It occurred to me this morning that my old belief that there is just nothing after we die (oblivion) was based almost entirely on the fact that I couldn’t remember anything from before this life. Since I didn’t know anything from before I was born I must not have existed, and I would go right on back to not existing after I died. This is the belief I settled on with very little, if any, actual thought on the matter.
I’m not sure why I came to believe this despite several obvious problems with this shaky logic. For one thing, I didn’t remember being in the womb, or being 10 days old, or even being 1899 days old either, but I allowed for the fact that I must have existed because older people around me remembered me and were also able to produce some rather cute, if I don’t say so myself, photographs.
I believe now that we all existed before we found ourselves in these bodies. We were in a completely different form of existence, but we were still us. And I believe we’ll go right back to that non-physical existence after our deaths.
I’ve come to see birth and death as simple transitions from one state to the next rather than beginnings and endings.