The Afterlife

[BrandonE]

Originally Posted by MidnightBlue

I don't have, or expect to have, enough data to affirm any of the choices with certainty, but my suspicion is that (A) is probably correct. Both eternal punishment and eternal bliss seem wildly improbable to me, and the resurrection of the dead even more so, but I can't rule out the possibility that there's some kind of survival of consciousness.

However, it seems like pure hubris to imagine that humans survive their own deaths, in any sense, while other sentient beings don't. So if there is any afterlife at all, I suspect that the Buddhist ideas about it might be the best metaphor for it.

All in all, I think it's best to let the afterlife, if any, take care of itself. If it exists, our ideas about it aren't likely to be any more accurate than a fetus' ideas about Chicago -- or Atlantis.

What he said, more or less.

If there is something after life, I don't think it will happen to "us", meaning any sort of consciousness that is recognizably separate as we experience it now.

[James the Persian]

I've gone through the Orthodox view (and I'd guess that's a major one given that there's 250 million or so of us) on this forum too many times to count. I really must get around to writing an explanation and having a mod sticky it in our forum. The closest option here to my belief would be b., but it's not close enough to actually vote for it.

Just as a brief outline, we believe that heaven and hell are the same 'place'. Heaven is the experience of God's inescapable love for those that love Him. Hell is the experience of the same love for those that hate Him. In effect, we punish or reward ourselves rather than God doing it to us. There are no seperate places, God does not engage in vengeful, eternal punishments and there is nowhere at all where God is not present.

James

[Anti-World]

G. It would suck if there wasn't but am otherwise undecided.

[Green Gaia]

Either A or E.

[Irenicas]

Sorry - didn't do the poll, but for a reasonably good reason - I don't think any of those things.

My own personal beliefs about the afterlife lean towards the idea that when we die we don't get reincarnated but recycled: After all, our physical bodies become other things, so why not our spirits as well? I think that our ideas and beliefs continue to shape the world when we die, and as people move on, and the things we did in life take shape, then our spiritual energy is transfered into the world around us.

I think it's comforting to think that all the people who I loved and are dead are in some way adding to my life still, and becoming part of the world in general.

[BFD_Zayl]

i chose C.

[lilithu]

A mixture of A, C, and E. Similar to what MidnightBlue and BrandonE said except that I lean more towards the side of there being something more than just material life and death. But I do not believe that whatever it is that might continue after death is "us." Perhaps you can call it "spirit" but it has no particulars, no "self-ness."

But the afterlife is an afterthought in UU. As we are in this life, it is this life that is most important.

[arthra]

I had trouble with this poll because while I believe in an after-life, I think that we do eventually progress through the spiritual worlds (not reincarnation) and will come before the presence of God but not "unite" with Him as some believe...

Prayers and deeds for the progress of souls in the next life are important and they in turn can intercede for us on the other side...

- Art

[Lux et Umbra]

C. When we die we are reincarnated into another form, unless we attain Nirvana (or it's equivalent)

I believe we have a choice on reincarnating-- what life, what circumstances, with who and when. What is beyond reincarnation (the final goal) I am not sure about.