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Eternal Life

Clara Tea

Well-Known Member
For those of you who believe in some sort of eternal existence, how do you envision your existence outside the window that lies between birth and death of the body/mind complex?

Did you exist before you were born? If so, in what capacity?

What will you exist as after your body/mind expire?

What parts of you will you retain and what falls away?

We must trace our steps from when we were in the womb. Unfortunately, mom doesn't want me crawling back in there.

I was just thinking the thoughts before I had a mind (it was a pleasant break in the day). In that mode, I pondered religion.

All of my parts are brand new (old parts....like teeth, hair, etc., fell away, leaving only the new behind). My doctor gave me something to keep my hair in (a box).

I was planning to lose 40 pounds of ugly fat, but resisted the notion to cut my head off.

Before I was born, I might have had a different mind and different mindset, one that could contemplate issues differently. Yet, without a body, it would seem useless for a mind to bother with bodily issues.

If we forget who we were when we die, what is the point of being good and getting into heaven? What about meeting our loved ones in heaven? Marriage is til death (but what about being with our spouse)? What happens if we married many times and our wives married many times....who would we be pals with? Would we share heaven with really annoying people (I hope so, for my sake).

Can we anticipate that death is the same as being unborn?

Is time fluid in death?
 

Wildswanderer

Veteran Member
For those of you who believe in some sort of eternal existence, how do you envision your existence outside the window that lies between birth and death of the body/mind complex?

Did you exist before you were born? If so, in what capacity?

What will you exist as after your body/mind expire?

What parts of you will you retain and what falls away?
The soul will remain, the essence of who we are. It will be reunited with a new body on the new earth, or possibly in heaven.
What will fall away is all sin and selfishness. ( All sin is rooted in selfish pride.,)

I expect to explore endless beautiful places and learn more about God's love for eternity.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
For those of you who believe in some sort of eternal existence, how do you envision your existence outside the window that lies between birth and death of the body/mind complex? Did you exist before you were born? If so, in what capacity?What will you exist as after your body/mind expire? What parts of you will you retain and what falls away?

Just as Adam did Not exist before his God fashioned or formed Adam out of the dust of the ground - Genesis 2:7 -
none of the rest of us existed before we were conceived.
After the body/mind expires unless resurrected we would be extinct forever.
What remains, so to speak, is being in God's memory, God's Book of Life.
Some people resurrected to heavenly life like the people of Luke 22:28-30; Revelation 2:10; 5:9-10; 20:6; Daniel 7:18
The majority of people to have a happy-and-healthy future physical resurrection - Acts of the Apostles 24:15
That coming physical resurrection takes place during Jesus' 1,000-year governmental reign over Earth.
The old person remains, but one's human imperfection can fall away, so to speak, to become eternally healthy.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
The soul will remain, the essence of who we are. It will be reunited with a new body on the new earth, or possibly in heaven.
What will fall away is all sin and selfishness. ( All sin is rooted in selfish pride.,)
I expect to explore endless beautiful places and learn more about God's love for eternity.

I can agree that sin will ' fall away ' and so does ' enemy death ' as per 1 Corinthians 15:24-26; Isaiah 25:8
Because the 'soul that sins dies' (Ezekiel 18:4,20) then the soul does Not remain. - Acts of the Apostles 3:23
Mortal Adam simply 'returned' to the dust of the ground as per Genesis 3:19
A person can't return to a place he never was before.
For Adam there was No post-mortem penalty, No double jeopardy.
And since the total price tag sin pays is ' death ' - Romans 6:23,7 - then death stamps the price of sin as Paid in Full.
Because we can't resurrect oneself or another we need someone who can resurrect us. Jesus can and will.
Some people to heaven like the people of Luke 22:28-30; Daniel 7:18
They have that first or earlier resurrection - Revelation 20:6
The majority of mankind to have a healthy future physical resurrection to live life on Earth. Acts of the Apostles 24:15
As Adam was offered everlasting life on Earth, the majority of mankind will have that same opportunity to live forever on Earth starting with Jesus' coming 1,000-year governmental reign over Earth for a thousand years.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
We must trace our steps from when we were in the womb. Unfortunately, mom doesn't want me crawling back in there...............
If we forget who we were when we die, what is the point of being good and getting into heaven? What about meeting our loved ones in heaven? Marriage is til death (but what about being with our spouse)? What happens if we married many times and our wives married many times....who would we be pals with? Would we share heaven with really annoying people (I hope so, for my sake)............

Good for the moms everywhere!
Not just about getting into Heaven, but also about being resurrected back to live life on Earth.
Jesus promised Earth to humble meek people as he referred back to Psalms 37:9-11 at Matthew 5:5
No one who lived before Jesus was offered heaven - John 3:13 - including King David - Acts of the Apostles 2:34

Since the dead know nothing but sleep, then there is nothing to forget or remember.
We know the dead sleep because sleep is what Jesus teaches at John 11:11-14.
Jesus was well educated in the old Hebrew Scriptures which also teaches ' sleep in death '
see - Psalms 6:5; Psalms 13:3; Psalms 115:17; Isaiah 38:18; Ecclesiastes 9:5
The point of being good is to be part of the resurrection of the righteous - Acts of the Apostles 24:15.
Since both the righteous and unrighteous will be resurrected the righteous will be off to a better start.
The unrighteous will probably have to work harder to become righteous ones.
Remember: as far as the wicked are concerned they will be destroyed forever - Psalms 92:7; Psalms 104:35
It is the upright who remain - Proverbs 2:21-22.
As far as Heaven is concerned Heaven is for people called to be saints or holy ones - Daniel 7:18; Revelation 20:6

I like your attitude about sharing life with really annoying people !
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
I believe that the soul comes into being at the time of conception and it is the soul that animates the body and gives it life.
I do not believe the soul existed before conception.
I find Adam only became a living soul after God 'breathed the breath of life' into life-less Adam - Genesis 2:7
One's spirit ( spark of life, so to speak ) along with one's breath animates the body.
One's spirit (IT) returns to God according to Ecclesiastes 12:7 (Notice one's spirit is a neuter "IT" )
Kind of like a foreclosed house does Not move or go anywhere but is simply returned to the owner's hands.
When one is resurrected, one's spirit (IT) is returned to the person. I guess kind of like turning on a light switch.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
Unfortunately, my memory has only gotten better with age, long term and short term. I guess I should not complain about that, but there are many things I would like to forget.
'Forget', then, I would think you'd like the Scripture found at Isaiah 65:16-17 _________
 

Wildstar

Member
I believe that consciousness is essentially distinct from material, cognitive brain functioning in neurons and thus will persist after bodily death.



I tend to take as my working premise, the orthodox Catholic belief that the individual 'spiritual soul' came into existence either around the time of, or some time after (during gestation of the unformed foetus), in vitro conception within the womb.

However, there is also a consensus in the mystical tradition of my church - as part of a doctrine known as 'divine exemplarism' - to the effect that all creatures, indeed the entire universe in all its varied forms, pre-existed in God from all eternity as "ideas" in the Divine Mind before and beyond their creation in time.

Ontologically speaking, we are dualists (God and the soul are distinct in essence as far as time and creation are concerned), yet the soul has an eternal being in God beyond itself as a result of God's eternal Idea of it (which is more akin to a non-dual Advaita conception).

So, in one sense, Vouthon is a created being whose body and soul came into being 29 years ago in my mother's womb. Yet in another sense, I was always and eternally existing in the Divine Mind, and God knew me in Himself from all eternity.



Heaven, Purgatory and Hell are spiritual states of being (as opposed to physical locations) that occupy no location in space and are even apart from time as well, with the souls of the deceased thought (according to time-honoured, theological speculation) to exist in something mysterious called “aeviternity”.

It entails an existence which is a form of “participated eternity". This lies between the timelessness of God and the temporal experience of material beings - to us, for all intents and purposes, it is akin to “no-time” - although this isn't strictly true.

I believe Vouthon will continue to exist in aeviternity as a disembodied soul, aware both of my eternal being in God and my created being in time. I will always simultaneously be aware of both. God granted me an independent existence from Him by creating this embodied human soul in time. This was so that I could freely love and turn to Him. He will never revoke this gift of existence.

Nor, however, will I ever be "fully" creature again, for I will have been penetrated through with God by means of my direct, uninhibited enjoyment of the Beatific Vision in heaven (the sight, awareness and knowledge of God as He is in Himself, in His Essence) and have become by grace what God is by nature, as I always was from all eternity in His Mind, where I should hopefully: "enjoy the same perfect happiness wherewith God is happy, seeing Him in the way which He sees Himself" (St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Contra Gentes). Hopefully, anyway!



This is a very good question.

Blessed Henry Suso, who claimed to have experienced a foretaste of the Beatific Vision in this lifetime through infused contemplative mystical experience, had this to say on it:


"...Essential reward, however, consists in the contemplative union of the soul with the naked Godhead, because it never rests until it is led beyond all its powers and capacities and is directed into the natural substance of the Persons and into the simple nakedness of Being. Face to face with this it then finds fulfilment and eternal happiness.

The farther it enters into the wild wasteland and the deep abyss of the pathless Godhead into which it plummets, where it is swept along, and to which it is so united that it cannot want otherwise than what God wants. And this is the same Being God is: They become blessed by grace as He is blessed by nature.

Eternity is life that is beyond time but includes within itself all time but without a before or after. And whoever is taken into the Eternal Nothing possesses all in all and has no ‘before or after’.

Indeed a person taken within today would not have been there for a shorter period from the point of view of eternity than someone who had been taken within a thousand years ago…

Now these people who are taken within, because of their boundless immanent oneness with God, see themselves as always and eternally existing.


When the good and loyal servant is led into the joy of his Lord, he becomes drunk from the limitless overabundance of God's house. What happens to a drunken man happens to him, though it cannot really be described, that he so forgets his self that he is not at all his self and consequently has got rid of his self completely and lost himself entirely in God, becoming one spirit in all ways with him, just as a small drop of water does which has been dropped into a large amount of wine.

Just as the drop of water loses itself, drawing the taste and colour of the wine to and into itself, so it happens that those who are in full possession of blessedness lose all human desires in an inexpressible manner, and they ebb away from themselves and are immersed completely in the divine will. Otherwise, if something of the individual were to remain of which he or she were not completely emptied, scripture could not be true in stating that God shall become all things in all things. Certainly one's being remains, but in a different form, in a different resplendence, and in a different power. This is all the result of total detachment from self
..."

(Blessed Henry Suso (c. 13001366), Little Book of Truth)
Honestly, the bolded text sounds rather horrific.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
.............., but maybe that is because I have had a set belief about the afterlife since I was 17 years old so there was nothing to wonder about, but now I think more about it more because I am closer to the final curtain call.

The final curtain or the curtain about to open ______
Having an 'inquiring that mind wants to know' is a good thing.
I find ' afterlife ' means being more alive after death than before death.
That is quite different from the Bible's resurrection hope.
Resurrection is future -> Acts of the Apostles 24:15.
In other words, according to the Bible, the dead sleep til Resurrection Day. (R.I.P.)
( Resurrection Day meaning Jesus' Millennium-Long Day of governing over Earth for a thousand years )
However, for those of us still alive at Jesus' coming Glory Time as found at Matthew 25:31-33,37 we can remain alive on Earth and continue to live on Earth being here to see calendar Day One of Jesus' coming millennial reign over Earth.
Please notice under Christ even ' enemy death ' will be No more on Earth - 1 Corinthians 15:26; Isaiah 25:8
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I find Adam only became a living soul after God 'breathed the breath of life' into life-less Adam - Genesis 2:7
One's spirit ( spark of life, so to speak ) along with one's breath animates the body.
One's spirit (IT) returns to God according to Ecclesiastes 12:7 (Notice one's spirit is a neuter "IT" )
Kind of like a foreclosed house does Not move or go anywhere but is simply returned to the owner's hands.
When one is resurrected, one's spirit (IT) is returned to the person. I guess kind of like turning on a light switch.
The spirit and the soul are the same entity. When we die the soul/spirit returns to God in Heaven (the spiritual world).

Paul explained what happens when people are resurrected. The spirit/soul does not go back to the physical body that was buried in the ground which rises from the grave. When we die physically, our bodies will be transformed into bodies that will never die, spiritual bodies. In other words, our soul will take on a new form, a spiritual body.

Our bodies that have died cannot inherit what will last forever, which is the Kingdom of God in Heaven, not on the Kingdom of God on Earth. The Kingdom of God on Earth is for living people, and future generations of living people, not for people who have died and were buried in the ground.

1 Corinthians 15:40-54 New Living Translation

40 There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies.

44 They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

50 What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever.

51 But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed!

54 Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die,[c] this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory.[d]


Read full chapter
 

Vouthon

Dominus Deus tuus ignis consumens est
Staff member
Premium Member
Honestly, the bolded text sounds rather horrific.

In what way, if I may ask?

It reads like a very typical description of the ultimate state of beatific union with God, such as one finds in mystical traditions generally amongst the world religions, at least to me (i.e. the Beatific Vision in Catholicism, fana (annihilation of the self) in Sufi Islam etc.).
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
I believe that consciousness is essentially distinct from material, cognitive brain functioning in neurons and thus will persist after bodily death.
As you probably already know, that is exactly the same as the Baha'i belief.
Good to see you again. :)
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
The final curtain or the curtain about to open ______
Having an 'inquiring that mind wants to know' is a good thing.
I find ' afterlife ' means being more alive after death than before death.
I agree we will be more alive in the afterlife, but that life will not be lived on Earth, it will be lived in Heaven.
(See my previous post.)
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
I agree we will be more alive in the afterlife, but that life will not be lived on Earth, it will be lived in Heaven.
(See my previous post.)
Afterlife is Not a Bible teaching - Resurrection is.
Afterlife is when people think they are more alive after death than before death.
The Bible, on the other hand, teaches the dead are Not alive and need a resurrection.
According to Acts of the Apostles 24:15 that resurrection is: future. Future that there ' is going to be ' a resurrection....
Most people only believe in going to Heaven after death, so it is No surprise people never think of an earthly resurrection.
Before Jesus the only hope was an earthly resurrection.- John 3:13
None of the people of Hebrews 11:13; Hebrews 11:39 including King David at Acts of the Apostles 2:34 have been resurrected anywhere. They were Not promised Heaven.
 

URAVIP2ME

Veteran Member
I believe that consciousness is essentially distinct from material, cognitive brain functioning in neurons and thus will persist after bodily death..........
If the ^ above^ would be accurate then what Jesus taught at John 11:11-14 is inaccurate.
Jesus said his dead friend was in a sleep-like state.
When we are sleeping we are No aware of anything, Not aware of the passing of time.
King Solomon, known for his God-given wisdom, wrote the dead are Not conscious - Ecclesiastes 9:5
This is in harmony with the Psalms -> Psalms 6:5; Psalms 13:3; Psalms 115:17 besides Isaiah 38:18.
If anything persisted after bodily death there would be No need for a resurrection.
What is alive does Not need a resurrection.
 

Trailblazer

Veteran Member
Afterlife is Not a Bible teaching - Resurrection is.
Maybe so, but the problem is that hardly any Christians understand what resurrection means, as this Christian does:

421. When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit’s thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense “death” signifies resurrection and continuation of life. Heaven and Hell, p. 351

Ecclesiastes 12:7 Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.
 
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