Let me provide an example.
One of my friends (who will remain nameless) told me a story about their grandmother. She was very old, and she was about to die. She was in the hospital, and for one moment, her heart stopped. They found a way to quickly bring her back, but she didn't want to. Her words were:
"Let me go back. It's beautiful."
So they let her go back.
But what can we take from this example? What exactly, is beautiful about death? Is it having the burden of life lifted off your shoulders? Is it another land, another heaven? I'm not saying I believe in heaven, I'm just saying it's a possibility.
What do you think?
This could really turn into a cheesy topic. Just saying.
ReplyDeleteI just feel that for us, the young generation, it's hard to really sympathize for the aging elderly. They have gone through the unimaginable, seen the up and downs of life, through sickness, death, money, depression, etc. Yes, this does not include every single elderly man and woman in the world, some people do want to live eternally! But once you have lived as long as some people have lived, 80-90 years, sometimes death is respite from the physical world, from where they have lived too long.
The grandmother in the example very well could have seen a heaven or afterlife, and saw that it was nothing like the real world. But even so:
"We have no reliable guarantee that the afterlife will be any less exasperating than this one, have we?"
-Noel Coward
I think that we as humans kind of have a need to believe in life after death, because it gives us something to hang on to. It alleviates some of the pain of loss, and the fear of dying. Certain situations like the one stated above, can often be explained as hallucinations caused by not enough blood flowing to the brain. However, now that I have stated the scientific argument, I will say that I personally believe in some sort of existence after death. Though what that is, I have absolutely no idea.
ReplyDeleteTo me, it seems kind of perfect that there's no real way of knowing what's after death. As soon as you know, you're too far away to tell anyone. And I feel that it would be ruined if anyone knew, and lived. It's perfect that way.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sandra J. It's really not one of those things people should know.
ReplyDeleteWell, I have a couple arguments for both sides of the question, but I'll share my arguments against it (against the thought that life after death exists.) This is because one would have to undergo physical death in order to prove or disprove it (and by its very nature, disproving it would not be possible). This is in contrast to something like astrology where one could undertake a study of people born at the same time and evaluate their personality traits and life outcomes at a later time to see if there is any correlation with time of birth. Can mankind reach such a high level of consciousness of our own existence if it were all to end with this life? There is no evolutionary advantage or biological need for this (Darwin's criteria, evolution can be derived from what is necessary for survival). For a mortal life here on earth, the human mind is much more advanced than necessary (Example, plants are able to survive just fine, and I believe we're a bit smarter than they are).
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