Heaven, Hell, Re-incarnation?

Bareus wrote: What do you belive happends after you leave your body /after death?

What i belive is that heaven and hell does not exist, if it does it is something we create ourselves
... it would be a reflection of who you are

What i belive is that you never die and that you don't go to an eternity of torture or heavenly pleasures depending on your choices in life, rather that you live on forever, as i see it, through the force.

I believe much as you do, Bareus.

I do not consider myself a Christian in the conventional, contemporary sense. Yet the phrase "God is love" from the New Testament is a pillar of my spiritual orientation. I cannot conceive of a loving deity that would condemn any sentient being of its creation to an eternal hell, even for a series of travesties committed throughout a lifetime.

Most people who report near-death experiences describe them positively, but there are some who relate experiences that are dark and threatening. The Buddha also acknowledged the existence of hell-worlds, but in my understanding of Buddhism they are not inescapable - any more than oppressive experiences in this life are inescapable. It's conceivable to me that perhaps some of us undergo a painful experience in the afterlife as some sort of purging or severe teaching tool, but I do not believe it is eternal for anyone.

A friend (now passed) expressed years ago his view of the afterlife which I sometimes consider. It's a half-serious, half-whimsical view: He stated his belief that the place we go when we leave Earthly life is aligned with our beliefs. A Christian may go to a place with pearled gates and golden roads. A virtuous young Muslim male appears in a harem with 72 virgins. A devout Buddhist is blissfully absorbed into the All. However, there are many people who adhere to no discrete faith whatsoever, and for them there is a default location -- downtown Los Angeles. :laugh:

My belief for the afterlife is roughly in agreement with the book 'Many lives, many masters' by Dr Brian L Wiess (or Weiss). Life is like a class in high school, and death is the walk to the next class. But lives are not in sync with normal time. Your last life could have been in 1207ad, your currently living in 2015 and your next could be in 1754ad. We have groups of souls that we encounter every life. They could be your mother, who was your son in your past life and your best friend in your next. Worth the read if your interested thats for sure

I take an agnostic view to the afterlife. We can never really know thus increasing the importance of this life. I will focus on doing good here and making this life enjoyable.

I am convinced this, 'existence' is lack of a better word, a dream. We are also all connected because we are all one playing many different parts, in many different lifetimes. I could explain but would take a bit.

Please, go ahead. If we are resurrecting a four year old thread, might as well add something interesting to it.

I apologize as you can see this is lengthy but I would be doing a disservice if not explained.
On my path of truth I tried to first start with the most truthful thing and tried to maintain so called absolute truth.

Side note: just because I say its absolute don't take my word for it. Look at it yourself.

My first truth is that this is occurring. Meaning, 'experience', 'universe', 'all that is', 'it'

Side note:#1 I didn't say happening because if it is real can be debated.
#2 I didn't say occurring TO ME, because even the notion of I is unknown and thus can be debated.

My second truth is that since it is occurring it must become what it is.

Side note: #1 if a thing IS it has form and therefor needs to be arranged as such.
#2 the one liberty I do take is implying time as part of the occurrence because I have not witnessed the occurrence without time.
#3 based on #2 it is safe to say it has progressed to be what ever the occurrence is at present.

My third truth is if it became what it is today in order to become occurrence that's now it must come from a state of
That it was not

Side note: a thing cannot become what it already is because then it would just be and not in a state of becoming.

My 4th truth is if occurrence is becoming from what it previously was not it's very occurrence, meaning 'initial', '1st' must be from a none occurring state.

Side note: #1 this initial state is without color, form, or substance.
#2 this state is without time
#3 this state is without consciousness or obervation
#4 this state is without all

My 5th truth is this state, in the pre-beginning off all occurrence is so... Lack of a better words... Infinitely Infinite, that in its state IT IS! IT IS ALL THAT IS.

Side note: #1 this state I call Devine Nothingness.
#2 Devine nothingness cannot be witnessed or imagined, don't try. I can only point to it.

My 6th truth is since Devine nothingness IS and In it's state ALL THAT IS, it must become.

Side note:#1 Devine nothingness is so IT'S Self that it becomes nothing.
#2 this nothing is different than Devine nothingness.
#3 its like a tip of a needle.
#4 this dot is a good representation. •

My 7th truth is if Devine nothingness became then an observer must record it. It being • that nothing.

Side note:#1 if there is no memory/ recording/ observation of something it did not occur.
#2 the observer is within nothingness. It cannot be in the state of Devine nothingness.
#3 this point • is a third person perspective. And is not accurate. Think of this dot thinking,"i am nothing"

My 8th truth is that this nothing with an observer on the inside is infinite because in the act of becoming it's self a true thing is in complete saturation.

Side note #1 a better way of viewing this is if you were going to stack infinite nothings together side by side •••••-> ect
#2 what's after infinity? That would be nothing. Or 0, so think of these infinite nothings creating a circle O.

My 9th truth is that all nothings must be named and causes duality

Side note:#1 all nothings are accounted for because there is all nothings that can be.
#2 duality is caused because 2 nothings will be crossing the same plane of existence.
#3 so not this not that, not black not white, not up not down, not in not out ect....

My 10th truth is that this ring of nothing that is the cause of duality causes choas and interaction.

Side note#1 this interaction is the world we see.
#2 and the nothings are the consciousness's we see the interaction of the world.

Sigh of relief. OK so if your still fallowing bless your heart and what does it mean if true.

It means you will always be

It mean you are me in a different lifetime

It means even if you become the Devine nothingness it is so explosive and has no occurrence that you must be! Always!

If true it means you are not your body

If true it means the world is lack of a better word, a dream, where nothing consciousness is the substance and the existence is the movement of it.

Glenn wrote: If true it means the world is lack of a better word, a dream, where nothing consciousness is the substance and the existence is the movement of it.

Can you walk me through that part again, please? I don't understand how any of the truths you listed link the 'it' to a dream. Indeed, from what I can see, beyond stating that by 'it' you mean all of existence, most of the rest of that post was constructing a crude history of 'it' from more of those truths of yours. As to the statement that "We are also all connected because we are all playing many different parts, in many different lifetimes", if I am to be charitable I must assume that this was something you were going to explain in a later post, since that part is completely untouched in your last. None of your truths say anything at all about any of us either individually, or collectively, or our lifetimes, or the parts we play in the 'it' in any of them.

If true it means the world is lack of a better word, a dream, where nothing consciousness is the substance and the existence is the movement of it.-

When I say dream i am referring to existance. Everything in your awairness.

I say dream lightly because it is always becoming. Time is ticking. So nothing in your experience of the world is actually real. Because it never truly is.

Huge disclamer: not saying it doesn't feel real. Life is full of pain, happiness, worry, physical ailments, accomplishments etc...

Are you the same 5 minutes ago. Everything is changing.

Also most assume, um ill used a dinning room table for instance is solid. But there is 99.999998% of the atoms that make up the table consisted of empty nothingness.

When you smell something its just a reaction. Elements don't have a sent.

Um when you hear something for instance its just the moment of hairs in your earlobe. Sound is not real.

When you see your tv, that light goes to your eyes through your retina to your brain and then the mind sees it. You only see within your own mind. The tv is not actually out there. You have only seen and walked the hallways of your own mind.

Everything you experience is abstract. Explain a color to a blind man.

I should be careful. Most people are not ready for the 'red pill'.

Valid concern regarding what this means individually.

So if this is true it is unbiased.
Personal meaning, and purpose and how to live your life should be personal and biased and are important no doubt. Collectively these truths just show how the world operates, not what we should do about them.

For instance if every person and animal and plant is you how are you going to eat without causing suffering to yourself. It shows suffering is inevitable, but not how to handle it.

I guess finding a really good reason to suffer for something brings a beautiful life, so in other words finding reasons to do the inevitable truths gives meaning.

For instance from this stand point if you never ultimately die your many life times have very little importance. If I bye a million dollar car and someone keys it, I'm going to be pissed, red hot, full of anger. That's because its important to me, attachment.

So what's my next life, honestly I don't know.

Why this one? The times are not ours to decide, all we have to do is to decide what to do with the time that is given.

Right, I think I'm starting to understand now.

Glenn wrote: When I say dream i am referring to existance.

So now we can use this to substitute and find that when you said

Glenn wrote: I am convinced this, 'existence' is ... a dream.

what you really meant all along was

'Existence' is existence.

Well, I guess that's quite true indeed. Profound? I'd hesitate saying that much. But true, nevertheless.


Okay, moving on. Which of your truths says anything about the connectedness of anything. It seems to be a conclusion you are liberally drawing, but I'm not sure how it is either stated or follows from any of your postulates.


Also, since you digress into other topics, I'll indulge you in those a little, while it hasn't gone completely out of hand.

Glenn wrote: Also most assume, um ill used [sic] a dinning room table for instance is solid. But there is 99.999998% of the atoms that make up the table consisted of empty nothingness.

Really? Okay, couple questions about that:

1. How did you come by that figure?
2. If 99.999998% of the atoms in the table consist of empty nothingness, what do the other 0.000002% of the atoms consist of?
3. If 99.999998% of the atoms in the table consist of empty nothingness, what accounts for the table's appearance of solid-ness?
4. How does the table reflect light, conduct heat, or sound, if 99.999998% of its atoms consist of empty nothingness?

Um when you hear something for instance its just the moment [sic] of hairs in your earlobe.

Are deaf people's earlobe hairs too rigid then or do they lack them entirely, or are they not connected to their brains somehow? If someone loses their earlobes in an accident, does that make them lose their hearing, too? What is the significance of the eardrum or the cochlea, if hearing comes down to earlobe hair movement?

When you see your tv, that light goes to your eyes through your retina to your brain and then the mind sees it. You only see within your own mind. The tv is not actually out there. You have only seen and walked the hallways of your own mind.

What if I hadn't watched the TV, but placed a camera in front of it and recorded the screen? Will that tape contain an imprint of the light the TV emitted during the program, or will the tape show the same blank screen I would see on the turned off TV at the time of my reviewing the tape? If the image is not real outside of my retina, I shouldn't be able to produce a casting of it without the aid of my retinas during the procedure at all, let alone a casting to some sort of permanent storage medium.

I should be careful. Most people are not ready for the 'red pill'.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

When I said existence is ...a dream i was refiring that existence is not as it appears.

I retreat posting suck a list because it is confusing.

In the beginning you can call it god, the force, the big bang, doesn't matter. We are derived from that so in god, the force, the big bang, or whatever we are connected.

My line of thinking was we have in science and mathematics and philosophy as humans have been trying to answer how this is the way it is. As far as I can tell it hasn't worked, or is not self evident or we would have had everyone come to the same conclusion. So I decided to start at the bottom. Where did the universe come from. Was it always here? That raises problems philosophically. It can't go endlessly back. So how do you start a universe? From it not being. So I asked my self can I start with absolutely nothing and get something out of it. And I found a way that you can start with absolutely nothing and get a potential universe. And it answers many if not all questions in our world that are paradoxical.

I miss spoke 1atom has very very very little matter in it. Obviously higher the atomic weight more mass, but still very very little.

The table appears solid because of the weak nuclear force. It repels other atoms away. And also the Hindenburg's uncertainty principle which is roughly things come in pairs like position and velocity, and you can one know one at a time. Also this principle of quantum physics states a particle or atom behaves differently if you look at it, verses not and the observer has a distinct role in how the universe behaves.

The table reflects light heat and sound because they are all waves interfering with the waves of the atoms of the table there not solid.

People with hearing loss or no hearing have complications somewhere where they are not able to create the sensation of sound.

Back to Hindenburg's uncertainty principle. If it's not bring observed it has been proven it only is a series of possibilities until it is observed and then the possibilities colapes into something.

Your camera doesn't exist until it is in you observation, then it shows up with the video of the TV that it didn't record because it chose to be in that state.

Reality is not brick and mortar. Its smoke and mirrors.

I'm done take it as you will.

Glenn wrote: My line of thinking was we have in science and mathematics and philosophy as humans have been trying to answer how this is the way it is. As far as I can tell it hasn't worked, or is not self evident or we would have had everyone come to the same conclusion.

Everyone has not met the same conclusion about whether or not the Earth is better approximated by a flat disc or a globe. The existence of disagreement about such questions does not entail that the more accurate answers are insufficiently evident or fail to work in some other meaningful sense. Of course, a global consensus on the issue would also not entail that the description everyone agreed to was accurate. Some of the proposed description fit past and predict future data well, others do not.

Where did the universe come from. Was it always here? That raises problems philosophically. It can't go endlessly back.

First of all why not? Secondly, there are two ideas here. Being "always here" is not the same as "going back endlessly". "All" and "infinitely much/many" is not always the same.

So I asked my self can I start with absolutely nothing and get something out of it. And I found a way that you can start with absolutely nothing and get a potential universe. And it answers many if not all questions in our world that are paradoxical.

Sounds like a good candidate theory for a Nobel Prize, then.

I miss spoke 1atom has very very very little matter in it. Obviously higher the atomic weight more mass, but still very very little.

Sure. But the table is not made of one atom, but more like something on the order of 10²³ of them. And almost all the mass it has is indeed within those atoms. What you might have said was that most of an atom's mass is concentrated in its nucleus which is much smaller than what one would describe as the total atom's size. But even then it's not that the rest of the atom consists of empty nothingness. The rest is a shell of electrons. They carry very little mass, all things considered, but are still far from nothingness.

The table appears solid because of the weak nuclear force. It repels other atoms away.

The weak nuclear force has a range of something like a hundredth, at best a tenth of a nucleon's radius. If the table is of wood, it's atomic nucleus radii, themselves some five orders of magnitude smaller than the total atoms', will be something like two or three nucleon radii. So the weak nuclear force, if it were repelling atoms away from each other, could only do so once the nuclei sit almost ontop of each other which due to the sheer size ratio of the nucleus to the atom is bound to almost never happen. Instead, as you lower your hand onto the table, it would phase through with pretty much no noticeable impact. The weak nuclear force is far, far to weak to be responsible for such a strong and ubiquitous effect as atomic repulsion.

And also the Hindenburg's uncertainty principle which is roughly things come in pairs like position and velocity, and you can one know one at a time.

Heisenberg, not Hindenburg. Named after Werner Heisenberg, the German theoretical physicist who proved the uncertainty principle in 1927, as opposed to Paul von Hindenburg, the German statesman who appointed Hitler to chancellorship in 1933. Also momentum, rather than velocity. The velocity of a light particle in a vacuum, for instance, is always known exactly and its location can also be determined at some point in time to a precision limited only by the instruments' resolution. It's momentum, however, can be known all the worse, the better its location is identified.

Also this principle of quantum physics states a particle or atom behaves differently if you look at it, verses not and the observer has a distinct role in how the universe behaves.

It doesn't. The state of a system is different after a measurement has been performed than it was before. This is the case with both quantum systems and with classical ones. The difference is that the change of a state value of a classical system can be very small compared to the value itself, while in quantum systems it is (almost entirely) impossible to make an insignificant disturbance through measurement. It's not about the observer so much as it is about the process of observation being itself physical.

The table reflects light heat and sound because they are all waves interfering with the waves of the atoms of the table there not solid.

Well earlier you were saying empty nothingness, hence the confusion. If all you meant by that is that the wave function is a bit more subtle than a naive idea of "stuff", fair enough. Still the question remains, if the wave functions have no solid-ness to them, or at least some property that results in an emergent solid-ness, then whence does it arise (seeing as the weak nuclear force couldn't be responsible for that)?

Back to Hindenburg's [sic] uncertainty principle. If it's not bring observed it has been proven it only is a series of possibilities until it is observed and then the possibilities colapes into something.

Again, you misunderstand. The uncertainty principle is not a postulate of quantum mechanics, it is a mathematical property of conjugate operator pairs and can be derived without any invocation of the Schrödinger equation. For an example from classical physics, there is an uncertainty relation between a sound's pitch and its duration.

Your camera doesn't exist until it is in you observation, then it shows up with the video of the TV that it didn't record because it chose to be in that state.

What if I asked a dozen colleagues to set up their cameras to record the TV programme on the same channel at the same time from their respective television sets? And then afterwards we send in our tapes to a third party who would randomly distribute the tapes back among us at random times within a week and to whom we later were to send transcripts of the recordings. And if it turned out that all the cameras, from different manufacturers, despite being set up by different people with different biases in different locations, just so happened to randomly collapse their individual quantum wave functions in the exact same way everywhere, what would you say? Could it be that the TV programme is something that is actually consistent between different receivers of the signal? Or would you say that none of that setup "really" happened at all and that the result only came together in the mind of whoever reviewed the transcripts at the very end, and was in a myst of uncertainty right up until that point? I admit, that, too, is technically a story that would fit the data. Should you elect it, I invite you to suggest how you would put that idea to the test, though. Surely if this is still to be a form of quantum physics, it should be as testable and falsifiable as any other idea in the single and by far most successful scientific paradigm we've ever had.

Look, I'm not arguing that there isn't a philosophical tradition and a strong case to be made for external world scepticism. The least we have to say is that "reality" in a strong sense is not a particularly well-defined concept to begin with and that the thinkers who either assert or doubt the truth of it have a lot of their homework ahead of them even expressing what they mean by it coherently. But quantum theory is not a friend in this endeavour, if for no better reason than it still being physics at the end of the day.

There are many things I have done wrong, there are mistakes I'm still making, and I will fall short in the future no doubt. I hope you find some wisdom or don't at all. Picking apart what I have said is for you to do to see if it applies. If it does grate! If it doesn't grate! Either way you one step closer to finding what works for you. May the force be.

Oh, well, that's a bit dismissive, now, isn't it... But I guess if something = nothing and 10 000 000 = 1 "works for you", so be it. If you wish to not talk about your own ideas with me any longer, I shan't insist.

Well 10 000 000 apples can equal 1 large tub of apple juice.... so, its probably about boundary layers and/or scope, rather then sequences of same. Helping someone with something often is more about trying to explain their point then finding a way to say it makes no sense. I should ask more questions in that regard, but I tend to prefer just making guesses that approach making sense and at worst hope the other party understands it enough to find commonality (because obviously it's not my idea to begin with so being wrong about it or it's potential is the initial condition of not knowing it).

In that spirit, are you talking about psychology of self Glenn?

Adder wrote: Well 10 000 000 apples can equal 1 large tub of apple juice.... so, its probably about boundary layers and/or scope, rather then sequences of same. Helping someone with something often is more about trying to explain their point then finding a way to say it makes no sense...

In that spirit, are you talking about psychology of self Glenn?

Perhaps I should have made clearer what it is that I was referencing with that. Though I felt that since an explanation was given on the same page that it would be clear, assuming of course that one would try and find it in an otherwise lengthy post.


This was, at any rate, a reference to Glenn's saying that

Glenn wrote: The table appears solid because of the weak nuclear force. It repels other atoms away.

The effective range of the weak nuclear force is some 10 000 000 times smaller than the typical size of an atom. The "effective" and "typical" modulators are here only to respect the fact that there is no hard cut-off for either and it may be a matter of application how much needs accounting for; we can thus give it some wiggle room, say, that the ratio would be perhaps as mild as 1:1 000 000 or as harsh as 1:100 000 000. The point is it's not 1:10³⁰ nor 1:10. In order however for the weak nuclear force to be responsible for the mutual repulsion of atoms at the distance of an atom's size, its range would have to be something like ten million times what it is measured to be. To put it into perspective, this is like saying the whole Earth is about a yard in diameter.


Now, yes, one may question whether Glenn was talking about "psychology of self" or about apples and apple juice when he said that repulsion between atoms was a matter of the weak nuclear force. Maybe I did indeed misunderstand that he was talking about something completely different than what he said. Perhaps it would have been more reasonable on my part, had I inquired further before making my response. Yet, as you say, if any conversation is to move forward, we must at one point or another start interpreting our interlocutor's words, hoping that we understood them correctly and clearing up mistakes if and when they come up. So there is a balance to strike between continuing the discussion productively and continuing it charitably, and it can be very much a matter of taste as to whether any one participant is striking that balance well. For now, I shall make no apology for interpreting "atom" as atom and "weak nuclear force" as weak nuclear force, both in the physical sense. If terms like these happen to have a common usage in psychology of self, or what ever other area Glenn would plausibly have referred to that would render my comments inapplicable, and they are indeed the contexts Glenn meant after all, I shall stand corrected.

Just to add - who’s hell and which hell.. depending on who you chat with hell can be levels or a state of mind or even a physical location. When ya die what do you believe??

I’ll glow blue one way or another myself.

You do know there are direct types of hell- right ? It’s as almost if each denomination has a version. Which do you subscribe ? Do you ?why? Yes why?

Heaven and Hell are states of mind. I can take you to either if you wish I got a list of things that have taken me down both roads.

Gist,

If I can insert meaning into his words, I actually agree and I would think that you would that the individuals existence is a matter of perspective. There is objective existence, would you agree it's totality at this point is too much for an individual to understand by one's self without bias? This may be why the word dream may actually apply, just a different interpretation.

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

Kobos wrote: Heaven and Hell are states of mind. I can take you to either if you wish I got a list of things that have taken me down both roads.

Gist,

If I can insert meaning into his words, I actually agree and I would think that you would that the individuals existence is a matter of perspective. There is objective existence, would you agree it's totality at this point is too much for an individual to understand by one's self without bias? This may be why the word dream may actually apply, just a different interpretation.

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

I was living in hell. Now I'm living in heaven. It is exactly, as you said.