The Soul and Afterlife

[Lightkeeper]

If the soul goes on and is free of the body, what exactly would the soul do?

[Master Vigil]

The energy is used for something else. In my experience, the energy is used to bring life to something else. It really allows for a beautiful outlook on death. Death, simply brings life. Death, IS life.

[cardero]

I cannot speak for every soul but I will probably go back to work.

Originally Posted by cardero

I cannot speak for every soul but I will probably go back to work.

Cardero! You beat me to that.

But if there is an afterlife (and I don't believe there is), I would want to come back as a classical music composer with the talent of Beethoven.

[Schizophretard]

The soul would go back from where it came. Just as the body will reunite with the earth, the soul will reunite with God.

[aged hippy]

Originally Posted by Lightkeeper

If the soul goes on and is free of the body, what exactly would the soul do?

Wait around for another chance to incarnate.... if it needs to.

[Lightkeeper]

Originally Posted by aged hippy

Wait around for another chance to incarnate.... if it needs to.

Wander down to the pub for a pint?

[Tonyamendola]

If you are a body then death is as certain as birth

If you are something other than the body, then what is death ?

If we are spirits then death is no more than laying aside a used up mobile phone, a temporary communication device

"Let the dead bury the dead" simply means those that believe in death will worship it - To worship is to believe in something
Believing in death is born from one place only - that we are bodies born to die

We are MUCH more than that and every one of us will come to that knowing with no exceptions

God is LIFE and has no opposite despite what the flesh shows us - You will not see God through eyes etc etc ... But through Love born of Forgivness of what never happned - To let the past go.
Jesus saw that when John was baptising - baptising being the symbol of Forgivness (washing away the impure thoughts that Gods Son is guilty) - This is where the expereince of Revelation is born in seeing another as innocent and the beauty and Love within that
This is when you know you are not a body and there is no more tears sickness and of course death.

[arthra]

In the Baha'i Writings the soul after death ascends through the worlds of God which are infinite in number.. Exactly what the life of the soul will be like in these worlds is not defined for us.. but it would probably like us trying to understand other dimensions.

In time the soul comes into the presence of God.

- Art

[Amergin]

Originally Posted by Lightkeeper

If the soul goes on and is free of the body, what exactly would the soul do?

I do not think that the soul exists as a separate entity from the physical human body. I think it is biological action of the live body and brain, with the consciousness and cognition generated by that brain.

This ceases to exist when the brain dies. Since the soul is generated by the brain and its functioning circuits, it ceases when neurons cease firing action potentials. This is much like the picture on your telly ceases to exist if the broadcast is ended by a power outage.

I have previously posted that ancient humans invented the soul concept. This was rational given what they knew. There was no science. Man needed to know why things happened. They felt that purely material things could not act on their own but with the action of an invisible being. These were later called spirits. This was logical for them for the following reasons.

1. When witnessing another die, there was often a rush of expelled air from the mouth as the person died. It appeared that something had left the dying body. We know that it is the total flaccid relaxation of the diaphragm and intercostal chest muscles that forces out a burst of exhaled air. But it was something invisible that left the dying body.

2. Dreams enabled people to travel to distant places and meet with deceased loved ones. This would very strongly give the impression that one could leave his/her own body temporarily and visit the other world. It logically follows that if one leaves the body temporarily in sleep, it seems obvious that one leaves his/her body forever when he/she dies.

3. Out of body experiences are fairly common natural events that occur in well defined circuits of the brain in stress, hypoxia, hypotension, or from Complex Partial Seizures (a common form of epilepsy). To the pre-scientific human these experiences were strong evidence for a soul, that temporarily leaves the body. Naturally those who survive the events are convinced that they DID ACTUALLY leave their bodies. Their soul was the part that left the body.

Where does the soul go? I believe that it is an overal brain consciousness and it merely dies with the death of the brain. However, to the Stone Age and Bronze Age person will almost no science, had the following evidence. In Dreams and OBE's they "KNOW" that the soul goes to another realm of existence where they meet dead relatives. They called this realm the Otherworld, Tír Na nÓg, The Isle of the Dead, Summerland, Fincarya, Isle of Birds, Valhalla, Heaven/Hell, or Paradise.

Amergin