Let's Get DEEP: What Happens After DEATH?

The Book of Mormon is the third book of the Bible. It was recorded by the decedents of a prophet named Lehi, and the Lord (J. Christ) preserved the records of those prophets so they might one day be published throughout the earth. And they were, through the efforts of the Angel Moroni and prophet Joseph Smith.

Those Christians and their sects, denominations and branches that deny the Book of Mormon are living in an apostasy. They will not see The Kingdom.

Um, death? There is no death if:

"A Start"

I was raised catholic, and I liked a lot of the stuff about compassion and respect, but they taught me to have low self esteem and fork over the money.

While none of us can say with direct knowledge what happens after death, the best information I've gathered comes from my use psilocybin mushrooms. I won't bore you with the details but I can recommend pursuing an investigation of the effects.

Magic mushrooms have also been proven effective in treating anxiety, addiction and depression, as well as end of life fear/anxiety in recent studies at Johns Hopkins and other research institutions.

Therapy with psilocybin is on a path to be legalized for theraputic use.

stan the corgi wrote:

For those who truly believe and profess that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Savior, they will be in heaven.

This is a sad response and typical of religious people. Other posters are making at least some effort to explain their viewpoints, but Christians (and other major religions are just as bad), when confronted with any sort of challenge, just repeat some mantra that has been drilled into their heads, and leave it at that. It's an argument from authority, but the authority was just some random cleric with extremely limited knowledge from many years ago.

It's like if somebody stated "the Earth is flat, and all the objects we see up in the sky revolve around the Earth". And then a bunch of people respond by pointing out ways in which it is just not plausible to believe the Earth is flat, and how it has been conclusively shown that the objects we see in the sky don't actually revolve around the Earth (except for the Moon). And then the flat-Earther responds by quoting some ancient text that says "for let it be resolved that the Earth is flat, and also let it be resolved that all other bodies revolved around the Earth." That's not even making an effort - it's just repeating the original statement.

So believing in Jesus is how you get into heaven? What a ridiculous system! We're supposed to take some sketchy accounts of what supposedly happened 2000 years ago and somehow make ourselves believe them to be true - and our eternal fate depends on our doing so? That seems downright perverse. Especially for those who are raised Muslim, or Hindu or any other religion. Talk about the odds being stacked against you!

Your family fights over whop gets the stuff you left behind and they stop talking to one another. Don't cause a ruckus after death. Give your stuff to charity while you are alive.

Jesus is the only one who rose from the dead, so I will take him at his word.

Colby wrote:

Jesus is the only one who rose from the dead, so I will take him at his word.

Because that makes a lot of sense.

Dunno.

Humans just aren't smart enough to know.

The smartest humans probably have an intelligence that is closer to that of an insect than a creature that can know things like

how the universe was created,

why we are here,

what happens after death.

If we were smart enough to know these things then religion wouldn't exist but humans are very insecure animals that don't like to admit they don't know something.

According to the Bible, in the book of Hebrews, chapter 9, verses 27-28: "And just as it is destined for people to die once, and after this comes judgment, so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him."

So if we die without repenting of our offenses against God and accepting the payment that Christ made on our behalf when he died on the cross, we can expect to receive a hefty judgement from God. But if we have repented and accepted Christ's gift, we can expect to be resurrected and have eternal life after that. It's a FREE gift...sadly a lot of people would rather face hell than admit that they've sinned against God and accept his mercy. I should know, it took me almost 30 years before I was willing to admit it!

AmeliaSometimesRuns wrote:

...But if we have repented and accepted Christ's gift, we can expect to be resurrected and have eternal life after that. It's a FREE gift...sadly a lot of people would rather face hell than admit that they've sinned against God and accept his mercy. I should know, it took me almost 30 years before I was willing to admit it!

I don't think it's because a lot of people would rather face hell than admit whatever...it's more a matter of the whole thing seeming so silly and implausible, they can't be bothered. I mean, why is this God fellow so hung up on getting people to submit, when he knowingly created a stubborn bunch of mo-fos? And if submission truly is what he wants, why can't he come out and say it clearly and unequivocally? After all, I've heard people SAY that's what God wants us to do, but people lie all the time, and get things ridiculously wrong - why should I believe this particular claim (and not some other religions' claim)? All God has to do is appear as a big flaming head in the sky, do some crazy magic stuff to prove he's God and not some kind of scam, and then state his case. If I actually BELIEVED that my options were A) accept Christ and live in paradise forever, or B) burn in hell, OF COURSE I'd choose A. But as things stand, it strikes me as a silly and dishonest thing to do, to admit to some belief that I don't actually have.

I was raised Catholic and continued going to church through my late 30’s/early 40’s. Around age 46, I had what I call , “the great awakening” and suddenly realized that religion in general is all a bunch of B.S. made up by humans to overcome their fear of dying. The average person can’t handle the fact that when you die, everything goes black and then there is nothing. The whole concept of “faith” is what you call it when you have ZERO evidence that god exists. What religious people call evidence would get laughed out of a court of law so fast their heads would spin.

I actually believe religion has done more good than bad in the world and respect people who have a strong belief system, whatever it may be. Just don’t tell me I need to follow the rules of YOUR particular religion when you can’t even prove god exists without reading a bible verse.

Physics Teacher wrote:

John and Roof:

....

This is one of the more interesting subjects to me. I've fallen in the middle- that we DO make choices, and even make choices about what we believe, BUT that those choices are heavily influenced by the physical universe.

I actually look at the Bible has having some interesting insight on the discussion. Even if you don't think the Bible is divinely inspired, it's still interesting:

So first, in Romans chapter 5, starting in verse 12, it describes how Adam sinned, and how that sin then spread to every human and 'condemned every human'. So there's really not much 'choice' in sinning if every human does it. But similarly, Jesus's sacrificial obedience to God, allows everyone to receive 'grace' and be restored to a 'right' relationship with God. We didn't 'choose' for Adam (and Eve) to sin, and we didn't 'choose' for Jesus to die on the cross, but those two single events drastically change our eternal lives. But now, we do have the choice to 'follow Jesus' or not (kind of).

In the Old Testament, the Bible talks about 'generational sin'. So people sin, and the children 3 or 4 generations face the consequences. However this can be overcome by people who 'love God and obey His commands', and then those people's children's will be blessed with 'good' consequences. We see this a lot in our current society. The cycle of violence, cycle of poverty, etc. But we also see people break through these cycles. And we certainly see cycles of wealth, success, and 'nice people' typically have 'nice' children (of course, not always).

The Bible also talks about 'false teachers' and those 'led astray' indicating that people can be easily influenced. If everyone just simply just made their own 'choices', this wouldn't be an issue, but obviously, people are heavily influenced by others and at a point, their beliefs are barely a choice. This is also why I think the Bible commands believers 'to pray continuously' and to 'not give up meeting with each other' and to consistently listen/read God's word. The human mind tends to believe what it's most familiar with- so if you're consistently praying, going to church, and reading the Bible, there's less of a chance you'll be 'led astray'.

In addition, the Bible has a lot of instructions on how to live life based on the physical laws of the Universe. I believe this is because, although humans can make choices, we are still bound by chemical human bodies and the natural laws of the universe. A super simple example is that the Bible says to not get drunk. When you are drunk, like black-out drunk, you're not really making decisions you'd normally make, you're just kind of doing stuff. But that doesn't matter, you are still held accountable for your actions regardless of if it's something you'd never do sober.

Habits and addictions are similar to this as well. Are you really choosing to do the action you are addicted too? Idk, but at some point in time, you had more 'choice' in the matter. But if you were raised in an environment surrounded by drugs, you had less of a choice than a person who wasn't. BUT, if you can break the cycle, then your children will have more a choice than you did.

The point is, determinism does exist to some extent. But it's shaped by our choices, the choices of those around us, and the choices of everyone in the history of the universe. But that's incredibly complex and impossible to quantify. (Think of the butterfly effect).

Personally, I think that puts far more weight on our choices. Because our choices are ultimately going to play a huge role in our future actions and the actions of others. It's kind of like racing. When you get in a race, there's only so much mental choice you can make to run faster. For the most part, once you get to the race, you can either physically run faster, or your can't. Your training plays a large role in what you can do in the race. Not only that, but the choices your coaches made plays a huge role. Maybe a mentor chose to impart wisdom to your coach which made them better- which made you better. Then you have your parents and how they raised you, your activity levels as a child, your nutrition, how their parenting affected your self-esteem, motivation, and work-ethic. Not to mention their genetics and epigenetics based on their lifestyle, etc. So now we have to factor in all the people who impacted them, etc, etc. There were soooo many factors spanning all of human history that ultimately determined how you ran the race.

Anyways, I have way more thoughts, but that was too long as it is. In conclusion, it's BOTH AND. Life is weird. We kind of make choices, we kind of just do things. We kinda choose what to believe, we kinda don't. We're a bunch of quarks, gluons, and other subatomic particles seemingly bound by 'universal laws' that create a probabilistic universe- but the existence of those universal laws paradoxically exist by random chance (or were created by a divine creator whose eternal existence can't be rationally explained). So here we are, a collection of subatomic particles that somehow have consciousness, communicating vastly different ideas and perspectives to people all over the world by hitting buttons on what we call a computer... and on a 'running website' no less.

Now the serious /eot answer!

You already know what happens when you die, as we all do. You rot away and eventually you're not there anymore. It can be hard to imagine not existing but the best approximation is the part of sleep when you're not dreaming.

This is the brutal truth, no matter how many fantasies people concoct about continued experiences. How can you experience anything if you don't exist?

There is no soul or whatever. Mental or spiritual vs physical is a false dichotomy. Everything is physical.

Bad Wigins wrote:

Now the serious /eot answer!

You already know what happens when you die, as we all do. You rot away and eventually you're not there anymore. It can be hard to imagine not existing but the best approximation is the part of sleep when you're not dreaming.

This is the brutal truth, no matter how many fantasies people concoct about continued experiences. How can you experience anything if you don't exist?

There is no soul or whatever. Mental or spiritual vs physical is a false dichotomy. Everything is physical.

Wow. I don't agree with BW on much--at all--but agree with this.

In this world there's no verifiable evidence of anything but humans (and their works) and nature. And we're not going to "find out" anything after we die, because we find out things with our brains and when we're dead our brains don't work--that's actually part of the definition of death.

You're lucky to have this life. Make the most of it.

Why does everybody think the tradition they are born in, or a philosophy they read and find appealing is the one true one?

Every culture made up a different story to explain why we are here? And now that we have history and science we can see how this all happened

Why would you think that your tradition is the one true one , when there are hundreds of competing and contradictory other theories out there by other cultures,?

And they all share the same thing having no evidence and no good reason to believe them

I mean study a little comparative history and learn about all the different cultures and then ask yourself why would some clearly made up story be accurate?

People make stuff up, they exaggerate, they embellish. We all have wild imaginations and are always making mistakes about the way things really are!

Bad Wigins:

I think you're missing my point, actually, by I admit that didn't explain my point because I wanted it to be a question--I was really asking for people to think and to respond.

If the Big Bang happened naturally, by physical means/natural phenomena, even if the laws of physics were different then because forces were combined, particles hadn't yet formed, etc., there is still a major problem. How long had the material been there for? If it had been there LITERALLY forever, it would have had all the time needed to try EVERY possible situation/orientation/possible outcome an INFINTE amount of times. So the Big Bang would've happened "long before" it did happen. (... and it should've happened "long before" that, etc., etc.... which is a logical contradiction.) So the Big Bang can't be caused by natural phenomena AND the material had also been there forever. So either the material was "put" there, from something outside the physical universe, or something started time, or added the last piece of the puzzle, or it wasn't a natural phenomenon.

"But time STARTED with the Big Bang!" you'll say. Okay, that could very well be true. But that doesn't make the situation any better. Then there is literally NO time for anything to happen. There is no possible physical means that could cause the Big Bang because time hadn't even started yet. If there was no time before the Big Bang then there were no events, and there is an uncaused event--it happened for no reason at all. That means it wasn't a natural phenomena--it happened literally for no reason.

??

The original source on this statement is Romans 10:8

I can understand what you are saying about it being a short statement. The book of Romans is a great source for answering the original poster’s question and expanding upon the previous poster’s statement. As I suggested in another post, for those who are earnestly seeking an answer to this question, reading the Bible with prayer is a great place to start. The book of Roman’s is a really good read for this specific question.

If you’d like a little more in depth to explain my Christian beliefs and the reason for them, I’ll give it a shot. There are many many things that support Christianity. Again, referring to the book of Romans, the author of that book has a nice argument that creation points to a creator. It is reasonable to conclude that since nothing in our universe happens by itself, our universe had to be created. It is contrary to everything we see to conclude the universe spontaneously existed without causation. Moreover, when we look at creation - the mountains, the ocean, the stars, etc there is so much beauty, it points to an artist’s hand not randomness. I would also suggest that all this points to one God and not many. If we assume God wants to be known, there are 3 major monotheistic religions(Christianity, Islam, and Judaism). Interestingly, all of their religious texts are connected. The Quran from Islam actually acknowledges the Bible as being from God. The Hebrew Bible is actually the same as the Old Testament from the Christian Bible. The Jews believe their texts point to a coming messiah. Christians believe that messiah has come in Jesus. To address your example of a flat earth text, the Bible has the signature of God in it while a flat earthed text would not. That is, one of the unique attributes of God, specifically omniscience, is demonstrated in the Bible. There are many many prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled when Jesus came. Over 300! The Dead Sea scrolls proved that the Old Testament was written before Jesus came, hence, only God could be the author of of a book that demonstrates omniscience. My favorite Old Testament prophecy about Jesus is Psalm 22. Written before the Romans even invented crucifixion, it gives a incredibly accurate description of how the messiah would die!

Regarding your last paragraph, an important distinction, is that it is not the believing in the existence of Jesus that ‘gets you into heaven.’ It is believing we have messed up(Romans 3:23), are messed up and TRUSTING that Jesus died for us and that his sacrifice is sufficient to save us(Romans 7:24-8:4)

Hope this helps!

Ever see the ending of sopranos when it all goes black & no sound? That’s what I imagine death to be like. You don’t know you died, you just aren’t any more.

Now the Christian religion states that the body is just a “seed” for what is to come. Science states that energy and matter is not created or destroyed. Whether our “energy” is some atomic consciousness or we eventually are just converted into thermal energy whose atoms return to the universe who knows.

Humans are the only species that knows we are going to die. I think inevitable death is difficult for our brain to deal with and so we cope by trying to make sense of it. But really we don’t have any idea.