Before I start writing I would like
to let my viewers know that I will be talking about some controversial stuff
that some may not want to hear. So if you are easily offended or do not want to
think about this topic of life after death, please do not read…
Ever since a young age I have been
a deep thinker, not by choice, but I am. With the deep thinking I, at about
eight or nine started to wonder what was to come with death, essentially the
afterlife. As I grew I came upon more and more theories that would keep me up
for hours at night when trying to sleep.
I just
found it unsettling of how I cannot know what awaits me, but that is life’s
biggest secret.
Now
don’t get me wrong, I do believe in God and I do go to church often. But there
is always room for speculation in my head. “What if the other religion is
right?” I would often find myself asking, but after a while I just learned to
not think about it for the better of myself. What I have found is that there are
six basic theories of what happens to you in the afterlife.
Materialism: This is
essentially the belief that when you die that is it; there is no afterlife,
just black. When looking at this it is pretty easy to take in knowing that
Hubble has found over 100 billion galaxies and is saying that they will be able
to find 100 billion more as telescope technology increases. This is the typical
belief of atheist people. When looking at how big space is and it is forever
growing it is easy to say that we as one human being does not matter and with
that we have no afterlife.
Paganism: Paganism is the belief that after you die you come back
as a “lighter” form of yourself, such as a ghost. With movies and TV today the
idea of ghosts is probably more common than it was before. There are in some
cases, where we have heard of the ghosts that live in certain areas. There is
also a rumor that I have heard of that says that when you see your pet looking
around rapidly that is them seeing the ghosts that we as humans cannot see. I
believe in ghosts, but not that we all come back as them.
Reincarnation: The idea that the same soul that you have now will
come back as another form. It is you but it is not you. I have often pondered
this belief, the reason why is that the Earth has been around for millions of
years maybe even billions and since the creation of man there has been even
more people than that. It is easy in my head to say that the same souls that
were here from the beginning are here with us today, and that is why we all
have our own styles and ways of living because we are in fact from different
time periods.
Another reason that I believe
reincarnation to an extent is that I look at my two dogs, they are so happy. I
think to myself what did they do to deserve to be a dog while I am a human.
This may seem odd but it is a just thought.
Pantheism: similar to reincarnation but you are put in a body based
off of your karma in your past life. So back to what I was saying earlier, for
this belief maybe my dogs were actually bad people in their past life’s making
them dogs now, or maybe it could be even reversed of that. That because they
were good they get the easy life of a dog and I am being punished as a human.
With Pantheism there is a level where you realize what you have done wrong and
that is where you find your peace with yourself by working up levels of lives.
Immortality: the belief that the actual soul survives, not the
body. Whether it is through stages such as reincarnation or not, people often
think of this as Christianity. I do believe in this a little bit, only because I
feel like it is unfair to judge a person off of their one life experiences. They
could be placed in bad situations, which everybody does, but some people have much
tougher lives than others. How they fulfill with their lives decides if they
need another life essentially to reach their eternal destiny of heaven or hell.
Resurrection: this is known as the new Christian belief. The belief
that at death, your soul stands alone and enters either heaven or hell where it
will stay for eternity.
As I told you earlier I am a Christian,
that doesn’t mean I do not believe in these other possibilities as well. I find
myself asking if I am “disobeying” my religion in a way by thinking as I do, but
I feel that there will be people to think the same as I do all over. You could
even say that through the Christian belief that this is a way of “the devil”
trying to stray me away from the belief of Jesus, but it is not that, it is
that I am open to knowing all the options.
Another topic I would like to
bring up is the idea of eternity. I am unsettled by this idea of a never
ending, at I young age I feared death as I do still now. I would tell my
parents that I was scared to die and that I wanted to live forever. Now older I
find that maybe it is not the death that I am scared of because every person, whoever
you are, sadly has to die one day. The thing that I do find to discomfort me is
the idea that we do not get an ending, eternity is what it is. As well as none
of us know what awaits us at the end, and that is truly scary.
I myself do not adhere to a single religion; I believe in the merit of all and none. We may be an accident of the universe; the result of an experiment by some higher power, left to cultivate and grow as we may; or the product of divine love, the ‘children’ of a deity or of many deities that wish for and seek to encourage us to improve ourselves.
ReplyDeleteThere is a phrase I have come to adopt as a personal philosophy, one created by the 8th-century scholar and Buddhist monk named Shantideva. It goes, “If you can solve your problem, then what is the need of worrying? If you cannot solve it, then what is the use of worrying?” The simple fact of the matter is that we can never know (at least, not at this moment) what occurs beyond humanity’s narrow vision of the universe, nor what waits for us after death. The most we can do is try to be someone worthy of our own admiration and respect.
If we are proud of what we do, if we overshadow our mistakes with worthwhile accomplishments, if we are happy with what we become and where we wind up at the end of our meager existence, then what have we to reasonably fear when the curtain finally closes?
This is something that I find myself thinking about often. I can remember, ever since I was little I have been trying to grasp the concept of “forever”. When we die, whatever our fate is in our afterlife, is forever. We are stuck with it forever. It never ends. We think 100 years is a long time, but it is a small grain of sand in the universe compared to forever. I mentally cannot understand the concept of forever. It's an unsettling feeling for me. It trips me out man. I love reading and learning about all of these theories and possibilities about what happens to us when we die. I have long conversations about afterlife with my friends quite often actually. I really liked reading this. This is something that really interests me. The whole idea of this intrigues me. I also like that you added you are a deep thinker. I am as well so I completely feel you. Excellent post Brandon.
ReplyDelete3. I often find myself ponder about the afterlife when I am in deep thought as well, whenever I have time for myself or if I’m enjoying a nice bag of Hot Cheetos I think about life and death. But I enjoyed reading your blog, because I relate to this a lot. If you wouldn’t mind I would like to give you advice: every religion has a way of explaining the afterlife and how the soul coexists with the body. By looking over most religions, each of them explains the spirit realm and how our soul will forever be a part of it when we meet death. To tell the truth, the religion that touched my soul the most would be Christianity. I myself don’t claim to be a Christian, yet, because I don’t follow the rules that come along with it, although I believe the fundamentals that belong to Christianity. If you like you should conduct a research about the “pineal gland” and how it works with the body. You possess three eyes, two lungs, and one soul; as everyone does. Thanks for your time, bud.
ReplyDeleteYour blog is the exact same things in my mind. I do as well stay up at night thinking about the afterlife.
ReplyDeleteI will spend moments wondering where my friends and grandpa went. I like reincarnation the best though. Just last week I came up with a new possible theory which is our soul having to leave our bodies and brains behind. Which causes us to go into our new body, unaware of our past life.
I am Christian as well. Growing up, I firmly believed in resurrection. That the soul of my grandpa was going to see the gates of heaven and enter the palace they speak about at funerals.
I do feel like a sinner by believing more in reincarnation than resurrection. But I still pray to God every day. It is difficult to share these thoughts with friends and family because in Navajo culture we are forbidden to talk about death and in Christianity it is bad to question the Lord.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts because now I know I’m not the only one.