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An afterlife assumes death. Every soul who comes to this "life" plane is on a journey. They come with, I'll call them, "energetic" soul issues which can be resolved. The whole point of "life" is to recognize accept and deal with these very personal issues, these energies that we come into this "life" with. Everyone around you is a mirror of these issues. Those you like, those you don't like, those you love etc. They are attracted to you like a magnet and you get to deal with them. That's why I used the term "energetic" issues. To take this one step further - we talk about death - and then we personalize it to ourselves - fully knowing that in many ways we are independent - our bodies are independent of each other, including our minds. At the spiritual level we are all one, yet at the "manifestation level" we "appear" separate. So my question is this - we have all seen others die or be dead - then through logic we personalize it to "I will die." That's like seeing your neighbor have a f weeks? All these things are fully documented, yet we resist. We call that fantasy. It seems as humans we are in love with our ability to suffer. I'm not suggesting that our loved ones don't die. I'm not suggesting that we should not grieve for them and move on. I'm suggesting that we look at the logic of what we are doing. Our own logic is inconsistent and we don't even see it. I have an answer to this and that is: that the inconsistency is driven by our own emotional intensity. That as humans - our emotional aspects cause us to cease to be logical. Such is the complexity of the human being. Having written this I'm not suggesting that we live only by logic - I would suggest that we manifest ideas. The idea that we will die has power just as the Dick Tracy watch did. As Rabbi Wolpe said - we live the good life, not because we will get a reward, but because we support good for itself. Living from this perspective makes death and an afterlife anachronistic, useless, other than to divide the real [email cut-off] Mike I believe death to be a deep sleep, where you have no knowledge or awareness of anything. That one day, God will return to this earth. That there will be a great ressurection of the faithful dead and the caughting up of those who are alive to live with God forever. Moreover, their will be a judgement of the wicked or unfaithful after this event. By the grace of God, I hope the words I will hear when I get to heaven are "well done, welcome home". melanie roberts The Bill Moyers program was tremendous, but the Ray Suarez program was utter nonsense. There is nothing after death. Death is the end, over and out. Illinois The Bible says that everyone will spend eternity in either heaven or hell and the Bible is the Word of God who cannot lie. Individually, we have to choose where we want to live forever. The only way to go heaven is to accept God's Son Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. The story of salvation can be told in four words: Sin,Calvary,Faith and Life. 1. Salvation is needed. "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Romans 3:23). 2. Salvation is provided. "Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness--- by whose stripes you were healed" (1 Peter 2:24). 3. Salvation is offered. "For by grace you have been saved by faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8). 4. Salvation accepted. "He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son does not have life" (1 John 5:12). If you desire to know for sure that you will spend eternity in Heaven after you die, then pray this prayer with sincerity: Lord Jesus, Thank You for loving me and coming to earth to show us the way. I believe You died to pay for my sin and You were raised from the dead to give me eternal life. I want to turn from my sin and place my faith in You right now. Please come into my life and be my Savior and Lord. Show me how to live and help me to follow You always. In Your name I pray. Amen. Jeff We are Baha'i's and in our study of all religions and our belief in one God we find common thread in the expectations of life after death. The purpose of our earthly life is to develope our spiritual values so as to be acceptable to God and to continue to develope and also be of assistance to souls still in the earthly world. Joe and Marjorie Paik I do not know what is going to happen to me after I die. I am a rabbi. Like many Jews, I do not believe in life after death. I do not feel cheated because I was not alive for an eternity before I was born. I do not feel cheated because I think I will not be alive for an eternity after I die. I think the purpose of life is to live as good a life as I can and to relieve as much human (and other animal) suffering as I can which I am still alive. All of my original family have died and I have many life-threatening illnesses but my view has not changed. Jewish tradition taeches: "Do not serve the master for the sake of a reward." I have directed that all my usable organs be used for organ transplanation and the remained of my body be used for medical research; that my corpse be cremated and the the cremains be used for fertilizer. Dick I believe that there must be some sort of life after the physical body dies, but as Wolpe said, it is undoubtedly beyond our earthly imagination. Anything we can imagine has at its core something that we have knowledge or experience of . . . what we can't imagine is truly something beyond our understanding. I do believe that it is something benevolent. I was at my father's bedside as he died, and although he appeared to be totally unresponsive to the external environment, moments before he breathed his last breath a small smile softened his drawn features. I feel certain he was seeing or experiencing something that pleased him and brought him peace and contentment. Florence I was very disappointed that you did not have a Christian on your program that would present a case for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. We know nothing about life after death other than what is revealed to us. God, in raising Jesus Christ from the dead, has revealed to us that life after death is a reality. If Jesus did not rise from the dead, then we are still in darkness and there is no hope. I respect anyone's right not to believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, but I do not respect your failure to present the evidence for His resurrection. I do hope that we will do more to help people experience support during the days leading up to death. I appreciated much of your program, but to fail to tell a dying person of God's love in Jesus Christ and the hope offered in HIm is a terrible travesty. John There is no cure for birth or death, save to enjoy the interval. George Santayana l863-1952. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, and hell of heaven. Milton l608-74. Of course there is God, it takes very little reasoning to know He is. I believe he is Love and sent his only son Jesus Christ as an ultimate act of His love for us. I believe in heaven, and an afterlife with Him, extinct of all sorrow. Phyllis Sprado I believe that there is one God who has revealed Himself through Jesus. The one mistake that I could have made, which I believe God saved me from is thinking I could earn my way to heaven. The rabbi on the show essentially said that everyone knows they aren't perfect and could do a better. I agree. The Bible says that all fall short of the glory of God. I believe the Bible when it states that we can't do enough good to repay our evil deeds(sins) which require separation from God. The Bible says Jesus came to die for us and that ALL we must do is believe in Him and what He did and repent from our evil ways(change our minds about doing wrong and giving Him our lives). This is what the Biblical Christian view holds... that Jesus is as He says, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6 (also see John 10:1-10) Love to you all and God Bless. Jonathan Rabbi David Wolpe's statement "The aim of life is not to know whether there is immortality, but to live so that you deserve it" says it all. The prayer of St.Francis relates an approach to live so you can deserve it. Thank you Rabbi Wolpe for sharing your wisdom and counsel. Roberto I do tend to believe that there is an afterlife, but I wonder where cremation fits in--I tend to believe that the soul has already gone on and it is only the body(the housing) that is being cremated. Any thoughts on this? Maryland I do KNOW there is an afterlife. There is no doubt in in my mind about the topic. The questions and concerns that i have are about what lies after death. I think that there is no actuall GOD who sits on a throne ready to judge us after we die. I believe that the universe and this everything around us work in a harmony that is to hard for our minds to comprehend. I think that we as humans have a soul which sometimes can be called the concious mind. We all know the difference between right and wrong. Our job is to live life to it's fullist with what we have. I do not know if we come back or not, but i think that we are guided along this life in many shapes and forms. Some people who psycologists call "schizophrenics" see things and here things that none of us can understand and sudenly it is called a disease. But there is more out there than we can see with our physical eyes. I am not sure what lies there after i die. I just hope that i can live my life to it's fullist before i get there. Brian I rejoice to see how people are blessing one another, building community here -- and hereafter? -- learning as well as we can to let go of resentment, to practice kindness, to meet another person with trust, to live in the light of death, to face dying with as much steadiness as we can. Whoever may read this, I bless you, for we belong together in peace. Robert I am a Christian and believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. As a believer I anticipate meeting Christ on my death and meeting all of my loved ones who have gone before. If I did not believe, I would have found it very difficult to continue life after the death of my spouse. 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