THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING (Life after Death)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Life after Death
Date:	02/03/02 (200 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: This is a deep subject

Disadvantages: There will be a million differing opinions

***Watching the skies at 3am***

For time immemorial, man will ponder why we are here. How many times have you looked up at the stars in the night sky and tried to take in the enormity of everything? They say that there are as many stars as there are grains of sand on every beach on Earth. If it takes thousands of lifetimes to reach just one then our place in the grand scheme of things is infinitesimal. Yet we try to create a kind of immortality by theorising over a perpetual existence beyond our physical years.

***Religions and their politics***

Life after death is a subject central to our whole being. For thousands of years organised religion has painted its own picture of what this might look like. For many Christians life after death looks likes Heaven (or Hell or even Purgatory). For Muslims the credo of Allah and the prophet Mohammed over shadow their daily lives in many ways. Almost every race regardless of differentials such as skin colour has its own belief system embedded over many years.

Mostly, these religions preach values that assist the fabric of society and foster a peaceful co-existence that should be our way forward. Tragically, the latent aggression within us all spills over into outright warfare on the pretext of religion. This is despite the protestations in many religious manuals. A prime example is the manufactured approach to Islam that some radical Muslim leaders adopt to justify their murderous approach to the West. To ensure a balance is struck, there are just as many situations where the West has been as guilty e.g. The Crusades in the time of Richard III being one of many.

This is typical of influential spiritual leaders bastardising a credo for their own political end games. The very fact that there are so many willing to die for their cause is symptomatic of the power of the thought of life after death. After all, most, if not all of the hijackers involved with September 11th gave up their li
ves willingly for an entry into Paradise for carrying out, what they thought was Allah's will.

Religion and politics fuse in the Middle East to perpetuate the conflict in Israel. Two sets of ideologies at cross purposes with catastrophic consequences and a huge loss of like. Again, a conflict where many are prepared to die and are martyred with honour guaranteeing the next set of willing volunteers to adopt the banner of religious extremism and patriotic politics with deadly consequences.

Life after death is a subject that everyone will have a slant on even if it's just plain apathy. There are those that claim to have gone through near death experiences and many report seeing white light and tunnels appearing only for them to be returned to the material world. Again, most have found the experience somewhat comforting although, paradoxically, find that their appetite for life in general has been amplified several times and live life to the utmost after the event.

Those faiths that we can readily relate to e.g. Catholicism and Anglicanism both advocate the existence of Heaven. The Church of England has moved slowly to a less literal interpretation of the Bible at times and become more associated with a liberal view of religion. Catholicism steadfastly holds to its values built up over thousands of years but both proclaim the reality of a Grand Designer or God have you will. It seems to be our ultimate aim to meet our maker in your own interpretation of a kind of eternal Utopia. Throw in a few Angels and you have some wonderful material for all manner of works of Art that beautify a concept that millions cry out for anyway.

There have been many philosophers striving to come to terms with the concept of life, death and its meaning. Existentialism, Atheism and Agnosticism are but 3 attempts to make sense of everything. All impinge on the question of life after death in one way or another. However, having taken these theories in
to account my own view of our mortal landscape is much simpler.

***Always look on the bright side***

My interpretation allies closely with the message from the film "The Life Of Brian". For those that have never seen Monty Python, it was a groundbreaking series of comedy sketches from the late 1960's and 70's. The team was John Cleese, Michael Palin, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam, Terry Jones and Graham Chapman. On reflection you could be forgiven for thinking that they were just a bunch of grown up public schoolboys having a laugh and potentially taking the public for a ride. How wrong you would be. They were/are a group of very intelligent, articulate men that broke comedy down into its most basic elements. John Cleese was once asked what his next production would be in conjunction with Chapman but after Chapman had died. Typically tongue in cheek and droll Cleese replied that he didn't really know as long as Chapman insisted on remaining dead.

The Life Of Brian is a parody of organised religion. It was met by general derision at its release. In some quarters it was even declared a heresy. I've seen an interview with Malcolm Muggeridge who was one of the social commentators of the day, trying to make Michael Plain and John Cleese look like idiots in an interview. His bull in a China shop approach backfired and it was the Python team that walked away with dignity in tact and the public's trust increased.

This is one of my favourite films of all time and it includes the song "Always look on the bright side of life". Whilst tempted to review the film I won't so that I stick with the subject matter but the lyrics to this song are highly pertinent. Basically, it talks about always being optimistic and death is inevitable (...just before you draw your terminal breath). The critical point for me is it mentions that we've come from nothing and we are going to nothing "...so what have you
lost? Nothing!" An immortal comedy it was but a message so subliminal yet central to all there is. The Python team were/are a very perceptive group of men and obviously deep thinkers. Their take on existence is, in many ways, good enough for me.

***The Theory Of Everything***

At the beginning of this opinion I asked the question "How often have you looked up at the stars in the night sky and pondered the enormity of everything?" This brings into focus the clash of science and religion. Scientists like Stephen Hawking are trying to narrow down the beginning of creation and what will be its ultimate fate. His latest book talks about the theory of everything. In fashion now is the thought that there may not be just one Universe but an infinite number existing in parallel. It's these sorts of concepts that challenge existing doctrines about conventional places of Heaven and Hell.

A major barrier for us is the notion that there may not be a beginning and an end to things after all. I mean, just try now to consider something that has no beginning or end. It's difficult/impossible for us. Maybe that's why we find it so implausible that there really is nothing left after we die.

Scientists talk about the *Big Bang and the expulsion of those gases that came about to form our Universe. Apparently, everything in creation is made from this Stardust (so called because it made stars first), which is a combination of the most basic of elements that form the fundamental building blocks of all known matter in the Solar Systems. So if we break ourselves down into our most basic components we are made from Stardust i.e. a mix of particles and sub particles that have drifted out from the Big Bang and other Stella events. Such events might include Supernovas exploding to perpetuate the expansion of those materials necessary to formulate the make up of the Galaxies.

Is it so inconceivable that that's what happens
to us when we die? We come from nothing, we go back to nothing. Of course, we still remain stardust but just in a different form. Try to cast your mind back to the events that you can recall before you were born. If you’re like me then it’ll be a vast sea of nothing. Do you think that there is a possibility that this is what death is like too?

***Mediums not so rare***

Afterlife energy is an unusual strand running through the life after death debate. There is a whole industry devoted to Spiritual Mediums that purport to connect with the deceased. This is typified on Living TV through the programme "Crossing Over" with John Edwards. In a variety of different scenarios, he claims to speak to the dead and will give readings to enable his audience to connect to those that have passed. My wife believes in this. She has even had 2 private readings for which she has paid an aggregate sum of £55. This may have been slightly different in that the Medium claimed to able to predict her future. Nonetheless, the same individual also claimed to be able to communicate with the dead although my wife didn't take her up on this.

This element concerns me greatly. After all, if I believe that there is no such place as Heaven and that once we have shuffled off our mortal coil then there is nothing else then how can I believe that it is possible to contact the departed? Of course, I don't and I find this industry potentially harmful and misleading.

The programme in question is tastefully done and the central figure – John Edwards – stresses the need for proper support in times of needs i.e. bereavement counselling and so on. Even so, I still find it worrying that folks are misled like this. I mean, how many stories have there been over the years of cults ultimately culminating in mass suicide to go to a better place on the other side. There have been many disastrous examples of this not least in the form of t
he Jim Jones sect self-destructing in Guyana in the 70's. Furthermore the events in Waco in the US not so very many years ago exemplified the atypical chain of events that usually surround these Doomsday cults.

Maybe my connection is tenuous but my point is that if a man like this can have a large audience enraptured by his stage show then how far off a kind of mass hypnosis and subsequent indoctrination could you be?

***Before you draw your terminal breath***

Cold though it seems, this is my view of life after death. It seems a little bleak but then I happen to think that it isn't. After all, I will live forever but merely in a different form and I may just be part of something that really is eternal.

I genuinely hope that no reader is offended by any of my comments and whatever your faith or belief system the only real constant is love and this is what I hope you find at some time in your life. I have found it and I hope that when you've found it too that there is enough left over to share with others.

I hope you haven’t found this too heavy (I can be quite deep sometimes).

I look forward to your comments on a lovely Saturday morning.

Take care.

Marandina

*The Big Bang is generally thought to be a massive explosion that represents the first known incident in time. This represents the first second of known existence and the subsequent spewing of gases into the surrounding ether presented the opportunity to create objects to make up our known Universe. Examples of creation include stars, planets and so on and everything is made from these very basic raw materials that were thrown out from the initial explosion in second 1.

As for what happened prior to second 1 then this is where you either reach for the latest scientific theory or challenge your own mind to bend to the possibility that there may not be a beginning and an end to everything after all.

Summary: Life after death?