OT: Do You Fear Death?

[Ash]

Since most of the B movies we all watch feature death & dying in some way or another and some of us like Neon Noodle & I have recently experienced the death of a sibling...I figured I'd ask a somewhat difficult question.

Do you fear death?

Do you think about it on a regular basis?
Does your own mortality gnaw at you every now & then?
Most of the time I don't thnk about it but then, when I least expect it, the thought of my eventual end pops into my mind.  
I wonder how & when it will happen....and it WILL happen.
It is inevitable.  

Sometimes I hold my hand up and move my fingers and say to myself as I look at them, "I'm alive now...but someday I won't be."  Someday those fingers of mine won't move.

I wonder often about life after death and what lies beyond.

Do you wonder about it also?
Is there life after death or is our death simply annihilation?
Will I go to Heaven or will I rot in the ground & there is no Heaven?

Yes...I do believe in a Supreme Being...I do believe in God & Jesus Christ.
As a human I do have doubts though...what if they don't exist?  What if ALL of our faiths are for nothing?  
I hate to say it but that possibility does exist.  
My biggest fear is that there is NOTHING after death.
I want to know that THERE IS another place & life for me after I die.
Annihilation is not acceptable to me.

One of my greatest fears is that I'm not living my life to my full potential.  Constantly I remind & question myself that I have only one life and am I doing all I can?

I do fear death....any honest man that denies it is lying...mostly I wonder if it will hurt & which way I'll eventually check out.  
Will it be fast or slow & painful?

It is the the fact that it is FINAL that seems to bother me the most.  That we have this limited period of time to do so much that we cannot possibly accomplish disturbs me.  That since the beginning of time and all that will take place forever on...I AM THE ONLY "ME" THAT WILL EVER EXIST.  There will never be another "me" in all of the eons that planet earth exists.

Do you sometimes imagine what its like to be dead?

Do you fear death and what it may or may not bring?



Post Edited (08-23-04 00:28)

[Cricket21a]

I believe there is such a thing as a soul.  But I tend to think we are all put here to learn.   There are certain things that we must accomplish with every life.   I believe in reincarnation.  The body may died but the soul lives on.  I know it might sound strange but there are certain things I remember that I should not have known about because I was too young or wasn't born.  I am not afraid of death. when it comes I will be ready, the only thing to fear is how much it will hurt.  I can't say I believe in heaven or hell.  I believe the Bible may just be stories made up to prove morals.  There is just too many things in there that contradict each other.  To be honest Adam and Eve couldn't have been the first people on earth, it does say Cain and Able went out and found wives.  Were they their sisters?  I doubt it.  
I don't think you have anything to fear about an afterlife, there have be quite a few people that have experienced an after death experience.  You know the white light, being drawn through a tunnel, someone waiting at the end saying they are glad to see you but you have to go back, it's not your time.
I can say I do know I have died a few ways that were not pleasant in past lives.  I have this fear of drowning and I hate being too close to those eighteen wheeler trucks when I'm driving.   I never really thought about actually being dead but I had experienced someone close to me who has died a few times.  It is painful to think of never seeing them again.  Never being able to hug them or talk to them, but that is aways going to be part of life. You can never get away from that because it is always there.

[akiratubo]

I'm not really afraid of death.  Dying could suck, though.

[AndyC]

I sure have thought about it. There have been a couple of times, over the years, that I could think of nothing but.  I agree that it is not so much death as nothingness that scares me. If there is an afterlife, a transformation to a higher form, reincarnation etc., there is no problem. However, if there is nothing, then it would be, from my perspective, as if I'd never existed at all. I know that I've contributed to the world, which will go on, but to me, my whole life would be an illusion. That's scary.

In working through these thoughts, I've come up with a philosophy that satisfies both my rational mind and my spiritual needs.

I do believe in a soul. Medical science can explain a lot, but consciousness, the thing that makes us aware, that makes us who we are, is beyond explanation, at least at the present time. I mean, a computer can make calculations, make decisions based on information and store memories, but it's just a fancy counting machine, not aware. Is the difference simply a matter of complexity? I don't think so. The way I see it, consciousness must come from the soul.

The other thing that leads me to believe in a soul is the idea of free will. If we are simply physical bodies, then everything is cause and effect. It's true that there is order in what appears to be chaos, that nothing is random, that physical things follow the laws of physics. If everything follows the laws of physics, then the future could theoretically be predicted, if someone could track every wave of energy and every particle of matter. We would just be part of the whole cause and effect, simply thinking that we have ideas and make choices. Well, to my thinking, consciousness and thought would have no purpose if that were the case. That leads me to believe that there must be a non-physical component to us, something that doesn't behave strictly according to physical laws. That would be a soul.

Funny how it changes your whole perspective. The traditional view is that God brings order to chaos. In my view, he brings a little chaos to the order.

Actually, one of the reasons I enjoyed the Matrix trilogy so much was that it struck a chord with me. The philosophical aspects are fascinating, with the different programs following different schools of thought. Smith is pure nihilism (no meaning, no ideals), the Frenchman is determinism (essentially fate, in this case governed by physics, much as I described above), and the Oracle is existentialism (we are faced with choices and choices have consequences). And that's just scratching the surface. My wife and I had a great discussion after seeing Revolutions.



Post Edited (11-30-03 21:05)

[Susan]

I'm not afraid of death - so much as the pain of dying. I watched a friend of mine die of cancer before her 18th birthday. As for the soul part, yeah I know if there is a heaven i'll probably go to hell and all being a catholic - but on one hand I'd like to think there is something to religion. But on the other one can't help but see how important it was for man to have a kind of religion to make the fear of death go away..and to make those who have to live on be more at ease. Even if there was nothing else out there, i wouldn't doubt religion would have been created anyways..since the dawn of man, as when man gained a conscience he began to ponder things beyond life.

When I think of death I think of this conference I saw on PBS where someone was showing slides of space..he gradually went from our solar system to the galaxy..etc..until he had this image of millions of bright lights. Each was a galaxy (and this went on for infinity) and each galaxy contains 200,000 billion stars. It sorta puts things into perspective. Time has gone on for billions of years before me and it will go on for billions of years after. We are all created from stars, part of me likes to think that when I die that there is an energy that remains..and goes on like the stars. I'm sorta skeptical about the whole heaven and wings stuff...i like to keep an open mind (even if it's a sort of rebirth to a new life..whether it's human or moss) As for a soul, well, maybe I could relate that to being our life energy that simply transfers. Who is to say that when we die we don't become part of the wind, part of the grass that bends to it? When a star dies, it doesn't truly die, part of it drifts and it all becomes part of this chain.

I think of it like moisture which drifts up and turns to rain, when it falls to the ground it isn't the end of the rain..but a transferance. It moves to the flower and is absorbed by it..which creates the nector taken by the bee. The flower may die into the earth but it fertilizes, makes seeds..in order for life to continue death is necessary. But who knows, that is the great mystery of the universe itself..what IS death, and is it truly the end?

To spend your whole life fearing death is to be afraid to live life...and since we may only have this one life, it's not something we should waste. I believe maybe this is a rare chance to be human, but I believe that there is an energy..maybe a soul that is with everything, and when the physical is gone the energy simply moves on.



Post Edited (11-30-03 11:24)

[Cricket21a]

God and religion is based on giving people an explanation for the unexplainable.  That's why there are so many gods for mythology.  I like to think that everything has a spirit, kind of like what the American Indians thought, like if they cut down a tree they would ask the tree spirit for forgiveness because they needed the wood.  There are so many things we could have learned from the American Indians but instead we came in and ruined their way of life, ruined the land, polluted the waters.  For what?  So we can work for 40 hours, sit behind a desk, stand behind a counter or physically lift, push, and shove all day because it's more civilized than living off the land.

[Neon Noodle]

ASHTHECAT wrote:

> Since most of the B movies we all watch feature death & dying
> in some way or another and some of us like Neon Noodle & I have
> recently experienced the death of a sibling...I figured I'd ask
> a somewhat difficult question.
>
> Do you fear death?

It's not a difficult question, but the answer can be.

With the death of my sister, I have done a lot of thinking about death. I wasn't there when Kirsten died, and my family keeps saying she wasn't in any pain. But do they really know? I firmly believe that she is in Heaven and is trying to tell me and everyone who loved her that it's okay - and life does go on, and she will be remembered. But I feel guilty sometimes that she's gone and I remain.
>
> Do you think about it on a regular basis?

Regular basis - well, when certain things in the world happen, such as 9/11 or the sniper attacks down in DC or the Columbine shootings, they remind us that life is fragile and no one can predict their own end. Hence, I try not to worry about it.

> Does your own mortality gnaw at you every now & then?

I know I will die, but I don't know when. To concentrate on my unknown future at the expense of the present can be extremely wasteful. I do, however, get fearful every now and again, not for me, but for my wife. I have a fear (perhaps irrational) that she will die before I do. Every now and again this terrifies me.

> Most of the time I don't thnk about it but then, when I least
> expect it, the thought of my eventual end pops into my mind.  
> I wonder how & when it will happen....and it WILL happen.
> It is inevitable.  

Indeed it is. Sometimes I'd like to know how my end will come around. However, I have to remind myself that flipping to the end of the story is at the expense of all the wonderful experiences in between that I don't know about yet.
>
> Sometimes I hold my hand up and move my fingers and say to
> myself as I look at them, "I'm alive now...but someday I won't
> be."  Someday those fingers of mine won't move.
>
> I wonder often about life after death and what lies beyond.

My biggest decision is whether to be cremated or not. My family believes in it, my sister was cremated and her ashes were spread in various spots (her garden, the sea, my mother's garden). I haven't decided if this is the way I want to make my peace with this world.

>
> Do you wonder about it also?
> Is there life after death or is our death simply annhilation?
> Will I go to Heaven or will I rot in the ground & there is no
> Heaven?
>
> Yes...I do believe in a Supreme Being...I do believe in God &
> Jesus Christ.
> As a human I do have doubts though...what if they don't exist?
> What if ALL of our faiths are for nothing?  
> I hate to say it but that possibility does exist.  
> My biggest fear is that there is NOTHING after death.
> I want to know that THERE IS another place & life for me after
> I die.
> Annhilation is not acceptable to me.

God exists, of this I have no doubt. I have been witness to many blessings in my life and I know that were it not for the intervention of God, I may never have had the chance to make peace with my sister before she died. I also believe that I will see her again, and I will understand that while people on earth miss me, people in Heaven will be welcoming me home. While the possibility of "Annhilation" does exist for some, it does not for me. I know there is another existence besides this one.


>
> One of my greatest fears is that I'm not living my life to my
> full potential.  Constantly I remind & question myself that I
> have only one life and am I doing all I can?
>
Everyone feels like this from time to time. Truth be told; I could fill up the Forum with all the times I have felt useless/worthless/not worth being loved. I have to remind myself that as long as I try to help others in a genuine way, I am living my life fully and no one can ever take that away from me; since it is so much easier to be evil than good in this world.


> I do fear death....any honest man that denies it is
> lying...mostly I wonder if it will hurt & which way I'll
> eventually check out.  
> Will it be fast or slow & painful?
>
> It is the the fact that it is FINAL that seems to bother me the
> most.  That we have this limited period of time to do so much
> that we cannot possibly accomplish disturbs me.  That since the
> beginning of time and all that will take place forever on...I
> AM THE ONLY "ME" THAT WILL EVER EXIST.  There will never be
> another "me" in all of the eons that planet earth exists.
>
> Do you sometimes imagine what its like to be dead?
>
> Do you fear death and what it may or may not bring?


To sum up, I try to think of it like this:
I have no memory of my existence before I was conceived, but I know something was there.
I can't remember the earliest moments of my life, but I know I was loved and cared for.
During my day-to-day life now, I am loved and I have the joy of sharing that love with my family.
Eventually, I will cease to be. Am I afraid of it? Yep. I will probably want to hang on to every second I can, especially if I feel like I didn't right some wrong or make peace with everyone that comes to mind.

But I also know that death is not the end. I will be joining others who have passed before me and I will be starting another journey, where I am loved and cared for and I can love and care for others all over again.

[FearlessFreep]

As a Christian, I don't fear death.  I look forward to being in the direct presence of God.  I also know that God has plans for me here so as long as there are tthings He wants me to do, I'll be staying, and once that's over, I'll be going.  I don't know when, but He does, so I'm not worried.

[wickednick]

Im not really that afraid.I am a very firm beliver in god and know that im going to heaven when I die, so Im not too afraid. I also look at death in a rather diffrent light than most people.I kinda find it strange that so many people morn over death so much.After all isn't it believed by so many people that when you die you go to a better place?I believe that most do.So when someone dies and especially if its a old person I morn very little.I see them in a better place than whats here on earth.

[Cricket21a]

Nods, positive way to look at it.

[Velvet Brotha]

Yeah, the thought of dying does bumb me out. Especially now that I'm going to be a father. I would love to be around to see my children's grandchildren. : )

My faith in God is all that keeps me alive though. I just don't see how anyone can go on believing in anything. There is a God whether anybody likes it or not. It's not really death that scares me. It's the after life that's a biitch of a paradox.

[Eirik]

I don't care if it rains or freezes
'Long as I got my plastic Jesus
Settin' on the dashboard of my car
Comes in colors pink and pleasant
Glows in the dark 'cause it's irridescent
Take it with you when you travel far.

Get yourself a sweet Madonna
Dressed in rhinestone settin' on a
Pedastal of abalone shell.
Goin' ninety, I ain't scare'ed
'Cause I got the Virgin Mary
Assurin' me that I won't go to Hell.
                   - Cool Hand Luke

He said it best.

[dean]

Death is a scary thought for most people, its just how you deal with it when it happens [for slowish deaths] that matters.  i'm sure not everyone dies like in the movies, with a calm acceptance of death.  

I remember last year, a friend committed suicide, and that got everyone thinking about death and what they would do and what they think of it.  Most people seemed to accept the fact if it was time, it was fine.  Funerals are also a way of dealing.  It's not only about paying last respects, but that death is ok so we shouldn't really worry about it.

I'm not a very religious person, but I do have my own theories on things [which we shall not go into here, they make no viable sense] But despite this I try and do things in life that i think God would appreciate if he [or she, yay dogma!] saw it.  Hopefully this makes me a good enough person if there is such things as heaven [though I am cynical at times over it]  So I guess religion doesn't really ease the pain for me.  That being said, I don't hate religion and think it achieves alot of positives, so don't think I am taking a shot at those who are religious.  

I tend to be rather negative, taking a more existensial line of when it ends it ends, but despite this, I really do hope in an afterlife or a heaven, as do most people.

I think that fearing death is natural, and it would seem kind of odd if you didn't fear death [sure we might say we don't, but if we were faced with a deathy situation, i'm sure we'd be scared silly]  So hopefully when the time comes, we go out in style.  Because there's no way I'm going to hell without a fight.

[Scott]

Death is more Life (for some). Life more Abundant.

[The Burgomaster]

I don't fear death.  But I do worry that my wife won't be able to figure out my remote control set-up after I'm gone.  She may spend the rest of her life watching a black TV screen with the words "Video 1" in green letters in the top left hand corner.