The abortion thread got me thinking -> I'd be curious if belief in the afterlife influences whether or not people are against the death penalty.
Well, from a rational perspective it absolutely should. We kill people because we want to punish them, and since we view death as something undesirable. But the NDE evidence paints an entirely different picture of death altogether. I wouldn't even call it the death penalty, but rather the death ultra-gift.
That's the thing nobody wants to talk about and acknowledge - if the NDE is real, then death is no longer bad. If death no longer is bad, how is it wrong to kill anybody? Torture them, imprison them, those things are still bad, yes. But killing them? How? You're sending them straight to paradise.
Would immortality of the soul be enough? If you knew the death penalty might land someone in a state of long or even eternal post-life suffering would you change your mind? What if you knew souls were reincarnated to cleanse of karmic imbalance?
Well, if you knew that, sure. But that's absolutely not how any sane and compassionate afterlife would operate.
Reports from deep NDEs are rather painting the picture that we choose these lives because they're interesting, knowing we will all play different roles. And some of us do choose to play the bad guys, and everyone is entirely fine with that. There is no punishment in the afterlife for doing things that humans on Earth consider bad. It's not going to be on our conscience there, it's not going to force another unpleasant incarnation. We choose these lives and there's zero consequences to them, save for our own opinion about them in the life review. That's all there is to it. Even if we go full Hitler or Breivik, we still go straight to Heaven when we die, and no one will say "Oh you bad boy you shouldn't have done that!" - even if we're solely responsible for nuking this entire planet to pieces. If you think this one out of endless possible physical worlds matter, you're just too caught up in the game to see the larger picture. It's here for us all to explore all the possibilities we're interested in exploring, and nothing is ever denied us.
Rather, once we arrive on the other side, even if we do nuke the planet to pieces, we will judge our own lives just like everyone else, and our overall reaction will more or less always be "Oh, so that's how that's like! I wonder what it would be like to do it a little bit different this way..." It's just not a big deal, no matter what anyone does here. The only thing that remotely matters is your own development (how loving you've been), not what happens to society or the planet. They're both doomed in the long run anyway and there are countless others we can incarnate into if some of our dreams were left frustrated by this incarnation (although keep in mind, some of us came here to experience what it's like
to have our dreams frustrated). How's that for a meta-perspective?
I used to be in favor of the death penalty for certain crimes. But when I learned about the afterlife, I found out that it is better to keep them alive because they have a better chance of changing while they are incarnated. That's the whole point of incarnation it is easier to make progress.
I'm not so sure about that, mainly because of the fact that death is part of incarnation, and how we die, and for what reason under what circumstances, are part of whatever growth incarnation may be about as well. Otherwise, you wouldn't have a system designed in such a way that many are allowed to die young, be murdered, etc.
Heaven surely didn't make a mistake in designing this place, and no one would come here in the first place if it in any way jeopardized their spot back home in heaven.
Also, when someone dies a natural death they are prepared for the afterlife, but in a sudden death like an execution, they are more likely to become earth bound where as a spirit they are capable of exerting a bad influencing the living.
No. You forget natural phenomena like natural disaster, heart attacks, attacks by wild animals, etc. Additionally, state executions usually take many years to happen, and people certainly get the time to prepare mentally for them. And finally, no one sticks around as a ghost. That's a human belief based on their extremely limited ability to understand the non-physical. Everyone goes to heaven as soon as they die if we are to believe NDErs. But we don't even have to believe them, we can just ask a simple question: What would you rather do if you found yourself outside of your body - go to ultrabliss-land, or float around watching what people on Earth did? I mean even if you have a tremendous interest in what happens to this planet, you can still do that while in the light. Everyone of us, after all, is a big brother show to everyone in heaven that they can zap over to, if they feel like it.