In a previous blog death, we mentioned the term afterlife — a term used to indicate that a person’s consciousness survives the death of the material body.
Often getting some information leads to more questions. That is the case here.
Philosophers and some others have tried to define and/or understand consciousness for millennia. Scientists have been working for more than a century. All seem to agree that it exists and agree that understanding it is a very difficult problem.
Clearly consciousness involves self and environmental awareness. But how is this done? We have the five senses. There is more than that, though.
Some say that you must be awake to be conscious. But we have consciousness while asleep. A person can be awakened if necessary. There can be certain levels or states of consciousness which may be changed if necessary or desired.
Most scientists seem to believe it exists only in the brain. Since research shows that the afterlife maintains consciousness, though, they must be wrong.
This raises another important question:
Since life / consciousness continues after the death of the material body, when did it begin?
This has been a topic of discussion in the material world for some time.
Some say it begins at conception. Some say it occurs later during gestation as the nervous system develops. Others say it begins at birth.
But those are all materialistic opinions. No one really knows.
If life / consciousness begins at some point from conception to birth, doesn’t that indicate that a new life / consciousness has been created in the universe? If true, then a whole lot of new lives or consciousnesses are being created.
Is the number of lives in the universe limited or infinite? Will these supposed new lives / consciousnesses live forever, will they fade away over time, or is there some sharp cutoff time limit to their existence?
Or, is there some alternative explanation?
Does an individual have life / consciousness before gestation? Even before conception?
Research indicates that is the case.
Some young children remember events they claim to have experienced before they were born into their current material body — even before they were conceived.
James Leininger is a popular case supporting this concept. As a young boy, he reportedly had nightmares about dying when his fighter aircraft was shot down during World War II. He provided information about the ship he was from and the names of others in his squadron, some of whom were still alive.
Leininger is not a unique case. Many other cases exist where a person naturally “remembers” a previous material life.
If there is an afterlife, could there also be a beforelife, or what might be called a prelife — a life / consciouness before conception and birth of the material body?
People who have a strict biblical orientation and others might have trouble accepting this, but there is a statement in the Bible which we believe indicates this is so.
Jeremiah 1:5 reports that God said, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you”.
Doesn’t this indicate that there was an entity to be brought forth even before conception? The soul or consciousness precedes our material body conception, gestation, and birth, then follows through material life and death.
Could a non-material life be continuous?
This leads to the idea of reincarnation.
Reincarnation is the concept that a non-material form of life (a soul / consciousness) is continuous and that this soul / consciousness populates a material body on occasion for the duration of that material body’s existence. The afterlife begins an intersession which lasts until the soul’s next reincarnation — association with a new material body, should the soul participate in another.
The beforelife and afterlife are the same soul / consciousness. There is no new overarching life created.
We don’t pretend to understand all the details of these phenomena or why they occur, but they are real.
The concept of a beforelife takes us back to a question we posed earlier. When does material life begin?
This needs to be put another way: At what point does the soul / consciousness enter / animate the material body?
This may have implications for many aspects of the upcoming material body’s life, one being abortion.