ever feel stressed about death?

[Fraught]

Since I'm an agnostic leaning towards atheism I don't know what happens after death, but I am of the pesuasion that we simply dissapear, and that fucking scares me.

On the other hand because I doubt an afterlife exists I have decided that I will spend every second of my life exactly how I want to, I don't mean I live life to the fullest and take trips to africa or anything like that, I just make sure that at any given moment I'm enjoying myself.

Life is too short for anything else.

You...are leaning towards atheism, yet you "don't know" what happens after death? Your organs'll just stop working and your conscience will cease to be. You'll be in the same state you was before your birth - you won't feel a thing, you won't be able to think. You won't feel anything, you just won't exist, just as the 100th President of the United States of America doesn't exist right now.

I think that, in contrast to the afterlife of, say, Christianity, gives me much less reason to fear death (and it'd be silly to be "fucking scared" of death because of that) though that doesn't mean I'm suicidal by any means. I enjoy life way too much, and I know that this is the only chance I get to make my mark upon this land, and I really want to do that.

But back to the point, death doesn't seem that scary a concept if you won't even notice you're dead once you are dead.

Think about it - remember the time before you were born? You didn't exist. You didn't exist for billions upon billions of years and it wasn't so bad. Death will be exactly like how it was before you were born. I'm not worried about how death with feel - I'm worried about not experiencing life before I go, and if I worry about death too much, I'll never live life to its fullest.

Lawd, I started reading through the thread after I posted, and I'm glad that there's someone who shares the same idea of death that I do, and words it pretty much in the same way. In this thread, that is.

 

[kidwithxboxlive]

I live next to a cemetery, so I can't much get away from it. I can't say I'm looking forward to dying, but it's not like I'm going to know it's happened. I just hope I can get out some good last words.

Last words:
LEEEEEERRRRRRRRROOOOOOYYYY JJJJJEEEEEEEEEEEEENKINS

 

[Betancore]

I feel more stressed about life, to be honest. Death is somewhat inevitable and I won't remember anything afterwards (hopefully) but life? I'm conscious for this whole life thing. And it's bloody long as well.

 

[moretimethansense]

Since I'm an agnostic leaning towards atheism I don't know what happens after death, but I am of the pesuasion that we simply dissapear, and that fucking scares me.

On the other hand because I doubt an afterlife exists I have decided that I will spend every second of my life exactly how I want to, I don't mean I live life to the fullest and take trips to africa or anything like that, I just make sure that at any given moment I'm enjoying myself.

Life is too short for anything else.

You...are leaning towards atheism, yet you "don't know" what happens after death? Your organs'll just stop working and your conscience will cease to be. You'll be in the same state you was before your birth - you won't feel a thing, you won't be able to think. You won't feel anything, you just won't exist, just as the 100th President of the United States of America doesn't exist right now.

I think that, in contrast to the afterlife of, say, Christianity, gives me much less reason to fear death (and it'd be silly to be "fucking scared" of death because of that) though that doesn't mean I'm suicidal by any means. I enjoy life way too much, and I know that this is the only chance I get to make my mark upon this land, and I really want to do that.

My belief can be summed up thus:
Though I don't think there is an afterlife, I think that no one can know for sure until they have actually died, hence Agnostic leaning toward atheism.

As for why I'm scared by the concept of non-existence, I just am, I know intellectually that I already didn't exist for millennia, but I do now, the concept of losing myself is (to me) the scariest thing I can imagine, I feel the same way about amnesia, personality altering drugs, alzheimer's and other mental illnesses that alter or destroy the perception of self, I know that after the fact I wont care, but I fear it happening.

 

[BringBackBuck]

As for why I'm scared by the concept of non-existence, I just am

I am with you on that. When my brain tries to really come to grips with the concept of it not existing it comes back with "does not compute". It is scary.

 

[Fraught]

I feel the same way about amnesia, personality altering drugs, alzheimer's and other mental illnesses that alter or destroy the perception of self, I know that after the fact I wont care, but I fear it happening.

I don't really equate those to death. I mean, after you go through amnesia, personality altering drugs, alzheimer's or whatever, then true, you may not be the same person, but you're still a person. You feel things, you see things, you get hurt.

Of course the concept of hell is scarier, no doubt, when you weigh in the fact that you'd still be aware what used to be and what you left behind, but the basic torment is still probably the worst part.

If you die, you won't have any of that which you'd still have with those mental deficits you mentioned.

But hey, agree to have differing attitudes towards things. You're scared of non-existence just because you are, but I'm really not scared of non-existence. I guess we'll just have to leave it at that.

 

[moretimethansense]

I feel the same way about amnesia, personality altering drugs, alzheimer's and other mental illnesses that alter or destroy the perception of self, I know that after the fact I wont care, but I fear it happening.

I don't really equate those to death. I mean, after you go through amnesia, personality altering drugs, alzheimer's or whatever, then true, you may not be the same person, but you're still a person. You feel things, you see things, you get hurt.

Of course the concept of hell is scarier, no doubt, when you weigh in the fact that you'd still be aware what used to be and what you left behind, but the basic torment is still probably the worst part.

If you die, you won't have any of that which you'd still have with those mental deficits you mentioned.

But hey, agree to have differing attitudes towards things. You're scared of non-existence just because you are, but I'm really not scared of non-existence. I guess we'll just have to leave it at that.

The thing is, for some reason I'm less scared of the inevitable hell that I will go to if one exists than I am of npn-existance(unlwss my eternal torment was sensery deprivation I guess), I guess I'm just weird that way.

As for why I'm scared by the concept of non-existence, I just am

I am with you on that. When my brain tries to really come to grips with the concept of it not existing it comes back with "does not compute". It is scary.

That is word for word how I'd describe it, at least if I were good at getting my point across.

 

[Jedoro]

I haven't gotten sad when someone close to me died, nor do I worry about my own death, so no I'm not stressed about it. I'll die someday, don't really care when. I just hope I get to make my death mean something, besides my family getting the life insurance money.

 

[Xojins]

I get stressed in the same sense that I get stressed for a test or something like that; yes I'm nervous about it, but everyone is going to have to face it eventually so why get all worked up about it?

 

[Jezzascmezza]

Death can't be all that bad- You just completely cease to exist.
You can't remember how it was before you came into existence, right?

 

[[.redacted]]

As long as you're faithful to your religion you don't have to fear death.

No.

I agree that it may be way of coping with the fear of death, and that it may be effective at that job - but religion should never utilise the tactic of telling people that they're screwed if they don't believe.

That's just wrong.

First argument in this general topic that I agree with. Between people saying that you'll go to hell if you don't believe in the faith of the day, and those saying that faith is bullshit, it's hard to state a middle ground. This is mine: faith's a fine thing to have, but it should be something personal that you don't force on to others. So can we end the stupid religion debate and get on with our lives.

And I wouldn't say I feel stressed about death. I would lie awake every night when I was about 12 or so, but I think I've gotten used to the fact/figured out my own personal faith/philosphy.

It's very good of you to be able to lay down arms like that, personally I have an unexplainable (well, unexplainable without causing substantial offence) urge to... I try not to say purge... religion from humanity.

But that's just me.

 

[[.redacted]]

Those are still all goals we have made ourselves, not an overriding goal.

If we have yet to discover one (which we have, if one even exists), the same sentiment I suggested earlier still applies in full.

But what does that mean to have an "overriding" goal. A goal is an intention, in other words a structure of consciousness - so without sentient life, there is no such thing as a goal.

If you are referring to a purpose, like a function we must serve; that presupposes that we were designed for a specific purpose, which means we had to be designed by someone or something: essentially a God. If you don't believe in some sort of intelligent creator, it seems inconsistent to believe that we have a pre-defined purpose that we don't chose for ourselves.

I'm saying that exactly the lack of such a predefined purpose is what makes our lives so meaningless, we have nothing to achieve that isn't of our own creation.

It's just depressing.

But why is that so? What would remedy that situation? If you ask "what is the point"? Then you have to keep asking it on broader and broader levels ad infinitum. What if there was some "greater design"? What would the point of THAT be, then? And the point of it's point and so on? Is it even possible to ever arrive at an end?

Why do we have to be externally important in addition to interally? If we must take ourselves seriously for whatever reason, isn't it possible that life is not meaningless, but rather absurd?

Oh, most certainly, but that's still just as depressing - it's an unsolvable, unfinishable loop of what ifs that lead to the inevitable conclusion that there is no goal.

 

[lettucethesallad]

I'm more scared of growing old, useless and ugly.

My grandma had a near-death experience after complications giving birth to my uncle, and she told me about it when I was a kid, about how disappointed and sad she was when she hadn't died. I always pictured death like when you're really really tired, and finally get to drift off to sleep - that happy, relieved, comfortable feeling.

 

[My name is Fiction]

Nah, when I nearly died I didn't really care, even after the fact.

Life is stressful, death is pretty easy.

I almost died too, in a car crash/ Dying is easy, living is hard.

Damn, that must have sucked, how did it happen?

I was stabbed and bled out, technically dead for two minutes. Then I was revived(loljesus). I woke up in the hospital with more of a meh attitude to be honest.

"Well I was little about 10, I pissed my mom of so she wouldn't let me sit in the front seat."
"It was about to be christmas and she had gifts in the trunk, after the crash happened I heard that there where shards of glass several inches long stabed into the front pasenger side."
For once being a spoiled brat saved me for ending up like pinhead from hellraiser.

 

[TWRule]

Oh, most certainly, but that's still just as depressing - it's an unsolvable, unfinishable loop of what ifs that lead to the inevitable conclusion that there is no goal.

Which is why we have to rise above the problem and give our own lives meaning. I recommend reading some Albert Camus - he covers the subject quite eloquently.

If the world is absurd then we have essentially three options:

1) Suicide (Not recommended).
2) Faith (Belief in a God or afterlife that is rational).
3) Absurd Heroism (Living a robust life despite the world, standing tall against fate, and laughing about it the whole way).

I choose the third option, but your results may vary.

 

[rokkolpo]

Dead doesn't scare me. Dying does.

Dying doesn't scare me, death does.

 

[rokkolpo]

Death can't be all that bad- You just completely cease to exist.
You can't remember how it was before you came into existence, right?

So how exactly isn't that all bad?
Personally, I'd rather burn in some kind of hell than cease to exist.

 

[[.redacted]]

Oh, most certainly, but that's still just as depressing - it's an unsolvable, unfinishable loop of what ifs that lead to the inevitable conclusion that there is no goal.

Which is why we have to rise above the problem and give our own lives meaning. I recommend reading some Albert Camus - he covers the subject quite eloquently.

If the world is absurd then we have essentially three options:

1) Suicide (Not recommended).
2) Faith (Belief in a God or afterlife that is rational).
3) Absurd Heroism (Living a robust life despite the world, standing tall against fate, and laughing about it the whole way).

I choose the third option, but your results may vary.

Or, option 4, which I chose:

To live life solely in order to enjoy oneself, at any expense or cost.

 

[TWRule]

Oh, most certainly, but that's still just as depressing - it's an unsolvable, unfinishable loop of what ifs that lead to the inevitable conclusion that there is no goal.

Which is why we have to rise above the problem and give our own lives meaning. I recommend reading some Albert Camus - he covers the subject quite eloquently.

If the world is absurd then we have essentially three options:

1) Suicide (Not recommended).
2) Faith (Belief in a God or afterlife that is rational).
3) Absurd Heroism (Living a robust life despite the world, standing tall against fate, and laughing about it the whole way).

I choose the third option, but your results may vary.

Or, option 4, which I chose:

To live life solely in order to enjoy oneself, at any expense or cost.

Sure - hedonism works too. Technically anything where you live without faith falls under option 3, I just embellished it a bit .