Doctor X

If the "treasures of heaven" consist of King Rat's ass I can think of no more compelling reason to avoid it.

I need to start clubbing baby seals . . . perhaps some orphans. . . .

Incidentally, fear can trigger dizziness.

--J.D.

Priapus

Intellectually speaking, yes I have, but emotionally absolutely not. It’s just too hard to imagine people getting on without me I mean it seems I should find some comfort in the idea that I was effectively 'dead' for most of the history of the universe but I just can't. Much like Heathen Dawn said, there was no experience to lose you just weren't around yet. Now I have everything to lose all my thoughts all those inner most thoughts and everyone I knew and everything I did will all eventually be lost. Could anything possibly be more horrible than that? It really was all for naught.

Naahhh you're perfectly healthy. What you're saying makes an awful lot of sense to me. I say people without a paralyzing fear of death are the screwed up ones...of course, I am a crazy motherfucker!

King Rat

Hah! You've never seen my ass mister!

Unfortunately though you are probably right, being a male that rides horses and motorcycles trying to determine where my flat ass ends and my thighs begin is quite a task.

Now Halle Berry's ass, that's heaven...

Ojuice5001

Like the Stoic sages of my gods' heyday, I think that "the good is not living, but living well." I do not fear nonexistence; what I fear is the prospect of a wasted life. I mean, my life has a lot of good in it, but they're the kind of good things that seem somehow unworthy of a 75-year life. You know what I mean? A life based on moderate pleasures, a certain amount of thinking, and doing the work that's nearest at hand seems like a great idea, until you ask, What is the ideal length for such a life? and come up with an answer much shorter than you expect to live.

I have some capability (not much) to expand my horizons, but I have very few natural inclinations that help me in this. It's a tradeoff--the happier you are by temperament, the less likely you are to know the kind of happiness that comes from other sources. I certainly know that, in a large number of situations, I am happier than most people, so I shouldn't complain. But that's how I see a fear of nonexistence, as applied to myself. It's likely that this factor influences a lot of people.

Virgil Tibbs

Heathen Dawn,

I can't really think of anything to say that might help, but I hope this change of world-view manages to work out for you somehow. I have a few irrational fears myself, and though they aren't as severe they do seem to be impervious to logic.

Tibbs

pariah

i find nonexistance preferable to eternal existance. maybe its just me.

crocodile deathroll

No it is not non-existence I am really afraid of; after all I have in a sense gone through 14 billion years of non-existence and that does not trouble me the slightest bit.

It is the states of existence that really disturbs me most of all.
I would hate to exist in some parts of Sub Saharan Africa.
I would hate to exist as one of Saddam Hussein's torture victims
I would hate to exist in a Gulag in Siberia in the era of Stalin.
I would hate to exist as life as battery chicken.
I would hate to exist as an accused witches during the inquisitions.
I would hate to exist a patient in a hospital bed somewhere suffering in extreme pain, and that is a realistic possibility .

You hear plenty of plenty of terrible anecdotes about unpleasant existences but nothing about unpleasant non-existences.
The day will come when people will observe me as being dead, but there would be a very different senario a subjective standpoint as Observational Selection Effects switch you to another state of existence and you could quite well exist as one of Saddam Hussein's torture victims.

Golgo_13

No, I share that sentiment. I know after a google of a billion to the trillionth power trillenia, my mind would snap. I couldn't take it any longer.

That's assuming that my mind could exist post mortem and would not be altered or changed since if it was then it would in effect not be my mind, but a very close facsimile.

It is my opinion, that upon death, one just reverts back to the same nonexistent state they were in prior to their conception.

The reason people fear death is because they don't really understand it. I have a philosphy about it. Death is required for life. In order for you to be alive right now, it is required that you must someday die. That's a consequence I'm willing to accept.

If nothing ever died, the universe would become full of biomatter. The world would be a flood of insects and rodents and I would rather not exist than live in a world like that. So, in a sense, I am actually glad that death exists. Mind you, we can't all convienently choose when we will go since death often happens spontaneously or unplanned.

But as I was saying before, upon death, from the individual perspective, which is nonexistent, I think it's just like you never existed from that point.

What you made will be unmade, what you've learned will be unlearned, and when you're done, you will be undone.

Personally I think Lovecraft said it best when he said:

"It is easy to remove the mind from harping on the lost illusion of immortality. The disciplined intellect fears nothing and craves no sugar-plum at the day's end, but is content to accept life and serve society as best it may. Personally I would not care for immortality in the least. There is nothing better than oblivion, since in oblivion there is no with unfulfilled. We had it before we were born, yet did not complain. Shall we whine because we know it will return? It is Elysium enough for me, at any rate."

- H.P. Lovecraft, In Defense of Dagon

Rational BAC

I think that the fear of an eternal existence is really the very human fear of being bored.

Suppose you were never bored? Challenged over and over again in a positive way---forever ever and ever--challenged in as many ways as every snowflake that ever fell. For Ever.

I think the real problem is that people try to compare heaven to their earthly existence. Quite logical for our very feeble minds and very feeble senses to do such things.

But none of that has anything to do with the reality of heaven.

What the hell. Try it someday whenever or if-ever you get the chance---you might even like heaven. It might even beat the hell out of non-existence.

Doctor X

Whatever "The Answer[™--Ed.] is, it will not depend on what we believe. . . .

. . . but it will be logical. . . .

--J.D.