OT: Do You Fear Death?

[Brother Ragnarok]

Absolutely terrified of it.  There's nowhere near enough time to do all the stuff I want.  If I had the option, damn straight I'd become immortal.  I heard a report that may or may not be (but probably isn't) true about some scientists working on a drug that extends the human lifespan to 200 - 300 years or somesuch.  Gimme!
I don't want to know it's coming.  Waking up every morning with that hanging over your head would suck.  I want it to sneak up on me, like the gay dude getting splattered in Bride of Chucky.

Brother R

[Eirik]

"I heard a report that may or may not be (but probably isn't) true about some scientists working on a drug that extends the human lifespan to 200 - 300 years or somesuch."

They've isolated the gene that makes us age.  Now all they need to do is find a way to deactivate it and they do estimate that it could extend out life spans to about 200 years.  And they'll probably figure it out without even bothering to ponder the consequences.

[Susan]

Well if they increase our life spans I want the hell off of this planet which will soon become a sesspool of poverty, lack of jobs, and development overrunning planet earth until it really IS a bleak futuristic movie with smokey dank alleyways and not a flower in sight. The medical industry would love a life extending drug. Just imagine the years and years of them making money treating all your aging ailments of arthritis, heart conditions, alzheimers, osteoporosis...

[TheFeen]

I do fear death, like any man does. I dont care if you're the toughest, combat scarred son of a gun alive, everyone to some degree fears death. As for an afterlife who knows. Personally i dont believe in God or Budda or Muhamed or follow any type of religion, i dont think that people who do follow organised (or un organised) religion are foolish but in the past i may have done. But who knows maybe i'm the foolish one maybe when its judgement time ill be the one floating through space on a giant rock (thats my idea of limbo).
One thing that honestly does scare me more than dying, vain as it may seem, is getting old. At the moment i'm a virile 20 year old, i'm in my prime, but i know its all down hill from here, in 10-15 years time i wont be able to punish my body and have come crawling back for more the next day, ill have to actually exercise in order to look good. Now thats scary.

[Ash]

I brought this oldie back.

There are many newcomers to this board and I thought I'd get some more thoughts on this topic.



Post Edited (08-23-04 12:06)

[IguanaGirl]

I dont think I fear death itself, as much as losing the chance to do and learn so many wonderful things, and to never be able to see the things that I love again.
Ive thought about it a few times, and sometimes the idea of nothingness doesnt seem so bad, after all the striving we do in life, it might be nice to have that ultimate peace.
I have studyied religion a bit, which I think makes it very hard to believe in one, but I study it out of a desire to discover what makes people tick, why does this religion have such appeal to people that they will give up everything, sometimes even their life itself, to it. I do believe that even if the Gods exists, religion is made by man, to help us make sense of ourselves, and our world.
I have seen a few relatives die, and I have watched many pets die, I recently had to have my dog put down because she was in sick and in pain... I know its not exactly the same as a person, but I had had that dog for 16 years, and I would like to think that a part of her has gone on. Even if it is only to enrich the earth so that it will grow beautiful trees and flowers in the future.
Even if there is no soul, the Earth wastes nothing. From death life and beauty spring, it happens everyday all around us!

I only hope that I get the chance to leave my own mark on society before I die.

[Acidburn]

I do not fear death...now dont get me wrong I am not in any hurry of dying, but beinga christian death is something that I (in a strange way) and looking foreward to.  The thing that upsets me the most about it is that fact that I will be leaving my family behind.   Will my wife be able to make it alone?  (I know she will, but it makes me feel important to think the opposite)  I will never get to see my son graduate from school.   It is not death but the things that I will miss that depress me.

[Fearless Freep]

I suspect that you will not miss those things, but that those you leave behind will miss you not being a part of them.

I've been hearing and seeing ads for a local mortuary trying to get people to pre-plan  their funeral based  on the premise that the people you leave behind won't know what you want.    I have three thoughts:  a) your friends and relatives should hopefully know you well enough, b) I'll be dead so I don't care c) I'd rather my relatives do things that remind them of me in a good way than what I would pick.

[Susan]

Why do coffins have pillows and plush lining? My fear is not death but the ridiculous manner in which my body will be kept, we're not supposed to be preserved like pickles! I guess it's to make the living feel better or something. I take death very seriously, but i also take life seriously. I used to think it would be funny if my funeral required everyone to dress in a clown nose and after the formalities, they would roll my coffin around, and do a magic trick with the saw...

I wouldn't want to live forever. I think it would be fun to see what life will be like for family in 40 years, how society will be in 500 years..but to live each year by year working and paying taxes would be agony. I don't have kids, i guess i'd miss movies most of all. Someone will say "wow, susan would have really liked this movie!"

actually that's not true since nobody i know really truly knows my taste in movies ;-)

[JohnL]

>My fear is not death but the ridiculous manner in which my body will be kept,
>we're not supposed to be preserved like pickles!

If it's any consolation, I've read that contrary to popular belief, embalming only slows down decomposition a little, it doesn't prevent it. So while your corpse won't turn green or start to smell during the wake, it's not going to have you looking perfectly preserved for years afterward.

[Writer]

I fear death much as I might fear a trip to the dentist: not something I want to experience, but Heaven's wairing and I'll be better off when it's over, so I'd best grin and bear it.

The real horror of death is its destruction of purpose and meaning. Hell awaits the damned, but they suffer spiritual death from the futility of their activities long before they die physically. This is where I see Christianity having an immediate advantage over atheism and agnosticism:  no matter what either of these "secular" religions says, materialism allows for no real purpose in life whatsoever. Atheism necessarily denies such purposes, while agnosticism necessarily denies all certainty that there is any such purpose. The self, moreover, is claimed to be merely a complex energy pattern. Sparks and lightning bolts do not have a life, and neither do random electrons in the brain.

In more polytheistic and pantheistic religions, this ultimate horror is a bit subtler, since some promise a kind of Heaven or Nirvana. Closer examination reveals that Nirvana is actually Hell, since it involves the complete loss of the self, which is supposedly a mere illusion anyway. In practice, nothing is worthwhile or enjoyable to things that don't have any self. Polytheistic Heavens, meanwhile, prove to be nothing but exaggerated fulfillment of human desires, which is also rather Hellish in practice. Ecclesiastes effectively shreds all notions of this humanistic Heaven. (Notably, such a heaven is what Islam offers as well. Supposing you get your 72 virgins and a river of wine, what do you do when you get tired of wine, women, and song, as everyone does sooner or later?)

The Christian (and Jewish, let it also be noted) Heaven, which necessarily involves something too glorious for human imagination is therefore the only hope worth pursuing. While this does not alleviate immediate pains and fears, it does remove the ultimate horror, which is worse. And that is the hope on which I base my  life.

[Max Gardner]

No, I don't necessarily fear death, as I'm fairly convinced that there is nothing whatsoever waiting for me, no heaven, no hell, no reincarnation - nothing.  Not even awareness of the fact that there is nothing.  I find that reassuring.  We have no more meaning than the system of our collective particles and neurons, and no purpose in life other than our contribution to the wholly natural system of which we are a part.  If I believed in God, I'd most likely be terrified at the prospect of death, and this huge invisible tyrant king living in space, waiting to judge my every action based upon some nebulous balance of abstract manmade concepts such as good and evil.  I, as a human being,  will be over and done with, and the world will move on without me.  Surely that isn't such a terrible thing.

That said, as a b-movie fan, I'm requesting a shallow grave, so that when the zombie plague finally hits, I'll be the first one out of the ground.

[Drezzy Mac]

I don't fear death. I fear what will happen to those I love afterwards.

When my friend Timmay (yes, his nickname was based on the South Park character) died because of a drug overdose, his cousin Jeff, who I grew up with and was friends with since the second grade, became a heavy drinker. Jeff died in a car accident three months later. Two and a half months after that, my grandfather died. And just a month and a half ago? My ex-girlfriend, and still good FRIEND, Tina died. I imagine none of them cared much for the fact that they were dying, but rather would want to make sure those they loved and held dear were alright.

I'll be the same way, I guess. I don't fear death at all. It's a change. I fear my friends' sorrow, as I hold them as close as some hold family. I fear my family no longer having their favorite metalhead wise-ass to cheer them up with a snide remark. I fear for everybody I've met no longer having the chance to say hello to me, and everybody I didn't have the chance to meet never having had the chance to do so.

That...and I fear necrophiliacs.