what happens after we die?

My friend's dad passed away from a stroke this afternoon, after being in a coma for a day. He was only 42.
This made me think about our own mortality.

Is it just black, with no "life" after death, like how science puts it?




Or,

Is it like what religion tells us, with a "heaven" and "hell"




Or,

are we born again?



pls note: this is supposed to be serious. no flaming of other religions or customs or culture here. Just want to find out what you guys think.

I personally believe in reincarnation. Maybe not as much in a religious meaning as in that I fail to imagine non-existence or a happy-go-lucky paradise in the clouds.

I mean, lets say that non-existence is right. How would that be? It's not like you'll spend an eternity seeing black? You can't even think, or see for that matter, since you do not exist. Your consciousness has to go somewhere, or at least that is what I think. To me, imagine how non-existence would be is like imagining the size of the universe, after a while your head start to hurt since you realize that there might not be an end, but that is in itself also impossible!

So I chose to believe in reincarnation in that way that, when you die, your consciousness moves to another body. Or rather, you become a new consciousness in a new living being. Whether a soul or nirvana etc is involved in this, I do not give a damn or believe in, but I do think that when we die, we awake again as a new living being. Whether or not that is as a human might just be luck though.

I consider myself agnostic, borderline atheist, and as such, I think there is a whole bunch of nothing, no sins or atonement involved. So live it up while you can.

I honestly don't know. I'd love to believe that there's an afterlife, that his consciousness, this sense of self, gets to go on, that "I" the entity will not simply cease to exist. But...I can't honestly say that I believe that to be a possibility.

I think you die, and that is it.

I think you are stuck in a dream forever.

Nothing happens, and even if something does happen only the dead know about it so there's no point in discussing the endless possibilities.

Though my religion promotes the belief that there is an afterlife.
I just can't help to think that "what if that isn't true?"
And I could worry for hours on that simple, complicated subject which is Death.

I can think of two things, heaven or hell.

We all go into a Milky Way milkshake.

And thats the hippies view of afterlife.

It's all about the Alternative Realities. In another universe i couldve probably already died and gone on, but in my universe Im still alive. Personally i have no idea what death is like, i could've already found that out in another universe where i go out and kill myself. Though in this universe i have no plans to kill myself. Also everytime i had a neardeath experience, i thought to myself what if i died right there in another universe and im just in the universe where i kept on living. Does that mean Each person has there own unique universe? Even if someone dies, did they really die or are they in another universe living. In my universe of course they cleary died but in other universes did they really? Other than this, death is just unknown phenomenon that wont be solved until a person actually experiences it. Who knows what will happen, us being human can question it many times over. So as many people have said you just got to live your life.

When you die you're dead...

...and that's it.

The living however can't deal with that. Day after day, they still remember you. They hear your voice, see you in the places where you lived and worked. Everything screams that you *are*, the whole world is a reminder.

So they can't accept that you *aren't*. Everything in their mind tells otherwise. So they believe because it's easier. Because it means that the world just makes a tad bit more sense. Because it seems like there's something to *it* after all.

I don't believe. I never could. I wonder and I damn well suspect and question...
...and for all it's inherent "goodness" and the "reassurance that I can't screw up" (cause in some form I can go on *even after death*) that an afterlife promises I don't want it.

One life is pretty hard to live, never mind an eternity.

LOL In about 90 years you guys will all be dead forevahr!

And as for the topic question, nobody can tell for sure what happens so best thing to do is to enjoy your life while you can, and eventually you'll find out yourself.

I like this type of thinking. People seem to just put "I beleive once you die you *blank*." And fill the blank with: go to Heaven/Hell, Reincarnate, Nothing Happens, etc. . . Just trying to put some sense in death, when in the end its pretty easy to understand. "When you die you're dead... ...and that's it.", which isn't this just a way to deal with death eaiser? It just shows that each person has there own way to deal with death. Mine is, There is many different possibilities that can happen and to soley believe in one is surely a mistake. Understand that you will never Understand

I have no idea what happens after we die.

Personally, it's getting hard to believe in some sort of judgment day at the end of your life by an powerful being, God if you will.

I guess what you think happens after you die is up to you to decide. No one has confirmed some sort of afterlife, nor have they confirmed that absolutely nothing happens spiritually.

After you die, a man at a door asksyou to pick a number between 1 and 10, and f you get it right, you get to live again. If not, you're dead. Forever.

And if you guess a number below 1 or above 10, you get sent to a feiry place forever.

neing born again IS a religion... just a different one other then Christianity

Belief does not equal religion. Being born again is a part of some religions, but that does not mean that believing in reincarnation is a religious belief.

This is more reasonable than most people give credit for!

You know, if this were true I'd bet he's a jackass and the number is something irrational like "pi", or "e". I love befuddling people by answering with "square-root two" to questions like these. They never told me I can only use natural numbers.