Thursday, September 16, 2010

To Believe or Not Believe

I was reading a blog post today and it struck a cord with me and now I have to post on it as well. Religion.

It's always been said that politics and religion are two subjects polite people don't really talk about in public especially in mixed company but dammit who ever said I was polite.

Let's talk for a minute people. I am a spiritual and religious person. I strongly believe in God and always will until the day I die. I know that my blessed life is all do to God. I've spent many of my early years in church.

As I've gotten older though, I've become a lot more rational and analytical in my thinking about everything actually. When I was young I had a definite and strong belief that there was an after life. I believed that after you leave this world you'd enter the hereafter, presumably Heaven. If you weren't a nice person then you would be cast into the fiery pits of Hell.

As I've gotten older I've come to realize something.....that makes no sense whatsoever. It just doesn't.

I believe that when you die you are just that, dead. You are in a permanent sleep and that is the end of it. No after life. No Heaven or Hell.

Now, I know some folks are going to say that there is an after life and that we do have a spirit that lives on and they've "seen" their loved one after they have crossed over. I was one of those people. I too thought my father spoke to me once after his death at a very pivotal time in my life. This is what I believe now, I think our subconscious gives us messages at certain times. mostly when we are sleep in the form of dreams. Sometimes, in those dreams we need to identify with an actual person in order to understand and receive those messages. At that time the message will then have someone we recognize, dead or alive so we actually believe that we are being "visited" by this person. I'm not sure if we have souls that live on or not. I'm just not sure.

Think about this....think about some of the dreams you've had in the past. Do you remember some of those dreams where there was a person involved but you could not see a face? Those are times when it wasn't necessary to use a person to relay that message to you at that time.

I could be way off base but these are just my thoughts I've come up with over the years. What are you thoughts or beliefs?


10 People saying stuff:

Red Shoes said...

Wow... very interesting!! I am going to have to think about this... and I may post in response. There is absolutely no evidence to indicate you are wrong.... I think that was one of the foundations of spiritual/religious beliefs... an effort to try to explain what happens to us... to our souls... after death.

The tenet that you have listed is very much in the keeping of Zen Buddhism... You are here... and then you are gone...

Thanks for this post!

~shoes~

Queen-Size funny bone said...

I also feel that when your dead your dead. But I do believe I will live on in others.

khaki la'docker said...

referring to Nc17's blog? if not, you should check it out...

Any way... i've always had mixed feelings about religion and you made a pretty good point about dreams. Crazy that we will never know until we die and even then, we wont be able to come back and tell anyone else.

JStar said...

Well I have a different take on this being that my brother that passed in 1996 has given me CLEAR evidence that there is life after...Before his death he spoke clearly of speaking to God and decribing Heaven and the wanted so badly to go but he didnt want to leave my mom...and since his death, my daughters and step father saw him at the same time and came home and told us...I am not...My ex husband would see him everytime we argued...Not to mention crazy things happening to lights, locked doors opening...Him speaking to his sons mom in a dream telling her the results from two things that happened the day after just as he said it would be so....I could write a book with all the crazy stuff that has happend....Our old house everyone that he died in no one lives there for more than 6 mths...

But everyone has the right to their opinion :) and I respect yours...

JStar said...

Also his son was 3 when he passed...He is now 17 and says that each night his father sits on the edge of his bed and has a conversation with him about whats going on in his life...That my nephew physically see's him...He used to tell us this when he was really young and we didnt believe it...then....but I spoke to my nephew recently and he says that their conversations still take place to this day...

Couture Carrie said...

I am with you, darling!

xoxox,
CC

Karen said...

I am Catholic. I believe in an afterlife. I believe your soul lives of, though I don't really believe we interact with the dead.

OHmommy said...

I find myself doubting more as I grow older. It should be the opposite, no?

Elisa @ Globetrotting in Heels said...

I don't believe in Heaven or Hell but I do believe in the spirit being a separate entity from the body, and that just because the body dies doesn't mean the spirit dies too.

There are proven cases of people remembering past lives, in way too much detail for it to be made up.

But I know it's a topic with lots of opinions one way or another.

What I do believe, when it comes to religion, is tolerance. I think that as long as people have some sort of spiritual/religious belief, good for them. It doesn't have to be mine, or something that works for me, or something I agree on.

Just telling it like it is said...

Hey sweets, you have to believe what is in your heart not what someone else's truth is...