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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Spirituality & Beliefs > Death & The Afterlife

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  #1  
Old 15-07-2015, 04:32 PM
metal68 metal68 is offline
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Are We All Conning Ourselves...

This is where I'm at after 50 plus books that Ive read on it all over the past four months. Still Mr Cynical. I do wonder are we all kidding ourselves deep down. Its unbearable isn't it, losing loved ones, ageing, the thought of ceasing to exist. It wouldn't be surprising would it. Authors making money out of it, a whole growth industry. If there wasn't an afterlife we still would invent one,so how do we know we haven't??

ghosts; still not convincing evidence, not ONE clear photo

NDEs; my own sister had one but they could be purely a mental thing. Same with OBEs and Astral Projection, all brain created.

Mediumship; full of frauds and charlatans. Even then subconscious cold readings, even super psi cant be ruled out

Past Life Regression; sounds convincing but is it? Can people lie under hypnosis? Plus if you go into a regression session, you are expecting one anyway and who knows how far the subconscious mind goes in creating one already?

After Death Communications; again its all subjective, I just don't buy the idea of feathers from the other side.


I really want to believe but there isn't anything that is definitive, that cant be swayed to fit the pov of a sceptic or a believer. Feeling very disillusioned in the search. Too many conflicting things from so called firm sources, too much talk about aliens & sasquatch too! Victor zammit and others like him really mean well but then clearly get taken in by fakery like materialisations conveniently in the dark etc etc

If there is an afterlife, then its part of the universe, surely we can detect it, surely we would be seeing hard evidence?

Anyone else here who thinks we are kidding ourselves?
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  #2  
Old 15-07-2015, 05:36 PM
Adrienne Adrienne is offline
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my my, you are quite the sceptic ! LOL !

funny on your timing of this thread, as I was just recently wondering how much of the above is Mind Games we are playing with ourselves and others ?

then again, there are things I have experienced that I know are true, unbelievable yes ..... but true.

Quote:
Originally Posted by metal68
After Death Communications; again its all subjective, I just don't buy the idea of feathers from the other side.

do not get me started on the topic of after death communciations and feathers from the other side, LOL ! I could write a book on it

I guess all you can do, is take what resonates with you and leave the rest ..........

and not really worry about anyone else and what they believe. Not everyone who writes a book on a topic has all the answers.
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  #3  
Old 15-07-2015, 06:17 PM
Sisyphus Sisyphus is offline
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I have at times experienced similar thoughts as to yourself and cannot recall how many times I too had asked questions like these through life . Looking at life today in the main I believe fear is at the core root that drives the human race.
All things Spiritual could simply be a denial defence system as our unconscious way to protect and disconnect us from the truth. The truth that one day we will no longer exist and that there is no evidence from our seeking and believing our spiritual creations and speculations of what happens next.

However there is only one question that at times seems to challenge this thought and that is where did these thoughts come from? For instance as an example take the belief of their being God and Let’s take the image of the caveman, the caveman who we consider in the beginning lived a life only by basic needs for survival, maybe animal like, uneducated, unaware. If we assume caveman had no concept of a God, then at some point as the caveman evolved how did the concept of God come to be born within the human mind?

I can see argument for the concept of a human becoming aware that they will one day no longer exist, as the human sees evidence of this by watching their fellow human lie down, become unresponsive and would no longer not get up. For the caveman this could trigger a minute seed of fear to be born and grow.

But how a human created the thought of a God through all this fear seems puzzling where the human had gotten this thought? God for some might be seen today as a human creation, created for the purpose to believe that there is something external from us which will save us from this devastating thought of no longer existing.

But 'it is that initial creation of the thought of being God and all that is related of God that can only tell me that God had made himself aware to the human', which tells me God must exist.

Although not hard evidence, but without an argument to prove otherwise this explanation for me seems to be the best form of evidence of there being 'that something else beyond our lives'.
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  #4  
Old 15-07-2015, 06:19 PM
Tobi Tobi is offline
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Metal....You sound like me!

Okay, the best solution I could possibly offer is....have a genuine go at getting out of body. Just try it, and seriously apply yourself to it with an open mind. It might not work for you, I can't say. You might not wish to continue to do it...that's up to you. It might take ages!
It won't answer all your questions. You'll end up with more questions. But what it will do is completely bust through one tiny fragment of what you previously knew as 'reality'. Your life will be changed from that moment on.
You don't even need to go 'far away'. All you need to do is step out of your physical body into your bedroom!
If that happens to you I guarantee it will wow the socks off you. Then once you know for yourself, in your own experience, that something so wacky is actually real, no-one can ever take that away from you.

As for the rest of it....yes there are charlatans around, and scammers. No, none of us knows exactly what happens after 'death', though sometimes we can gain good insights about certain things.
And yes -there IS a huge book industry going on about these things. But that's not all bad.
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  #5  
Old 15-07-2015, 06:43 PM
metal68 metal68 is offline
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I read though that the brain creates a mental map so that is what accounts for OBEs. I don't doubt they seem 100% real but they may still be a very vivid dream. Also they still connect to a living brain so even if they are real do we know that once the power goes off that the OBE doesn't also go off..and with it us. Couldn't the spirit world collectiveley force all its power together and reveal itself. I don't see a need for subterfuge.
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  #6  
Old 15-07-2015, 06:45 PM
metal68 metal68 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Sisyphus
I have at times experienced similar thoughts as to yourself and cannot recall how many times I too had asked questions like these through life . Looking at life today in the main I believe fear is at the core root that drives the human race.
All things Spiritual could simply be a denial defence system as our unconscious way to protect and disconnect us from the truth. The truth that one day we will no longer exist and that there is no evidence from our seeking and believing our spiritual creations and speculations of what happens next.

However there is only one question that at times seems to challenge this thought and that is where did these thoughts come from? For instance as an example take the belief of their being God and Let’s take the image of the caveman, the caveman who we consider in the beginning lived a life only by basic needs for survival, maybe animal like, uneducated, unaware. If we assume caveman had no concept of a God, then at some point as the caveman evolved how did the concept of God come to be born within the human mind?

I can see argument for the concept of a human becoming aware that they will one day no longer exist, as the human sees evidence of this by watching their fellow human lie down, become unresponsive and would no longer not get up. For the caveman this could trigger a minute seed of fear to be born and grow.

But how a human created the thought of a God through all this fear seems puzzling where the human had gotten this thought? God for some might be seen today as a human creation, created for the purpose to believe that there is something external from us which will save us from this devastating thought of no longer existing.

But 'it is that initial creation of the thought of being God and all that is related of God that can only tell me that God had made himself aware to the human', which tells me God must exist.

Although not hard evidence, but without an argument to prove otherwise this explanation for me seems to be the best form of evidence of there being 'that something else beyond our lives'.

I thought ancient man invented gods to account for not knowing how nature & astronomy really worked?
if we've gotten rid of all the old gods through scientific discovery then why wouldn't we get rid of this last one either?
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  #7  
Old 15-07-2015, 07:05 PM
Sisyphus Sisyphus is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by metal68
I thought ancient man invented gods to account for not knowing how nature & astronomy really worked?
if we've gotten rid of all the old gods through scientific discovery then why wouldn't we get rid of this last one either?

I have believed that 'man created gods because man wanted them', to protect them from their thought of non existence.

I had also considered about why man got rid of gods? I believe that with every God man had created, man got rid or no longer valued that god because they could no longer see the value that this god had for them. In other words this god man created could no longer fill the non existence void man carries with them, that this god could no longer provide the belief of protection against the fear of no longer being.

I am referring to sort of God of Christian belief. That is omnipresent, encompassing everything beyond our understanding. I believe we cannot get rid of this God because there is something so deeply buried within our conciousness it can be so hard to reach, possibly while in the human body will never reach it, but a very deep subtle knowing exists amongst the surface of chaotic desperation of fears that surround it, the fears which drive us today being listened to.

If the ancient man invented a god, for me this question that has no answer is how an ancient man came across the thought of god in the beginning?. When you consider the theory of the caveman in the very beginning and his level of knowledge or none.

Because I cannot find the answer to this and I expect most, if not all of the human race, may experience the same, for me tells me that we were touched by god's conciousness as a way of finding some form of explanation. I cannot prove it. but cannot see how a human could create the thought of god unless it had been given him.
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  #8  
Old 15-07-2015, 07:13 PM
metal68 metal68 is offline
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Isnt a God filling the void? Ancient Man must have had an imagination, so could he have exercised it and come up with a more powerful version of himself to explain how the sky & earth all worked. I don't see how its difficult for anyone to imagine God?
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  #9  
Old 15-07-2015, 07:28 PM
Sisyphus Sisyphus is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by metal68
Isnt a God filling the void? Ancient Man must have had an imagination, so could he have exercised it and come up with a more powerful version of himself to explain how the sky & earth all worked. I don't see how its difficult for anyone to imagine God?

Once a seed of thought is introduced into the mind its understandable that this thought could begin to grow into man's imagination. How man takes this thought and develops it could be that the seed falls into mans fear of non existence. Man then could grow this seed into creating a god that they believe would exist to save them from extinction, to believe they will continue and be saved after death.

It could be that (lets call whatever our creator is as 'God'). Made an awareness within our conciousness of gods existence or that we became aware of gods existence deep within us because being made from god we connect back with that which is of the same. This was where man became aware. I believe sadly in an instant Man then distorted the truth and the distortion was because man lives in fear.
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  #10  
Old 15-07-2015, 07:35 PM
MysticalShaman MysticalShaman is offline
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Have you ever had any personal experiences that shattered your belief in everything you know?

I used to be a total skeptic, still am in many ways. Not one for "paranormal phenomena" or aliens or anything. I've other understandings of what they are.

Perhaps everything is a dream. Perhaps nothing is real, or perhaps this is the only thing that's real. Can we ever really be sure? I'm not so certain. I think we can think we know, but we will never really know.

It's good to question things :) But it's also good to get your own experiences, and forget the books every once in a while. Have you tried open-eye meditations? Or meditation in general?
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