I believe that our personality is imprinted in our brain and that when our brain dies that our personality will die with it. We can always write journals and memoirs that will keep our personalities alive after our bodies die though.

Hi crazyheart.......God bless you....

 

I believe that the Essence of God is put in our minds when God makes us in the womb...then as we grow and age...other parts of our mind are subject to the sin (worse/enemy) things of the world...this is just another reason why Jesus died on the Cross so with His help we can defeat the sin (means off the mark with God)...thus working our way to redemption...sin perfected...God causes us to inherit substance , love , peace, joy , goodness, compassion, honesty, righteousness, wisdom, knowledge, purpose, kindness ........these bonds  are what travel with us along with our memories...when we end our journey here and begin a new one after we leave this world.......

 

IJL:bg

Hmm...makes you wonder about people with no god in their lives that are every bit the same as these god-filled people you seem to write about.  Someone's wrong somewhere.

Well personality is formed through all the experiences we have in our lives, mainly the first 10 years or so. I bet there is some dna part of it too though: calm baby, pain in the butt baby.

 

WHen we die our personality can be preserved in what we leave behind, and in bits in the people who we affected in our lives.

How many moons can you see from your planet?

If our brain burns its memories in the form of a hologram into inverse space and reverse time, then the memory body could conceivably survive the death of its physical body, and continue to exist independently of it, as a hologram in inverse space.

 

This, of course, presupposes the existence of three-dimensionally inverse space and reverse time, as well as the capacity of the brain to burn its memories holographically into inverse space.

 

These are big "ifs," but I believe it to be so, until and unless proven otherwise.

Yes, Atheisto, I know. I imagine that the neurons or synaptic connections of our brain are firing off lasers that leap in inward quantum leaps into inverse space and record our memory in the form of a hologram.

 

Leapin' lasers!, eh? 

Perhaps the problem lays in asking the question "why".  When one asks "why", one assumes that there is indeed a "reason" or "meaning" behind it all.  This, as I've suggested, is a function of the ego.  The thought that we are somehow special in the universe is a delusion.

"Men have had the vanity to pretend that the whole universe was made for them, whilst in reality the whole universe does not suspect their existence." (Camille Flammarion)

"We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a 'higher' answer, but none exists." (Stephen Jay Gould)

Please explain why you require an afterlife in order for this life to have meaning.  For me, the fact that this life is temporary, makes it all the more meaningful.

 
Firstly, I don't have any "beliefs" as one does with faith.
Of course she doesn't have to let my comments affect her, but what if they actually affected her in a positive way? Should she also not let them affect her in that case?  How are you to know that any affect of what I might say would be positive or negative?
Should we all stick our heads in the sand until we hear viewpoints that agree with what we already believe?  I know that the very few people who said things to me a long time ago which played a role in causing me to snap out of the delusion of christianity was, in retrospect, a great thing.

Absolute nonsense.  If I believe that there are unicorns, is that "true for me"?  No, it is not true no matter how much I want it to be so.  This is not the approach we take in any other area of knowing, so why does it apply here?  No rational person is "agnostic" about the existence of unicorns, leprechauns, dragons, gnomes, etc. Why is the god concept granted a special status?

See: relativist fallacy:

http://www.answers.com/topic/relativist-fallacy?method=26&initiator=FFANS

Really?!?!  Who?  Why are they being so secretive?

Couldn't they at least try?  Or is it not possible or probable that they have merely had an emotional experience, a function of brain activity, and nothing more?

You're probably right, but as we have been shown over time (and through the hard work of science) that everything unknown that was attributed to the supernatural, has been, and continues to be explained in naturalistic terms, isn't it reasonable that this trend of discovery will continue?  Do you really feel that all of the religious/supernatural explanations which have been painted into such a tiny corner will one day be heralded as correct after all?  I don't think so.  You would need to display that certain things cannot and will not be explained by science, and this is where you run into an absolute buzz-saw.

 

 

If you went to certain parts of the Middle East you might be surrounded by children of Allah who would like nothing more than to disembowel you.  In India you might be surrounded by children of Ganesh or something....somewhere else maybe Buddah....or perhaps atheists.  Not so long ago in certain parts of the world you'd be surrounded by little pygmies who would quite happily eat you.  Would your god supply the seasoning?

Oh....and for an above post...these mystics....would the modern day equivalent be David Blaine?  Just asking because the man is an ass and I wouldn't listen to anything he had to say.

So you are Allah's child too?

and Ganesh?

 quite possibly that is what we're enjoying, but the name we give to that connection is God- now - maybe that sounds like I'm reaching...

who knows.  There is a connection between living creatures who come together in respect & love & an attempt to make the world a better place.  It can be quite powerful, it can be quite uplifting, or bring us to tears as it lays clear what has been missed.  The vision of people coming together for good, in the name of that goodness, is inspiring to reach for more, in an intergenerational way that no Rotary club or Boy Scouts has been able to replicate.  Churches don't get it right all the time but when it happens, and it is not excluding other people (yes it happens sometimes!!!!) - that is God - that is Spirit.

 

I'm adding this comment - when church excludes people, or demands belief in doctrines, it is likely that as many people are leaving/jaded, as are finding support.  That is not what I count as an effective church.

 

I haven't had time yet to read what everyone has written, but to me the question of "where" personality goes, seems a bit illogical. It's a bit like asking someone what colour the sound of an orchestra is. An even better analogy would be to ask where your breathing goes when you die. It just stops. In life, it is a continuous process, when you die it ceases.

 

I guess my experience with personality is that it comes down to a wide variety of beliefs, behaviours and life experiences that is always in flux while you are alive. When you are not alive, that is over. Calling these things "personality" is just giving it a convenient name, but personality exists as much within our interactions with others as within ourselves. If other people were not around, would we have a personality? I think not. So I don't think we have a personality after we die.

 

Oddly enough, I still don't think of this as the death of the soul or of afterlife. I will have to think more on this and read the rest of the thread.

Hi Atheisto: So you are a spiritual atheist after all. I knew it!

 

Next things you'll tell me to drop the "spiritual."  Just "atheist" will do.

 

Fine by me, Atheisto.

 

Your personality is not a "thing", but a continuous process that shapes and is shaped by your relationships/interactions with everything and everyone else in the world (to varying degrees, of course). It may be seeded--no pun intended--by your genes, of course, but your genes merely seed the initial conditions and set constraints (some hard, some soft) upon how your personality can change/grow throughout your life.

 

Your personality does not have a definite boundary; it may originate from your body and your mind, but it can also be found in the works that you perform or in the friendships you foster. When you die, the drip-dip-drop in your pond of personality stops, but the ripples remain, and surface in whomever you influenced in life. Your pond eventually settles, with time, your ripples lost/found in the sea of humanity.

CH,

 

I don't know aboot you, but I think we all end up at Las Vegas where we all get to strutt our stuff as SHOW GIRLS!!!

 

Glitter alla way,

Inannawhimsey

 

ps. Either that, or the "Foreign Section" in G_d's Blockbuster movies...

Ergo: I like how you put it. You and I see eye to eye.

 

Arminius: I like the hologram idea too. I read that black holes can possibly record the information of all the things that fall into them, perhaps there could be some imprint of us folded away in the higher dimentions of space too. Maybe. With multiple universes, anything's possible.  That does sound kindof supernatural though doesn't it! To think of personalities being plucked out of the ether to manifest once more! Sounds very Doctor Who!

 

 

Hello everyone....God bless you....

 

atheisto....I too believe as crazyheart...that God is in each one of us...and that sooner or later it will be revealed one way or the other....just my thougths.....

 

I dont believe we have to believe in an afterlife in order to live life here..but I do believe that what we learn here will be retained in our souls, minds, hearts and spirit and will pass over with us at the end of our journey here...this makes it really exiciting to think about...just how God will use all that He has taught me not only here ...but in the place to come....

 

IJL:bg

I'm going to haunt you for this, LumbyLad!

 

In our community, personalities are recycled with mulch.

 
Yes.  So are dogs & cats.  Why do you think we are different and unique from the other carbon-based life forms on this planet?  Why do you insist that we are the apple of some deity's eye?

 
Why darker?  That seems pessimistic.  The simple explanation is that we are shaped by the environment that we grow up in.

What heaven?  That's a wild, fantastical belief you have.  Why do you hold that belief?  Is it possible that you picked it up from your upbringing or environment?

If, in your dream-based heaven scenerio, a god of some sort is influencing our personalities, how exactly does that work?  Does he force it upon you?  Do you have free will in this claimed heaven?  If so, how different is that from life here on earth?  Is it the same heaven that Muslims believe they are going to to meet the same Abrahamic god?  Will you get 72 virgins too - or is that just for the Muslims?

I'd really like to hear the reasons for your beliefs.