A New Take on the Afterlife

     I have a theory about the afterlife.  When your body begins shutting down, certain systems in the brain start going offline.  There are circuits that allow us to perceive the passage of time.  I believe that these circuits start going off line before major life-sustaining functions do.  If you think of it, our perception of time is a fragile system at best when we're conscious. We need clocks to tell us how much time has passed. Even "reality" has a fragile relationship with time.  If you take two clocks and put one on the earth and another on a plane travelling twice the speed of sound, the two clocks will show different times. Astronauts on the International Space station age slightly slower than people on Earth.  This fragile system falls apart when we are in the process of dying. So we, at the instant of death (or rather the very fast progression of the shutting down of systems in our body) lose the ability to perceive the passage of time.  But most of our brain is still functioning at that moment.  The consciousness perceives at that point that it is in eternity.  The moment lasts forever.  Depending on our previous experience and beliefs, we find ourselves in "heaven" or "hell", or if you're Catholic you might believe you are in "purgatory."  This instant lasts for eternity in our mind. We still have a consciousness because the brain hasn't shut down.  But we have lost the perception of time. So it doesn't matter that a split second later, other life-sustaining systems start going off line.  We are in heaven.  Nothing will change that for our eternity.  Unless we are revived from being clinically dead.  We are in the state our souls are in from the sum total of our life experiences.  Our beliefs tell us where we are.  And we are there for eternity.

     These experiences of people with "near death" experiences prove my point.  People who have a brush with death and their heart stops have already had these key time-perceiving circuits stop responding.  They perceive that they are leaving their bodies, because voluntary muscle control systems have gone off line before their heart stopped. They are stuck in a infinite second without control of their body.  Their brain has told them they have left their body behind. They may even perceive that they are floating above themselves.  The may actually even know there are doctors there because other sensory systems like smell and touch haven't gone off line yet. Their brain tells them they are in eternity.  But the experiences reported by these individuals last much longer than the few seconds they are near death.

     The separation between seconds that our mind provides for us is non-existent when these vital brain pathways have stopped responding.  Everything would happen at once, but the brain still orders the experiences when we "return" to tell the account to others. This is why their heart may only stop for a brief second, but they come back with a story about floating above the room or heading toward the light or meeting St. Peter.

     You may be in disbelief.  You may even be angered by this theory.  You can't imagine why a Christian such as myself would propose such a thing. But there is no requirement for believing in a physical life after death to qualify you as a Christian. So why would I propose this?  I think it is likely that this is what happens.  I don't really think it matters if we physically go somewhere.  This can still be a "bodily" going somewhere in your perception. A perception that lasts forever with a still-active consciousness. The two things are not incongruent.

     So do I believe in the afterlife?  Of course! I think there is one in the split second our brain starts going off line that lasts for eternity.  There can even be other people from our lives there - memories of them with whom we interact.

     So why would you not accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?  It guarantees you will get to heaven.  If you believe you are getting to heaven, then you will. The state of your soul and your belief system determine where you are. And you will be there for eternity.  The eternity of that second your brain starts shutting down.  If you honestly accept Jesus and the world view this provides, you believe you are going to heaven.  And you are. And your life here on earth just got a whole lot better to boot.

     I happen to believe in God.  I believe he uses this infinite eternal second to shape our eternity there.  If there is a God, then he may even provide a unified experience of this heaven to all believers. If you don't believe in God, you will end up wherever you honestly think your going.

     I'm going to heaven.  Up to you if that's where you're going too.  

     I would love if someone would look into the theory that your time-perceiving circuits go off line early in the death experience.   But I don't think we are there yet with the science.  No matter, I know where I am going upon my death because I believe it.  The "afterlife" provides a concrete example of man's ability to make reality with his thoughts.  And I believe a religious person can hold this view and still "get to heaven."  I might just get to heaven because I hold this view.  I think this may be what Jesus was talking about when he said to the thief, "today you will be with me in Paradise."
    All my years of following Jesus and studying his words closely have led me up to this point. If you study his words closely, you will see a lot of wiggle room for what paradise and the afterlife are actually like. He just doesn't say much about them and what he does say are pictures painted by metaphor.  So I am not the least bit afraid of death. Isn't this reliance on new beliefs part of the transformation of the mind Paul talks about?  "Oh death," I can honestly say,  "where is your sting?"