How can the afterlife be a happy place?

Well, assuming there is an afterlife to begin with, how can it be a carefree, happy place?

I was thinking today, about how, if there is an afterlife, and those that have passed are still "with us," and can see what we are doing and how we are feeling while we're still here on Earth...

How can the afterlife be a happy place? I think it's safe to say that all of us face hardships and go thru our own problems, and that probably everyone reaches a point where it seems like life can be a living hell, whether it be because of medical reasons, or financial reasons, or relationships, or stress, or whatever.

So...if there is an afterlife, and those on the other side are still "with us," how can the afterlife be a happy place? Even if the afterlife is a carefree utopia, devoid of any problems -- wouldn't those on the other side, if they care about us, still feel our pain? Which in turn would bring about sorrow on that side?

So either:

(1) There is an afterlife, and the spirits over there don't care about how we feel.

(2) There is an afterlife, and the spirits over there DO care about how we feel, but won't (or can't) help us. NOTE: This seems to be the most valid explanation from all the religous people I've talked to, but even this way seems pretty hopeless. This type of situation is what made me question how the afterlife can be a happy place to begin with. You spend your time on Earth fighting thru problems, then die and go on to an afterlife, only to worry about those you left behind, feeling all their pain but knowing you can't do anything to help them?

(3) There is an afterlife, and the spirits there aren't privy to stuff that happens here on Earth.

(4) There is no afterlife.

a near death experience on my part. Every bit of pain, strife, and stress started to fall away and become irrelevant. Nothing I cared about in my daily life was of any importance, whatsoever. The pain my body was feeling was supremely unimportant. People were talking to me and trying to get me to respond, but they simply didn't matter.

That feeling was heavenly.

Whatever happens to us, it's like Vegas. Whatever happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. Whatever happens in this life, stays in this life.

amazon by Dannion Brinkley whom i heard last week on Charles Goyette. he's had several "beyond near-death" experiences and shares his experiences, which sound heavenly, quite like Warpy's. my pa passed in 1997 and my mom is now 91 and i am searching for a peace about death that i feel so far has been mostly on an intellectual level, for me anyway. will let you know how the books are when they get here!

remaining mentally and emotionally engaged as my 91 year old stepfather recently passed expectedly and a month later my 47 year old sister passed unexpectedly.

Death is foreign and threatening to many, but you will experience much if you can remain open to the experience.

private email me about the books. I lost both parents recently and am interested.

I watched him suffer in pain for the past two years. I pray to God everyday that there is an afterlife I still have faith that there is (it's all I have right now). I know he is not in pain right now & for that I am comforted & with that I will leave you with this.


God looked around his Garden
and he found an empty place.
He then looked down upon this
earth and saw your tired face.
He put his arms around you
and lifted you to rest.
God's Garden must be beautiful,
He always takes the best.
He knew that you were suffering.
He knew that you were in pain.
He knew that you would never
get well on earth again.
He saw the road was getting rough
and the hills were rough to climb.
So he closed your weary eyelids,
and whispered "Peace be thine".
It broke our hearts to lose you,
but you didn't go alone
For part of us went with you
the day God called you home.

Go in peace my friend.

He is now with God, and he is no longer in pain. He is most likely also still around you, and loving you for all you were to him. He will come to you in your dreams as many loved ones have this way of communicating with the one they are waiting to see. As I write this I am struck by the thought that I have *no* business saying that, because do I have proof, and who the hell am I to you? But I have had such experiences in my own life and just know. It seemed important to relay this to you.

You also might go to the Spirituality forum, here on DU if you need some comfort in your grief. I just learned if you do not have a star, you can still post there! Go look there and a little ways down on the forum, you will see a posting about having a star to post and how you can get one. You will find a deep comfort and gentle community there you will not find anywhere else on this forum. Not that people in the rest of this forum aren't nice and all, but they are often not on the same path, and do not always understand what these folks are about.

Which segues into the original question from my viewpoint...

My theory is that earth IS hell. We go to a better place because you cannot get any worse (or any better) than here on Earth. I am a practicing Christian who believes in many lives and I see the purpose of my time here is to learn how to love. I am not saying this is anyone else's purpose, but I do think "love" is a big word and has many dimensions. I have found that loving the world (agape), my fellow humans (philos), and my family (familia) is not an easy task, especially learning to love unconditionally. I go to a traditional church, The United Church of Christ. It is one filled with intellectuals who do not believe as I do, but have been have been very gentle with my beliefs, though they also have to acknowledge that belief in reincarnation is far more traditional than the so-called "traditional" more european beliefs are. If you want to know more, read about the life of the third pope, a dear friend of the Apostle Peter, Polycarp. He was also a believer in reincarnation and to this day his letters, many of them to Peter, are preserved online. You can go and read them if you like. His name "polycarp" is Greek for "many bodies".

More people believe in reincarnation in this world than our so-called "traditional" beliefs. Between the Buddhists, and Hindus, as well as older Christians, some Jewish beliefs, and people of Islam, the Natives of the NW, and others, there are many believers. We come back to grow, to take responsibility for our actions, to work out karma and to bring God's Light to others. So to me, going to a better place merely means you leave this world to learn more so you can come back to work out your karma, and see life from another viewpoint, until you are enlightened enough to go on to God.

My 2 cents

Cat In Seattle

:hug:

but have to admit that I hope reincarnation doesn't exist. I really don't want to do this again.

I figure, even if there is no God, and no afterlife -- we all got here some way! So you would think that if we got here to begin with, after we die, there's a chance we could come back sometime in the future as a new life.

So reincarnation is about the only supernatural thing I'm sure of. If we got here once, I would believe we can get here again, after we die.

but the concept makes me weary.

Funny. I've had a wide, wide range of experiences in my time here, and I don't see earth the same way. And I do believe the earth can get better, if we all work together for it to happen. You see, in my view the earth IS heaven/paradise, we just haven't realized it yet.
Reincarnation? Maybe. I can't say that I know yet.
Peace :toast:

I guess I should clarify here...many Christians think you go to hell if you so not believe their way, and what I was trying to convey was that earth is a place to return. The "hell" they think of is not some place in the ether ~ it is right here. Looking at life from a karmic sense, we become responisble for our own choices. We can make a hell for ourselves and others out of life, or we can make our own heaven, it all depends on our choices. This is not to mean that all that happens is ALL our fault, we have no control over what others will decide and are often caught up in the vortex of their decisions. But how we decide to react to it is always within our own power, no matter what position we are in. In places and times, earth has been hell, such as the Holocaust, Rowanda, and places like Iraq. While life on earth can be beautiful, it can also be a time of great suffering (sometimes it is both simultaneaously) and our choices to hwat happens around us are paramount in the way we learn and grow.

This taking of responsibility can be scary to many religious people, especially when they think religion will insulate them from suffering. Wisdom is not always a fun thing to possess, it can cause great sadness when you see folly and cannot do much about it. Religion often does insulate people from their OWN suffering, but only in the way that Jesus spoke of, "...if ye have ears you will hear..." In other words I take this to mean that to use religion to eleviate one's own suffering and then blind oneself to the suffering around them, often to suffering taking place right under our noses,is still being blind. As St Francis said (paraphrased), "Give me the wisdom to know what I can and cannot do..." This is complicated because sometimes one's "mission" may be to one person, or one's family, as well as to one's community and the world, but we have to pick our hills to die upon. One way to look at this is, while we are but a speck in the universe, so is an atom, yet before a supernova occurs, ONE ATOM has to be the first to move in order to start that chain reaction. I think it is much the same here with us, we are nothing, just one person, all right. But we do start mini-chain reactions that can either be something that creates good, or something that is destructive. I think if we call ourselves Christians, we are responsible to what we can do about the chain reactions around us. The love of God can give us the wisdom to be gentle andf then empower us and motivate us to do what we can. But that love still is not the only thing that creates our nirvana, we have to do that on our own in response to God's love.

You're right that the earth has been hell at times. I'm sure at other times it has been heaven as well. When Jesus talked about "the Kingdom of God" I think he was talking about us creating heaven on earth, not leaving it up to him when he comes back. Unfortunately, religion has tended to get in the way of this, since it encourages the powerful and powerless to stay in their places and just wait to die and go to heaven, which is a arge part of why I wouldn't feel comfortable calling myself a Christian, or affiliate of any other organized religion, for that matter.

That there is an afterlife, and the spirits do care about us but they realize that what we are going through here is a learning experience.

I like to think of it as a parent watching a child growing up. The child makes mistakes and/or gets hurt. The parent loves the child but understands that pain is necessary part of growing up.

And of course none of us here on Earth will ever know, but I can't imagine being in the afterlife, still knowing what my friends and family are going thru down here, and not feeling bad about all they have to endure. That would make me sad, even if I understood it was a "learning experience."

In your analogy, the parent would still feel pain for the child, even if they knew it was something the child had to go thru. So if you trace that back to the original point, that means that those in afterlife would still feel our sorrow, in which case I didn't understand how the afterlife could be the happy, carefree place that many people think it is.

I imagine that a large change in our perception takes place at death.

Assuming that we are in the afterlife and looking back at life, we now have the advantage of understanding both. But in life we see things through life's perspective alone.

When we're in the "arms of all knowledge", as de Chardin said, we are no longer plagued by doubts. Context is really all you need for paradise, imo.

that creates the problem for you...rather than as just another aspect of life...if it is all life..before you came to earth, while you are here on the earth..and after you leave the earth..and you can visualize it as just different demensions of life..of being, and know that earthly conserns were no more a part of you before you were born here, then they will be after you leave here....and that it is how it should be..maybe that will help.

and I think, personally (and of course I don't KNOW) that your number 1 is likely. It isn't that they don't "care" per se, but that emotions are a human characteristic and they see from an entirely different perspective. For example, if I am completely certain that death leads to a better place, (as I would be if my consciousness survived) then seeing a tsunami here on earth would just mean the victims find peace sooner.

I do feel that we are pretty much thrown down here to scramble and survive as long as we can, and then we're scooped up and relieved. Taken out of the ring, if you will.

But, really... who knows?

I think that far too often, the afterlife has been used as a tool by the powerful to make sure that the powerless stay in their stations and don't change the world into what it should be. In my view, heaven and hell both already exist on earth, and it's up to us to make sure that the latter becomes the sole reality. I'm sure we can do it if we all work together. The afterlife can wait, and we should make sure that we've done as much as we can in this life without presupposing that we'll have a second chance.

follows upon how you lived and thought and acted in this life. In my religious order, we have a ceremony for the time of passing and afterwards, and in it we ask that the family have peace so that the soul of the deceased can go on without regret. You see, we don't think that life after physical death is static, but rather that the soul continues its journey of discovery of its true self.

"...we ask that the family have peace so that the soul of the deceased can go on without regret"

problems inherent in such a mindset. The thought that we appear here and then go there is quite illogical. The whole concept that you are critiquing is flawed (I assume you agree), so I think that rejecting deeper existence entirely isn't warranted.

"Afterlife" does not always mean everyone who is good goes to some nice place and that's it. I do agree that the specific belief you outlined is incorrect, but that does not mean any other concpet of an afterlife is incorrect as well. Wouldn't you agree?