Marduk

"The idea of being finally dead, of ceasing to be, of not existing, is so frightening that I can't push it out of my mind"

?????
were the billion or so years before you were born all that bad?
didn't it go by in an instant?
no reason it couldn't happen again.

"fear comes from the possibility of death
calm from it's certainty" Dargo "Farscape"

Jamie_L

Emotional,

I'm actually intrigued by your situation, in as much as I am mentally unable to do what you are doing.

My fear of death is so overwhelming, boardering on sheer terror and panic, that the only way I can deal with it is by not seriously thinking about it. Whenever I do, I almost immediately freak out - with the full heart-racing, wild, instinctive panic thing.

And yet, despite how much I would love to believe that I won't cease to exist, I can't. For me, it would be like trying to believe that I can jump off a building and fly by flapping my arms. No matter what I do, I don't think I could make myself believe it given the evidence available at this time.

So, I find it quite fascinating that your do seem to be able to do that. I'm not trying to criticize you, but I am genuinely surprised that you can make a conscious decision to switch back to belief. Do you find this switch difficult? Do you think you will (or have you already) reached a solid state of belief? Do you still, in the back of your mind, fear death - fear that your new beliefs really aren't true?

Just curious.

Jamie

Marduk

"I hate science. Science has made mankind an unhappy creature. Science is not mankind's saviour - faith is"

yes and no, everything has it positives and negatives
in the end they cancel each other out
and you have a flat line

science brings better health, comfort, modern dentisry and many fun toys, and also polution, overpopulation, wars for resources and weapons of mass destruction, not to mention the tools to oppress the world, faith gives peace of mind to some and to others an excuse to kill and terrorize, not to mention a proliferation of silly hats.

Jamie_L

Another note on science:

Science(TM) is not some big, monolithic, modern institution. Science is the creation of calendars by primative cultures to find the best times to plant and harvest their crops. Science is the trial and error of tribesmen in Africa that eventually led to them being able to track all manner of game. Science is just observation and test of the world around us. Science is figuring out how to make fire from the heat caused by friction or the spark caused by rocks striking together. It's not some strange invention of modern man. It's a method of getting data from our surroundings that has been with us as long as we've been smart enough to say to ourselves "Well, that didn't work. How about this?"

Jamie

motorhead

It's very disappointing to hear you say this. I've always had this feeling that the more serious religious believers in the world feel this same way toward science.

As others have already mentioned, science has helped mankind advance significantly. While these advances do bring their own set of challenges, overall the advances are significantly beneficial to mankind. It's hard for me to imagine anyone hating science. I am fascinated by science and the discoveries and advancements made by it.

Faith is hoping that something is true, plain and simple. Religious beliefs are hopes, not facts. Nothing wrong with religious faith (in moderation, of course), and there doesn't have to be an antagonistic relationship between religion and science. Science works toward providing us with facts, and has done so many times. It's up to the individual as to how they interpret these facts.

Faith may be the "saviour" for many people but it's a private, personal saviour. It's hopes that provide people with answers to the big questions of life. If you want to be religious and have religious faith, then go ahead and do it. We have freedom of religion. What is stopping you from having religious faith? You seem to be having this painful crisis.

Shake

My wife has a very similar outlook on life. Even when her father, who is verbally abusive at times, storms out yelling obscenities, she still says, "I love you, Dad."

She's gotten me into it more, too. We don't leave each other, hang up, go to sleep, or email without saying, "I love you" to each other. She was taught to think about the last thing you might have said to a loved one, because it could have been the last time you see them. I agree, this isn't depressing, it's cherishing life. Her best friends' father passed suddenly this summer, and she regretted that we hadn't brought our son when we had visited mere weeks before.

So, I'm with you, scarmig! Have a great day!

emotional

Science has been robbing mankind of his security ever since its inception. Where once was believed that mankind was at the centre of cosmic interests, guarded by gods and protective angels, and headed for a great plan of which death is only a part, now mankind is alone in the cosmos, with no-one to hear his cries for justice and mercy, and headed for final oblivion in this evil cataclysm called death.

Scientific observation doesn't come cheap; as an impartial scientific observer you find out that the whole of Nature is full of violence, unpity, injustice and death. It's like watching a horror film. There can no-one practise science and stay a believer in omnibenevolent deities and spirits. The more I read about, for instance, biological evolution, the more I'm convinced of the non-existence of God (and by God I don't mean an impersonal pantheistic force but a transcendent, personal being).

All this bad enough when I'm a viewer observing animal life from the side; but science puts us too as animal life, subject to all the horrors other animals endure. And it gets even worse, when I think that the unfortunate animal human in the picture could be no less than self - me. When I hear about the new Asian virus, I'm immediately reminded of the fact that I'm part of the food chain, and scientifically speaking I'm no better off than the mice my cat gets to terminate.

I'm not afraid of dying, I'm afraid of being dead. To think of all these senses - sight, hearing, touch, thought - being turned off is simply unthinkable. I'm so full of myself that I dread the thought of all my self being shut off.

For reasons stated above, I find it impossible for me to believe in a personal deity who answers prayer. The existence of such a deity is daily, hourly, secondly refuted by the facts (so that if he existed the facts would be different). However, when it comes to the thought of extinction of self - no life after death - there my rational faculty betrays me, and out of overwhelming fear, I want to believe in the unbelievable. I can reject gods, spirits, divine intervention and other theistic concepts without difficulty, but I fail completely when I have to face rejection of life after death.

The naturalistic, materialistic paradigm is a neat one: matter reacts, combines, passes information onwards and is then itself discarded into a new configuration. I have no conceptual difficulty in believing that life is terminated at death, and it makes much more sense, from a holistic point of view. Life after death would inject a supernatural design, a greater plan, that would spoil the whole materialistic, naturalistic scheme. However, as I said, the thought of self not existing sends me reeling with fear, such that I'm compelled to discard the whole neat scheme of materialism.

What I desire, then, is to eat the lunch of scientific rationality without having to pay the price of extinction of self. But I don't see how these two activities are compatible, so I move between the one extreme of complete materialism (with no life after death) and the other extreme of complete theism (rejection of science).

Viti

But don't you see that by thinking you will somehow be aware of being dead you believe in life after death? You seem to think there will be some sort of consciousness left to be aware of the loss of the senses. There's nothing...what were you aware of before you were conceived? When you were in your mother's womb? When you were a baby? What is your first memory? What happened before that? Have you ever been under sedation? We have all experienced what it's like to be dead which is no experience at all.

I look at each day as a gift and I am not going to waste it with morbid thoughts of it ending. I am here, I will enjoy it while I can. I fear having regrets for things not done and seen and said so I try to make sure I do and say and see everything I can and desire.

Toto

<slightly ironic mode on>

Evolution has dealt with this problem for society and most people by giving young people an innate belief in their own immortality. Teenagers and those in their twenties take lots of stupid risks - but this risky behavior has advanced the state of their own societies, and this is how humans have advanced to be in a position to destroy the world.

The ones who survive pass the optimistic gene on to their progeny. They may also later in life realize how stupid they were in their youth, but by that point they have evolved a more mature acceptance of the inevitability of death and the need to live life to its fullest, which make little sense to a person your age.

So I say construct whatever fantasies you need to survive. I think your problem is that you are too intelligent to accept the most common ones, but that just means you need to dig deeper and be more creative.

Biff the unclean

I can't get over that old face that I keep seeing in the mirror. The wrinkles, the white hair, I can't get my mind around it. It's more than I can bear.
So here's the plan. I'll ignore reality and believe that I'm young and good looking. Yeah, that's the ticket. I'll have faith that I look like Pierce Brosnan. Yeah, that'll make everything better.
Reality is over-rated.