Vitae

crocoldile deathroll;

I have not explained myself well enough.

My meaning has been missed. Let be try again;

I will try to be more specific in my example;

If one has sustained a permanent injury,...

One might know that 'something' will cause one unbearable pain (eg. one type being neurogenic pain, say eg. in the head, in the face, on one entire side of the body,including arm and hand, foot and leg etc, another being myalgic etc etc)... AND that it might 'hit' one at anytime, (let's just assume here that medication currently available does not bring it under 'control' of all known variables)... incapacitating one's ability to 'function' as one has been used to functioning mentally and physically.
It may also cause others unbearable pain to watch this.

If one 'knows', that this will occur whilst one is 'living,' one may be 'justified' in fearing its occurrence and fearing the 'Known life' more so than the 'unknown death.'

Laurentius

AVE Vitae

Resuming:
(1) Official 1 grieves mainly over the loss of innocent lives in the attacks.
(2) Official 2 grieves mainly over the loss of a friend in the attacks.
(3) Official 3 grieves mainly over the loss of the airplanes & and trained personnel.
(4) Official 4 grieves mainly over the loss of his/her sex slave in the attacks.
(5) Official 5 grieves mainly over the loss of a suitcase with clothing he had been sent through one of the planes.
It seems to me obvious that official 1 is the least selfish of all, and official 5 is the most selfish. Although all grieve spontaneously over they feel most regretful, their sentiments have been cultivated the same way one is educated to perceive reality through one’s senses (sight is not just receiving nervous signals, but interpreting the information).

I think the scale is obvious. Official 1 seems the least selfish because he is the least likely to be grieving over a personal loss. He must be grieving over a loss of the mankind as a whole. From official 2 on, they have experienced an individual loss (which is closer to the "self" in selfish). From official 3 on, they grieve over personal material loss, rather than spiritual one. From official 4 on, they do not even care about the loss of human lives.

Well, that's the viewpoint of this Secular Humanist.
AVE

A3

As you can see by (the lack of) my postings I've just come in and am just reading. But the topic was of personal interest because we lost our daughter Aug last year. There was a definate mix of emotions. I was glad for her but sad about missing her. She was loved and thus missed and thus grieved. There was a memorial service and if you want I can post it (it may be just as long as some posts ) but whatever, in general I agree that ignorance causes fear (of death, different race, new job etc)

Adri

1sec

Sorry for your loss, man, really.

But be frank, it's not ignorance, but the certainty that she's gone that makes you grief.

Ok. Your rational (kind of rationally faithful) self was "happy" for her. But your intuitive self grieved.

My dear ones are either gone or going to go sooner or later.

I'll be gone one day as well. Should I be happy for myself already?

WJ

Grief is part of the puzzle relative to metaphysical consciousness. Sometimes the risk of joy, is grief. Human's are selfish. It is not necessarily a bad thing. To experience life is to embrace much joy and grief. Sometimes it is better to have loved than not loved at all.

Consider when altruism becomes selfishly pleasurable; how could hedonism be bad?

...just some more thoughts.

Walrus

Dr. Retard

On this conception of 'selfishness', it's selfish to scratch an irritating mosquito bite. Which means that if grieving is selfish on this conception, then there's still nothing wrong with grieving (as there's nothing wrong with being selfish).

Of course, customarily, 'selfishness' is taken to involve more than mere self-interested activity; in particular, it involves the culpable disregard of others' interests.

A3

Thank you 1Sec,
You may be surprise to learn that I indeed am looking forward to the next life. I'm not in any way trying to hurry things along, but that is what I believe we are here for.
However, I didn't say that there was grief because of ignorance but that the usual result of ign. is fear.

A3

All,
If anyone is interested in a book detailing the after life and how our mind relates to that give me an address. It is a zipped pdf file of about 1.6 MB. I just sent it to someone and that takes me 20 min. with a dial-up connection. but I'll sit through it
Then we'll have something to talk about!
Regards
A3

crocodile deathroll

Death to me is analogous to accidently pressing the reset button on your computer. You could imagine if you opened up ms word and started writing your whole life story starting with an arbitrarily chosen date of birth. It took you years of constant writing keeping the program opened the entire time, and at the end of it all you did not save onto your hard drive if fact you never bothered to save it the entire time. Instead you did just accidently pressed the reset button. In the end all that work would be for nothing everything will be lost; all memories will be lost. Same as the life you have lived with its lifetime of memories; when you are dead it will be all for nothing and you will not be able to remember one single event and there would be absolutely no difference to the scenario when you were never born at all in the first place.

Some people will find the total obliteration of one's lifes memories very disturbing, I find it rather consoling, because I did not find it all that disturbing to consider the state I was in before I was born so why should I find it all that disturbing to consider the state I will be in after I die? When I grieve for someone I do not feel at all uncomfortable with the prospect of how the person will shape up against God's report card and how accountable that person will finish up whether it will be in Heaven or Hell. Why should be punished for something they cannot possibly remember?

I can remember going to a dead cousin's funeral and the priest at the time was telling the whole congregation just how much faith that person had in the Lord Savior Jesus Christ and always read his bible and this would guarantee him in a place in God's heavenly kingdom so none of us will have any reservations about him going to the alternative place Some of the congregation started giggling. They like most of us knew full well that particular person was a violent wife beater, blasphemer, alcoholic, gambler, ex convict and an atheist to boot. It is not a problem to me be I believe he have totally forgotten all that shady life anyway, so unlike most Christians I believe the history of his life to be totally irrelevant .
However, on that day there were a lot more grief stricken Christians than there were grief stricken secularists. So I am of the view that the Christian religion often exasperates grief and not alleviate it

CD