Is there life after death? Of any kind? What do you really think?

[Beanz]

Most of the problems in the world can be attributed to this incredibly delusional and narcissistic idea. It's a perfect excuse never to change. God will sort it out, God told me to do it, My god is better than your God, God told me in a book what to think and so I don't have to obey any moral code except the one someone insisted was made by our God. Ego and an unhealthy attachment to it.

Imagine everyone believing we only have this life to use in helping others and in which to try and make the world a better place. No disassociating oneself from responsibilities we all share and leaving it to God. No more thinking you can do morally reprehensible things because God will forgive you for it.

Most monotheistic religions promote the ideas of an incredibly vengeful and petty God who is still intent on punishing the descendants of Adam and Eve because the first couple, who did not even have the knowledge of Good and bad, used their God-given free will to eat from a tree they were told would impart that knowledge.

Know your place says Christianity and it's sick idea of inherited sin. Beat the women, beat the kids , punish and kill the heathens. It is all about power and status and has nothing to do with love.

Opinions may differ

[Spicoli]

You'd have to think we would have obvious signs of a physical nature. Is that pigeon who craps on you every other morning a previous enemy from the after life, or just a rat bird with a vendetta, a big appetite and quality aim? But the subject is a head scratcher. While I do not subscribe to an eternal divine world beyond ours or believe in a single almighty God and individual life after death as it were but I do think the spirit may have a transference possible. Maybe that's reincarnation. I really don't know nor can anyone. Clearly we are very mortal husks on a temporary travel. If ever there was an absolute granter of life and decider of death, I'd imagine some restriction would be put on the abuses we display. Does everyone actually get a second crack at this island of misfit toys called life. Seems highly unlikely. Then again ever notice how many pigeons there actually are. For the record my car gets shit on every single day, like clock work

[NoSavingByTheBell]

Beanz and Spicoli great posts and a lot to say about it. First I totally agree this idea of inheriting the original sin of Adam and Eve is really sick and I know that I was beaten with a belt several times a year from the age of seven until about 14 and that doesn't count smacks in the face and stuff like that and most of the time it was because some kind of sick idea I was told that kids should be humbled and kids should know their place and kids should obey otherwise they are sinners. That is a real sick point of view and does a lot of emotional damage which definitely affects you later on in life. People talk about getting over things or processing things, well you can put them in perspective and all, but if they did some kind of trauma then that is very tough to stop it from affecting your reactions. It's a life work which never ends. I've heard it referred to as reconnecting with your authentic self. After being treated as a child as if you had no sovereignty or no human rights or after being made to feel as if you didn't even have the right to exist or your feelings didn't count, you have to learn how to undermine your own feelings and thoughts and beliefs in order to not get punished all the time or demonized. This was largely the way of thinking not only in my family but in all of the families in our neighborhoods that went to the same Roman Catholic Church with the same Roman Catholic thinking. Emotional masochism really.
And for the other points, who knows about those pigeons? The transfer of spirits or the cycling of spirits through other life forms seems easier for me to grasp then the idea that there is some kind of supreme judgmental being who will either send us to heaven or hell eternally. Or then they came up with the thing called purgatory which is sort of in between heaven and hell. The whole thing got very pedantic and man-made. So yeah it's tough to believe in a judgmental supreme being who is going to either reward us or punish us, and it seems very suspiciously like something parents would say or even something that Santa Claus would say, that if you are naughty or nice you will either get a nice treat or you will get coal in your stocking.

I do hope and pray although I don't know what God to pray to, but I do hope and pray that there is an afterlife because the idea of everything just vanishing completely and utterly is very unnerving to say the least.