Why there is belief in an afterlife

Spiritualism is the belief that the spirits of the dead have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living. The afterlife, or the “spirit world”, is seen by spiritualists, not as a static place, but as one in which spirits continue to evolve.

After some research I am of the opinion that what you are speaking about, is the practice of Spiritual Formation, which is a system of practices that were originally invented by Ignatius Loyola the founder of the Jesuits.

One key element of spiritual formation is called “contemplative spirituality.” Other related terms include “contemplative prayer,” or “centering prayer.” These are all names for essentially the same thing. This is nothing more than a mixture of what New Age pagan practitioners of meditation and Roman Catholic monks have taught for centuries.

Here is what Thomas Keating, a Roman Catholic monk, has this to say about contemplative prayer, otherwise known as centering prayer:

Spiritual disciplines, both East and West, are based on the hy- pothesis that there is something that we can do to enter upon the journey to divine union once we have been touched by the realization that such a state exists. Centering prayer is a disci- pline designed to reduce obstacles… choose a sacred word [to repeat]… Twenty to thirty minutes is the minimum amount of time necessary for most people to establish interior silence.12

In other words, you repeat religious or Biblical words (it doesn’t really matter which ones) in order to “center” your thoughts until you feel like you have unity with God.

Jesus specifically mentioned repetition as vain and useless. He said “but when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking” (Matthew 6:7).

Contemplative prayer is mystical from its core, so it is fruitless from my point of view to persuade you otherwise.

With regard to your questions above. Read the Scriptures the answers are all there. :wink:

Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it.
Matthew 7:13

SM,
It’s rather annoying that you beckon emphatically to have your questions answered but you do not return the courteousness, are you sure that you are not an American liberal leftist? Well if you ever decide to become a forthright Christian, let me know, where questions and their answers are exchanged rather than one-directional.

I answered your questions.

It is all there in the Scriptures.

I believe that you need to check everything out for yourself. Don’t just believe what someone else tells you. If it is something from the Bible go look it up for yourself.

You did not answer my questions based on your beliefs, what scriptures? Go reread what I asked from you.

(Liberals get their dishonesty and their disingenuous ways from Christians I believe.)

Wendy wrote:

Of course you do.

If you paid one wit of attention, you’d know that your sarcastic remark is not accurate and your behavior is not honest.

In Europe and America, a big change came with the “Death of God”.
Fear of Dantes hell subsided, and people were no longer able to care as much about doing the right, vs the wrong thing.
But the idea of an afterlife that rewards stayed attractive to them.
So hell was abandoned, and people began investing heaven, make it more interesting, attractive.
Then, when heaven was made into a modern type paradise (I live on, my soul lives on) people started to imagine the things they would have to do to get there - – oh, lo! It turned out to be exactly those things that they were ready doing.

This transformed the afterlife form a stimulus to discipline oneself to a certain standard (in ancient days, heroism, in Christian days, meekness) to something that is just there to take away the annoying thought that ones ego will at one point wither and die, and allows the ego to imagine itself important, the source of all things (the spark of god) and capable of transcending death by lucid dreaming. Its only effect is radically increasing the human capacity for egoism and bigotry.

Back to the original notion of the afterlife, the fruit of ones actions in the world. Here is a very good short paper on the subject:
ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/21h … rev_dn.pdf

I do believe that this is the only afterlife that a sane human would be considering.

In case someone woud crave being able to look toward a personal afterlife, where the ego gets to continue its little games, where the experience of the self can continue without all the Earthly conditions that made it, it will always resemble a teenage girls bedroom - colourful, emotional, empty of ideas of responsibility - an instrument to self-pleasing.

In as far as the continuation of the fruits of our actions pertains to us personally, we have the notion of karma.
Throughout all cultures that influenced the west, it has been the planet Saturn that has been attributed the function of karmic receptor and distributor.

Saturn, the horned one, the dweller on the threshold, the judge of what lives on and what must be ground back to nothingness - this planet was given the name of The Devil.

In the 20th century there was a German mystic who went very far in exploring this concept called Rudolph Steiner.
I am just posting this as an interesting facet of the pervasive belief in life after death.

Ideologies of reward without sacrifice are of course ignoble.
Saturn is the planet associated with death, harvest, natural cycles, hardship, bare bones necessity, learning from experience.
We can easily associate it with karma.

Jupiter is the planet associated with ideology, fanaticism, luck, self-exaggeration, prophecy and priesthood.
We can associate it with al the other ideas about afterlife. Both the warlike forward striving sacrificial will of heroes and the dreamlike imagination of the new age explorer.

Karma is a legislative idea, it commands an awareness of the consequences of ones action on the greater world.
Regardless of its physical truthfulness, it is a powerful idea that can hone the half beast that any human is born as into a cultivated entity.

I just found a video locked on my account that I never published but which is really good, comparatively, compared to my videos in general.
I post it here and not in The Philosophers because half way I actually explain the idea much more lucidly than I do in the OP.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXxgGVxMu3A[/youtube]

It seems to me whatever philosophy or religion one is drawn to there is the same underlying theme. Reward. I know not of any religion or philosophy that does not promise the reward of an afterlife in some form or other.

I was discussing the question of life after death with a minister and during his conversation I realised that this was something I did not particularly strive for or want. When I die and go to the grave, why not leave it at that. I don’t want any surviving consciousness, or any communications with the dead. Death is like snuffing out a candle. The light is extinguished. Surprisingly, he agreed with me, (I suppose having to deal with people 24/7 would do that to him, LOL). However, I do want to be basically a ‘good’ person while I am alive and not for the reason of a reward of an afterlife. Frankly, to live ‘forever’ has no appeal for me.

So, if a person does not want this promise of an afterlife, do they have to take it? I don’t see anywhere in the Scriptures where this can be arranged, unless of course you choose not to believe, which poses a problem for me.

There are a lot of assholes in the world. Some of them are Christians. Actually, one of them is me, so I guess I won’t be dragged kicking and screaming into heaven.

Not so much reward, as consequence.
Afterlife is the result of the idea that one should still care for the consequences of ones actions that happen beyond ones death.

Weak people will convince themselves that they need to do as little as possible to attain this - a risk free life will lead to their reward, that is how they live, and that is how they face death.

Strong people convince themselves that they need to do more than they really humanly could be expected to do.
They know that the consequences of their actions live on, that their name wil be immortal. That is all they care about, they identify truly with their values and not with their ego which will die, unlike the consequences to their actions.

Strong people know what is solid, basically. Their afterlife is the sort of afterlife that the Jews have, which is the state of Israel, all Earthly.

Sounds degenerate to me.
Do you make your decisions based on what is unlikely or based on what is likely?

We are genetically programmed to believe in futures.

You mean scary.

You mean do I take risks, where homely shut-ins don’t?
Yes. All men do. Even boys.
I don’t know what you are.

No, I mean degenerate.

Making decisions based on what is unlikely is gambling.
Gambling isn’t courage, gambling is foolishness.
You’re confusing the two.

Sure, Maggie.

Some people stake bets on values, no matter how unlikely they seem to be. Other people simple coast through life following the “safe” path, never “gambling” on anything because they’re too afraid of losing.

In nature, males take risks, females are risk averse.
Largely because they are preparing for the huge risk of childbirth.