A quick question to those who have faith...

It is often spoken of, life after death. Where we ascend to realms of the spiritual, to heaven... We take our conscious selves to that plane of existence, and meet our long lost kin... and spend eternity in paradise with god.

But... Why is there never any mention of life before birth?

?

Not really a discussion point, I guess... more I just want someone to think about it, and have a very good reply.

a reply to: gallop

I never understood why reincarnation or 'life after death' needs a god/master/sky daddy at all?
Nature is mighty and all encompassing and can do everything it needs without any consciousness or plan. It is just a very ingenious program that can't even work differently because it just is.

All life and evolution and the whole universe and beyond is part of this equation. Therefore it would be perfectly logical that when people die and there is something afterwards it too belongs to the way Nature works.
Why, when and how will these megalomeniac/oppressive and highly manipulative gods come into it?

Serious question.

a reply to: gallop
Nothing in my source of faith suggests there was a life before birth.

a reply to: gallop

But... Why is there never any mention of life before birth?

The Christian standpoint is that this life comes first and a spiritual life comes second.

1 Corinthians 15:45-51

45 And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

46 Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.

47 The first man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.

48 As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly.

49 And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.

51 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

a reply to: Hecate666

I actually agree with this. If I were to be inclined to consider that we came from, and return to, something.

I guess my point was, where does this thing that is considered a soul, come from.. if it is birth, wherever it goes, surely is a crowded place. Giving us a place in the 'afterlife'..

Or do we come from the infinity of nothingness, to exist for a brief time, only to return to an infinite nothingness...

It removes the burden of belief. And denies us hope.. but I think, ultimately more realistic..

a reply to: gallop

Are you just focusing on the abraham religions? Jewish, christian , islam?

Some other religious faiths do talk about a time before birth. Buddisam believes in reincarnation but it's possible to be reincarnated into a spiritual place. So to them your pre-life could have been many different places and things.

Some non religious beliefs talk about it as well. Like nde believers.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: gallop
Nothing in my source of faith suggests there was a life before birth.

So why is there life after death?

Every candle has a beginning and an end.. but the light that was emitted exists eternally?

This is where I am a tad lost.. Why do we get to exist after, but not before as a soul?

If you just let me say, we only have an afterlife, because we've had the time to ponder it... not before. And that makes it a completely man mad concept.

I don't wish to remove someones faith, far from it.. but just trying to work my own understanding out.. which has been all over the place these past few years..

For instance, I love me ol' mum.. but she's as christian as you can get. I'd never want to deny her that crutch..

Just can't go for it myself, so these questions eek at me..

a reply to: Hecate666

I never understood why reincarnation or 'life after death' needs a god/master/sky daddy at all?

Check out buddhism.

a reply to: Deetermined

I find it so hard to read those things, I wish those who did understand them could interpret them in ways us mundane folk could understand them.

But thank you for the words.

I am still none the wiser having read them.... I grew up as a christian, by the way...

a reply to: gallop

There are several versions of what people believe but for this I am just going to look at some Christian viewpoint's.

There are those that believe that when we die our spirit sleep's until a coming day of judgement.
Other's believe very much in ashes to ashes and dust to dust (and Spirit to Spirit) were our body is gone but our spirit return's to our creator for a time to await judgement there and now - whether it is our spirit being judged or our earthly life and soul is for more debate.
Others believe that the day of judgement is NOW and that when we die since God is outside of time anyway we are before him then and there for our judgement.
All of these agree that Christ saves and if we have faith in him and call on his name even if damned we are saved.

There are many variations on a waiting place, much like the Bardo Buddhists there is a place of trial that is nasty but NOT hell called Purgatory in some Christian tradition's, Hell in it's original form was not the hades like domain that later entered the Jewish and Christian faith's from probably Greek influence but rather a place of disgrace and abandonment called Sheol were the rubbish, the household refuge and the body's of condemned prisoners would be thrown and abandoned - there was therefore a Sheol for the wicked soul's whom were literally thrown away.

As for reincarnation there are many debates on just how Christian or un Christian the concept is.

Some Jewish sect's in the past very much believed in it and as for people many children alive today have memory's that if they are not from an external source such as a discarnate being that may latch onto a child (often perhaps with benign intent but most often NOT benign but that is another debate) then these memories could often only be explained as past life memory's.

I for example while I have to say I do not Ascribe to reincarnation I do believe it is a fascinating subject have my own odd memory's that fall into both of these categories.

As a small child my mother was driving through at town in the north west of England were I had never been before, I was about two and a half years of age and even today the impressions' were so strong I remember them if hazily, I suddenly had a fully formed adult personality 'come' into me and in an almost panicked way try to hold onto it's own personality, remembering walking down the street as an elderly man with a walking stick and greeting people and even the local pub this personality called John an elderly working class man in work pant's, shoes with holes in the soul's and sides and a tattered old jacket and cloth cap used to frequent sometime in the late 1940's or 1950's and pointed these places out to my mum from the back seat as she drove the car with the hairs on the back of her neck standing up as I kept on claiming that I was john - until we passed a certain place and the personality seemed to be pulled back out of me as if it was more located in that place than in me and had only latched on perhaps as my soul was unformed and perhaps somehow compatible with it's own soul.

But alternatively I have what you may regard as child hood vision's very different to this and nothing like the experience with John whom I regard as a different person and NOT a past life of my own soul.

Floating away from a young big muscly blond haired and bearded Viking like crusader kneeling before a huge broadsword placed blade down in the sand in a sandy rocky place, I was about 18 inches to about two feet off the ground as I floated away form this dead, chiselled faced nordic looking young man whom had died with his eye's open in a posture of prayer.

Identical experience during a time of stress and illness much later in my life but I experienced something very nasty, the death of a woman or young lady at the hand's of a pervert - not nice and not something to talk about but I floated away or near to the body as it was taken away in the boot of a car once again about 18 inches to about 2 feet off the ground as if linked to this corpse.

But question's remain as I had an experience in 1984 as a young adolescent teenager when I found myself outside of my own body flying through the air and woke up out there, I tried to control were I was flying as I woke in a bewildered state and saw a jungle below me, very dense and green and even in the dark I could see the leaves hundreds of feet below me on the tree's in perfect detail - so better eye's than the physical variety - and then found myself unable to gain control - it laterally felt like someone had my by the scruff of my neck, suddenly I saw a clearing crude hoot's what we would call a loggers camp in the jungle and flew down right through the wooden roof of a roughly thrown together shack with a large lean too on it's side, I tried to cringe back as I thought I was going to hit the wood but passed right through it and though I never paid much attention to that I could see the inside of the wood as I past through it.

Inside was a young child, maybe 9 to 11 dancing in a once piece crude poncho died with a rope around her waist, south American I believe with no eye brow's and long dark hair, she was dancing on the shack's wooden floor area - dancing is used loosely the kid was spinning around drunkenly and around the rest of the room comprising the wooden lean too on the shack's side were the shack's flood served as a kind of stage and bar area with a crude bar counter there were wooden tables on the dirt floor and wooden chairs all crudely made, most of the people looked Portuguese south American or Spanish south American except one very fat sweaty short guy with a balding head and jowls.

I flew into the kid's head fighting it at every step as I felt like I was being forced into her, the crown of her head and suddenly I WAS her but still me, I had no access to her mind or her thought's only her physical sensation's which I was not controlling and only had a rough impression of what the leering drunken men were shouting at her, they shouted something and she lay down and lifted her poncho (wrag) front flap up and the fat guy got up and abused her, the pain was nasty to say the least and shocked me awake again inside her and I somehow managed to force this fat guy up with her arm's and screamed in English NO!, his look was one of absolute Shock and I got the impression he actually saw me looking out of her face then like an elastic band that has been pulled to it's furthest whatever was holding me there broke and I snapped back to my own body thousands of miles away up here in Lancashire England, I woke screaming and still reaching up shouting NO!.

Maybe just a traumatic nightmare, I was only 14 at the time, or maybe something much more profound, I will leave that for you to consider.

The one thing I am certain of is that Jesus is real and he is GOOD, the devil's are also real and they are NOT good.

a reply to: gallop

Or do we come from the infinity of nothingness, to exist for a brief time, only to return to an infinite nothingness...

Quantum physics has a lot to say about this.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: Hecate666

I never understood why reincarnation or 'life after death' needs a god/master/sky daddy at all?

Check out buddhism.

This to me! I follow this belief more than anything else.

But was confused once when I hear Jack Kornfield mention that there is more after death.

I don't know if he meant in a way that was involved more to others, or his own spirit.

But, I even as a follower of the tenets, find it hard to follow the understanding that this life moves on.

Even as corporeal beings, this life can change us.. so who do we end up as? the kid at 20, killed in a car accident, or the old man at 70, watching his wife die... which one of us, is who we are? Strip away the layers of life, and we are who we were when we were born.. so if we die, and become that unattached soul, who were we, before we were born? that same ID ?

Are we just the wind that catches the flame, to reveal our presence, only simply to vanish once the flame expires, whispers of what was? or were we .. more?

a reply to: gallop

I find it so hard to read those things, I wish those who did understand them could interpret them in ways us mundane folk could understand them.

Sorry, I'll post the Living Translation which might be more helpful, but my interpretation is that we are given earthly bodies to be able to experience both good and evil. Once we have that knowledge, it's up to us to use our human free will to decide whether or not to follow Jesus into eternity where no evil exists. That's the reason we didn't exist before. It's during this life that we get to experience both sides of the coin and choose.

1 Corinthians 15:45-51

45 The Scriptures tell us that the first man, Adam, was given a natural, human body but Christ* is more* than that, for he was life-giving Spirit.

46 First, then, we have these human bodies, and later on God gives us spiritual, heavenly bodies.

47 Adam was made from the dust of the earth, but Christ came from heaven above.

48 Every human being has a body just like Adam’s, made of dust, but all who become Christ’s will have the same kind of body as his—a body from heaven.

49 Just as each of us now has a body like Adam’s, so we shall some day have a body like Christ’s.

50 I tell you this, my brothers: an earthly body made of flesh and blood cannot get into God’s Kingdom. These perishable bodies of ours are not the right kind to live forever.

51 But I am telling you this strange and wonderful secret: we shall not all die, but we shall all be given new bodies!

originally posted by: gallop
Every candle has a beginning and an end.. but the light that was emitted exists eternally?

If you want to use a physical analogy, then do it properly. The physical light from that candle began existing when the candle was lit.

There's no point is starting pseudo-philosophical arguments about this. Faith doesn't depend on philosophical speculations, but on scriptural statements. There are scriptural statements about resurrection life, none about "previous life". End of story.

I don't wish to remove someones faith, far from it.. but just trying to work my own understanding out.. which has been all over the place these past few years..

Frankly, you're not quite sure what you want to do. As far as I can see, you want to get a "Christians are wrong" argument going, but you haven't decided on the right line to take.

Just can't go for it myself, so these questions eek at me..

No, you prefer the "crutch" of independent eternal self-existence, which gets you off the hook of having to accept the supervision of another's authority. But since Christianity is not based on your philosophy, it ought not to be a puzzle that Christianity has a different viewpoint.

originally posted by: gallop
a reply to: Hecate666

I actually agree with this. If I were to be inclined to consider that we came from, and return to, something.

I guess my point was, where does this thing that is considered a soul, come from.. if it is birth, wherever it goes, surely is a crowded place. Giving us a place in the 'afterlife'..

Or do we come from the infinity of nothingness, to exist for a brief time, only to return to an infinite nothingness...

It removes the burden of belief. And denies us hope.. but I think, ultimately more realistic..

Truth is, nobody knows, only those who are dead, everything else is just theory. I am not so sure if consciousness = soul. I personally think we are not our bodies and there is something else, everything I have experienced seems to lead to this, apart from one situation that completely always gets me and erases all hope is that under anaesthetic I ceased to exist.

There wasn't 'blackness' [as in order to perceive that you must be able to notice it], I just wasn't any longer. Nothing, nada, nichts.
If it wasn't for that experience I'd be 99.9% sure that there is more to us when we die. Therefore I came to the conclusion that "I know that I know nothing" and all will be revealed [or not] when we die.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: gallop

Or do we come from the infinity of nothingness, to exist for a brief time, only to return to an infinite nothingness...

Quantum physics has a lot to say about this.

But this says nothing to the ME that I am, or the YOU that you are.

I find that scary... are we nothing more than this?

I can handle that... and indeed I posited the question for those who don't think so, to tell me why.. but if even they say we are born of nothing.. then, we surely return to nothing.

Make hay while the sun shines, and all..

originally posted by: DISRAELI

originally posted by: gallop
Every candle has a beginning and an end.. but the light that was emitted exists eternally?

If you want to use a physical analogy, then do it properly. The physical light from that candle began existing when the candle was lit.

I'm sorry. I'm just a noob. I will do better, and so on and so forth....

Belittle my words as you like, the meaning is there, the intent is the same, had I worded things to your suiting.

There's no point is starting pseudo-philosophical arguments about this. Faith doesn't depend on philosophical speculations, but on scriptural statements. There are scriptural statements about resurrection life, none about "previous life". End of story.

Then get out of my thread? If it doesn't fit your agenda to persuade me to your belief set, that's fine. You cannot answer the questing succinctly then it is not for me to complain, or for you to justify. I asked a question. And I put it in certain terms.

you explained in your belief, that there is no life before birth.

/fin.


The rest of your contrarian post, was of no interest.. be well, on your journey to interrupt people.

a reply to: Hecate666

Agreed. We can only postulate..

I wanted merely to hear the words of someone who understands the actual words, not people who merely believe them. If we came from nothing, a time before us having any existence, what then, says we return to that but continue.

No one can answer that, so my answer is there. As it appears, to question those who do believe in an afterlife as it is put, don't like it very much and.. well, was not the intent of this thread.

Thank you to all thus far. Even the animosity shown, proves to me that the fear of disbelief is more important than the act of trust in a thing. Take what you want to believe in, and believe it.

there are those of us who will remain advocates of doing good things in life, being the best that we can to others, but knowing that when the candle expires, our wind ceases.

Cheers.

originally posted by: Hecate666
a reply to: gallop

I never understood why reincarnation or 'life after death' needs a god/master/sky daddy at all?
Nature is mighty and all encompassing and can do everything it needs without any consciousness or plan. It is just a very ingenious program that can't even work differently because it just is.

All life and evolution and the whole universe and beyond is part of this equation. Therefore it would be perfectly logical that when people die and there is something afterwards it too belongs to the way Nature works.
Why, when and how will these megalomeniac/oppressive and highly manipulative gods come into it?

Serious question.

Pop culture Christianity 101

Serious question, I doubt you have ever had a serious thought that didn’t come outside of watching the Simpsons, Hectate 666, guess that’s a cool handle hey

I wonder what you would do if you were God, I would imagine

a reply to: Raggedyman

You cheeky such and such. You couldn't be more wrong if you actively tried for the next 100 years. Your response shows me that you are merely projecting.
If you knew me you'd be so ashamed about your very flippant prejudice you'd never sleep again.

I don't have to explain more to you, just that very rarely has anyone been more wrong about me ever in the 52 years I have spent on this earth so far.

I have seen and experienced and done more spiritual stuff that you can even imagine. I can only assume you believe in god. That would explain your inability to think before you write.