Christian belief holds that God created the universe, world, and everything on it.  God spoke reality and the world in to being.  This being said, would it not be true that the very keyboard you typed on, exists because God word dictated the laws of the universe?  Taken a step further, your keyboards exists because of God’s Word.  So, we can say that the Word of God can be found in all things.  For me, this is my connection with the world.

What is going to happen when I die.  I believe in heaven.  I have asked God many times for an answer to a question.  All to often some random stranger has something to say that answers my question.  Sounds random to others, but for me His prophets can be found on just about any street corner.

Logic tells me that we are beings, elevated above all other animals on this world.  There is no evolutionary reason for mankind to be as intelligent, self aware, innovative, insightful, etc. for man to be a successful animal.  We just haven’t done a very good job of taking care of our home.  And please don’t bring up space aliens.

There is also the theory of the Collective Unconsciousness by Carl Jung.  Jungian psychology is not my cup of tea but some truth can be found anywhere.

As I said I take nothing spiritual from it, I don’t recite mantras; I just breathe and stretch. Purely physical. I’ve lost friends to suicide, cancer, alcoholism, accidents, drugs but it’s never made me consider that there is more beyond this life. When I die i’ll return to dust. Nothing more. I don’t need it to be more.

I understand why people when they meditate get a spiritual sense. If you do meditate long and deeply enough, you can experience a sense of perfect quiet. From this, deep down memories and images can emerge because the clutter of more recent memories and feelings aren’t in the way. Often after meditating i’ll experience a long forgotten event, or a smell that hadn’t hit my nose in years suddenly filling my nostrils. I view this as a natural reaction to deep breathing exercises, and don’t attach a meaning of otherworldliness to it.

I don’t think that anything happens. Its like before you were even born.

IMO, that’s a good way to describe it.

I don’t think we’re all connected on a spiritual level, but that’s just my belief — I believe that we have a beginning and end and are entirely physical.  What were we before we were born?  So I’ll probably be the extreme ‘rationalist’.  That said, it’s probably more useful to do good works than to spend time in a Church or temple every week worshiping or chanting, in my opinion.

We’re certainly all connected on a physical level and what we do impacts those around us.

Religion makes people feel a sense of community and purpose and gives people cohesion, if it didn’t make them feel good, people wouldn’t participate.  Usually, though, they’re indoctrinated into a faith in early childhood rather than rationally selecting a religion later in life.  Some religions do great charity work, regardless of the truth of their supernatural claims.

I think some religions impede personnel freedom, e.g. a conservative Christian or Mormon is expected to marry and the wife stay at home and that is typical of many conservative faiths.  Also I don’t agree with all the condemnations of sex outside of marriage in many dogmas.

1/ There is some kind of spiritual world and you go there or your soul is reincarnated into a new life.

2/ There is nothing at all and you simply cease to exist.

Number 2 is a harsh reality to think about and kind of empty, also if number 2 is what happens then it really doesn’t matter one way or another if I would prefer to believe in option 1.

Example: Noone is honest nowadays why should I tell the truth? Next life dishonest people form the bedrock of her new life.

I cheated on him because he was an alcoholic abusive jerk. You can see where I am going with this.

I am so special I can use people. Next life: special people exist that use people.

The comment above about everything being like it was before you were born is close to spot on, in my book. It only takes a little longer after one dies to get that way, because there are memories and perhaps physical impacts that need a bit of time to be forgotten or naturally reverted. That’s not to say I have no concern with death – it’s nothing to be welcomed for any of us or our families – but I’m not betting on a higher plane of existence out of it. Just live your life as a decent person, true to yourself and others (both human and nature), and you can’t go wrong, because should nothing follow the world would still have been a better place while you were here, and if a better place follows this life, then it is unlikely you’d be turned away for having been a decent person while alive.