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CH

The fact is "Who knows".  No one has ever  come back to tell us.

Shalom

Mate

If you don't believe that Jesus was resurrected, then I guess you would believe no one has ever come back.

What He spoke on the matter really holds merrit for me,  regardless on whether He spoke of it before He was executed, & experienced "death", or after.

Bolt

Bolt

I very firmly do believe in the resurrection.  It becomes a question of specifics.

The fact is we do not know what happened at the Easter event.  What we do know is that whatever it was was so profound that the apostles had the intense feeling that Jesus was still with them in some way or another.  Beyond that what we have is metaphor for that great mystery.

This is where I like that comment about the opposite of faith not being non-faith but certainty.  One does not need certainty.  One only needs trust.

Shalom

Mate

Based on how well most people get along with their relatives, the fact that nobody has returned to tell us seems to suggest that we do not, in fact, see our families

Guess you gotta wait and see ....

What we do know is that they are not all in heaven looking down upon us

And nobody is bbq-ing in hell either

I have no doubt I will have friends and family in both places.

My favourite cosmic idea is that the cosmos is somewhat like a live hologram, where everything is always present. Thus, everything that ever was is omnipresently present. Our relatives will be there. What's more, all of our past actions will be there.

We better watch out: The heaven or hell we create in the here and now may be with us for all eternity!

That's a good theory, but if time doesn't really exist than what the hell am I wasting all of?

As others have said, we don't really know . . . and won't know until the time comes.  I often vary in my thoughts and understanding of heaven and what it will be like.  Sometimes I think I will see those I want to, for a brief time, because that is what my being feels and needs right now.  And then sometimes I think that although that is important and comforting in this life, it may not be that important in the next.  I do think God and I will be there though.

I would  very much like a definitie answer to this question.

My husband died a couple of years ago and this very issue has tormented me regularly.  How EXACTLY does this whole life-after-death thing work anyway? 

Nobody can tell me.  Not my poor pastor, whom I hounded with these questions until I finally accepted his answer that he didn't know.  Seems to me that, of all people, the pastor ought to know the particulars.  He claimed he doesn't know.

I've seen an angel channeler who claimed to have the answers, but somehow, it all seemed a little strange to me.  I've seen a couple of different psychics.  Since neither one of them were able to accurately tell me a single thing about myself or my future, they didn't seem to have much credibility as far as the whole after-life situation goes.

Frankly, the most helpful guidance I've had regarding this question was in a little book I read about 18 months ago by a psychic named Concette Bertole - Do Dead People Watch Us In The Shower.  It was a funny, easy read.  She was absolutely sure, as a result of the thousands of readings she has done over the years, that yes indeed we are reunited with our loved ones who died before us.  However.....not in the way that we think. 

I guess what I've concluded over time is that the soul goes on but our relationships on the "other side" will never be the way they were here.  I think I will recognize his soul and he mine, but he is in fact lost to me forever in the way that I knew him here.   I think he has gone on to other missions on other planes and when we cross over all the human qualities, except for love, are gone.

I dunno.....but I beg anyone who knows for sure to please clue me in.

It's quite a question.

Maureen

I think reverse time is just as real as forward time, and inverse space as real as outward space. And reverse time happens at the same time as forward time—which negates time; and outward space is in the same space as inverse space—which negates space; so that non-time and no-space are as real as positive and negative time and postive and negative space. That's why the cosmic hologram is everywhere in time and space.

Just God playing a game with ITself.

Huh?

I have a friend who has seen a psychic who told she  her that she was in touch with her husband's spirit and told her very personal things that only her husband would know!?

So....the answer to the question - do we see our relatives after we die - you think is yes based on your friend's visit to this psychic???

maureend, meet Arminius.  Arminius, maureend.

Maureend in no-space and no-time, eh?

Without map and compass, sailing by dead reckoning (with the emphasis on "dead" :-)

Psychics are frauds don't waste your money on them

They just tell you what you want to hear

They use a method called cold reading which is a simple way of reading body language people give away a lot more than they know without saying a single word

This article is a better explanation of time (the scientific perspective)

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19726391.500-is-time-an-illusion.html

Not a chance since our physical bodies are not ressurected. Our souls are set free and return to the creator.

Are we going to see all our relatives?

Isanything in this life certain with the exception of death?

Shalom

Mate

I had a dream about my father over a year after he died.   When I told my mother about the dream, she had had the same dream.  It was of him, but without what I can only call the earth stuff, like he was pure him.  Anyway, because of that dream I think that I will be reunited with my  loved ones after I die, but they will not be the same as they were here.

What I can intellectualize and what I feel about this question are two different things. Obviously intellectually I struggle with the idea - death is such a finality. And yet as a Christian on some level I believe in an afterlife, and I believe we live forever in memories and in spirit.

When my grandmother died I was 12 years old and I really struggled with her death; I'd been closer to my other grandmother and I felt guilty about that 'unfairness', and I hadn't gone to her funeral because I didn't want to see my parents cry ... they were the ones who made things 'OK', and I didn't want to see how clearly they weren't. I dreamed of my grandmother telling me she understood why I wasn't there, that she knew I loved her, not to worry etc. This might sound really silly and goofy, but to this day there is a big part of me that believes I 'saw her again', that she saw my struggle and was trying to comfort me.

I don't know, but I wouldn't think so. Our body is no longer - so it would have to be a meeting of souls/spirits.

But one thing I can testify to is that when someone close dies, a lot of the qualities you admired about them, tend to get developed in you.

In another sense, while you live they continue to live on in you.

Anyone here ever read about near-death experiences?  There are some interesting things, like people claiming to have seen their family in the form of large glowing spheres, and being able to communicate without speaking etc.

I think that's a very mature approach. Someone else said (somegirl I think) that she had a dream of her father as "pure him". I think that's a good perception as well.

I think we all crave certainty, even those who are "certain" we simply end. It's what drives people like air to believe he can divine who "gets to heaven" and what it will be like on the writings of people who thought that heaven was just  little bit out of reach from Mount Olympus.

While I sometimes have trouble with Arm's imagery, I agree, personally, with its thrust. That we are again "one" with Theos/Divinity/God. Do I know that "for sure"? I'm afraid there's no objective measure of that. But when my wife died, and my father, and others who were dear to me, I had not the slightest doubt that the "pure them" continued. Nor do I have the slightest doubt of it today.

I haven't gotten around to John Spong's new book, Eternal Life, yet, but you might want to give it a look. I understand that it takes a similar perspective.

Be Well

David

[/quote]

I do not believe that I will know anyone after I died in the way that I know them now.

When I need to put an image of it, i picture my soul/energy becoming one with a bigger river of energy and weaving/dancing  in cacophay of light / sound.

I do anticipate that my existence will continue in any way that relates to this life on earth, and for that I am sad  as thatimageof meeting my cousin peg is a nice one...but...i also  bet  that as a foetus i had some  wierd ideastoo...and none of them mirrored what life has been like.

so....to your question ch -- nope, no epxectations.

Hi David:

I think and feel that we are always at-one with Theos/Divinity/God, although not always aware of this. Because Theos is eternal, we are eternal.

As I have said many times before—and I must be boring everyone to say it again—I perceive the self-creative Cosmos, a.k.a. God, as a singularity: a unitive whole in a state of synthesis. Although the forms within the Divine singularity change constantly, the singularity ITself is forever. In other words, only the forms change; the Divine substance of which the forms consist is forever. We are substance as well as form, and as the self-creative Divine substance we are forever.

This is so firmly ingrained in me that death, to me, is not the end.

DEATH IS NOT

We die for life, we live for death,

Eternal circle's consciousness

Will lead us to the sacred spot

Where life meets death—

And death is not.

-Hermann Harlos

DEATH KNOCKING AT THE DOOR

Come in, my liberator,

Come close, beloved friend.

I have anticipated you with longing.

Come, take me in your cold arms,

And kiss me with your icy kiss,

And bless me

With your bittersweet communion.

-Hermann Harlos

Death is a mystic's wedding with eternity.

-Rumi

As I consider myself a mystic - this is good news!

I remember as a child turning to my rabbi, wanting to know if I would see my daddy when I died. My father died when I was very young. It would have been easy for the rabbi to tell me yes and leave things at that. It would have likely shaped my thoughts for a long time forward in my life. Then, I likely would have found that the belief grew tight or pinched in palces or simply no longer fit me. I am eternally grateful that he did not take the easy way out.

He told me that heaven and hell were places to make sense of what we do not understand. We understand and know living and life. We do not understand or know dying and death.

He asked why I wanted reunited and it was because I loved my dad and missed him and my dad was nice to me. He asked me about kids who did not have that experience of dad, would it be so "heavenly" to spend eternity with a dad you were not close to or that hurt you? Hmmm... Then he asked about my mom. Would I be with her and him? It would be heaven for me, but my father and her did not work out. Hmmm.... Then he asked me the big one. What about the children who missed their daddy and their daddy was not so good? Hmmmm.....

So, he was 100% rabbi,  he asked me questions but never answered a single thing.

I, before school age, realized that a heaven image I created would be pure hell for others. It shaped my life in far more meaningful ways than some far off image of heaven and hell. It made me think about the children of the man who killed my dad. He was their dad.

Rabbi, thank you.

At one time when I was a child I probably believed that people would meet in heaven.  I still believe it.  It would be nice to think that when I meet my Mom we could sit down together and have a really good chat.  But that might be difficult.  She died at 40, and my youngest child is now past that age.  How does one relate to their mother who is younger than their children?

It has to be in the spirit. 

I can't explain what happens after we die, but somehow I believe that our spiritual relationships continue.  We continue to know and love God, and to be surrounded by the love of God.  And, it seems to me, we will somehow be connected with our loved ones.  How?  I don't know.  All of them? I don't know.  And I don't know how it will be for me, a senior, to relate to my mother who I loved, my father who I was not close to and feel indifferent towards, the two children I miscarried - do they exist in heaven?

I guess the answer is to live my life here and now, fully and completely, and let heaven look after itself.

I guess i think there must be some recognition in some way. Otherwise , the gift of living  would be so pointless.

Yep. I am certain that I typed this post.  I am also certain that I like pie, and that I am drinking a beautiful, sexy cup of coffee right now, with more on the way.

What about a family member who have lost his or her ability to recognize others, due to Alzheimer's?  The person (s)he is at the time of death is very different from the person (s)he was while you knew him/her.

If everyone's memory got erased, then this would pose little problem:  Your memories, along with who you are and any chance of recognitizing others, would be eradicated in the afterlife.  Though in that case, there's little point in referring to it as an "afterlife".

If not, though, then there's a problem with memory loss due to old age - a widespread problem that would translate into the eternity of the afterlife.  A problem that is punctuated with Alzheimer's.  Such people would be lost for eternity, no matter what they were like before they began to lose their minds - unless their memories got "dialed back" to an arbitrary point in their lives before they began to suffer from the disease.

What is your way out of this dilemma?

I'm thinking Alzheimers is just another way to die in this world. There are many. I don't believe "diseases" are transcendent. Do you?

I don't believe that minds are transcendent, myself.

So, you believe that Aunt Elsie with Alzheimers' is already dead?  In which case, there's no point in taking care of her as a person?

Well of course I make no claim to know what happens when we die, but I'm thinking our bodies and brains are mere vessels to hold the spiritual element that Christ came for.

Hi guys

I'm thinking about people during the dying process who see their loved ones around the bed. My family were at the bedside of my aunt in such a case. She said: "There's John " , John being her husband who had passed previously.  Whatever this may be its very common. My husband's doctor even told me to expect it and not to tell him it wasn't so as he was dying.  The dr. said : "How do we know? Maybe they really do see them". I don't know if my husband saw anyone. At one point he was speaking German which he only spoke out of necessity  to his parents  (who were both deceased). 

I believe somehow, some way we will see those who have gone before us. In the NT Jesus speaks with Moses and Elijah (?) on the mount  who seem to have appeared to him in some recognizable form.

Of course we can go further and talk about ghosts. Against my will I believe in them because there are too many stories, too many sightings by people who didn't believe in them beforehand.

Was that meant to respond to my post?  I mean, you're not obligated to respond to my post, but pretending to is just deceptive.

no

What are you talking about here? Yes I was responding to your post. Aunt Elsie is not already dead (good lord, I know better I work with some of these people)but yes she is definitely dying. We do take care of the dying. I think God thinks we all have worth and is more concerned with our spiritual nature and not what confines us in this world.

Pretending to be deceptive? What is that about?

Pan -- i love your answer....lol

Ok, here is the thing... say Uncle Bob molested Suzie and Jane and Richard too... what role does spirit recognition play and does it make Heaven heaven to Uncle Bob and Heaven hell to Suzie and Jane and Richard? My mom, having had three husbands, who gets her for eternity? The guy who wants her and she does not want to be saddled with?The one she wants who does not want her for an hour let alone eternity? 

So, for those who believe in Heaven as a place it can be hard. It can be wanting something on one hand and not on another.

For me, it is rather simple. It also bothers those who love me or want soem heavenly reunion. To me, when you are dead, you are dead. Worm food. No pain, no memory, no disease, no reunions... just dead. Whatever is breathed into us of God, if God happens to want that back then it all goes back to God, ALL... devoid of the stuff of this earth. Devoid of memory, emotion, personality... Devoid of the good and the bad and the ugly, the twisted and the sick and even the evil.... devoid of our connections, our failures, good and bad memories... just devoid of human stuff.

Jes - when I said up thread that my friend was told very personal things by a psychic it was not body language but very specific things eg pertaining to their finances that no one else knew. She definitely believes that she was in touch with her  husband's spirit.

As for me, when my mother was on a ventilator I knew that her soul was gone. I hoped that when I got to the hospital that I would feel we had said good bye ...but I knew she had already left although she was still breathing and her heart still beating her soul she was gone, so yes I do believe we have a soul or spirit that somehow does go on.

So when you said:

"I'm thinking Alzheimers is just another way to die in this world."

...you didn't really mean it?  Remember what it was supposed to be an answer to.

I said nothing about pretending to be deceptive.  I was saying that pretending to form a response that addresses what I said, instead of actually making a post that really does address what I said, is deceptive, because I automatically assume that responses will fall into the latter category instead of into the former.

Stevie G   I  know the word said when with God he will not let a tear fall from your eye. so I'm pretty sure you will not  remember things  that could have hurt you.

It's only a dilemma if you think of a human being as nothing more than a sack of meat.  Of course, even then there's a material metaphor (I don't subscribe to this in the simplistic way I'm going to write it, but I'm on short time again) -

My computer backs up to the server automatically. No matter how befuddled the local harddrive gets as I clutter it with photos of my children and grandchildren, Youtube clips of 70's songs, or the never-ending attempt to complete my sci-fi opus, I can always get a fresh image back should the need arise.

Though I don't believe the soul is anything so mundane as the accumulated memories of our lives, nothing more complicated than a copy on the "server" of Creation is needed to circumvent your dilemma.

Maybe we should have a prayer that goes something like "God, please don''t forget to backup my mind tonight."

While I usually fing myself in agreement with you Stevie, in this we have different perspectives. Maybe it's just my take on the word "devoid." It seems to me to make the end of life a matter of loss. I just can't see it that way.

I don't think anything is lost. I do, however, think that it will be perceived in a larger context. When time is no longer a consideration, even the most grievous suffering will be just a moment in eternity. I know that sounds pretty "Calvinist" (at least I tease my Calvinist friends that it does). Or at least evangelical. Sadly, its another one of those concepts that the literalists have corrupted into so much less than it is.

That's not to marginalize pain and suffering here. Faith, for me, is all about the here and now.

Anyway, once again I'm past my time as Scrooge would say.

Be Well

David