So you're dead. Now what?

Great Debates
1

This is directed towards those who believe in some sort of afterlife, since the “worm chow” explanation is far too undebateable for me. So, theists and pantheists and reincarnators: what happens 2 seconds after you kick the bucket? Do you go to heaven/hell/purgatory right away? Do you get to see your life rewinded and fast forwarded so you feel really bad about the nasty things you did? If you followed the rules of your religion, do you go straight to heaven or do you still have some suffering to do for the sins you have committed? Can the people in heaven view/affect the world, i.e. is your dead mother really watching over you? What about the people in hell? Do any theists believe in ghosts, and if so how do they fit them into thier religious beliefs?

I seem to recall that I read Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories in my youth, and it informed me that when you died, you stayed dead until the second coming, when everybody (well, every good Christian) was resurrected bodily. Is this an accepted belief of any particular Christian sect?

2

If you were good, you go to Heaven. If you were bad, you get reincarnated as a SDMB moderator. :slight_smile: :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it.

3

According to the Chick tracts, you go directly up to the Large Faceless Guy in the Big Chair, no foolin’ around.

I’ve always been attracted to the scenario in the Sartre story, what the hell was it called, Le Jeu son Fait or something…You find yourself in a rather dingy government office, and you have to see a mousy little bureaucrat in a cheap suit who determines your fate.

4

Whoops, sorry, just noticed that, is my face red. Sorry, sorry, I’ll be on my way now…

5

This has been a tricky issue for Xn theologians since the beginning. Most agree that your body will be resurrected at the end of days. The question lies in what happens to your soul between when you die and the end of the world. Based on Jesus’ comment on the cross to the thief who repented (“Surely you will be in paradise with me today”), many hold that you wait around in heaven. Maybe not the heaven, but just a cool place to hang out until Armegeddon. Others find evidence in Paul’s writings (I don’t remember the exact refrence) for ‘soul sleep’- perhaps suspended animation for the soul. Similarly, there is the flash forward- you basically skip to the end. Most consider it a minor point and concentrate on the heavier stuff, like the problem of evil or Jesus’ divinity.

-Dave
“Violence is the last refuge of the ignorant.”
-I. Asimov

6

Ooh, the big faceless guy! And He either says “welcome my child” (if you were a murderer who “found Jesus” 2 seconds before getting fried) or “screw you, spend eternity in torment!” (if you were a moral and honest Jew, or God forbid, host-worshipping Catholic).

I though “No Exit” (Sarte’s bit) had people consigned to a room with a bunch of other people who drove them nuts that they could never get away from. I don’t remember the bureacrat. Maybe I’m thinking of the wrong story, though.

7

Well, I gladly accept opinions from kibitzers. I just didn’t want to get a dozen posts saying “you’re dead, you twit–nothing happens”. True (IMHO), but dull.

8

I don’t believe in an after life but I have a couple of friends who do, and the theories seem to vary wildly, as you would expect when there is no data to deal with.

That being said, I believe the official christian doctrine is that the dead will be ressurected on judgement day, when They’ll find out if they’re in the book of life or not.

However the popular position seems to be that you go to heaven right away. witness the popularity of quotes like “You’re Grandad’s in heaven now.”

Furthermore, let’s not forget that a lot of people who believe in life after death do not believe in heaven at all. I am reffering of course to reincarnationists, from well established religions like hinduism to wacked out new age cults. I don’t know if they believe in an interim process or not. Plato said in the Republic that a soul had to wait a thousand years between reincarnations, but he may have been kidding, since he elsewhere said that no one knows what happens when we die. (Apology, Phaedo.)

I apologize if I’m not the person you were looking for, Gaudere, but I hope this helps.
At any rate, just because someone from a particular faith posts, doesn’t mean that is the official position of that faith, especially a faith as diverse as Christianity.

Having an open mind means you put out a welcome mat and answer the door politely. It does not mean leaving the door open with a sign saying nobody’s home

9

Oops, forgot aboutthe above mentioned comment jesus made to the thief. That’ll teach me to read the whole thread before replying! Now I’m really confused. :confused:

10

No, this was a different narrative than No Exit. It had an upper class woman and a working class man who fall in love in the waiting room, and the bureaucrat decides to give them another shot at life and love, but their economic differences lead them get prematurely killed again…I’ll poke around in my bookshelves and give the proper title tomorrow.

No Exit just had a bellboy.

Granted, I am no expert on the Eastern religions, but I’ve delved into them from time to time, and always had the impression that reincarnation is instantaneous. No sooner do your breath your last on this bardo than bingo, your essence goes whanging into an infant tree sloth or a freshly-hatched garden slug.

11

I believe the American Indians Believed that too,only it was an eagle or something.

12

I am a Christian. I am not an “Official Doctrine” qualified representative of God, and cannot offer you a prose account of your first day after death. I don’t know how it will work. It might well be that this trail of tears extends some way beyond that moment we perceive as death. It could well be that you will be accompanied immediately by messengers of the Lord, and begin the afterlife in those first few seconds.

What matters to me, and what I believe, is that I shall share the endless reaches of infinity with the pure love of God, as expressed to me by His Son. The minor matter of a year, decade, millennium, eon, or epoch of intervening time between my death and the “beginning” of the afterlife is simply another minor part of the world. I shall no longer be a part of the world. I find the question untroubling. I trust that my Lord will be with me, whatever the path I must travel, now, and also then.

Purgatory, in the sense of jail time for sins seems human, and petty to me, and therefore I reject it. It might well be that I shall endure some period of relative hurt, or shame, upon being resurrected into perfection. I think the true understanding of my sins will shame me, as it has whenever I have found it in my limited perception of good and evil here, in the world. How great the embarrassment to realize my petty self indulgences were doing harm to someone as beloved of my Lord as am I. Could an insight into the emotions of someone’s first exposure to Devine love have engendered the myth of purgatory? It might be so. Surely if there is suffering, and heartache in Heaven, it shall be born there by us, who live in it here. But we will put aside such things, anon.

One of my favorite flip responses to the shallow question of why a Christian should avoid sin, since all sin is forgiven by the Lord is this: I am going to Heaven, to live in Devine Splendor. I don’t want to develop bad habits, and embarrass myself when I get there.

You could come along, you know? Please do. He loves you. I believe He shall find a way, if you will come with Him. He will love you whether you do, or not, of course, and when He has finished creating me, I shall know how that great a Love can be. Until that time, let us make what love we can, here in the place where it is most difficult to find, and most dearly needed.

Tris

Imagine my signature begins five spaces to the right of center.

13

When I was a teen I worked in a Catholic cemetary. I bet you didn’t know that all mackerel snappers are buried with their feet to the east so that on Judgment Day they can sit right up and greet the rising sun!

 Also, I pretty sure that after you die and you undergo that last, big audit they wipe the sex stuff right off the ledger, but when they go over the prideful transgressions, get ready to sweat!

Your deep sea diving suit is ready, me brave lad.

14

Jesus’ divinity is an issue? I thought that just kind of came along with the Christianity package.

What is “mackerel snappers” derived from? I haven’t run across that nickname before.

15

Death is the end. Deal with it.

TT

“It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers.”
–James Thurber

16

TT - the juxtaposition of your post and your sig line had me ROFL! :slight_smile:

The mark of a truly great mind isn’t whether you’re right or wrong. It’s how well you can weasel out of a jam. - Unca Cecil

17

I don’t know, and while I’m not in a hurry to find out, some of the stories I’ve heard from my mom - who has worked as an RN for 30 years - are rather comforting. My mom says she was there, so I don’t think it’s a UL.

The one that springs to mind was of an older gentleman with heart failure. This was in the time before Do Not Resucitate orders became so well known and used. He was dying and had been in and out of conciousness for several days and on the last day of his life arrested something like three times. Each time, they shocked his heart into responding, and he came back. The last time, he woke shortly after they resucitated him.

He looked at the nurses (my mom and another woman) and asked “Why? Why don’t you let me go? It’s so green and peaceful.” And then he lapsed into unconciousness.

They reported what he said to the doctor, who wrote out a DNR order, and the next time the patient arrested, they let him go.

Completely anecdotal and unfounded, I know. But for an agnostic Pagan like myself, I find it comforting to think that there’s something past biological death, and that maybe it’s not so bad.

18

Hmmmmmmm…it was only a screenplay. Les Jeux sont faits. Filmed in 1947. Roughly translates to “The Chips are Down,” meaning that the game is in play and no more bets may be made.

19

When you speak of death, you are likely speaking of cellular decay. God is Spirit. Those who believe in Him with their hearts don’t die.

If you destroy a book that has a poem printed in it, you do not destroy the poem, but only the book. The body, with its cellular decay, merely houses the heart or spirit, so that it can participate in the moral context unfolding around it (that is, the day to day activities of earthly “life”).

A body dies when its natural functions expire. A spirit dies whenever it has finally rejected God.

20

Were you but lying cold and dead while lights were paling out of the west.

You would come hither and lay your head, and I would lay my head upon your breast.

and you would murmur tender words forgiving me because you were dead.

Oh would belevod, that you lay, under the dock leaves in the ground, while lights were pailing one by one.

-Keats of couse.