The Afterlife
 

I've noticed that there was no debate on the afterlife, what do you people believe.

I believe in reincarnation...with a twist.
I believe that everything has a soul, but each type of creature a different type of soul, humans reincarnate as humans, dogs as dogs, trees as trees etc.
I do not believe that the actions of your past life affect the status you get in your next life.
I believe that each life is a lesson and a test, if you pass the test you soul becomes slightly closer to perfection. Once your soul reaches perfection you have no need to reincarnate and then become an element (not the periodic table type!) and see the world in perfect clarity, and will be able to commune on the highest level with the God and Godess.
As for karma, I do believe in karma, but only in the sense that good actions lead to you having a clear concience and evil actions lead to you being dissatisfied with yourself. The deities to not punish/reward. (although they may give you something you asked for in a spell*).

* a spell is very similar to a Christian prayer, it is, simply put a ritual where you ask the godess and God for something you desire and send this information to them in the form of energy. A Wiccan prayer is simply when you focus on communing with the Godess and God, in order to speak to them or ask them for advice/guidance etc.

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I believe in a heaven and a Hell. Those who accepted Jesus as their savior while on earth go to heaven, and those that did not would go to hell.

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. . . uh . . . yeh . . . . .

I believe in heaven. If you accept Christ as your savior (truely accept, not just say so), I believe that you are sent to heaven, during the rapture. Then, all those in heaven will praise God forever, given perfect bodies, and be with our fellow Christians. As for what you were saying about prayers and such, I believe that if you read the Bible, and take it's sayings to heart, and the Word is in you, the Lord will give you whatever you want. This does not mean that he'll just give you a Corvette. I mean that if the Word is truely in you, you will ask something to benefit others, or to glorify God. That's what I believe.

Edit - Oh, yeh. And like Sporky just said(whoes post wasn't there when I started typing), I also believe in hell. If a person does not accept Christ, they go to hell. I do not believe in levels of hell (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) I just believe that hell is hell. Nothing more, nothing less, just eternal torment, and removal from God . . . .

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i think that when u die...you die...thats it. Nothing fancy or anything, you just die

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So if what you say is true, and a person leads a good life, giving to those in need, doing community work, giving back to the environment, not being spiteful or hurting people's feelings, but the were Wiccan/Buddhist/Hindu/Other, and did not believe in Jesus, they would go to jolly old hell.

Just because they didn't believe in Jesus. I find that almost disgusting.

That is why I cannot abide by Christianity, it refuses to accept other religions.

Well I don't believe in hell anyway or a devil, I do not need the threat of eternal damnation to make me do good, I like doing it for the sake of doing good.

Oh I would like to add to my post above that I believe that during reincarnation, between incarnations there is a brief period in a place called the Summerlands, a pleasant place, where your soul can recooperate, and reflect on the lesson it has just been taught.

[EDIT]Very epicurean nitestryker you may find this interesting http://www.epicurus.net/principal.html [EDIT]

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No matter how good you are, you sin. And God finds sin disgusting, and without the blood of Jesus to wash away your sins you will go to hell, because God cannot live with sin.

You can be the most sinful person in the world, but the moment you accept Christ as saviour you are able to go to heaven.

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Looks like i'm off to hell :lol:

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So basically it all hinges on Christ.
I find it slightly odd that in your religion someone who has lead a better life than someone else who has not ends up worst. You do not accept other religions even if they are based on love and forgiveness?

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i think we would just die and rot in the ground in a wooden box.

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i believe that if you live a good life you will go to heaven, if you dont, you will go to hell. I dont completly agree with christianity (even tho im christian) because you dont nessicarily have to accept christ or anything else. If you live well you will probably go to heaven.

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No, no, no. God hates for his children to be cast down to hell. If you are a just person who does not accept Christ as your savior, you will go to purgotory as one of the unbaptised. You will serve some time there and make your way into heaven. Let me give you an example. Gandhi. He was not Christian, but he tought about peace and all that crap. God loves all his children, and would probably not let such an outstanding person rot in hell.

Hell is not ment for humans, rather for the fallen angel Lucifer and his minions. A particularly bad person, like Hitler, would go to Hell because God, as said before, hates sin, and would probably not want that Nazi freak to pollute anything better then the lake of fire & brimstone.

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I believe the purpose of religion is to believe in your own religion, and not others, that's what makes it your religion, because youe believe in it!!!

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This is a very interesting post for me.

Whilst I don't practise any religion, I would lean towards Buddhism. It seems to be the most accessible and welcoming religion. It doesn't force its values on you or threaten you with fire and brimstone. Yet the moral teachings are essentially the same.

I had always assumed the Christian God was supposed to show compassion and mercy to all good people. However I suppose the first commandment blows this out of the water. To be honest reading this thread has put me off Christianity for life. I never realised it was such a hardline religion :eek:

Christianity as a guide to life has just shot itself in the foot. Since I'm off to hell anyway, I might as well start being bad ;)

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There is an important difference between acceptance and belief.

I ACCEPT that Christianity (and all other religions/lifestyles based on love and peace) is one of the paths to divinity and improvement of the soul.

I BELIEVE in Wicca and that Wicca is the best way for me.

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He would like to, but he cannot live with sin. He is perfect. Heaven is perfect. Sin is not perfect. If we are covered by the blood of Jesus we have been paid for and he sees past our imperfection and sees the blood of his son. It's simple. :nodding:

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But it is not simple. According to your teaching God is an all forgiving and all loving God, surely he should forgive someone who has followed a different religion but led a good life.

Big Daddy, yeah I used to be Buddhist before I found Wicca.

Although I would say you can't generalise with Christians too much because there are such diversions within the religion. You've got Jehova's witnesses who are all hellfire and damnation, right through to Quakers who think that just providing you are a good boy...who cares. Look at their places of worship, catholic = st. peters cathederal style very ornate massive. Quakers' place of worship is a room with a table, a bible, and maybe some flowers.

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Well I've posted my beliefs before but I feel considering the age of the thread I may as well state them again here.

Firstly I believe dreams are very important, that you halfway die each night when you go to sleep and that dreams are glimpses of other lives.
Now when you die I think it’s just like going to sleep; going on to your next dream if you will.
In my belief the purpose of life is to, well dream really; but more accurately to shape your dreams, to provide information for your next dream lives.
Now looking at my belief I come across a flaw, it is a flaw I have seen many times, people, I' am not arrogant enough to believe my imagination, created a universe, filled with such great diversity and others great intellect and I think the answer to it, is that the people in this universe with you, came here because our past lives were all alike in a some way and this life provided something we all dreamed about, something we needed.

So to answer your question I don’t strictly believe in reincarnation because I don’t really believe its possible to die, or indeed that we have any particular bonds to this physical life in a way that would qualify us to do so.

There I hope I managed to put that a bit more eloquently than last time.

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I think that is very interesting and respectable. Although while I believe dreams are very important, you can learn a lot about yourself and about the deities from dreams, I do not believe you can see bits of past lives, otherwise you would not concentrate on the lesson you are currently learning.

You wouldn't happen to have done a bit of lucid dreaming would you?

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I lucid dream every night because I was taught a method by my teacher about it. If you have too much on your mind when you fall to sleep normally you won't lucid dream because thoughts get all jumbled together but if you do a bit of meditating before bed and knock out what you were thinking out of your head for the most part, chances are you will have lucid dreams. I have very interesting dreams as well. I had weird predictions in my dreams. I won't share them because you guys will think I am a physcho.

I believe in heavan and hell. I believe in God and Jesus. I believe that if I worship God, my savior, and believe in his word then God will send me to heaven. I believe that heaven is a utopia that is beatiful and perfect. Really though I am not 100% sure on this, but 95% sure. I still have a tiny bit of doubt in my mind about God's existance, but I believe he is there for the most part.

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Once or twice; not that often now I think back on it.

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In my opinion. When you die, you die. Nothing special. Eventually you decompose, and your corporeal form disapears. I do not believe in a heaven or hell, I'm not that optimistic about the afterlife. I dont believe in an afterlife, you simply die, there is no 'black void', or 'white tunnel' or whatever, you just die.

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Yeah this was my old opinion on death before I found religion. Really in my opinion, religion has opened new pathways in my life. Even if I live under this false lie for the rest of my life, I know I am going to die under a false impression that I will be moving on to better things. I think it is better to live this kind of way instead of dying knowing there is nothing for you when you die. I am pretty sure I am correct that I will go to heaven or hell when I die, but it is better to know that then know I will just simply cease to exist.

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I find it terrible that God loves some of his children more than the others, and condemns many of them to an eternity in hell. Wouldn't a good parent punish them for a while in the purgatory, and then forgive them?

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I thought I read something about hell origionally being a place apart from heaven, where the only punishment was that you could never be with God because you had sinned so much and not repented. Then all the people in hell decided to punish themselves, because they had had so many chances to fix the error of their ways. Kind of like when you hit yourself for doing something stupid, but for all eternity.

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No, he doesn't love some of his children more than others. But he hates sin, and some of his children arn't covered by the blood of Jesus, and sin cannot get into heaven.

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I think that is more positive than you think. The Epicurean view states that we are atoms, and when we die we go back to atoms, we are not sensitive in death, therefore we can feel no pain in death, therefore death is bliss because you want nothing, because you are dead.

Not my views but interesting none the less.

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Spare me the preaching

Ok so I can go grab an AK-47 and several pipe bombs and go on a spree, but as long as I accept Christ im good to go? Vice Versa, I could sell everything I had, constantly donate all my money while using some to buy food for the poor, give blood, recycle, never hurt a thing, but because I dont accept christ, im goin to hell?

Thats F.U.B.A.R

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Have you ever read the last two books of the Ender's Game series? They have some stuff in there that sounds alot like that, and it makes sense, if you think about it.

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Precisely.

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so if i say right now i accept christ etc etc then i will go to heaven?

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If you truly love christ as your saviur yes.

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you will go to purgatory first, but yes you will eventually reach heaven, accoarding to the protestants.

that's the main point that bugs me about protestant christianity... no matter what you do, if you accept christ as you saviour, you will reach heaven.

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no no no, that's catholic...I think. Well it's not what I believe. No where in the Bible is purgatory found.


And as I've been saying, no sin, no matter how small can enter heaven.

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there's a protestant version of purgatory as well I believe. not sure, I'll look into it.

ahhh yes, but I was raised as a protestant and my parents, the church and all believers around me (and the people I met online) told me "love jezus and accept him as your saviour and you will go into heaven". even if I kill every single person in this village, I will still go into heaven because I love jezus.

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Dante uses Purgatory in his 'Divina Commedia', and during the Middle Ages, it was commenly thought that that place existed.

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If you were a true Christian you wouldn't go around killing everyone. (unless you went insane maybe).

I see...so it's not just a catholic thing then...I learn something new almost every day.:D

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irrilevant. you are avoiding my point.

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True Christians who actually believe in God don't go around killing people. Just saying you believe in Jesus doesn't mean you do. You actually have to believe in him. I have heard of murderers confessing to the police what they did because of their guilty conscience, and some that do are christians.

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It's not irrevant (sp?), and I"m not avoiding your point. If you are a real chirstian you will not go around killing people.

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The Crusades, anyone?

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Dude, usually people who do grab a pipe bomb and AK-47 and kill people dont really believe in god, or wouldnt think to accept christ afterwards anyway.

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it's besides the point.

picture this: I'm a good christian for all my life, but I kill my neighbour one day, BUT I love jezus and accept him as my saviour.

as you know, killing is a sin. but by believing in jezus etc, he will rid me of my sins and I will go into heaven and I will thus get away with killing some-one. no?

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I am sure you probably would get into heaven, but I don't know all the details. I am still a year away from studying all of these things. Maybe you do go into purgatory.

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Oscar Romero, look him up.

Try to avoid lumping protestants into one group, and give a specific denomination e.g. Salvation Army, Anglican, Catholic, Quaker, Methodist etc. as there are divisions of belief within the denominations, let alone protestants as a whole, it's very easy to generalise too much.

In general I would say purgatory is mostly a Catholic idea, but many others believe in it too.

Anglican's tend to believe that God is a loving God and if you truly repent your sins, you go to heaven.

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picture this: A true Christian wouldn't go killing his neighbor! OK!? Christians aren't like that. He may kill his neighbor, and then become a Christian, and then yes, he would go to heaven.

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/me repeats himself...

The Crusades, anyone?

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He might for example in a crime of passion or self defence where he isnt really in control of his actions.

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Children playing with fire; they let their faith blind them to all they did not want to see. Can we truly blame them for not seeing something they didn’t want to look for?

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Murderers do not want to see the non-violent solution to their problems. Shall we not blame them, too?

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While they do not want to see the non-violent solution to their problems, they are at least aware of it; whether they chose to pursue it or not is a different matter.
How many crusaders, while thinking they did the will of god, were really aware they could have a non-violent solution?