h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

You are not the only one here with a dodgy keyboard. Believe me.

One of the reasons you hear that the light at the end of the tunnel should be real is that it is universal. In a magazine I just recieved today they have an article about it, where they show that it isn´t universal at all. There are actually some funny examples of how people experience the after life. Like New Yorkers dreaming they are riding a yellow cab to heaven.

I have been away for some time apparently.

I have been away for some time too...

Having just discovered thgis thread, and replying to a post from May 2001 () I have to say, yes, Silent_Potato, I agree with your point of view. And after all, none of us has a choice about dying...

I have just been reading The Romeo Error by Lyall Watson. There's some interesting cases of apparent reincarnation described. And they seem to point towards that reincarnation is not about getting a fresh new body, but that you have to posses one already taken by somebody else. That would be a bit scary.

That would be scary... but I can't believe people wouldn't notice the take-over. And what happens to the person already in that body? If I went to bed as Dorothy, and woke up as a reincarnated Peter, wouldn't my husband/parents/neighbours notice that suddenly I liked heavy metal, chillies and girls???

Hi Xanatic - we met before in my previous incarnation(!) as Fenny.

x x Dorothy

Fenny? You mean Fenchurch?

Well, if it happens to a three year old maybe no one would notice. The cases I read about was where some child one day started acting like a different person, and also claimed to be somebody else. In at least one of the cases, they found the family of the person the child claimed to be and she went and lived with them for a few years. Untill she said she wanted to leave, and the old personality came back.

Yup that's me/her. And what's wrong with badgers?

Weird story. Has it been quoted often?

They just seem to keep cropping up on h2g2 at the moment, without me knowing why.

Hmmm, I remember seeing that particular story in one other place. Don´t remember where. I can try and find out the name of the kid for you if you want.

NO and even if there might be, i dont like the idea

I've come across that story, Dorothy, it comes from the USA in the mid 19th century. one of the girls had a really weird name, like Valency Luram or something...

Thanks Adelaide. I did a search, but nothing came up on that. If you have any more clues...?


x x Dorothy

A lot of backlog so I only read from the most recent "dot" thingie...
Yes, I do believe in an after life. My thoughts of what it is is somewhat dependant on the kind of day I'm having....
I think though that it is like a cosmic thing; I believe in the idea of "heaven" but not that we just sit there; I went to school and was taught by nuns and I remember asking her about heaven and she said if we were good we went to heaven and had everything we wanted; I asked if I would have a red bike and she said I would be so happy to see Jesus that I would not want one; to which I repeated, but if I still did......
Well, I have a silver bike and red spray paint so I plan to make my own heaven on earth.
However, I do think we go to "out there" and can be "starlike" and watch over others and come as "ghosts" and guide people unless we are bad in which case we get detention.
Oh, but my biggest thing; I believe with all my heart we get what we believe; ergo, if you believe you are eaten by worms case closed, you will not become a star(though you may have detention if you were really bad)
Whew!

....in afterlife?

Uhm. Tricky question. I discard the question regurally by making another question: If afterlife is a reality, how can it be that there are more Human beings every year? New souls are created every year and join a group of older souls, all filling an infinite space? Or simple there a limited number of souls, sparks of living existence that survive eternally by flowing and occupying universal matter?

For me, i would like to believe that all my body is not just an agregation of star dust, a group of atoms that got together by simple coincidence and one day, because of simple instability physics laws of matter it won't simply desagregate and that will be all. I would like to believe that my being will somehow survive in a more evolved form, as a energy form that exists in harmony with the universe.

Another reality is that death is just that of a true and simple form: we are products, we are a bunch of atoms that got together, we and all forms of things in the universe simply exist. There is no phylosophy, there is no metaphysics, the universe, and us simple are, we dye, or in other words, things get transformed, and that would be all, no god, no allah, no devil, no ignorance, no art, no intelligence, pure and simple existency of... stuff.

Even though, it doesn't mean we can't make our one time, our one course of existence and try to change the universe.

Being a watching over people... It sounds awesome!

What do you do when it get´s cloudy then?

I may have an account of it in a book somewhere, I'll have a look on the weekend...

Stars are still there when it's cloudy; they just have to work harder.