MollyMac

I agree with LadyShea. You say, emotional, that 'no life after death is the most terrible' but from my perspective it's the best. I dare say that if I were in my twenties and had not yet found any real happiness in this life, I would be terrified by the thought of it ending prematurely. Is it that you fear the end of life, rather than the state of being dead? And, if so, is it because you haven't so far found real happiness in it? Or am I on the wrong track altogether?

Jamie_L

I can say again that I sympathize completely with emotion's fear of not existing. Myself, I do not fear the process of dying (well, I fear certain variations of it, but that's not the same kind of fear). I simply am terrified by the concept of my own lack of existence. Even sleep bugs me if I think to carefully about it.

But, again, no amount of fear seems to be able to make me believe that this isn't so.

More on science: I think some religions and religious people have created this notion that science is the opposite of religion - as emotion proposes. I don't think this is true. They may conflict with each other in some ways, but to say they are opposite ends of the spectrum is erroneous, I think. It might be kind of like saying the econmic concept of Communism is the opposite of the political concept of Democracy.

The world works in a certain way. We can accept it or deny it. Science doesn't define the way the world works. It just describes it. It's hard for me to swallow the notion that humankind would be better off inventing descriptions of how the world works rather than observing the way the world works. Even early religion was more an attempt to explain things rather than hide the way things really were. People just got too attached to some of those early, incorrect explanations.

Sure, if we created a fantasy world and denied everything that disproved it, we might feel better about our place in the universe. But, then again, we'd be dying of all manner of diseases, loosing more than half our children to birth trauma and childhood illnesses. And so on. Feeling good about our place in the universe is only worth so much. And the lives of those I care about, and the conveniences that make my and their lives safer and more enjoyable, is, to me, worth much more than living in a more horrible world but believing it's all here just for me.

Jamie

keyser_soze

Didn't work, you look old all the way from here!

lpetrich

So poor old Devnet / Heathen Dawn / Emotional is going the way of Lucretius? Who had allegedly been poisoned bv a love potion.

For my part, I expect nonexistence after death, however difficult it is for me to picture. Though I won't complain if I find out otherwise; I'd be interested in finding out how it had happened.

Also, if there is an afterlife, then I'm sure that Dr. Isaac Asimov has written a book about it by now.

And why doesn't anyone ever say, "See you in Heaven"?

Autonemesis

What is so worrisome about not existing after death? You do not seem to have the same anxiety about not existing before your birth. Is there really any difference between the two epochs where you do not exist, other than the chronological order?

Spaz

Emotional, you've gotta get over this fear of death thing, you realize that no matter how much you believe something that doesn't make it true. How can you feel consoled when you know that the only reason you believe in something is because you like it better than reality? Will that really make you think that there is life after death? I really think you should see a psychiatrist dude, you've got an obsession here.

Biff the unclean

keyser_soze: Didn't work, you look old all the way from here!

It is only your preconceived bias towards naturalism that prevents you from having open minded faith in how supernaturally gorgeous I am.
Now if you'll excuse me I have to buy a stick to beat the women off with.
No autographs, please.

fishbulb

Ceasing to exist shouldn't be frightening. Those that do not exist never feel pain, they never feel fear, loneliness, hopelessness, or anything else. When you don't exist, nothing can hurt you.

It's not as though you would be conscious and spend the rest of eternity wistfully remembering how wonderful life was and lamenting the fact that you shall never again live. You wouldn't exist anymore.

Based on the limited evidence I have, I suspect that death is the end of existence, but nobody really knows. I am certainly afraid of dying; I suspect that humans wouldn't have survived for very long if we didn't have a healthy fear of dying hardwired into us. I also don't want to die just now because there are a lot of things in life that I still want to do and have done to me. But I am not afraid of death--the condition of having died--itself. If death is the end of existence, then that is that.

When I signed my organ donor card, I told them they could use my whole body if they needed it. At first, the idea of having anatomy students poke at my naked corpse made me feel a little uncomfortable, but when I thought about it a bit, I realized that, once I ceased to exist, it wasn't really my body anymore, and I wouldn't be around to care what anyone did with it.

I think that's a great way of putting it. I'd never thought of it in that way before.

Amaranth

Hrm...Me and mine are all relatively of the thought that we wish we had had something happen to us like out of the movie Fight Club when we were younger. The scene where Tyler drags the convience store clerk out back was just beautiful. My general thought is that you really don't appreciate anything until you realize it can be lost, and too often you only realize that when it's gone.

This could be youth speaking, however - I'm just coming up on 23.

Regardless, I can't really recall a time in my life when I feared death. Even in my days of "immortality" I recognized that death is just like sleep with no dreams...utterly neutral. The only thing that seems worthy of fear is method of death; You know, the old "I'd like to die like my grandfather, peacefully asleep. Not screaming and crying like his passengers." Pain, whether physical or emotional, seems like the only reasonable fear to me (and if anyone has any tricks to getting rid of these fears, please share).

My personal bent aside - Perhaps if it is loss of self that you fear in death, you should follow in the footsteps of others. Dedicate yourself to leaving something behind, something that leaves you alive in the memory of those to come after you. It really is the only cure, as death is an inevitability, and no religion I've seen can truly offer an eternal existance post-mortem that would entice me to desire it. After all, eternity sure would get old after a while, unless something in me was changed to make me able to deal with it, in which case I am no longer really me...

Amaranth

Radorth

Re: emotional

Try Ketamine or cutting off your oxygen supply. According to skeptics, these have been absolutely proven to produce a real NDE. And we all know what most people who have real NDE's say- they lose all fear of death.

Of course if there's a flaw in their evidence somewhere...

Wait. I'm holding my breath

.........................ag,.................why, .................................whew

I think I did see a tunnel of light for a second.

Well there's your proof.

Rad