#aferlife

The afterlife is just your brain in a vat playing VR games for eternity.  Whether that's heaven or hell depends on if you managed to buy a 3080 while you were alive. 

DR. EBEN ALEXANDER: A Neurosurgeon's Miraculous Journey Through Coma, NDEs, and the Afterlife Unveiled Highlights:

Journey Beyond: A Neurosurgeon's Odyssey Through Death's Door

Transformed: How a Brush with Death Reshaped a Scientist's Worldview

Cosmic Encounters: Extraterrestrial Insights from the Other Side

Quantum Spirituality: Entanglement in the Afterlife Realm

Read this poem in AO3!

The day I met God

was the day I died.

I was confident,

perhaps a little cocky,

as I had been prepared for this day all my life.

The day I met God

I found out He wasn't an old white man

with a long white beard and clean white robes.

It was light, only a silhouette,

with hips and curves too much like mine.

The day I met God

It talked to me in my childhood literature teacher's voice

— the one that had a witch's nose and a witch's soul.

It stood before me in all Its glory

and asked me why.

The day I met God

I was confused.

So I could have the eternal life,

I answered.

It was promised to me.

The day I met God

It waved Its hand around

to the white nothing that surrounded us.

And told me, in Its screeching voice:

"This is it."

I freezed.

What do You mean, this is it?

It smiled, or I think It did.

"You are dead. You had your time to taste the world.

When you die, you enjoy the memories you made in life."

But I didn't taste the world! How could I?

It is a sin!

What really matters is what comes next!

The paradise You promised me!

(or, that they said You did).

It stopped smiling.

It seemed... sad?

The day I met God, It sat down with me.

Took my hands in Its bigger ones

And explained.

"I planned every detail, my child.

Every sunlight,

Every falling leaf.

I composed the birds' songs

and the lions's roars.

It took Me seven days to start it

And a hundred billion years for Me to better it.

My beautiful creation is not perfect, and will never be.

But answer me, loved one,

What would be the fun if it was?

Would you be able to enjoy the sunlight

if the night never came?

Would you feel so thrilled by joining someone in bed

if it didn't feel at least the tiniest bit forbidden?"

God moved Its head closer to my ear, and whispered.

(Somehow, Its voice still made my bones tremble).

"The mundane is my gift to you, child of mine.

A flesh vessel for you to decorate as you please;

A thousand delicious dishes for you to taste and fill your stomach;

More songs than you can ever think of to dance for;

So much art for you to admire with those beautiful senses I gifted you!

The world has existed for a billion years

and will exist for a billion more.

You only have, at most, a century, little one.

So eat, and sing, and dance, and lust, and love!

Your time is limited. Make memories you will want to remember for eternity."

The day I met God I opened my eyes

and found myself laying down on cold sand,

the grains clinging stubbornly to my skin

as the ocean water reached my dress.

Concepts of the after-life (life after death) in Eastern and Western religion (as opposed to scientific thought.)

photo of a great-grandson by Mary Molina, who reserves copyright

Today we are going to have a completely non-scientific digression.

Concepts associated with “afterlife” according to Google (this stuff writes itself):

“Afterlife”: Wikipedia: “The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is the belief that the essential part of an individual’s identity or the stream of consciousness…