I know there is something after death, whether it be reincarnation or an afterlife, I am just unsure about it right now. What are all of your ideas/beliefs on the afterlife?
Am convinced there is some plane beyond this one, no heaven or hell, but sort of neutral. Have come across the concept of 'the summerland', and that sounds about right. To me it's almost a rest stop for those who've 'passed over'; to take breather, meet with loved ones, take stock of their last life. Then if it's needed, or they just choose to, then they are reborn into a new life that will teach them new lessons. Not saying all that for certain, will figure it out for sure soon enough.
I believe in reincarnation. It's more logical to me - plants die then are reborn etc, so it seems only natural to believe that we will be reborn.
I believe that there is a finite pool of souls and when you die you are tossed back into the maelstrom until your time to walk the earth comes around again.
even though i believe in evolution,i have this feeling inside me that knows that their is an after life
Well... I definately believe in something after death. I have a weird way of using logic to explain it... Think about it like this, you are aware of everything, you can remember the recent past and you think about the near future, thats the sign of consciousness... You know what is happening.... When you get knocked out or lose that awareness, it seems like no time has passed at all. People who wake from years of being in a coma feel like it was just recently they took a nap. Well if your mind/consciousness is completly destroyed in death, then from the moment of being born to the moment of death would appear to go by so quickly that there would be no awareness involved, it would be like that state of coma tose and so life wouldnt really be possible in the way we know it. I hope this makes sense because it does in my head its just hard to explain it. So the mind has to live on in order for awareness to be present. It has to be immortal or there would be no conscious thought as we know it.
I will post this for now, and more later, but this is from my journal and gives a little insight to my beliefs. The soul and the spirit are best thought of as two separate entities living in a symbiotic relationship. The soul is the piece of the Divine, or Creation, or how ever you label it, that makes us live. It's the energy in us, like our battery. The soul is transiet. It has lived in many things before you, and will live in many things after you, taking with it the memories of its many incarnations. We share those memories with our soul. I believe that this conscious is where we see "our past lives", and have memories that happen in another life time. These memories are not "ours" alone, they are the souls. Through the relationship, they are ours also. The memories of your life will be carried with the soul in its many migrations. It doesn't even have to have been in another human, which could justify many people feeling that they were an animal in "their former life" The spirit, on the other hand, is me, you, whoever. Its who we are. It is a product of our years, experiences and memories. YOU are who you are. YOU were not Cleopatra. YOU are you and that is all that matters. For no other reason than knowing for a fact that you have this life is enough. We learn and grow and take from life its lessons, and one day, when we die, we will still be ourselves. But as spiritual beings. Our spirit is a product of our conscience. Its what you believe that determines what happens. Buddhists for example, have the goal of non-existence. They strive to remove themselves from the cycle. They adopt the idea of "No Self" which, upon their enlightenment, means that they will exist no more after death. They divorce themselves from conscience. That is their choice, I personally don't want to not exist. I want to stay to protect my descendants, and to take my place amoung my ancestors. To not exist is such a waste. In head hunting societies, the spirit can be trapped in the head by decapitation. This was especially true for the Celtic tribes, who would take the head of their enemy, so the ghost would not haunt them. I believe this to be true. The spirit resides in the head, where our conscience is. The soul resides in the heart, where our energy comes from. It is said that upon losing your head, you continue to register sight, feeling, and thought. At least for up to 10 seconds. So that means that even though the body, and heart, are instantly dead, YOU, your conscience, lives on. Until the blood, and energy provided by the heart runs out. That is, when you become seperated from your soul. All this talk of conscience brings me to the "Collective" conscience of Earth, animals, plants and humans. Animals do not have "individual" spirits per se. Not that we are special, its just that we know of ourselves in a spiritual way. Other animals, ones that haven't removed themselves for nature, just exist in the way Goddess deemed them to. They have instinct and collective thought. They are Deer, rather than Bob. So unlike us, they do not have the individual ego that gives us our realization of ourselves. That is where all of this religion comes from. Rather than acknowledging that we are part of it all, or just existing as nature like we once did, we have to seek to explain it, and wonder about it and try to name it. We fight over it and kill over it. But we are it, we just cant see it. If we could just return ourselves to Her cycle, then we would understand our role. with that all said, we go to the place of our gods, or whereever else our conscience thinks we will.....a guilt ridden self loathing believer of Christianity will most certainly go to hell, because of their guilty conscience, and it will be them alone that go there. I believe in transmigration of the soul, it is the soul that moves on, not the spirit. Reincarnation implies the spirit is reborn, when it is the soul instead. When a plant is "reborn", it never truely died, and if you mean crops growing back again, those are not the same plants. Reincarnation as most believe it stems from the Eastern religions, and is a product of their gods, just like the Judaic beliefs on the afterlife are from their god, etc. Its all about what you think.
i want to be reincarnated as a cockroach. i mean, yeah, they're disgusting and all, but they are going to take over the world someday. if we humans keep up at the rate we're going, someday they'll be nothing left on earth except roaches and twinkies.
I think some form of immortality is a definite possibility - but let's wait and see. I say this because I think a pagan type of awareness should be more concerned with this life in this world than an afterlife. Too much emphasis on the afterlife has led to the anti-world philosophy of many mainstream religions.
I believe in reincarnation. Nothing in nature goes to waste, why should a soul? The Goddess recycles!
I agree Squirrel. I believe that there's a constant recycling of souls going on. Those who leave go to a wonderful place, where they can basically chill out for a while and take a breather from Earth while planning their next incarnation.
