Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Goober5000 on March 07, 2011, 08:59:03 pm
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Link to article (http://www.ktla.com/news/landing/kdvr-after-neardeath-experience-boy-writes-book-heaven-is-real-20110210,0,7546073.story)
Todd and Sonja Burpo rushed their lifeless son to another medical center, where he was immediately taken into surgery. Colton's surgeon estimates that the boy's appendix had ruptured five days before he was properly diagnosed. ... While Colton was in surgery, Todd and Sonja prayed in separate rooms. They thought their son was dying and they blamed themselves. Miraculously, after a difficult recovery and another surgery, Colton survived. ...
Colton claims that while on the operating table he went to heaven and that he met his great-grandfather Pop. Colton says his grandfather didn't look like the man in the photo in his house, but instead looked like the man in the picture sent months later by his Grandmother, a young man without glasses. ...
One day while Colton was playing he walked up to his mom, and out of the blue asked, "Mom, I have two sisters, you had a baby die in your tummy didn't you?" ... Todd and Sonja had never told their son about the miscarriage Sonja had before Colton was born. After all, it was more than a four-year-old would ever need to know. Colton went on to tell his mom that she was a girl and, "she looked familiar and she started giving me hugs and she was glad to have someone in her family up there."
It's a bit hard to quote excerpts without slicing and dicing the article, so I recommend reading it at the link. Very cool and inspiring story of a little boy who visited heaven and came back to tell about it.
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After years of stories and new details, Todd's friends and members of his church started asking him to write his stories down. They encouraged Todd to write a book, which wasn't something he wanted to do or had any idea how to do.
He remembers praying about it, and he said he would only do it if the opportunity fell right into his lap. It wasn't long after his prayer that a publisher called him.
Somebody's making money.
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Near-death experiences are quite common, and appear to those of all religious orientations and persuasions. They share many common features, which has led to the partial but not yet complete description of the neurological reasons for the experience. Interestingly, NDEs lead to profound personality changes, often for the better; moreover, they can be induced in centrifuges to a quite startling degree of accuracy without even placing the subjects in danger of death.
There is nothing inherently mystical about them, but that probably won't stop this kid from selling his books.
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Perhaps not about NDEs in general, but then how do you explain the kid knowing the details about his great-grandfather and his miscarried sister?
Also, if money was the point of this entire episode, I think they would have rushed the book to market a lot sooner than 7 years after the events in question.
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Would be much more impressie if he hadn't been brought up in a christian family, where he'd presumably altready been told what to expect when he died.
Now Colton's stories of Heaven are documented in a book titled "Heaven is for Real."
500,000 copies of the book have been printed and there are now talks of a movie. Sonja says it's a lot for her small town family but they are seeing their story make a difference in many lives.
It'd be even more impressive if they weren't planning on making a potentially massive amount of money out of it. :doubt:
Sorry Goob, definitely not convinced.
[EDIT]Too may people posting too quickly.
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A combination of pre-existing expectations, self-interested parents feeding him information directly and indirectly, bad reporting, and retroactive fabrication on everybody's part, all spiced with a heaping helping of confirmation bias.
I don't think money's the entire point, they probably genuinely believe, but people also genuinely believe Mother Mary was in that toast.
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Perhaps not about NDEs in general, but then how do you explain the kid knowing the details about his great-grandfather and his miscarried sister?
Also, if money was the point of this entire episode, I think they would have rushed the book to market a lot sooner than 7 years after the events in question.
They only began writing once publishers called them up. There are lots of people claiming stories like this and just because you claim to have one doesn't guarantee a publisher will want it right away.
Also, there are many, many NDEs every year and it would be unusual if none of them had interesting coincidences.
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a shock to that massive fractal of neurons called the brain will no doubt case you to see glowey things. ive had the same effect with leagal and less than legal drugs.
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If that's true then we can all be glad, there is a good place to go after we die.
If not, it's just another interpretation of the unknown.
I find myself believing that whatever we do in life is meaningfull, so bothering about the next step while the current one is unfinished...well, that's not how I like to do things.
I tend to look into the future, but not as much as to be worried about what's gonna happen when I die, maybe I'll think about that in a couple of years :D
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A combination of pre-existing expectations, self-interested parents feeding him information directly and indirectly, bad reporting, and retroactive fabrication on everybody's part, all spiced with a heaping helping of confirmation bias.
I don't think money's the entire point, they probably genuinely believe, but people also genuinely believe Mother Mary was in that toast.
This. Plus when the Air Force started experinmenting with spinning people around enough for them to blackout many of them had NDE's despite not being anywhere near death. Penn & Teller's Bull**** episode about this actually has footage of interviews with those people describing it. So nothing that can't be replicated.
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no doubt you stop seeing glowey things when your brain activity reaches zero.
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no doubt you stop seeing glowey things when your brain activity reaches zero.
Now that's being absolute!
I take it that you have already considered the possibility of your theory being wrong.
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my theory is that near death != death
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no doubt you stop seeing glowey things when your brain activity reaches zero.
Now that's being absolute!
I take it that you have already considered the possibility of your theory being wrong.
I find the likelihood of it being a function of a brain in certain circumstances infinitely more likely than one's soul looking into another realm.
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Like I always said, if I'm wrong in being religious, oh well, it won't matter since I'll be dead anyway. Otherwise, there's a happy place on the other side waiting for me and quite a few other people.
(inb4 criticism)
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Like I always said, if I'm wrong in being religious, oh well, it won't matter since I'll be dead anyway. Otherwise, there's a happy place on the other side waiting for me and quite a few other people.
:nod: :yes:
As for the article, I'm skeptical, but I'm also open to the idea that it happened. Can't say definitively one way or the other.
I find the likelihood of it being a function of a brain in certain circumstances infinitely more likely than one's soul looking into another realm.
/me questions why it can't be both.
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It's really hilarious how much investment humans put into something that doesn't actually matter.
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what? their continued existence, I can't think of anything that matters more to me.
I'm impressed that the religious among us have not yet played the "you don't want to believe" card.
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Indeed interesting things can tend to happen with NDEs. Many of them share similar characteristics, but I haven't found a satisfactory answer to why some people seem to acquire knowledge they had no way of having. Interesting article Goob, thanks for posting it.
Although I do have to say I'm with Nuke here. I've seen heaven too. :P
When my time comes, it comes. "Fate goes ever as fate must". Study enough pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon literature and you start liking how they solve the 'problem of death'. :D
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I'm impressed that the religious among us have not yet played the "you don't want to believe" card.
It's more of a matter that the religious among us know better than that. We're quite heavily outnumbered here. :P
Besides, that would be a dick thing to do. You be comfortable in your beliefs, I'll be comfortable in mine.
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I'm impressed that the religious among us have not yet played the "you don't want to believe" card.
It's more of a matter that the religious among us know better than that. We're quite heavily outnumbered here. :P
It's like talking to a brick wall trying to "argue" religion around here.
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That, among other things. You'll occasionally have someone try to kill it from the inside out for those 'arguing' in favor of religion by quoting erratic bible verses, or calling someone out on a faulty argument because of word choice (yes, in a religious debate, one word can change the meaning of an entire paragraph).
...which is why it's silly to even debate those things. Evangelists who go out and try to convert everyone left and right, ur doin it wrong.
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well, in a thread that has the phrase "confirmation bias" mentioned so often I can't help but admit it is something of a legitimate concern, however I simply cannot accept something that I can not experimentally confirm, that is the major difference between our world views.
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Very cool and inspiring story of a little boy who visited heaven and came back to tell about it.
:lol:
Yeah right. What a joke. Assuming that everyone involved are telling the truth, such experiences can always be explained by facts. But the bottom line is, everybody lies. This isn't anything but a scam looking for attention and money.
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...which is why it's silly to even debate those things. Evangelists who go out and try to convert everyone left and right, ur doin it wrong.
Well, if your goal is to convert people, your best option actually is going out and talking to people one-on-one. Internet forums are somewhat less effective.
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As for the article, I'm skeptical, but I'm also open to the idea that it happened. Can't say definitively one way or the other.
I find the likelihood of it being a function of a brain in certain circumstances infinitely more likely than one's soul looking into another realm.
/me questions why it can't be both.
Ah, a genuine agnostic! Cool. :) Keep searching and you'll find what you're searching for. :nod:
Yeah right. What a joke. Assuming that everyone involved are telling the truth, such experiences can always be explained by facts. But the bottom line is, everybody lies. This isn't anything but a scam looking for attention and money.
You seem very sure of yourself. Do you not consider the possibility you may be mistaken?
And to those who are quick to cite alternative explanations for NDEs, such as centrifuges and partial brain death, let me ask you this: How many of those experiments resulted in the participants gaining knowledge they could not possibly have known? Be careful not to focus so much on explaining away the visions, colors, sights and sounds that you neglect to address this aspect.
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You seem very sure of yourself. Do you not consider the possibility you may be mistaken?
Not in the slightest. There has never been any concrete proof of God, Heaven or Hell existing in any form whatsoever. Same can be said for any other religion that has similar beliefs of higher power, Heaven and stuff.
How many of those experiments resulted in the participants gaining knowledge they could not possibly have known?
Irrelevant unless proven to be so. People always lie. Even if the parents don't, the kid could have gained this knowledge in many other ways the parents don't know of. Even if the kid doesn't lie per-se, he still could have gained that knowledge by earthly ways but doesn't remember it. These can always be explained by simple logic when all facts are known.
Since facts are never fully known in situations like those, making proper analysis is most often impossible. Yet, simplest explanation is almost always the correct explanation. The kid simply learned of it, lies about it or doesn't remember, or parents lie. Or they both lie.
If Heaven actually exists or had existed at some point, don't you think there would be proof of such instead of religions bickering about their own beliefs and rest of the world shaking their head at those so called believers. Especially since those beliefs are often used as an excuse for nothing but violence.
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You seem very sure of yourself. Do you not consider the possibility you may be mistaken?
And to those who are quick to cite alternative explanations for NDEs, such as centrifuges and partial brain death, let me ask you this: How many of those experiments resulted in the participants gaining knowledge they could not possibly have known? Be careful not to focus so much on explaining away the visions, colors, sights and sounds that you neglect to address this aspect.
Anything is possible. It's just how probable something is. The chances of this being true are just extremely unlikely.
Kids have wild imaginations, and they see and overhear things their parents/grandparents don't always know about. You never picked up photo albums when you were young? Never listened to your parents talk in the other room? I know I did both. Kids also tend to do things to satisfy their parents. Were the parents religious? (Sorry, if it was covered in TFA, too late to bother)
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"and then I saw an old man mommy"
"was it our grandfather?"
"...yeah, yeah it was"
and no implication of lies are being expressed here. when one remembers an event your memory can be altered based on expectations you are given during the recall of the event. this is not a case of lieing to fulfill the expectations or get attention but rather you try to see if something fit a set of criteria that you are given and if you can your memory of the event gets altered. it is particularly problematic during states of hightened emotion.
There is also an issue of what about the stuff the kid said early on that didn't get an OMG response from mom that was then never said again. IIRC a sensation of familiar presences is one of the phenomena reported during the centrifuge experiments, if the kid said some little baby was there who felt like a sister this would be consistent with the known results, this could very easily get changed into something much more dramatic without either party being aware of what was happening after the fact.
the fact is when people get into an emotional state there memories become extremely unreliable.
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People have been saying Heaven is real for millennia. How is this news?
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"and then I saw an old man mommy"
"was it our grandfather?"
"...yeah, yeah it was"
Pretty much this. If you look at stories of people who have been hypnotized in order to relive/recall "past lives", you see this come into play time and time again. The human brain is highly susceptible to suggestion, especially when one subconsciously wants or expects the suggestion to be true.
It may be imprudent of me to go so far as to say "THERE IS NO AFTERLIFE AND THIS KID JUST HALLUCINATED THE WHOLE THING", but I am very, very far from being convinced of anything supernatural having taken place here.
edit: And to those who are quick to cite alternative explanations for NDEs, such as centrifuges and partial brain death, let me ask you this: How many of those experiments resulted in the participants gaining knowledge they could not possibly have known? Be careful not to focus so much on explaining away the visions, colors, sights and sounds that you neglect to address this aspect.
Of course, and I think some of us have at least partially addressed this. I would also like to raise the question of why profoundly NDE-like experiences can be produced through the use of centrifuges or hallucinogens, if they are not the "real thing".
...unless all of these are the real thing, in which case it's comforting to know that I've seen glimpses of heaven on multiple occasions. :)
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I recall a NDE/OBE "empirical test" being done by someone, where they basically put objects or writing in a room that the patients wouldn't even be aware of, and definitely unable to read from normal eye height or on the operating table, and while the reports of OBEs didn't change in their accuracy dealing with things the doctors said or did, or events that took place nearby while they were doing it, they hadn't had a single person report the writing that they should have been able to see while not in their bodies.
The brain does crazy stuff while it's oxygen or blood deprived, it's about the equivalent of holding an electron magnet up to a computer and then running the voltage down to a point that can't properly support the CPU and expecting it to work properly.
When you wake up, the subconscious mind fills in the rest of the experience with details picked up visually, since most OBE experiences are based on sound.
As for the whole heaven thing, welp, we'll see when we get there, but I remain so very highly sceptical.
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Actually I'm going to take a different spin on this. I have no idea why anyone religious would think this story is true. The implications of it actually being real are rather worrying if you are a Christian as it means Heaven is nothing like the description the theologically sophisticated have for it and closer to the version you teach 5 year olds.
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theologically sophisticated
:lol:
Really now, theirs is just another made up explanation of Heaven among hundreds of others. And not all of them can even agree with each other. The only worry I have is that those people actually believe this crap that cannot be explained by hard proof. Religions ain't nothing more than one of the oldest fiction there is, similar to all those weird decades old science fiction movies we all laugh at these days. You could just as well believe everything you saw in that one 50's science fiction movie is all true.
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I didn't say it wasn't.
It's just that anyone who actually believes this story really needs to sit down and think a bit cause if it's true it's ****ing terrifying.
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A combination of pre-existing expectations, self-interested parents feeding him information directly and indirectly, bad reporting, and retroactive fabrication on everybody's part, all spiced with a heaping helping of confirmation bias.
I don't think money's the entire point, they probably genuinely believe, but people also genuinely believe Mother Mary was in that toast.
:yes: :yes: :yes:
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I've had experiences where people have "told" me to go check out this or that, or buy this or that album. The album or internet gimmick I am directed to exists, but once I go back to those people and tell them what I think about them (and after trying others that might have told me about them), I find that nobody I know has ever heard of this or that gimmick or this or that album. This has happened 3-4 times in the past 2 years.
I'm not convinced that I am able to predict things that are out there. It's probably some stupid mind failure in my brain that is screwing up perceptions or memory. It may be the same thing here with NDEs, especially since a brain under stress is more likely to screw up.
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And to those who are quick to cite alternative explanations for NDEs, such as centrifuges and partial brain death, let me ask you this: How many of those experiments resulted in the participants gaining knowledge they could not possibly have known? Be careful not to focus so much on explaining away the visions, colors, sights and sounds that you neglect to address this aspect.
Already explained, Mulder.
A good scientist remembers that in the absence of strong evidence the simplest explanation is most likely the truth. If you want scientific proof of heaven and Jesus, maybe you just don't have enough faith? You shouldn't need proof if you really believe.
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theologically sophisticated
:lol:
Really now, theirs is just another made up explanation of Heaven among hundreds of others. And not all of them can even agree with each other. The only worry I have is that those people actually believe this crap that cannot be explained by hard proof. Religions ain't nothing more than one of the oldest fiction there is, similar to all those weird decades old science fiction movies we all laugh at these days. You could just as well believe everything you saw in that one 50's science fiction movie is all true.
Hey Fury, you wanna try, maybe, not being a total douche about this? Kthx.
(inb4 this is why we shouldn't talk about religion on the internets)
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I just can't imagine God not being certain as to whether someone's dead or not...
"Mary! We have to send this one back, it's not finished yet!"
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I'm not so sure that is the case.
If we accept that the spritual plane exists, and that the soul exists as well, then is it not possible that, as the body fails, the soul begins to experience things on the spiritual plane? Senses it always had, but didn't use before because it was still contained by the body. Then the body revives, and the soul is fully re-integrated, but retains some slight memories of the spritual plane?
I don't think, you see, that the spiritual and physical planes are separate. They overlap and intersect. The human soul is one example. It is a spiritual thing housed in a physical body, using that body as a medium to interact on this level of reality. Therefore, you do not "go to" the spiritual plane when you die; you're already there, so to speak. But while still housed in your body, you are blocked from experiencing the spiritual plane, except in rare cases, and can only perceive the physical.
And I realize that the scientific types here will cry a load of BS on everything I just wrote, but I'm in a philosophizing mood.
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A combination of pre-existing expectations, self-interested parents feeding him information directly and indirectly, bad reporting, and retroactive fabrication on everybody's part, all spiced with a heaping helping of confirmation bias.
I don't think money's the entire point, they probably genuinely believe, but people also genuinely believe Mother Mary was in that toast.
Sorry I'm late, but I'm quoting this because I love it!
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There's actually some interesting experiments going on with regards to Out Of Body experiences at the moment, most of the tests so far have strongly suggested that they happen entirely in the imagination of the person having it.
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There's actually some interesting experiments going on with regards to Out Of Body experiences at the moment, most of the tests so far have strongly suggested that they happen entirely in the imagination of the person having it.
That's, pretty much exactly what I said :P
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There's actually some interesting experiments going on with regards to Out Of Body experiences at the moment, most of the tests so far have strongly suggested that they happen entirely in the imagination of the person having it.
sounds like Religion
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I'm not so sure that is the case.
If we accept that the spritual plane exists, and that the soul exists as well, then is it not possible that, as the body fails, the soul begins to experience things on the spiritual plane? Senses it always had, but didn't use before because it was still contained by the body. Then the body revives, and the soul is fully re-integrated, but retains some slight memories of the spritual plane?
I don't think, you see, that the spiritual and physical planes are separate. They overlap and intersect. The human soul is one example. It is a spiritual thing housed in a physical body, using that body as a medium to interact on this level of reality. Therefore, you do not "go to" the spiritual plane when you die; you're already there, so to speak. But while still housed in your body, you are blocked from experiencing the spiritual plane, except in rare cases, and can only perceive the physical.
And I realize that the scientific types here will cry a load of BS on everything I just wrote, but I'm in a philosophizing mood.
Philosophizing IMHO is about humans trying to understand the world we live in, not humans making up imaginary planes of existence.
If you introduce religion, philosophy becomes about that - prior to that it's man's struggle to make sense of a non-human world.
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I'm not so sure that is the case.
If we accept that the spritual plane exists, and that the soul exists as well, then is it not possible that, as the body fails, the soul begins to experience things on the spiritual plane? Senses it always had, but didn't use before because it was still contained by the body. Then the body revives, and the soul is fully re-integrated, but retains some slight memories of the spritual plane?
I don't think, you see, that the spiritual and physical planes are separate. They overlap and intersect. The human soul is one example. It is a spiritual thing housed in a physical body, using that body as a medium to interact on this level of reality. Therefore, you do not "go to" the spiritual plane when you die; you're already there, so to speak. But while still housed in your body, you are blocked from experiencing the spiritual plane, except in rare cases, and can only perceive the physical.
And I realize that the scientific types here will cry a load of BS on everything I just wrote, but I'm in a philosophizing mood.
Philosophizing IMHO is about humans trying to understand the world we live in, not humans making up imaginary planes of existence.
If you introduce religion, philosophy becomes about that - prior to that it's man's struggle to make sense of a non-human world.
I agree. If a piece of reasoning contains modules which I could swap out for content about the Tooth Fairy or the Force without meaningfully altering the argument, it doesn't feel parsimonious or useful to me.
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I don't believe I ever suggested that what I said was useful in any way, nor even that it was correct (in fact, I'm sure I'm wrong about something in there).
It was just my opinion.
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A combination of pre-existing expectations, self-interested parents feeding him information directly and indirectly, bad reporting, and retroactive fabrication on everybody's part, all spiced with a heaping helping of confirmation bias.
I don't think money's the entire point, they probably genuinely believe, but people also genuinely believe Mother Mary was in that toast.
Sorry I'm late, but I'm quoting this because I love it!
And I'm quoting you because you're quoting the truth!
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I didn't say it wasn't.
It's just that anyone who actually believes this story really needs to sit down and think a bit cause if it's true it's ****ing terrifying.
What, you didn't know Jesus was white and spoke English?
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Must admit the whole idea of sitting around on a cloud and playing a Harp for eternity always sounded more like Hell to me when I was a child :nervous:
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Hey Fury, you wanna try, maybe, not being a total douche about this? Kthx.
Not really cuz that's the truth. :p
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Man and to think that I was chastised in the other thread for being blunt. Give them hell, u "angry atheists"! :D
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You seem very sure of yourself. Do you not consider the possibility you may be mistaken?
Not in the slightest. There has never been any concrete proof of God, Heaven or Hell existing in any form whatsoever. Same can be said for any other religion that has similar beliefs of higher power, Heaven and stuff.
How many of those experiments resulted in the participants gaining knowledge they could not possibly have known?
Irrelevant unless proven to be so. People always lie. Even if the parents don't, the kid could have gained this knowledge in many other ways the parents don't know of. Even if the kid doesn't lie per-se, he still could have gained that knowledge by earthly ways but doesn't remember it. These can always be explained by simple logic when all facts are known.
Since facts are never fully known in situations like those, making proper analysis is most often impossible. Yet, simplest explanation is almost always the correct explanation. The kid simply learned of it, lies about it or doesn't remember, or parents lie. Or they both lie.
If Heaven actually exists or had existed at some point, don't you think there would be proof of such instead of religions bickering about their own beliefs and rest of the world shaking their head at those so called believers. Especially since those beliefs are often used as an excuse for nothing but violence.
The only problem is it may be damn difficult to prove a lack of knowledge. While it may not be an active concern, these facts could be learned after the experience or may not be secrets at all. If this kid could tell me what happens tomorrow or what just happened in another room further away, I'd give him credit.
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Man and to think that I was chastised in the other thread for being blunt. Give them hell, u "angry atheists"! :D
There weren't any religious people being stupid over there
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Hey Fury, you wanna try, maybe, not being a total douche about this? Kthx.
Not really cuz that's the truth. :p
I repeat.
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Aren't there a huge load of spiritual experiences across the globe? Especially with the not-city-type humans?
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Timothy Leary had lots of spiritual experiences.
Thing is, particularly in disasters etc, if you're lying on a hospital bed pumped full of Morphine, you'd consider Bugs Bunny walking through the ward as a manifestation of Jesus a perfectly believable event ;)
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Must admit the whole idea of sitting around on a cloud and playing a Harp for eternity always sounded more like Hell to me when I was a child :nervous:
I felt the same, actually.
When I was younger, I'd hoped it'd be more like Earth without all of the irritants. That, and I wanted to drive a race-car full-speed into a wall, for the Hell of it.
Bugs Bunny [...] as a manifestation of Jesus [...]
I think I would actually enjoy seeing a Looney Toons version of certain Biblical events.
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I have to say that for this sort of thing to be true, it implies that God and his mechanisms for determining when and where you part with this mortal shell are very fallible.
That doesn't sound very godlike.
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I have to say that for this sort of thing to be true, it implies that God and his mechanisms for determining when and where you part with this mortal shell are very fallible.
That doesn't sound very godlike.
That's only a small part of the implications of this being true that I mentioned before though.
The kid quite clearly mentions that everyone in heaven is corporeal. I'd always understood that only your soul went to heaven. Pretty much every priest ever heard on the subject said something similar cause there are some serious problems with having a body there. Being corporeal in heaven opens a lot of issues. In heaven you're supposedly free of sin, but what are the implications of having a body there? Can you get thrown out of heaven for ****ing someone there you weren't married to on Earth? Hitting them? Trolling Jesus? Will you see your pet dog there?
That sort of question was nullified by the explanations I've heard about heaven previously but this kids experience would, if true, mean that they are all back on the table again.
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A lot of people would say that you are corporeal there. That's not terribly unusual. However, they'd also argue if you've gone to heaven you wouldn't have the urge to troll the system and/or you cannot, which is a pretty way of saying in Heaven your free will is damaged or removed.
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I'm getting closer and closer to wanting heaven to be oblivion just so I don't have to listen to all the ****ing arguing anymore.
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I'm getting closer and closer to wanting heaven to be oblivion just so I don't have to listen to all the ****ing arguing anymore.
Your wish has been granted!
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I'm getting closer and closer to wanting heaven to be oblivion just so I don't have to listen to all the ****ing arguing anymore.
Believe me, I know the feeling.
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The way I see it, either there is afterlife, in which case I'll find out in due course; or there isn't, in which case when I die I'll cease to be and certainly won't care.
While I can't claim with any degree of certainty that there isn't something after death, however, it seems to me that any sentient race would invent some sort of heaven as a means of coping with their own mortality over the course of their evolution; I find that the chances of this coping mechanism actually being true are rather low.
In short, nobody can claim for certain whether you keep existing in some form after you die, but I think there's a high degree of probability that every religion on the planet is wrong on the matter.
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A lot of people would say that you are corporeal there. That's not terribly unusual.
Even that brings its own issues though. Why was his grandfather a young man but his unborn sister a child?
However, they'd also argue if you've gone to heaven you wouldn't have the urge to troll the system and/or you cannot, which is a pretty way of saying in Heaven your free will is damaged or removed.
Yep, that was the big one I was thinking of when I posted the first time. The logical conclusion of a corporeal existence in heaven is that you have no free will.
See why I said it was ****ing terrifying? :D
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A lot of people would say that you are corporeal there. That's not terribly unusual.
Even that brings its own issues though. Why was his grandfather a young man but his unborn sister a child?
From a purely hypothetical perspective regarding this specific issue, with the assumption that it is real, I see two distinct possibilities:
#1. You have some control over how you appear to others.
#2. Since it (apparently) wasn't the child's time, he was shown something different, rather than some incorporeal vision.
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in the afterlife people argue about the existence of a postafterlife.
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In Soviet Heaven, afterlife questions the existence of you!
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I'm getting closer and closer to wanting heaven to be oblivion just so I don't have to listen to all the ****ing arguing anymore.
(http://gamers-ground.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Oblivion-Gate.jpg)
Welcome to your afterlife, I guess?