Do you think there is life after death? And if so, can we prove it?

[Sourplum]

Hey, I have to deliver a speech for English class next week and I'm having trouble choosing a specific topic. The purpose is to persuade the audience.

I've kinda been thinking of doing Reincarnation as the topic, but I'm not exactly sure how to go about SUGGESTING the existence of such a religious concept. One thing I've come to terms with is that science and religion are very difficult to prove to be co-existing, but I've always been interested in Reincarnation. Now, the hard part is actually proving it exists, or that such a concept is not entirely impossible.


Can we prove the afterlife using theory? For example, when water evaporates, the moisture returns to the sky and as clouds fill up, eventually we have rain. Can this cycle also suggest that reincarnation follows the same principle? The body passes, the soul leaves and enters a new-born person, all memories of the past life are cleared, but a part of the past still remains. When death occurs, the cycle is restarted.

What do you think? Is there a life after death? When our bodies pass away, does our soul depart from this world? Or do we simply pass onto a new body, erased of our memories from the past life? Are we a product of our previous life?

[milKBoi]

O.o' so we are going to do ur hw aye.

Ok, i personally believe once we die we die and thats it. Bye bye no more. But then again, i always like to think that once we are gone, we somehow come back again later? From hell or heaven? eg i guess most ppl here experienced de ju vu, well is that cos we already lived in that moment before? I guess there is no right or wrong answer, its more about your beliefs than any theories that can prove reincarnation.

If ya do prove a theory of reincarnation to ur class, some kids will kill themselves so they might come back as a cool kid.

btw is this a high school assignment?

[Sourplum]

Hey Mini T-Mac, that's actually really useful, especially the second point, thanks!

btw is this a high school assignment?

yeah, you can kind of say that.

[yittz]

Hey, I have to deliver a speech for English class next week and I'm having trouble choosing a specific topic. The purpose is to persuade the audience.

I've kinda been thinking of doing Reincarnation as the topic, but I'm not exactly sure how to go about SUGGESTING the existence of such a religious concept. One thing I've come to terms with is that science and religion are very difficult to prove to be co-existing, but I've always been interested in Reincarnation. Now, the hard part is actually proving it exists, or that such a concept is not entirely impossible.


Can we prove the afterlife using theory? For example, when water evaporates, the moisture returns to the sky and as clouds fill up, eventually we have rain. Can this cycle also suggest that reincarnation follows the same principle? The body passes, the soul leaves and enters a new-born person, all memories of the past life are cleared, but a part of the past still remains. When death occurs, the cycle is restarted.

What do you think? Is there a life after death? When our bodies pass away, does our soul depart from this world? Or do we simply pass onto a new body, erased of our memories from the past life? Are we a product of our previous life?

First you need to prove there is a soul.

There are more birth>death, does that mean more souls are being created?

I think it's a way to get people to behave and comfort people's thoughts about death. You do bad deeds you will go to hell, you do bad deeds you will reincarnate as a pig.

[wkeej]

When I was in the university, I went for a talk on lecture on rebirth. It argues from the passing-on of a person. Since the mind is equivalent to energy, the latter cannot be destroyed. I can accept this part. But how this energy flows into another person for rebirth, I am still not convinced about it.

[Trinie]

Hm... What a good question! I honestly have always believed it because I am buddhist and my parents always believed in it so they have influenced me to believe in it too. I also believe in it since I believe in reincarnation, karma,etc... Also, I have seen some American shows where Americans are starting to believe in it as well. I personally believe in life after death, reincarnation, karma and all that stuff because it helps to explain why you have connections with certain people, why you end up with who you do, why some people have a better life than others,etc... But hey, I don't think any of us would know until we actually die and experience it ourselves.

[darkcser]

If reincarnation is suppose to be based on past behavior: we either had an explosion of virtuous animals in the last few centuries or a multitude of naughty ascended beings.

There may be conservation of energy but that doesn't mean its pattern stays coherent or recognizable.

Has anyone heard of LifeGem? It's an ironically named product where they make an artificial diamond out of the body of the deceased. I assume they must take the carbon content from the ashes, and then use that as the material for a synthetic diamond.

I'd like to believe that the soul is a construct of the mind as opposed to some wispy ether that's attached to unborn babies.

I used to think that verification of ESP (especially the whole astral projection thing) would lead a lot of credence to the idea of life after death but the mind is such a fickle thing, and this isn't something you can prove conclusively.

[flamer]

Or, does it matter? If one will have no recollection whatsoever and no way to prove it. This is the same question as a tree falling in a forest isn't it? Does it make a sound? Does it matter? Do we care?

[Guo Xiang]

This is a subject you can conceptualise and debate 'til you drop dead, but there will never be proof.

Sure, there's many such accounts that so-and-so remembered their past lives, but except for themselves, who will really know if they were speaking the truth, and if what they experienced were really memories of their past lives or some hallucination and whatsoever.

You can't prove it at all, so you can only list examples/samples of testimonials and give some analysis.

[remember_Cedric]

Well, as far as Christians (and Catholics) are concerned, we only believe in recycle, not reincarnate. For us, it's a non-complicated way to exit i.e. heaven's gateway. For the rest of the other religions, it's beyond my knowledge.

Maybe the scientologist(s) can prove this, by their way?

[Dennis Chen]

When you get there, send me a note.

[Trinie]

I don't think anyone can prove it since we will only know when we die....However, once we are died, how are we going to tell anyone?? THe only thing that I remember is my mom once telling me a story about my great grandfather. Not sure how true it is though. She said that he actually "died" but the thing was, his chest was still warm so they did not bury him. Then days later, he actually woke up and all he said was, "They caught the wrong spirit/person". He did not dare review anything about the "other side" at all or else he would get badly punished. But then right before he was going to pass away, he then reviewed some things about the "other world" but was really vague about it since he is not supposed to say anything at all... I guess we are not supposed to know anything about life after death(if it exists) until we actually reach that level ourselves...

[Ghaleon]

to be really honest, i'm freaked out if NOTHING HAPPENS after you die.

However I believe that there is a higher purpose in existence. When you die, something does happen. That's what i personally believe. Because if it isn't so, then life would be pretty MEANINGLESS.

Also, what about after-death experiences? There have been people who died for like 10-15 mins and then come back to life again, and people often wonder what happened during those 10-15 mins when a person was clinically dead. Those people say that they encounter a bright shining light at the end of a tunnel.

[BearBearNweather]

There are more birth>death, does that mean more souls are being created?

I have the same thought too - if there's reincarnation, where do the additional population come from?

If there's heaven or hell, will it be overpopulated with souls by now?

If there're reincarnation and retribution in the next life, why does it happen in the next life when no one can even remotely recall his/her previous life? So what's the purpose of retribution?

I don't know if I do believe in life after death, part of me do but the logical part of me will always wonder. Personally I hope there's no reincarnation.

[darkcser]

Well, as far as Christians (and Catholics) are concerned, we only believe in recycle, not reincarnate. For us, it's a non-complicated way to exit i.e. heaven's gateway. For the rest of the other religions, it's beyond my knowledge.

I didn't realize Catholics were no longer Christians. When did this come about? Does the pope know about this? What about purgatory? What about the day of reckoning?

Also, what about after-death experiences? There have been people who died for like 10-15 mins and then come back to life again, and people often wonder what happened during those 10-15 mins when a person was clinically dead. Those people say that they encounter a bright shining light at the end of a tunnel.

There's a running theory regarding UFO abductions that says this is due to recalling the stressful moment of birth (i.e. darkness, bright light and odd looking beings that may seem familiar to you...)

A number of substances also induce hallucinations, and are used in religious ceremonies... you may experience strange visions when your brain is under duress but how do you determine if it's supernatural in origin as opposed to chemical/biological?

[Ghaleon]

I didn't realize Catholics were no longer Christians. When did this come about? Does the pope know about this? What about purgatory? What about the day of reckoning?

You should do some research beforehand. Christians are usually applied towards Protestants while Catholics are applied towards Catholics. Purgatory is a catholic concept. Christians (Protestants) only believe what's said in the Bible.

[kay &!*]

i heard if..
1. you believe in it
2. you're a female
and
3. you're preggo.
during your preggo cycle, you will see the person/animal that will reincarnate to become your child.
happened to both my sis in laws when they were preggo.

[darkcser]

You should do some research beforehand. Christians are usually applied towards Protestants while Catholics are applied towards Catholics. Purgatory is a catholic concept. Christians (Protestants) only believe what's said in the Bible.

I'm actually quite surprised by this. Where is it commonly held that Christians refers only to Protestants and Catholics are excluded from this group? Is this the typical Roman Catholic definition? Is this the typical Protestant definition?

It's pretty comical if this is the new definition of Christians. Maybe you should update Wikipedia on this definition since it seems to be incomplete since it makes no mention of Christians being synonymous with Protestants. My guess is most theological definitions also do not equate Christians with Protestants either.

Oddly enough... tapping the global consciousness... the first definition of "Christian" is not too surprisingly from Wikipedia. Not that Wiki is a particularly reliable source of information but a fairly common one.

[rosely]

Of course there is life after death scientifically. It's a fact that energy cannot be detroyed or created. So who create the life energy (soul) in people in the first place? Well of course there is God LOL (OK, there are many ahteist in this forum, so that is going to be discussed in another thread).

So when people died, the life energy (soul) which IS ENERGY cannot be destroyed, its just transferred to another place or change its form into a new kind of energy. In another word, the life energy or soul, ascended, an example as in Stargate (The Ancient/Ori/Ascended Being). So you're either ascended into hell, purgatory, heaven, whatever or another place, according to your belief/religion.

Life energy can come back to the living world through apparition such as ghost/poltergeist or if you have enough midichlorian or FORCE in you, you can appparate using a technique call The Force Ghost. Known people who already done this: Anakin Skywalker, Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi.

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[darkcser]

Of course there is life after death scientifically. It's a fact that energy cannot be detroyed or created. So who create the life energy (soul) in people in the first place? Well of course there is God LOL (OK, there are many ahteist in this forum, so that is going to be discussed in another thread).

So when people died, the life energy (soul) which IS ENERGY cannot be destroyed, its just transferred to another place or change its form into a new kind of energy. In another word, the life energy or soul, ascended, an example as in Stargate (The Ancient/Ori/Ascended Being). So you're either ascended into hell, purgatory, heaven, whatever or another place, according to your belief/religion.

Life energy can come back to the living world through apparition such as ghost/poltergeist or if you have enough midichlorian or FORCE in you, you can appparate using a technique call The Force Ghost. Known people who already done this: Anakin Skywalker, Yoda and Obi Wan Kenobi.

I can only assume that this post meant to be sarcastic, and is poking fun at the idea of believing something simply because there's a written/filmed account of it... without any need for empirical evidence.

btw: Did you notice that in all cases of ascension in SG, the body of the deceased/ascended is converted into a glowing energy being much like in SW? Oma Desala's quote regarding letting go was really nice "The universe is so vast, and we are so small, the only thing we can truly ever control, is whether we are good, or evil." I was disappointed that DJ didn't ascend for the third time...