and choke down their food.
As they’re eating, the homeless man educates the businessman about The Afterlife.
“It turns out there’s four levels. We, of course, are in the lowest level.”
“Is it possible to get to the next level?”
“Yeah,” replies the homeless man, lowering his voice. He gestures behind him. “See that guard next to that door? He can be bribed.”
“Woah! How much?”
“He wants $1,000.”
“Well, I ain’t got shit else to do,” says the businessman.
He secures a job and, after about a year, raises $1,000.
He walks up to the guard, opens his coat, and shows the stack of bills to the guard. The guard looks around, pockets the money, and opens a door to the third level of The Afterlife. The businessman slips through, and the door slams shut.
He looks around. He finds himself in a studio apartment. The walls are cracked and stained, the shag carpet hasn’t been vacuumed in years, several lights are burned out, but it ain’t a dungeon.
He descends a few flights of stairs and heads out to a small, overgrown
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