BLOGPOST 2: Life After Death

When it comes to the word "immortality", different opinions would come up for sure. We view immortality based on our own beliefs and culture but sometimes we can't help it when it gets so confusing because of the mixed-up ideas. If you're going to ask me, I view immortality as the "Life after Death". That's what I'm used to hear during mass every Sunday. But of course, being open to other opinions and perspectives will make us more knowledgeable regarding this issue.

Looking up for something that would justify my point of view, I found an article entitled "Life After Death - Fact or Fiction?" written by Jack Viljoen. The article caught my attention by the title itself. After reading the said article, my the concept of immortality that I believed in got stronger.

He started the article by asking intriguing questions like "Is your life really in your hands?", "What if you die right here, right now?" and "Have you given a thought on where you will spend eternity?". Those questions alone made me pause the music i'm listening to right now. According to the article, we may not be sure how to answer those questions but there is one thing that we are certain of: Sooner or later, we will all die and depart this life. But was it really possible that there is a life after death?

Jack pointed out in the article that there are two types of people when it comes to the issue of life after death: those who believe it and those who doesn't. According to Jack, those who doesn't believe in life after death think that when you die, you die. that's it. No more consciousness, feelings or whatsoever. You will just simply cease to exist on this earth with nothing but memories for your love ones. Think of this scenario, if you are on a plane and that plane is about to crash due to some technical problems, you
already know it. You'll know that you'll be dead in few minutes' time.  Of course, you couldn't help it if you panic or hope for something like "luck" that would prevent you from dying from the plane crash. But if you are not a believer of life after death, why would you panic in the first place when you know in yourself that you'll feel nothing when you die? Why would you hope for something that you don't even believe in? Now, let's put the spotlight on those who believes in life after death, same scenario. Say you are a believer of life after death, of course you'll panic, or even hope for survival but of course you'll also ask yourself that when you die, where will your spirit goes? Did you do enough good deeds in your life to deserve a good spot in Heaven, or your good deeds wasn't enough and you'll end up in Hell instead? You see the difference? Those who doesn't believe in Life After Death often change their minds when they are faced with death itself.

The article stated that the best reason why we believe in Life after Death is the Christianity. Like I said in my introduction, I often hear that in mass every Sunday. We are all familiar with Jesus Christ's crucifixion and resurrection in the bible stories. I guess that's the hope we believers of Life after Death are grasping. After all, God himself promised us Life after Death only if we surrendered ourselves to Him.

"True Christianity does not consist of rules, regulations, rites and rituals controlled by man. It is a relationship built on love and trust between an Almighty God and mankind"

   I couldn't agree more on this quote stated by Jack Viljoen in the article. Christianity is not measure on how many times you go to church every week, how you always follow all the ten commandments or even how important you think it is to take the Body of Christ every mass. It is measured on how strong you believe in Him. Your faith with the Almighty God is enough for you to have a spot in Heaven but of course, doing good while you're still alive is a HUGE plus.

   The Life After Death concept is often viewed as crackpot old joke by some people but there are some who see it as their only hope to be united with their long lost love ones. It all comes down on everyone's perspective. We should respect everyone's beliefs on how they see things. But there's one thing I learned from the article, though. Whether you are a believer of Life after Death or not, that should not stop you from doing good things on earth while you're still alive. Who knows? What if, just what if?, it's true? You won't have to say "Regrets are always in the end".

   I know I highlighted the believers of Life After Death perspective in my first article but of course, I would never end this blogpost without taking note on what science, which do not believe in Life After Death, has to say.

  Science is the progressive way of attaining knowledge, never claiming absolute truth or infallibility. It is rather obtaining facts from experiments, never from dogmas, doctrines, oral traditions and the like. In my opinion, science is the absolute opposite of religion and never will be reconciled. It always contradict issues in religion such as God, Adam and Eve and of course, Life After Death.

  Browsing on the internet about how science view Life After Death, I found a very interesting article that had kept me fully awake as I was writing this. Its title is "Stephen Hawking: Life after Death" written by Krishnan Guru-Murthy. The article was about an interview on Stephen Hawking himself about his view on life after death. To give you a brief review, Stephen Hawking is one of the greatest physicist living today. He is an English theoretical physicist, cosmologist, author and Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology within the University of Cambridge. Some of his significant scientific works are Hawking radiation and gravitational singularities theorems. He was diagnosed with ALS or also called as motor neurone disease.


    In the article,  Krishan Guru-Murthy asked Hawking if he ever believed in the so-called "Life After Death". Being the kind of man who doesn't believe in such thing answered that life after death is a fairytale to those who are afraid of the dark. However, a different view on "life after death" can still be attained only in a way that everyone of us is not expecting. According to Stephen Hawking himself, our brain is like a program in the mind that can be copied onto a computer. When the physical body dies, it is theoretically possible to transfer the brain onto a computer and so provide a form of life after death. So technically, he was saying that our memories, knowledge or whatever it is that is in our minds are like computer files that can be uploaded to the computer. What if those so-called files are transferred to a robot or something? is this how science defines "Life after Death"? Turn us all into robots after the death of our physical bodies? What do you think religion has to say about that?

   After researching the said articles, I therefore conclude that Life after Death is a two-faced issue. Religion and Science. With one contradicting the other, it is indeed confusing. Which one is right? which one is wrong? It is now up to us what to believe in. Would you rather believe that when we die, our soul will depart our body and find its peace in Heaven or its doom in Hell? or that when we die, our memories, knowledge and experiences will be preserved in a flash drive and will soon be maintained in a pile of metals that we now call ROBOTS?