How do YOU keep Faith??(Please help)

[Killa Rican]

Its a really deep life shattering thought for me so any help or opinions from the experienced would be much apprieciated. Frequently i would experience Sleep paralyis and Out of body experiences from time to time. Or i would so think. But how can you handle alternate explanations? For Example Varying on one's own life journey whether it may be perfect or depressing do your experience make you feel 100% confident that we will move on from this life? Will their be an afterlife or will that thought lead to dissapointment? I've had OBE's but i need re assurance. Im tired of Athiests and/or Close minded people breaking me down making me feel that im crazy or its all a hallucination with their so called scientific evidence thats its only the brain playing tricks. Do you look past what they say and feel confident? Im not talking about an afterlife in a religious/Mythical point of view. Just an afterlife in a spiritual Universal sensce on what we know or would.

Thanks in advance..Just a depressing thought..

[Zante]

Doubt can ruin many things, and it's also a convenient way of pushing something under the carpet (not that you are). Most people don't relate to such phenomena, they come up with all sorts of explanations but none of them are complete. Notice how proud they are when they explain away your most wondrous experiences, convincing themselves that there's nothing they should be paying attention to.

At one point, people couldn't talk about such things for fear of being branded insane, yet as time goes on such accounts are becoming more prevalent and people are starting to sit up and take notice. Don't be discouraged by researchers who say it's been sussed. They have to seem confident otherwise they can't secure funding, such is the way of academia.

The problem a lot of us have, or have gone through, is that we live on one end of the spectrum. We are either extreme sceptics or fervent believers. Neither is conducive to understanding what is happening and the universe certainly doesn't care if you're one or the other. The extreme sceptics aren't sceptics as such, real ones are extremely rare and when you find them, they understand how things work (in terms of how people think). They play to the consensus but slowly introduce findings which are more controversial. They know there's a game to be played, you have to hold the hands of the current establishment and lead them through their ignorance otherwise they'll remain arrogant forever.

On the flip side, we have people who believe every new age concept they come across. For them, if it includes the word 'love', it must be true. They haven't even examined the word or realised that, in some languages, there are six ways of interpreting it. Which of those do they mean, and does it apply all the time?

The brain does many things. If certain centres show activity during 'autoscopy' (the word hardly does it justice), that is to be expected. We experience this environment through our brains and it will always be processing information for as long as these bodies are animated. This is the nature of our reality. Most people don't relate to anything else, they're just being human. Recent research has shown that the centres thought to be responsible for emotion are, in fact, not. Yet it was accepted at first because it made sense to the current way of thinking.   

Is there life after death?

If you want to believe that there is life after death, read accounts of people who have experienced the NDE. You still won't know who to trust.
If you want to disbelieve that there is life after death, adopt materialist/nihilist philosophy and call yourself a man of science. You still won't know who to trust.

To the brain, what is the difference between knowing something and believing something? - Nothing.
According to nihilism and materialism, if you go deep enough, what should be here? - Nothing.

It's about you at the end of the day and what you come to believe. Maintain an open mind and keep asking questions. You're in a good place, you're no longer at the poles. It just takes time to adjust.






     

 

[dingo]

I would say don't have faith. Faith, IMHO, is one of the biggest barriers to true spiritual experiences. It taints your view of the world and it taints your experiences. Just because you *want* to believe there's an afterlife, it doesn't mean that there is.

You should use knowledge and experience instead of belief. I would suggest doing some validation experiments for yourself. If you do them in an objective, almost scientific way it might also help convince your pseudo-sceptic buddies.

[Killa Rican]

Your both right. Very Good Answers. I was raised Christian but i always considered myself an Agnostic Theist. I stay Open minded to ALL possibilities and i do question the nature of our reality such as "Why are we here?" "Is the universe by chance or cause?". IF their is a God i would think of him as an entity an impersonal one at that. But i do feel re assured none of us have all the answers no matter what but all would be explained in good time. What i only find depressing is the thought aches me that i need to find out, just going and living through every day life in a passive state completely oblivious to whats really going on in a universal scale is frustrating..=/

But your completely right i agree either end of the stick extreme skepticism or hardcore believer wont make it absolute truth either way. But on this case knowing what i've been through on the "Other Side"(OBE) it will remain  sparking my curiosity theirs alot more to the universe then meets the eye.

Ty for your responses!