Firefighter here. I was reflecting on a fatality I attended recently. My thoughts wandered to how a body looks like it is ‘just matter’ in a way that a living thing does not, even when sleeping. Previously I assumed this observation was just something to do with traumatic death, but this person seemed to have died peacefully and the same, ‘absence’ of something was obvious.
I’m not a religious person, but it made me wonder if there actually is something that ‘leaves’ when someone dies (beyond the obvious breathing, pulse etc).
I’m not looking for a ‘my holy book says’, kind of discussion here, but rather a reflection on the direct, lived experiences of people who see death regularly.
You “personally believe in a spirit world” - that is exactly heaven/hell - religion is belief in a spiritual world…
Semantics -
Religion is a set of organized, ritualized practices based on spiritual belief. You can be spiritual without being religious, and I know a bunch of active, practicing Catholics who don’t believe in anything supernatural, so I would say you can be religious without being spiritual.
Eh, I don’t think it’s fair to erase all nuance between spirituality and religion.
Heaven/Hell are these ordered places where some sentient divine being is supposed to judge you at death and sort you into. Whether it’s Anubis or God or whatever. It places a sort of human sense of control over the natural world.
Thinking there might be some sort of spiritual something or other, at least on my end, is thinking that well, we’ve got energy in our bodies that dissipates as we die. That energy ends up recycled in some way, first law of thermodynamics and all that. I don’t know if that energy can linger around as ghosts, or act as some new “soul” in some reincarnation cycle, or if it just gets dispersed or what, but you don’t need to believe in religion to consider it.
Though there’s definitely some overlap.
They didn’t say “spiritual,” they said “spirit” and “ghost.” Ghosts are not in any heaven or hell but unseen among us on Earth. Not necessarily something to worship or fear either. I think it’s a step apart from religion.
