Can there be an afterlife without any sort of God?

[Lourdes]

Originally Posted by sarek

You are God. As am I.

The distinction between 3d physical life and other dimensions is an illusion, which you have personally created in order to be able to experience. Death is merely the end of that illusion.

This is brilliantly put. I couldn't have said it any better myself.

Originally Posted by sarek

You are God. As am I.

The distinction between 3d physical life and other dimensions is an illusion, which you have personally created in order to be able to experience. Death is merely the end of that illusion.

I find this interesting, the illusion bit... Could you or someone who "gets" this better than I do, clarify please... I'm really finding others points of view on an afterlife fascinating...

Dear you,

I don't know of anyone that has written about that. I would have loved to have suggested a book to you but I can't.

I believe there is a afterlife where there is no God. And now I remember, Neale Donald Walsh suggested it in his book Conversations with God. He imagined it to be a place where one divine spirit had the capability to split into infinite amounts of spirits that then lived and were viable. I like his version of the one-spirit-that has split.

I believe that that is possible.

Hope this could help. Good luck with your search.

Sibylle

metal68,

I agree with much of what is said by RyanWind and Sarek. I would add to this the notion of subjectivity and perception. The word "God" is just a label - how do you know that you actually do not already believe in something that others refer to as "God"?

I am agnostic because I accept the human state of uncertainty. As long as we are in this separated state, as individuals (regardless of whether we consider that to be an illusion) we see existence subjectively.

If you do not actually have a word for what others call "God" then so be it. I do not think it really matters.

When I meditate I feel that I am one with universal consciousness. If people wish to call that "God" then I have no problem with that. Maybe sometimes I do not always feel that I am connected to that universal consciousness (but I most likely am). I am not in a constant state of meditation. Once I do put myself in that meditation state though, I feel the connection.

My agnosticism is in relation to the way in which certain things need to be experienced to be understood. I do not worry so much about the label, I am more concerned with the experience.

[metal68]

About 60/40 at the moment on an afterlife, in favour, based on the science done, am particularly impressed with Michael Newton's work

In terms of God, as in a single divine being, am finding it more unlikely than ever to believe in that. Possibly more advance beings/consciousness but God, Jesus etc, I think is a man made construct.

[LadyMay]

Well, I think it depends how you define God... for me I define it as consciousness, but seen another way that could be considered atheistic because it's not personal. I don't believe there was a creator, I just believe everything has always been, and it has always been evolving itself, expanding through its extensions which are us. There is no particular one consciousness that governs because we all do, we create this reality together. I believe in the afterlife, but I see it as true reality, I see this physical dimension as a game like you referred to on your other thread. We are all God... does that make me Pantheist? No idea! :) I can believe whatever I want, and whatever I want will come true. If I want to believe in a personal God that's what I will manifest for myself... doesn't make it not real but doesn't make it real either.... I believe ultimately we set the rules for ourselves, but we don't always remember. It really just depends on how you see it, how you approach your beliefs, how you play with them.

[wolfgaze]

Originally Posted by ScarlettHayden

Well, I think it depends how you define God... for me I define it as consciousness, but seen another way that could be considered atheistic because it's not personal. I don't believe there was a creator, I just believe everything has always been, and it has always been evolving itself, expanding through its extensions which are us. There is no particular one consciousness that governs because we all do, we create this reality together. I believe in the afterlife, but I see it as true reality, I see this physical dimension as a game like you referred to on your other thread. We are all God... does that make me Pantheist? No idea!

I have pretty much the same perception/perspective... I have wondered if someone might label me an 'atheist' since I do not subscribe to the notion of a personal 'god'/deity...

As far as labels are concerned, I've found that 'pandeism/pandeist' most closely aligns with how I found myself perceiving/feeling:
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandeism

[metal68]

I can relate to that, the Universe itself as God.

[wolfgaze]

I know that the below passage is quite verbose and 'intellectual' sounding, but I'm going to share it anyways because it contains elements which may stimulate contemplation & discussion:

"The first of these is the activity that splits the original undifferentiated unity of Absolute Consciousness into infinite numbers of derived units of consciousness.* The Universal Mind engages in a creative play that involves complicated sequences of divisions, fragmentation, and differentiations.* This finally results in experiential worlds that contain countless separate entities endowed with specific forms of consciousness and possess selective self-awareness.* There seems to be general agreement that these come into being by multiple divisions and subdivisions of the originally undivided field of cosmic consciousness.* The divine thus does not create something out of itself, but by transformations within the field of its own being.*

The second important element in the process of creation is a unique form of partitioning, dissociation, or forgetting through which the filial conscious entities progressively and increasingly lose contact with their original source and the awareness of their pristine nature.* They also develop a sense of individual identity and absolute separateness from each other.* In the final stages of this process, intangible but relatively impermeable screens exist between these split-off units and also between each of them and the original undifferentiated pool of Absolute Consciousness.

The relationship between Absolute Consciousness and its parts is unique and complex and cannot be understood in terms of conventional thinking and ordinary logic. Our common sense is telling us that a part cannot simultaneously be the whole and that the whole, being an assembly of its parts, has to be larger than any of its components. In the universal fabric, separate units of consciousness, in spite of their individuality and specific differences, remain on another level essentially identical with their source and with each other. They have a paradoxical nature, being wholes and parts at the same time. The invention of optical holography has provided a useful model for scientific approach to these otherwise incomprehensible aspects of creation.

The insights from the research of holotropic states of consciousness portray existence as an astonishing play of the cosmic creative principle that transcends time, space, linear causality, and polarities of any kind. From this perspective, the worlds of phenomena, including the material world, appear to be 'virtual realities' generated by technology of consciousness - by an infinitely complex orchestration of experiences. They exist on many different levels of reality, ranging from undifferentiated Absolute Consciousness through rich pantheons of archetypal beings to countless individual units constituting the world of matter, all seemingly taking place within undifferentiated Consciousness itself." - The Cosmic Game (Stanislav Grof M.D.)

[metal68]

This reminds me of Tom Campbells My Big TOE - boy, that was ard work to read!!