Quite so.
Actually, this kind of response is in itself, a tad primitive. In our universe, matter can neither be created nor destroyed. Hence nothing ever “dies” as such, it simply changes form.
Everything that makes you YOU has been here since the beginning. You were born in a star billions of years ago. Atoms of Hydrogen combined to make atoms of Helium, they combined to make other elements and so on. All of it, simply a change of one form to other forms. But fundamentally the same amount of “stuff” has always existed. It’s just constantly changing. With this in mind the question arises as to whether you & I are more than simply matter. If we are just matter then “dying” simply equates to another simple change of form. The atoms of our body will slowly change and we will initially return to dust before being recycled (again) into something else. There can be no actual “death” in that situation if we are just matter. What dies is just the form. Thus if you build a castle out of Lego today, then break it up tomorrow and build a bus instead, then are we to say that the castle has “died”?
If you boil a pot of water and it disappears as steam, have you killed the water?
If you take an apple from a tree and eat it, have you killed the apple?
I submit that all you have done is changed one form of matter into other forms of matter. There is no actual death.
The problem we have of course is that it seems likely we are much more than just matter. There is something more to us. What that is exactly, is tricky to define. Maybe it is a form of energy who knows. For some it is what we refer to as “God”, i.e. we are all a tiny part of God. God is us and we are God. As such we are immortal, or at least that part of us that is not simply matter.
If you struggle with the concept that we are more than matter then life imo looks bleak. It would mean we are simply robots, programmed machines just acting as we have been programmed to act. Actually I have some sympathy with such notions. After all can anyone out there tell me how you consciously manage to:
- keep your heart pumping
- heal your skin when it gets cut
- grow your adult teeth
etc
Scientifically/biologically we might understand how it happens, but we sure as hell are not conscious of making those things happen.
This should tell us then that our BODY is a robot, a machine, simply a form of matter. WE are the drivers of that machine. We are in some way connected to it so that we can operate it and experience the feedback from its senses. So that which we call pain is simply a signal from the body to me.
So where am I then? And what am I?
Insert your own beliefs at this point. Every creed, religion, faith has its own idea of what we actually are. Personally I strongly expect that I am nowhere near my body, that I am somewhere else. The problem is, I am only experiencing things through my body, so I can’t see or feel “me”. If this theory is true then I have to ask, how did I end up in such a situation? Did I volunteer for some Sci-Fi type “Total Recall” experience? Am I badly injured and in “Vanilla Sky” fashion have volunteered to live the rest of my life out in a false computer generated universe? Or are we just all slaves, controlled by aliens we can not see and imprisoned in a computer generated “Matrix”?
Perhaps it is all a test. Perhaps the whole point of it all is for the REAL US to grow, mature, start to ask such important questions and seek out the answers in some great cosmic puzzle game. Perhaps we are all inadvertently participating in a galactic form of Big Brother !
In the end however, I tend to think that we can not die as such. I think the notion of death is the great deception that we are conditioned to believe from birth. Either we are simply matter, mere robots and thus will change from this form into some other form over time (maybe a better form or a worse form). . . OR . . . we are more than matter and exist somewhere else and once our machine expires we will snap back into the “real” world and who knows what we will do then. Either way, death is surely not what we’ve all been led to believe.
. . . imo 
You want a true example of there being a “something” out there in the spirit world? It was my sister in laws funeral many years ago. They had a traditional service. The priest was giving the eulogy and kept calling her Joann. In life she would always correct people that it was JoannA.
Midway into the service after he said Joann for the umpteenth time… suddenly a flower arrangement launched down onto the alter. There was silence and than some who had been cringing every time he got the name wrong started to lightly giggle. Maybe the flowers weren’t wired so securely or was someone conveying " It’s JoannA ******!!!"
erhm - well who’s a pretty polly then - ya must be exhausted after that - go and lie down with a bex - and we’ll call ya when we’re ready for ya agin!
there are ne’r so blind as them that will not see
Ne’r those sa deaf as them that will not listen
Ne’r those so cold as them that canny feel!
Insulting post to someone who has made a genuine effort to members who are interested - maybe ‘you’ should have a lie down in a darkened room …
None of us know but some do have feelings about life and afterlife and our place in it.
A few years ago, I would be talking to someone and have pictures come into my head. One instance was when a friend was inviting me and OH to a party. She said that an old friend who had lost his wife would be there and would like us to meet him. When she left, I had an overwhelming urge to give the man a bunch of freesia when I met him and felt quite excited at the thought of doing it. Of course I didn’t, as common sense took over and I imagined him saying “thanks but why”. When I told my friend she said how She wished I had of done, as he had just had freesias carved onto his wife’s headstone as they were her favourite flower and that he was desperately wanting to believe that she hadn’t just gone but was still somewhere.
I had this happen a few times but always felt a bit silly telling people what I saw. I never had a message to pass on and eventually sent out a thought for it not to happen as I didn’t know how to deal with it or give people false hope.
It did make me personally believe that the part of us that gives us feelings, call it the spirit, goes on to somewhere but I don’t have any idea of where.
I am in empathy with what realist has said but the one major omission is the spirit…yes matter changes to matter, I think we can all agree everything is recycled…now why cannot our spirits be recycled also. I do humbly believe in reincarnation. I also believe that those spirits that do not go on because of unrest will revisit and try to sort their lives out again until they can be reborn. Hence the visitation of spirits. I have seen spirits who have come to warn of things yet to happen. I saw a beautiful woman who wanted me to warn a friend that she should forgive a man in her previous life as he was misunderstood. She, the friend had heard her man had been unfaithful to her and without even deciding whether it was true or not just bundled his belongings out onto the doorstep, it turned out he hadn’t but it was too late.
Two wonderful books to read are Russell and The Russell connection. Written by gwen byrne . Gwen is Russells mum. She tells in very simple words how Russell died at age 9 and 3/4 from leukemia. She tells of how she was reunited with Russell 20 years after his death . She held him , talked to him and saw him on many occasions in what is known as The Rita Goold experiment. You can read of this on the Internet. Her story is true, I know of this lady she is genuine and wants the world to know we live on after what we call death. Please do read these books . There were also tape recordings made during the experiment and I’m lucky enough to have four recordings done in 1984. You can hear Russell talking , singing and telling his mum how much more alive he is and of the world known as spirit .
AlbertaS it was lovely to read your post and I so wish you had taken the flowers, don’t we worry about what we think someone is going to say if we do an act of kindness.
I like to listen to everyones thoughts regarding the supernatural and other worldly things, we all have our opinions it is up to me what I believe and what I don’t.
Susan, I’ve got that book on my “to read” pile somewhere, she has written other books too, I believe. You have inspired me to dig it out and start it.
God, you must be a joy to live with, Patsy !
Get a sense-of-humour transplant - or at the very least, lighten up and stop being so eager to attack anybody who already has one.
That said, I found Realist’s post well-expressed and thought-provoking.
For me though, I remain unconvinced about the existence of any ongoing soul/spirit.
I reckon that Realist has merely stated the obvious - that the physical body ‘recycles’.
Nowt wrong with my sense of humour and I am a joy to live with - you wouldn’t know about my thriving humour, you rarely post and when you do your humour is sarcasm - which is hardly funny …
Quality rather than quantity, dear. 
LOL - if you say so …
Nowt wrong with my sense of humour and I am a joy to live with - you wouldn’t know about my thriving humour,
I’ve always been of the opinon that self-praise always comes second best to the real thing and “patsies” often attack cause they feel picked on? 
If you call having a sense of humour self praise - a little odd, but so be it, I won’t let a little thing like your post get to me, I never feel picked on - I get on well with the ‘majority’ here Often attack ? Not in my nature - but have been known to ‘respond’
No point in coming back on this - I won’t be …:-p
Obviously these doubters have not had the pleasure of seeing what i have seen otherwise they would then believe. I know what i saw so are you doubters saying i imagined it or that im a liar or some kind of nutter? 
This is the reason i have not posted what happened to me in 2012 sorry for those of you that wanted me to.
I understand Doc …only post what youre happy to 
There will always be doubters which is fine but if these doubters go beyond explaining that theyre doubtful of these things and slip into a belittling mode or trying to say someone is lying about their own experiences then it becomes something different,and I know it would stop me from posting my own experiences also …