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Before Christ, before Christianity, there was just the

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
Old Testament and the Jews.

According to the Old Testament, what happens to people when they die?

Do they just sustain an eternal unconscious death?

Death is as much a mystery to the human mind as life itself and perhaps more so.

We can't think through the minds of the dead as living entities in the flesh.

We can't see the world from the point of view of the dead.

We can't hear through dead person's ears.

We can't ask the dead of their death experience and expect to receive an answer from the dead person's lips. We can't ask the dead, "What is it like to be dead?"

Are the dead temporarily or permanently conscious or unconscious?

We living really know not much of the dead for a fact except what we can observe with our own senses. DEATH is a presumed state in the minds of the living anyway. No heartbeat, no breathing: the person is legally declared "dead". We can only observe the physical aspects of what we presume to be "death" and not the spiritual aspects.

Tom Berenger's sergeant character really posed a profound question his soldiers in the film Platoon, "What do you know about death?"

What is DEATH really?
 
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SugarOcean

¡pɹᴉǝM ʎɐʇS
What is death really? Just another doorway to a new and different place.
All things are energy. Energy cannot be destroyed only re-formed. And all energy moves to a rhythm.
There is no cessation of life really. Just a different "reality".
Those who die and were human know nothing after this life is over. This subjective reality.
 

leov

Well-Known Member
We are consciousness, some of us reduced to viewing our physical existence in a physical body as being real us, which is deception of slavery.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Old Testament and the Jews.

According to the Old Testament, what happens to people when they die?

Do they just sustain an eternal unconscious death?

Death is as much a mystery to the human mind as life itself and perhaps more so.

We can't think through the minds of the dead as living entities in the flesh.

We can't see the world from the point of view of the dead.

We can't hear through dead person's ears.

We can't ask the dead of their death experience and expect to receive an answer from the dead person's lips. We can't ask the dead, "What is it like to be dead?"

Are the dead temporarily or permanently conscious or unconscious?

We living really know not much of the dead for a fact except what we can observe with our own senses. DEATH is a presumed state in the minds of the living anyway. No heartbeat, no breathing: the person is legally declared "dead". We can only observe the physical aspects of what we presume to be "death" and not the spiritual aspects.

Tom Berenger's sergeant character really posed a profound question his soldiers in the film Platoon, "What do you know about death?"

What is DEATH really?
Same as before you were born.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
What is death really? Just another doorway to a new and different place.
All things are energy. Energy cannot be destroyed only re-formed. And all energy moves to a rhythm.
There is no cessation of life really. Just a different "reality".
Those who die and were human know nothing after this life is over. This subjective reality.

You and I as LIVING persons know not even this for a fact. Is the soul conscious after the physical human death? A number of religions, philosophers and people subscribe to this possibility. I guess we will all "find out" whenever "our number is up". This is another widespread and time-honored living human presumption: we will all not be around in the flesh forever. I have no reason to believe my own body will be kicking around this world for eternity in the flesh.

I think many humans endeavor to consider there is a possibility of something good and nice to look forward to beyond the physical grave. The mere thought that death is final, unconscious and eternal is troubling to many and morbidly horrific to some. The thought of eternal conscious suffering is most troubling to me.
 

Rival

Si m'ait Dieus
Staff member
Premium Member
I would expect it to be so. The fear of death is almost universal
Who says it is because of a fear of death? I did not fear death as an atheist and I do not fear it now. Such generalised statements about billions of people are asinine. You do not get to say why people believe what they do.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
It is when your life functions cease and you start to decay. Is that so hard?

That explains the fate of the physical body but not the fate of the spirit or the conscious mind. Yes, it's not that simple.

Do the dead know they're even dead? What HARD evidence or proof do the living have as to what the dead are aware of or not aware of?

You and I, assuming we are both living humans, both don't know the true answer to that question.

Bob, for all I know, you could be dead and a ghost who is typing on this forum. I could be a dead person and ghost typing here too for all you know about me.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
Same as before you were born.

That is but one possibility.

Perpetual reincarnation is but another possibility regarding life and death.

Ask yourself, "How many physical bodies has my soul dwelt within before the current living body my soul now dwells within? How many more bodies to come shall my soul dwell within when this current living body of mine fades away?"
 

The Reverend Bob

Fart Machine and Beastmaster
Who says it is because of a fear of death? I did not fear death as an atheist and I do not fear it now. Such generalised statements about billions of people are asinine. You do not get to say why people believe what they do.
I can speculate
 

The Reverend Bob

Fart Machine and Beastmaster
That explains the fate of the physical body but not the fate of the spirit or the conscious mind. Yes, it's not that simple.

Do the dead know they're even dead? What HARD evidence or proof do the living have as to what the dead are aware of or not aware of?

You and I, assuming we are both living humans, both don't know the true answer to that question.

Bob, for all I know, you could be dead and a ghost who is typing on this forum. I could be a dead person and ghost typing here too for all you know about me.
I don't believe in spirits, I believe when your brain ceases to function your conscious mind dies
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
I don't believe in spirits, I believe when your brain ceases to function your conscious mind dies

That possibility is still not quite as horrific as the possibility of going to a place or state of torment forever. Most of us would prefer, if given a choice, an eternal unconscious death over a conscious eternity of suffering in hell fire. There is no joy and happiness in an unconscious death but neither is their pain, sorrow and grief. One, whether living or dead in the flesh, has to be CONSCIOUS to experience suffering (or even joy).
 

The Reverend Bob

Fart Machine and Beastmaster
That possibility is still not quite as horrific as the possibility of going to a place or state of torment forever. Most of us would prefer, if given a choice, an eternal unconscious death over an eternity of suffering in hell fire. There is no joy and happiness in an unconscious death but neither is their pain, sorrow and grief.
If you think about it, eternal life in eternal bliss can seem just as horrific as eternal suffering in hell fire. Where is God going to to put all the masochists?
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
That possibility is still not quite as horrific as the possibility of going to a place or state of torment forever. Most of us would prefer, if given a choice, an eternal unconscious death over a conscious eternity of suffering in hell fire. There is no joy and happiness in an unconscious death but neither is their pain, sorrow and grief. One, whether living or dead in the flesh, has to be CONSCIOUS to experience suffering (or even joy).

Christianity says we will all eventually be in a state of eternal consciousness following our physical deaths. It may be either a pleasant or an unpleasant eternal consciousness.
 

Jonathan Bailey

Well-Known Member
If you think about it, eternal life in eternal bliss can seem just as horrific as eternal suffering in hell fire. Where is God going to to put all the masochists?

Send the sinful non-repentant masochists to heaven as eternal punishment!

Keep them shamefully seated in corners with eternal dunce caps on their collective heads as the angels sing beautiful praises to God to forever torture their souls! Where does God put the haters of boredom eternally? Some believe hell, for all of its fiery pain, is more eternally exciting than heaven. Sinful haters of boredom go to heaven too as penalty maybe but does God then put the saintly lovers of excitement in hell as a reward?

One person's heaven is simply another person's hell, vice-versa.

Does a peaceful and painless heaven have to be eternally boring?

Does even hell get boring after a while?
 
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