What do you believe about the afterlife?

I like Krissy & Shirley believe in reincarnation and heaven. When Joe was about 6 years old we were sitting at the dinner table and talking about heaven. He sat there and related how in his previous existence he was an elderly man. He described that he was wearing a brown jumper and blue trousers when he died. He said he lived in London and was having trouble with young people - they kept smashing the windows of his flat after his wife had died. He said he had to put extra locks on the windows because he was frightened. He said that he went out to empty the bins and something hit him over the head and the next thing he knew he was in heaven. He said that he told "them" he wasn't ready to go back yet but they said that he had to - that the parents that were right for him were ready for him. When my good Methodist mother picked him up in the hospital for the first time she looked into his eyes and said "He has been here before - he looks so worried about something". I was shocked and amazing by what he said. If he was making it up surely he would have thought of a more exciting and glamorous past - and he was so young when he told me this!

Terry always says that the cleft above our lips is where the angel puts her finger to our lips and says "Shhh - don't tell".

Thanks Krissy. Have you seen the film "Made in Heaven"? Think you would enjoy it if you haven't. It is all about reincarnation. I also love the novel "The Green Darkness" my Anna Sewell which is about it too.

Love your new avatar - you look so young. Great to see you - better go - Britains Got Talent is on!!!

I haven't seen the film, Made In Heaven, Stephanie, but I love the record by Queen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89uBE58Q-H8&feature=related

Michael~this thread asks only what anyone believes about the 'afterlife'..this is called an invitation to state one's individual and possibly differing opinion and ought therefore to have equal air time without packaging constraints. WASP ideology is only one stream and bears a flotilla of followers... there are many ways to experience consciousness.

Ruth, thank you for your condolences.

Michael, don't keep your humor out of this thread, I think that if there is an afterlife our humor will follow us and I for one would be very sorry to see the back of a good joke!

Shirley, Brenda was the friend who was diagnosed with cancer back in September of last year.

Debbie, I've said this so many times in other threads that our friends here are probably sick of reading it; never-the-less I am going to repeat it  once more because I think it's great! When asked if he believed our pets would be with us in heaven, (I paraphrase greatly here) C.S. Lewis answered that if they were it would most likely be by virtue of our relationship to them. That just as the love of Christ elevates us, our love for our pets elevate them to a different status.

Exactly what part of my budgie is flying around heaven? After he kicked the bucket I removed his wings to dry and keep.. and then wrapped the rest of him up in a handkerchief shroud and consigned his body to the Yukon River, dropping him from the bridge that goes over to Riverdale from downtown... I  have hopes that he would make it to Dawson and thence to the Bering Sea... this could only happen  if he didn't get caught in a back eddy where the Klondike meets the Yukon just south of Dawson....or snagged in a bunch of other floating debris..the mighty river flows at about 5 miles an hour..and it's a long ways to the Bering Sea from Whitehorse.

Wait a minute... how can just beloved pets get past the pearly gates... what about the entire population of living organisms that crawled out of the muck after the big bang and evolved to become as Darwin would say.... the origin of species...? I'd love to see an Archaeopteryx clattering around...