#afterlife

The human mind is so limited it can only build an arbitrary heaven — and usually the physical comforts they endow it with are naively the kind that can be perceived as we humans perceive — nothing more. No: perhaps I will awake to find myself burning in hell. I think not. I think I will be snuffed out. Black is sleep; black is a fainting spell; and black is death, with no light, no waking. ↗

— Sylvia Plath

#death #human-mind #death

I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. The world is so exquisite with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides. ↗

— Carl Sagan

#gratitude #humanity #inspirational #life #religion

But how can the characters in a play guess the plot? We are not the playwright, we are not the producer, we are not even the audience. We are on the stage. To play well the scenes in which we are "on" concerns us much more than to guess about the scenes that follow it. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#c-s-lewis #life #living #play #religion

I would like to believe in an afterlife; it makes things more palatable. But I'm not banking on it. ↗

— Jarvis Cocker

#banking #believe #i #like #makes

The dead are merely the countrymen of my future. ↗

— Dean Koontz

#death #fear #death

Why do people embrace God? In my opinion, belief in God and an afterlife is a necessary extension of man's need to feel that this life does not end with what we call death. ↗

— Robert Vaughn

#belief #call #death #does #embrace

Sydney did not believe in life after death, but in her experience, admitting this could lead to long and complicated discussions in which people seemed to think that since she did not believe in God or the afterlife, there was nothing to stop her from becoming an ax murderer. ↗

— Maureen F. McHugh

#atheist #funny #death

So, is there an afterlife, and if so, what will it be like? I don't have a clue. But I am confident that the one who has buoyed us up in life will also buoy us up through death. We die into God. What more that means, I do not know. But that is all I need to know. ↗

— Marcus J. Borg

#bible #christianity #death #heaven #hell

The chief problem about death, incidentally, is the fear that there may be no afterlife - a depressing thought, particularly for those who bothered to shave. Also, there is the fear that there is an afterlife but no one will know where it's being held. On the plus side, death is one of the few things that can be done as easily laying down. ↗

— Woody Allen

#death #death

The nature of heaven is to provide a place there for all who lead good lives, no matter what their religion may be. ↗

— Emanuel Swedenborg

#heaven #inclusion #nature #religion #swedenborg