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Death, how do you feel about it?
Re: Death, how do you feel about it?
by smallpoxgirl » Wed 09 Jul 2008, 18:35:22
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')he thought of hell is far more terrifying than the thought of simply not existing, isnt it?
link
The idea that the universe is run by that kind of a sadistic f___ker is beyond my ability to seriously contemplate.
"We were standing on the edges
Of a thousand burning bridges
Sifting through the ashes every day
What we thought would never end
Now is nothing more than a memory
The way things were before
I lost my way" - OCMS
Of a thousand burning bridges
Sifting through the ashes every day
What we thought would never end
Now is nothing more than a memory
The way things were before
I lost my way" - OCMS
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Re: Death, how do you feel about it?
by Ludi » Wed 09 Jul 2008, 18:55:13
It's difficult for me to imagine what part of "me"would survive after death. Not my mind, which is a function of the chemical and electrical signals in my brain, not my personality, an aspect of my mind formed in part by my upbringing.
This I guess goes to that old question "what is the soul?"
I can imagine the components of my body going on to foster new life. And of course in this sense there's no complete death, as many of the bacteria that make up so much of our bodies will continue after "we" die (with disgusting results). But decay may lead to new life. We all have little bits of various dead people in us - do they live on that way?
"My death will be the life of another, Jared - I swear that to you. And you watch, you come find me, because I'll be standing again in these grasses and you'll see me looking through the eyes of the fox and taking the air with the eagle and running in the tracks of the deer."
- from "The Story of B" by Daniel Quinn
This I guess goes to that old question "what is the soul?"
I can imagine the components of my body going on to foster new life. And of course in this sense there's no complete death, as many of the bacteria that make up so much of our bodies will continue after "we" die (with disgusting results). But decay may lead to new life. We all have little bits of various dead people in us - do they live on that way?
"My death will be the life of another, Jared - I swear that to you. And you watch, you come find me, because I'll be standing again in these grasses and you'll see me looking through the eyes of the fox and taking the air with the eagle and running in the tracks of the deer."
- from "The Story of B" by Daniel Quinn
- Ludi
Re: Death, how do you feel about it?
by threadbear » Wed 09 Jul 2008, 20:54:44
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', 'W')hen we believe life ends with death, it deadens something in us. We interpret other perspectives as fantasy propelled foolishness.
I would love to believe. I try...sometimes harder than others...ultimately I just end up feeling that I'm kidding myself. I feel like I'm making up this story because I don't want to deal with the finality of death.
To Ludi and SPG both--I felt the same way, SPG. Then it dawned on me that disqualifying all evidence that seemed to point to the contrary, due to the fact that I desired it be true wasn't logically rigorous either. I then simply applied the same criteria to this subject that I do to others. It didn't mean I did a flip flop and "believed" the alternative point of view, I simply allowed myself to be exposed to the other point of view and became fairly efficient at separating reasoned argument from debunking.
Ludi, The worst thing for me, when I was younger, was imagining that I and those close to me would never have a better shot at happiness, or normalcy in their lives than the one shot here. My sister, like your's has a severe mental illness, schizophrenia, and her life has been a vast stretch of mild paranoia punctuated with moments of true misery.
It seemed that there had to be a deeper meaning, a deeper purpose and some kind of organizational system beneath this misery. Life seems unfair, but my own intuition tells me, my sister is picking up credits in this particular system that are a net benefit for us all, and she will have her day. One day, perhaps in another life, or another time or realm, this poor broken person will walk the streets, a radiant being, spreading the fruit of her accumulated agony in this life.
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Re: Death, how do you feel about it?
by wisconsin_cur » Wed 09 Jul 2008, 21:15:41
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('smallpoxgirl', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')he thought of hell is far more terrifying than the thought of simply not existing, isnt it?
link
The idea that the universe is run by that kind of a sadistic f___ker is beyond my ability to seriously contemplate.
There is a strain of Christian belief which holds that "hell" is non-existence.
I think it has the best arguments...
you know, if one accepts the Christian perspective to begin with.
Annihilationism
Concerning if the impulse toward believing in an afterlife is just positive self talk:
Just because news is good, does not mean that it is false. One of the objective observations that I find... interesting... are the times a resident in a nursing home (my bride works in a nursing home) experience the supernatural.
The best story my wife has of an old man who my wife knew. He was of sound mind and not suffering from any form of clinical mental degradation. One day, out of no where and for the first time, he spoke of a being, an angel that came to him but, he reported that he told the being, "my birthday is next week and everyone will be there. I'll go after my birthday!"
He died (suddenly) the day after his birthday.
Sure there are all kinds of tricks of the mind that might explain the experience but it then seems that those who push those theories a little too hard are just as guilty of wishing an afterlife away as many people are of wishing that one is there to deal with their own fear of death.
We are all subjective and might just as easily be wishing evidence away as wishing evidence into existence. Those trained in the sciences are, perhaps, more inclined to wish evidence outside of a scientific materialist away. Fervent believers are, perhaps, more likely to be guilty of "trying a little too hard" to find evidence of an afterlife.
http://www.thenewfederalistpapers.com
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