What do you think happens when we die?

[servodude]

I believe the traditional Catholic teaching on what happens.

I believe that after death every person will face their own judgement by God, and then they will either enter Heaven, Purgatory, or separation from God.

Fair enough, but why do you believe that?

RC

Because it is a fundamental part of Catholic teaching and the Catholic Faith.

Yes it was wasn't it.

There's certainly a plausibility that I remember from being instructed in catechism and I remember the comfort it gave many I know.

Some of it though was (literally) beaten in to myself.
Which if you think about it seems strangely like a sinful way for a Jesuit to behave.. but they were pretty adamant that the only sin that cannot be forgiven is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, so I suppose they had a plan to indulge their way out if it.
But it certainly gave me pause to consider what I was being told by them

-sd

[stewamax]

CK’s original post was What do you think happens when we die?, rather than ‘do you believe in God’.
Given that Natural Selection over umpteen millennia has evolved us to relate to things on what to us is a ‘normal’ scale and not to those on the subatomic scale for example, it may be that we simply cannot understand what will happen when we die.

Mathematical physicists can predict accurately the behaviour of the subatomic world using quantum mechanics, but don’t understand ‘how’ it works and certainly cannot explain it because it has no analogue on the scale of things we do understand. How for example can we relate to something that can be a particle and a wave, and be in several places at the same time and change state depending on whether we observe it?

And there is no agreement or even outline understanding about the true nature of time. We understand what time means to us – ‘something’ within which events succeed one another and things tend to become more disordered unless energy is expended to prevent it – but the fundamental nature of time still eludes physicists.

The question ‘what happens when we die’ is of a similar nature but is much harder to answer as, by definition, there it is nothing whatever we can relate to. And the question assumes a flow of time of the sort we can relate to: ‘now we are alive; then we are dead’. But what actually happens depends on the real nature of time. It is a bit like the mental gymnastics involved in asking what happened before the Big Bang: as we mentally move backwards in time and approach it, time slows and ultimately stops. So to non-physicists it is a pointless question.

As evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane once remarked: “the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose”
The same applies to OP’s question I believe.

[MrFoolish]

And why do we pray for those that have died? What possible sense would it make for a fair God to pay attention to such things? Will God say "Ah good point, hadn't thought of that... will take it into account" ?

[stewamax]

And why do we pray for those that have died? What possible sense would it make for a fair God to pay attention to such things? Will God say "Ah good point, hadn't thought of that... will take it into account" ?

Praying for the souls of the dead is customary in the Church of Rome.

But Anglicans - the extreme Anglo-Catholic wing apart - do not pray for the souls of the dead and never have, mainly because Anglicans do not believe in purgatory so there is no need for 'get out of jail' prayers or intercessions.
It is acceptable to make a wish: a common formal one is 'may X rest in peace and rise in glory' and/or 'may light perpetual shine upon him/her' but that is as far as it goes.

[1nvest]

Mathematical physicists can predict accurately the behaviour of the subatomic world using quantum mechanics, but don’t understand ‘how’ it works and certainly cannot explain it because it has no analogue on the scale of things we do understand. How for example can we relate to something that can be a particle and a wave, and be in several places at the same time and change state depending on whether we observe it?

In my layman eyes I just consider things to be like a electro-magnetic wave, self sustaining in free space, sometimes electrical (wave), sometimes magnetic (mass), sometimes zero (cross-over) non existent at that point in time/space. The faster you go the slower time ticks, at the speed of light time stops (singularity), but kinetic/potential energy type effects then pulls in the other direction to slow it down, re-introduce time, space and existence.

Everything we do is recorded in the universe for all of time, radiating out, which will influence points in space time according to the sum of all of the radiations meeting at a single point in space/time. A will I have tea or coffee decision may be influenced by a radiation effect of a exploding star a million light years away influencing my brain to bias a coffee choice outcome whereas without that event I might have opted for tea. Which would mean we're not free thinking but pre-determined - destined. If you could measure all in-bound radiations that were due to arrive at a single point in space/time, the sum of all of those would predict what effect/action that point of time would induce. Repeated for a number or all of space/time points and you could predict the broader knock on effects ...etc. God (universe) sees/knows all that has been, and that is to come. Life is a vibe man. [Why are post 2016 hippies against capitalism? Because money doesn't grow on trees (plastic notes) ].

[AWOL]

Decomposition possibly interrupted by incineration, unless incineration is the cause of death in which case decomposition pre-empted by incineration, possibly due to a pre-emptive strike ordered by an angry little man in Moscow.

[monabri]

We go to Swansea, Edwin?

(The League of Gentlemen)

[tjh290633]

Moderator Message:
I have removed several posts impinging on religious matters which have been reported as offensive. Please stick to the topic subject. Disparaging other religions is not permitted.

TJH

[ten0rman]

I haven't read all the messages, and I've only just come across this thread. But, an early posting reminded me about an "event" that occurred many years ago concerning our dog.

Now, said dog, a rather large black labrador, was getting on a bit, indeed he was 11 when he died. At the time of his death, I was busy bringing a house up to a reasonable standard before we moved in, and most days the dog accompanied me.

The afternoon before he died, he got up from where he was laid down and came to me. I was rather busy and pushed him away. He slunk away, slunk being the only way I could describe it, but it was so different to his normal attitude that I actually paused what I was doing and watched him.

At that time we were living with my daughter and son-in-law and when the dog & I went back "home", the dog, as usual, laid down in front of the fire - until my son-in-law came home, when he (the dog) got up and went to greet him, something he had never done before.

The following morning the dog was dead.

So, did the dog know of his own demise? I've seen reports from other people saying much the same, ie that their dog seemed to know it's time had come. But it does seem strange that my dog did two things totally differently. Was he, in his own way, saying goodbye? Obviously I'll never know, but it does make me wonder.

I have to admit that ever since I have been sorry that I pushed him away.

Regards,

ten0rman

[nimnarb]

In some ways, I equate death with sleep.

I fall asleep at night and I am "dead to the world".

Luckily, so far, I have awoken every morning, and barring dreaming, I might as well have been dead in the sense that I was totally unaware of anything and everything.

I've always assumed death will be like this. It's just how one gets there which could be the worry. Sudden and painless, or long and drawn out, with plenty of time to ponder such things...

Just came across this interesting thread started by CK, normally I would show no interest but as you get older, one starts to wonder. Nobody has brought up the dreaming aspect? You mention "I might as well have been dead, barring dreaming".

So we go to sleep each night, have a few dreams, some good, some bad, some absolute nightmares. What if we are judged on our behaviour since birth and the good dream was heaven, the bad was hell, the nightmares, well, it's meet the devil time! Suppose, one has a heart attack but does not wake up, yet finds himself in bed with blonde triplets(and no Viagra needed) permanently.....huge smile(what a good boy I've been) or dies of raging haemorrhoids and finds himself in Prison with convicted perverts......so depending on the life one has lived this can be good to devil time. Ladies, excuse the male refs here, just change it around for yourselves!

In other words, you, me, if dead,(buried or incinerated by others) wouldn't know we are dead, but our dreams(soul?) live on and could judgement day live on in your dreams, permanently? I'm hoping personally to have the triplets scenario but have a feeling that's not going to happen, so if this theory is remotely plausible, pray(prey) tell...

Are you heaven, hell or something indescribable

[scrumpyjack]

Dust to dust and ashes to ashes

[Mike4]

My own view is that there may well be some sort of 'intelligent design' responsible for the way our corner of this universe works, especially when one looks at quantum physics. I'm quite taken with the (somewhat mischievous) suggestion that the God, intelligent designer or whoever designed our world never really expected us to get down to particle level so didn't see the need to make sub-atomic particles obey a coherent set of rules like it made the bigger bits and pieces do.

But I digress. Even if there is/was an intelligent designer who some might call "God" then to me it seems an unbridgeable gap to extrapolate that to the existence of Heaven and Hell, that we are all sinners and must have faith, and repent in order to enter the kingdom of God. What a load of ol' codswallop.

And getting right back on topic, given I did not seem to exist before being conceived I can see no particular reason preventing me from reverting to that same state at some point in the future.