how many of you really believe in an afterlife?

oregon

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You know, heaven, hell, reicarnation and retribution. I am really leaning for nothingness right now. One lifetime is enough.
Or is it possible that each person get the afterlife they believe in?

What do you all think?
& of course if there are no cats or dogs in heaven who'd want to go?
 

white cat lover

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I believe there is something there, but it is what we each create. We all have our own afterlife.....our own version of "heaven".
 

c1atsite

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A similar topic was posted several years ago around the time when I first joined this site. I was glad it stayed civil. I personally believe in Jesus the Redeemer, so yes, I believe in life after death
 

dragoriana

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I dont believe in heaven or hell. A big part of that is because so many sinners in jail turn into christians, get let out, then commit a crime again. But if they accept jesus all is forgiven. I dont agree with that. Also because i have been told by many people including family members, that i will go to hell because i don't believe in God. Not exactly a nice thing to say. I dont go up to a Christian and personally attack them or call them bonkers. But i have had alot of bad experiences. And ive been through the whole church, trying to find myself thing. And any religious discussion is a dead end with my grandfather and my dad if i say something they dont like or believe in. it's mentally and emotionally exhausting trying to get people to listen to you.

I am Wiccan but i am a very eclectic mix. I believe in evolution, and that the big bang created all the planets etc. I pray to Gods and Goddesses but i don't imagine them being actual people floating in the sky, it's more a comfort thing. That if there isn't a physical person next to you when you're in trouble, you can sit out in nature and just talk out to the sky. It's sort of like having a diary. I believe that what you take from nature you have to give back, you have to be thankful. It's humans who destroy and create the earth.

I dont know about reincarnation, but i believe that some peoples spirits stay behind when they die. If they die suddenly, or leave some unfinished business behind, or need to send a message to a loved one before they can pass on to wherever it is they go.

Indeed a very strong thread for discussion.
 

clairebear

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I'm not religious. I don't like to think about what is going to happen after I die. I'm just going to wait it out and see.
 

godiva

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I don't think there is one, and if there is, we won't be the same people as we were, so we won't experience it as continuous event. I don't think we could remember our lives, keep our personalities, etc.... without our brains, which will turn into worm food shortly after we're buried.
 

babyharley

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Originally Posted by MoochNNoodles

I deffinately believe in Heaven. And i believe animals are there too.
I HAVE to believe that, I HAVE to believe that Davidson is up there, among them at the Rainbow Bridge. Its comforting to think, and know.
I've been raised to believe that as well since I was young.
 

jenny1124

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I believe in Jesus, God.. but not totally the Bible. It may sound silly, but after reading Tolkien and hearing what rich history a man can come up with, it is difficult for me to believe that the Bible is entirely true.

I think if you try to be a good person and think of other people then you will go to heaven. My beliefs are close to the movie What Dreams May Come, as in you create your heaven and it is as wonderful as you want it to be.

I have seen miracles happen, so it is impossible for me to deny that God and his angels are real!
 

catsarebetter

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Hmm, well, I'm agnostic. I don't believe in a heaven or a hell. I guess, although I know purgatory is more of a religious terminology as is a soul, but for lack of better descriptions I often use them. I sort of view purgatory as the place where spirits are.. not exactly the same plane but still almost touchable by those who are alive..

I guess you could say I sort of believe in reincarnation.. to me, I have a strong belief in nature. In nature, all things are a sort of circle/cycle. For instance, if you throw a ball at a wall, the energy (and yes, I know this is delving into science and physics, but..in my mind the theory works).. the energy of the ball has to go somewhere, so it's transferred from one end of the ball up against the wall, and then back through it, causing the ball to come back to you.. My point here, the ball does not just stop at the wall and drop because the energy disappears. Every year plants die, and more are formed, so, the "energy" that was the life in the plant has to go somewhere. I'm not explaining myself very well, so I apologize.. but my basic belief is that a person or animal's soul has to go somewhere. It doesn't just disappear.

I don't hold a solid belief that the soul is reincarnated into another being or body, it might be absorbed into the atmosphere, or continue to remain on earth as a spirit. I do believe in ghosts.

Someone, earlier, posted that if you're a rotten person all your life and then in the last five minutes when you may be afraid to meet your maker as they say.. you can absolve your sins and be accepted into heaven. On that same note, if you're a good person for all of your life, and help people and do as much good as you can, and you don't believe in god or any higher power, you're not acceptable material for heaven. I agree with that poster that.. to me as well, it's BS. My view on it is simply that if I'm a good person and I don't believe in any higher power, and I die.. I should be judged (if indeed there is a judgement) by my merits, and not by what I believe. If whatever powers may exist can't accept me for that, then I have no need to be wherever it is that they're offering because it seems a bit hypocritical to me, and I have to say I would not want to spend eternity with a serial killer or a child rapist because in the last five minutes of their life they had their sins forgiven. I don't think you can spend an entire life doing things like that and be able to make up for it in five minutes (or, two days, or whatever..just using five minutes as an example).

But anyway, the point here was .. I guess I don't really believe in any sort of religious afterlife, and I sort of have my own opinions on it.. which probably don't make any sense to anyone else, lol.

BTW, this is interesting. I just had this conversation with my son yesterday.
 

phishmarisol

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Man this is a tough one. Raised Christian (never "saved"), majored in Religion in college where I mainly studied Buddhism but I'm not a Buddhist. Even though I have a great respect for many Buddhists and believe in the core of the Buddha's teachings I just have way too many logical arguments against reincarnation. If this were what we wished were true rather than what we believed then I'd pick reincarnation...how awesome would that be?! As far as what I DO believe, I'm going to have to go with the agnostics answer of I don't know. I actually tend to change my opinion on this issue. Sometimes when I see that a kid was killed or something I have to think they are going to a better place. Tonight I think we just die and that's it. Ask me tomorrow and it could be different.
 

ericanicole

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Originally Posted by SSmith0385

I also personally believe in Jesus Christ as Savior. So yes, I believe in both Heaven and in Hell.
As do I.
When I die, if the lord forgives my sins and hopefully I live with less and less my life goes on ,I will be united with my lord and savior.
 

swampwitch

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When I was a kid, I had repeater dreams (over and over!) that were like pages from someone else's book. One was about a church (and I never went to church as a kid), and the other was a double funeral.

Our daughter has remembered being a child with other parents, she calls it "The world before this one." Here's the thread:

http://www.thecatsite.com/forums/sho...ighlight=World
 

hopehacker

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I do believe in an after life, and a supreme being, or God. Whether it's exactly what is written in the Bible, that I'm not so sure about.

I do believe in Re-incarnation, as I've had some experiences that lead me to believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that I've lived before.

I do believe in a Heaven, and that when our souls strive for enlightenment during each incarnation, and when we've reached enlightenment we will no longer have to come back to earth and keep trying, but then will be able to evolve to heaven, and join God.
 

calico2222

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I would never condemn someone else's beliefs. Religion is very personal and I don't think there is a right or wrong answer. Its what feels right for you.

That being said, I believe in a higher power, and I do believe there is an afterlife. I was brought up Catholic, but the whole heaven, hell, purgatory thing doesn't sit right with me. When my mom died, I felt my dad there. My hand was on her forehead when she breathed her last breath and I actually felt a shock in my hand when she died...like touching an electric wire. It was energy...or her soul...and like someone else said, it had to go somewhere.

Personally, reincarnation makes sense to me. I believe our purpose here is to learn some lesson. I don't believe we are reborn as a bug or a rock, but I do believe we could be sent back if we didn't have the chance to learn whatever we had to learn, or the chance to experience life! I think babies who die would be given the chance to live again.
 

carolpetunia

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I go out for the evening and I come back to find y'all discussing religion without me?


An attempt was made to raise me Catholic, but that went all to -- um, heck -- because every time I asked a question, I was told "It's a mystery! You aren't supposed to understand it." Which made no sense to me. So I parted ways with the church at age ten and started formulating my own theory... which goes something like this:

The things that we generally attribute to our various gods are, I think, not supernatural at all, but perfectly natural -- and will someday be understandable to us through scientific study. What some of us call "God" may be, I think, a sort of communal energy to which we all contribute with our every thought and action, for good or ill, consciously or otherwise. This may be why prayer and "vibes" often seem to work -- because our focused thoughts are sometimes powerful enough to have influence through this all-pervasive energy.

And I think this energy is the "substance" of which our souls are made, too. The electrical patterns in our brains may be the nearest we come to "seeing" it at this point.

I don't believe in any hell or devil, never did... and I don't believe in the existence of "evil" as an entity or force of any kind. I think evil is simply the absence of good, the way dark is the absence of light. And I think we all start out with good at our centers. Many, many things can erode or eradicate that central core of good, but it's there in the beginning -- of that I'm sure.

Obviously, I don't believe in "original sin," either -- because if I'm wrong, and the Judeo-Christian God really does exist, then I have to assume He is perfect. And no perfect being would perpetrate such an injustice as that. Nor would He tolerate the countless injustices committed in His name lo these many centuries.

So that leaves Heaven. No, I don't believe St. Peter is waiting with his clipboard at the Pearly Gates, though that's roughly what my grandmother saw in a near-death experience once. It's what she expected to see, wanted to see... so she saw it, and I'm so glad for her that she did, because she never feared death again.

But as Heather said, energy and matter cannot be destroyed -- only transformed. (Well, she put it differently, but I think that's where she was going with it.
) And the energy that is the soul does survive the death of the body, of that I feel sure.

What happens after that... I think there are many paths, many phases that a soul may go through. But I do feel certain that some souls stay in touch with us after death for some period of time. There is so much evidence for this... and I've experienced things myself that reinforce my feeling that this is true.

But a "Heaven," a place where souls congregate, with or without clouds and harps? Somehow I don't think it's that simple. And I find reincarnation fairly easy to accept -- most people die just when they've finally gotten the hang of living, and that does seem a waste of a good soul.


So yes, I do believe in an afterlife, but I can only partially guess at the nature of it.

Let me add this: some people may have noticed that I often say "bless you" or "I hope to heaven" -- these are the conventions of habit, meant to convey my meaning through commonly understood symbology. I find the symbols of traditional religion are often helpful as metaphors in communicating across varying spiritual platforms. I don't mean in any way to take them lightly or disrespectfully.
 

carolpetunia

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Oh my! Calico, I just read your post, right above mine... with some of the very same thoughts in it. You gave me chills!
 

theimp98

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personally believe in Jesus, now, what i have doubts about is hell, at in terms of how many people see it. it does not match, what i know of God & Jesus.

good works alone will not save you as the saying goes.

lol i guess we will know a few second after you die.
 
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