Do you fear death?

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Originally Posted by Rothgar

A true Christian doesn't fear death because they are certain in their belief and look forward to a grand eternity. However, if one isn't a believer, why fear the ultimate culmination or fulfillment of life, which is death and unconscious oblivion? You were not worried about these things 100 years ago before being born, so why worry about what is afterward? Many of you are young...as you get older death becomes much less fearful. Anyway, it's our price for getting the privilege of life.

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The price for being a good person in life is a shiny, glorious kingdom, according to christian lore. Seems cool to me.
But, as an atheist, I take as much comfort in feeling nothing post life than Eternal Bliss on windmill island.
We have our fair share of feels in our present life. After we feel those feels, it's nice to take a break from those feels forever.
Here's the problem with heaven though.
If free will is a biproduct of sin, and there is no sin in heaven, does that mean that we're all enslaved drones for eternity, worshipping the same god in the same way for then and beyond? I'd much rather feel nothing in permanent death than be forced to worship an omnipotent being forever.

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Originally Posted by EzioAuditore

The price for being a good person in life is a shiny, glorious kingdom, according to christian lore. Seems cool to me.
But, as an atheist, I take as much comfort in feeling nothing post life than Eternal Bliss on windmill island.
We have our fair share of feels in our present life. After we feel those feels, it's nice to take a break from those feels forever.
Here's the problem with heaven though.
If free will is a biproduct of sin, and there is no sin in heaven, does that mean that we're all enslaved drones for eternity, worshipping the same god in the same way for then and beyond? I'd much rather feel nothing in permanent death than be forced to worship an omnipotent being forever.

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Whatever heaven is, our logic won't be able to figure it out. I am quite certain that "treasures in heaven" and all that were metaphors for simple people (no insult intended here) who were suffering in life. Christ wanted to give them a way out. Same with Buddha. Buddha can hold up a flower to the unenlightened, but it doesn't mean we'll all see nirvana.

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Originally Posted by ThreeCat

I think everyone fears death at one time or another. To not fear death at all--ever--seems unrealistic to me--regardless as to whether you think Jesus, Odin, Vishnu, or Bob Sagat is going to pat you on the back on the other side, or whether or not you think you are going to be reborn, or realize nirvana or whatever. We don't know what happens. Unknown things are both scary and exciting. So, I believe when most people say they have no fear of death, they are either posturing or are telling themselves what they would like to be true. Either that, or they are too young yet to truly feel that they will die. Give it twenty or thirty years. Death will wait to be appreciated :)




Thank you for solving death and suffering for us! But seriously, you are assuming that nerve endings are the only way we feel pain. It is possible to feel pain in a lucid dream without your physical body being hurt, so some of what you are saying is simply not true. Also, imagine the 30 minutes your mind has to scramble around after your heart stops beating. Plenty of time to experience a mental construct of hell, and it will probably seem to last an eternity.

But I think it is accepted that "fire" is a metaphor for spiritual suffering, at least from a Judeo-Christian standpoint. The reality of what "fire" means would be beyond conceptualizing anyway. Usually described (at least in Western Christianity) as being outside the presence of God.

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I've been quite busy, so I don't remember if I replied to this in real life, or in a dream.
Quoting the movie Inception, 5 minutes in the Dream World is 60 minutes in the real world. Therefore, the pain would be much less under that time. If you were told about hell in detail, that your spiritual flesh would be burned off, of course you would see that in death, because since that was what you were told, you will see it. The problem isn't that, though. Decomposition starts 4 minutes after death for the brain. By that time, your mental functions would start to cease. Your brain cannot enter REM, so it can't load the five senses in the "dream world" since it wasn't initiated properly. For argument's sake, let's assume that you enter REM when you get shot in the head, stabbed or whatever sustains the brain to be able to feel all the feels when you die, to force you to feel those hellpains. Using some on the spot math, you'd feel the hell pain, assuming your brain is in tact and hasn't obscured the vision of hell, you'd feel this for about .20 seconds, or 20 miliseconds. That's not enough time to react to the hellfire, and there are so many other variables that would prevent you from seeing this anyway.
It won't feel like it'll last an eternity, because your senses won't freeze up like a program that has stopped working continues to loop a sound. Your brain ceases sensory input, and you slip through the cracks to nonexistence, not unlike before you were born.

I fear death for three reasons:

1. It is unpredictable and therefore difficult to be prepared for.
2. It may befall me before I've had a chance to accomplish my goals in life.
3. That it must befall my loved ones at some point as well. (Worst part, imo)

Essentially though, this is not actual fear, just an obvious preference for being alive.

Because it is inevitable there is no reason to fear death, but that doesn't stop me from having misgivings about it to the extent previously mentioned.

One of my favorite quotes is about death, and has helped me cope with fearing the nothingness.

"Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer." - Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus.

Fearing death is the root of all fears. To die is the ultimate. It is only when we free ourselves from the fear of death that we free ourselves from fear itself.

Good comments everyone. As a Christian I have my faith (grounded in a lifetime of study and investigation... I am probably older than virtually everyone on this post) but in the end we all have our own opinions and we can never be 100% sure, I will be the first to admit. I can only say I am convinced. But my point is not to disagree with anyone on beliefs, but I disagree that everyone fears death. I have friends who have had terminal illnesses and all hope left, and they did not fear death when the time came (as far as we could tell). My mom at 90 does not fear death. Maybe there is some thoughtful nervous questioning about what the dying process will be like but I really don't think they fear being dead.

I think the only theory for which there is any proof (or at least attempt at such) of what happens after death is reincarnation, although it might not be in the stereotypical sense (coming back as a bug or person), the only thing I think is for sure, at least scientifically is that the universe that we live in doesn't waste anything.

The energy that went into forming you as a human isn't just going to disappear, your actions also have consequences and don't just disappear (karma). If we consider that there is more to a person than just the meat and bones since living things tend to be quite complex, maybe on some quantum or higher level then I don't see why some of that data / energy can't reform again as part of new life, maybe even a person again.

Fear is just another mental impulse and it can be controlled like anything else, so the only question is do you want to be afraid or do you want to do something about it? If you want to conquer it through religious belief or deep contemplation in the end it amounts to the same thing, everybody is right. ;)

I think there's a substantial difference between what you assume you're gonna feel and what you will really feel when it comes to knock on your door. As you cannot predict the moment when it will happen, you actually cannot say that's exactly what you're gonna think, because of it will depend on the situation when it happens. I don't find much use in paying too much attention about what comes next, perhaps having a basic idea could help, but you may spend your whole live fearing it and it could come the first time you stop thinking about it, finding life to be a wonderful thing. I would suggest, live your life now while you're alive, and let the death take over after you died. I don't find it useful to spend a life thinking about the death. Don't spend much time on the subject because you will have enough time to think about it when it really happens, sometimes so surprisingly fast that perhaps thinking about what comes next will be the last thing you think.

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Originally Posted by Rothgar

A true Christian doesn't fear death because they are certain in their belief and look forward to a grand eternity. However, if one isn't a believer, why fear the ultimate culmination or fulfillment of life, which is death and unconscious oblivion? You were not worried about these things 100 years ago before being born, so why worry about what is afterward? Many of you are young...as you get older death becomes much less fearful. Anyway, it's our price for getting the privilege of life.

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But here's the kicker; Since after you die you feel the way you did before you were born, there is no price. The kicker-kicker is that you have to do good in life to get good back or else you'll be punished by the consequences.. It's what's happening here and now that matters, not investing years-worth of hands folding to increase chances of floating on an ethereal cloud that may or may not exist.

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Originally Posted by ThreeCat

Whatever heaven is, our logic won't be able to figure it out. I am quite certain that "treasures in heaven" and all that were metaphors for simple people (no insult intended here) who were suffering in life. Christ wanted to give them a way out. Same with Buddha. Buddha can hold up a flower to the unenlightened, but it doesn't mean we'll all see nirvana.

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The Christ part is a double-sided blade though. The standard for being [or poser-ly acting as] a good person was raised to a very, very high, almost unrealistic set of expectations, because people didn't want to be cast into eternal torment, so they wore plastic smiles wherever they went.
With something like spirituality, arguing that it's over our heads because it's beyond our senses could be leverage for any argument involving something nobody's seen before but heard libretto or someone's accounts about it, just because they can't prove otherwise. Similar to the "If the tree falls in the forest" philosophy inquiry, except that we know the scientific explanations for vibrations, force, and velocity to deduce that it does make a sound. Another example is the egg/chicken argument of which came first. Chickens were a lesser being before, but through evolution, what came out of the egg was superior to its brethren. The chicken came from the egg, therefore, the egg hatched first to make what you see today. Our science couldn't explain either of those 200 years ago, but we can now. Maybe one day science will somehow be able to disprove God, but that's a huge step.

I only fear dying too early, because there's a lot I want to do before I die.

Well, to paraphrase Solomon, what good is anything we do under the sun, if we are no longer around and there is none left who remember us? All is meaningless.

I realize that it may be impossible to comprehend the experience of death...if there is one (it varies). I also have no real preconceived notions about an afterlife if there is one, so that's kind of a big questionmark too.

So in my case at least, I still have trouble seeing is at a fear of death.
More than that it is a fear of the unknown...and occasionally a fear concerning personal abilities, especially as that pertains to achieving goals in life. Fear of grief thrown in as well.

All seem unrelated though, but not.

Spoiler for big long thing:

I had just responded to this thread when a day or so later someone I knew passed away. And in this case what I said holds true because it was an accident, too soon, and now his loved ones grieve the loss of his physical presence (the implied flipside of the third reason I gave in my previous post).

His unfortunate passing somehow got me to thinking about my own life (mostly the first reason), and I remember at one point my exact words were "but if I don't accomplish (blah) things, who will remember me? Will I be forgotten?"

Accidents always cause me to reflect on how easily they can happen too. Before long I begin to imagine plausible and dangerous everyday scenarios that could happen to anyone at any time...about how by definition accidents happen when you least expect them too...and suddenly it's like the worrier in my genes is somehow activated.

But basically without cutting off the fear at some point I'd get sick with worrying and never be able to enjoy life.

Fear is natural I think, but it only influences your life to the extent you let it. It can even be beneficial given the right circumstances. But of all the things to fear in life, death seems among the most needless.

Understanding, confronting and resolving the fear of death is essential. Once a fear of the inevitable has been overcome, the lesser fears seem far less intimidating. From there the focus can be shifted toward taking steps in the right direction.

It can be easy to forget, but
Life is short, and tomorrow is never promised. The only thing we really get is the now, and everything else is mostly just what we make of it.

I never used to be scared of death, I always reasoned through it with philosophy and decided I shouldn't be afraid of it. But then a couple of years passed, now I'm eighteen, my sex drive has stepped into high gear, and I got a girlfriend whom I love.
And now I don't want to die to the point where if I think about death, I panic and have to calm myself down. Everytime my nan says something like, "In ten years time when I'm no longer here..." I just stare at her terrified. And I think I'm such a wuss for thinking these things, because everyone else doesn't seem to care about death. For elderly people, literally every day could be their last...which is true for everyone, but I don't know how it doesn't scare them. Like one of my 'uncles' recently died in his sleep. And he was the most well-conserved, healthy elderly person I know. He was about 80 years old or even a few years older, but walked comfortably, never smoked, and looked as if he were in his sixties, at the most.

That just made me realize how fragile human life is. And now I'm just scared. What if this decade, year, week, day is my last? There are so many things still left to do. So many things, that I don't believe I'll ever be able to experience my fill even if I live to a hundred.

So yeah, my 2 cents: I am petrified of death. :)

Certainly the questions "why are we here" and "what comes after" are the biggest questions of life. I think everyone should be seeking to answer those questions to their satisfaction, for peace of mind if nothing else.

Nah, death will happen and when it does I, like everyone else will be forgotten. I know I will die and I accept it. If someone held me at knife point or am on a sketchy roller coaster I would be afraid because I don't want to die. Remember what is was like before you were born? I am pretty sure that's what being dead will feel like.

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Originally Posted by Mystycal

I never used to be scared of death, I always reasoned through it with philosophy and decided I shouldn't be afraid of it. But then a couple of years passed, now I'm eighteen, my sex drive has stepped into high gear, and I got a girlfriend whom I love.
And now I don't want to die to the point where if I think about death, I panic and have to calm myself down. Everytime my nan says something like, "In ten years time when I'm no longer here..." I just stare at her terrified. And I think I'm such a wuss for thinking these things, because everyone else doesn't seem to care about death. For elderly people, literally every day could be their last...which is true for everyone, but I don't know how it doesn't scare them. Like one of my 'uncles' recently died in his sleep. And he was the most well-conserved, healthy elderly person I know. He was about 80 years old or even a few years older, but walked comfortably, never smoked, and looked as if he were in his sixties, at the most.

That just made me realize how fragile human life is. And now I'm just scared. What if this decade, year, week, day is my last? There are so many things still left to do. So many things, that I don't believe I'll ever be able to experience my fill even if I live to a hundred.

So yeah, my 2 cents: I am petrified of death. :)

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This is pretty normal in your age, some people (young males mostly) develop an unhealthy fear of dying or becoming ill or whatever that really diminishes your quality of life itself.
You have to acknowledge that it will happen, at an unknown time and of unknown reasons... and you will never know what's happening exactly while dying and/or in the afterlive. The earlier you get used to this fact, the better. Older people have accepted this long ago. It can't be said enough: why fear something that you can't control at all? All that fear will get you is a bad time while still living.

Hey all!
Glad that somebody brought this question up!
So we all know that sooner or later we all will die :P
And its not the fact of death that scares us, its the fact that we dont know what will happen afterwards.
Me personally I am not scared of death ( I am not saying that I would jump of a bridge or commit suicide ). Its just that I am trying to get out of my body aka Astral Projection or OBE. I just know that theres nothing to fear. There are enough evidance for me to say that there are other dimensions and realms or whatever you choose to call them.
Once you "open your eyes" you will see that theres is nothing to fear of. Sooner or later it will happen. And untill somebody invents a way to revert that we musnt scared.
But untill that time comes Happy Dreaming :shadewink: