Are you afraid of death?
- Thread starter bojackx
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I have kind of forced myself not to be.
I used to be terrified of it, but then I realized that if I spent my whole life worrying about the end, I wouldn't have really lived.
Also, I got into philosophy, and while I can't recall off the top of my head who said it (my girlfriend currently has my "Big Book of Philosophy"), I read someone say that the millions of years before our birth didn't hurt us, so neither would the millions after our death.
Opened my eyes a little
I used to be terrified of it, but then I realized that if I spent my whole life worrying about the end, I wouldn't have really lived.
Also, I got into philosophy, and while I can't recall off the top of my head who said it (my girlfriend currently has my "Big Book of Philosophy"), I read someone say that the millions of years before our birth didn't hurt us, so neither would the millions after our death.
Opened my eyes a little
while i believe in Heaven...yes im a bit afraid...sometimes when i really think about the fact that this literally is all the time i have....that i was born and therefor i must die...it keeps me up at night sometimes. yet at the same time it intrigues me....well...wht intrigues me is what comes after...is there a heaven? do we just become wondering ghosts? nothing? what? nobody can tell us? but i suppose i should clarify....im not afraid of being dead...im afraid of the process....i dont want to linger slowly...i dont want to know my time is slipping away.
Course I am. My entire body has been fighting kicking the bucket, and how extremely uncomfortable and panic inducing it could be. In every circumstance I imagine with me dying, I don't think of myself giving a cool one liner as I peg it, I imagine myself crying like there's no tomorrow (badumtish).
I like to think I'm not afraid of death, but I imagine my opinion on the matter will be very different when I'm eventually faced with it for real.
only if it's one of those REALLY painful deaths, like burned alive, other wise,no, why should i be? its going to happen regardless of what you do, so fearing it is pointless
I wouldn't say I'm afraid of dying, but I will say I'd be pissed off if I died now. Too much left on my to-do list to stop now.
This is what I personally believe, and I don't care how stupid it may sound to some people.
Let's parallel the act of going to sleep to the act of dying.
The part where you are drifting off to sleep is the same as when your life is leaving your body. It parallels.
So what happens when you fall asleep? You dream.
I believe when you die, you enter a very similar state. Your consciousness gets stuck in that moment of time right before your brain truly dies. For everyone observing you are dead, but you are forever living that moment right before death. Not in pain or anything horrible like that - But a dream.
So to answer your question; am I afraid of death?
.... No more than I am of sleeping.
Let's parallel the act of going to sleep to the act of dying.
The part where you are drifting off to sleep is the same as when your life is leaving your body. It parallels.
So what happens when you fall asleep? You dream.
I believe when you die, you enter a very similar state. Your consciousness gets stuck in that moment of time right before your brain truly dies. For everyone observing you are dead, but you are forever living that moment right before death. Not in pain or anything horrible like that - But a dream.
So to answer your question; am I afraid of death?
.... No more than I am of sleeping.
People often say fear of death doesn't make sense. Even while saying it makes sense to view death as a negative thing. Makes me question if I actually understand what fear is.
What I do know is that death is not okay because it is simply the absence of pain. It is also the absence of pleasure which is worse than the absence of pain. The worst thing in the world is not the experience of pain, but the absence of pleasure. And death is the absence of pleasure.
And all of us who talk about pain being worse than death, I think that most haven't ever had the chance to experience true pain in their lives. There are people in this world struggling to live through pain. But want to live, and struggle to live because the mere existence of a consciousness is mildly pleasurable and valuable to us. If not the most valuable thing we have that all pleasures and worth we have as living humans is based off of. I might argue what the good in having your friends and family live is, if you're not around to enjoy their existence. There is no worth to you greater than your own existence. It is the base necessity of anything for you. Family, friends, lovers, money, social standing, none of this can have any worth or meaning if you cannot experience it.
Again, it's not "death" I'm afraid of in the sense I think that not existing will be painful. I'm afraid of something worse than pain. Pain and pleasure often go together. I feel pleasure on some level by just existing. You can't say I fear death because I have the flawed notion that not existing will be painful. I'm not afraid of pain, well, I am afraid of pain, but not as much as death. Because what I fear more than pain, is the inability to feel pleasure. And to say that death is the inability to feel pleasure is an overstatement.
If death was truly not a "bad" thing or something to fear, then it would be better to just kill all people who suffer from AIDS. But for all we try to shrug at death, we don't see that proposition, now do we? And heck, if human civilization and the environment are a big deal, but death isn't anything to worry about for us. Then where is the mass genocide project to end overpopulation?
I'll go ahead and urge anyone adamant about the notion that death isn't an inconvenience and shouldn't be feared to casually kill themselves in order to prove the point.
What I do know is that death is not okay because it is simply the absence of pain. It is also the absence of pleasure which is worse than the absence of pain. The worst thing in the world is not the experience of pain, but the absence of pleasure. And death is the absence of pleasure.
And all of us who talk about pain being worse than death, I think that most haven't ever had the chance to experience true pain in their lives. There are people in this world struggling to live through pain. But want to live, and struggle to live because the mere existence of a consciousness is mildly pleasurable and valuable to us. If not the most valuable thing we have that all pleasures and worth we have as living humans is based off of. I might argue what the good in having your friends and family live is, if you're not around to enjoy their existence. There is no worth to you greater than your own existence. It is the base necessity of anything for you. Family, friends, lovers, money, social standing, none of this can have any worth or meaning if you cannot experience it.
Again, it's not "death" I'm afraid of in the sense I think that not existing will be painful. I'm afraid of something worse than pain. Pain and pleasure often go together. I feel pleasure on some level by just existing. You can't say I fear death because I have the flawed notion that not existing will be painful. I'm not afraid of pain, well, I am afraid of pain, but not as much as death. Because what I fear more than pain, is the inability to feel pleasure. And to say that death is the inability to feel pleasure is an overstatement.
If death was truly not a "bad" thing or something to fear, then it would be better to just kill all people who suffer from AIDS. But for all we try to shrug at death, we don't see that proposition, now do we? And heck, if human civilization and the environment are a big deal, but death isn't anything to worry about for us. Then where is the mass genocide project to end overpopulation?
I'll go ahead and urge anyone adamant about the notion that death isn't an inconvenience and shouldn't be feared to casually kill themselves in order to prove the point.
No, that would require consciousness and you could derive some form of pleasure out of staring at blackness all the time.Shoggoth2588 said:
Real death, not the religious, fun kind, is the absence of all thought and pleasure. And I don't mean that luxurious pleasure that privileged people feel from time to time. Even starving people dying the most slow, painful deaths feel pleasure.
Am I afraid of death? I suppose it's what the term means to you. I go with the most logical interpretation free of religious comfort. Am I afraid of dying? No. It's just a bit of pain, look on the bright side of it, even if you're suffering the most extremely painful death imaginable, you aren't dead. Am I afraid of becoming a ghost, going to hell, going to heaven? Of course not, they don't exist. I've got to admit that if heaven existed I'd be a little afraid of going there. Being a ghost would be pretty awesome, however. If I had reason to believe my consciousness would go on after death, it wouldn't truly be "death" and I'd welcome it with open arms and not be afraid of death at all.
That's what I tell people on their birthdays.TopazFusion said:
OT, not really for myself, but I'm horrified at the thought of people I love dying. I'd much rather not exist myself than lose someone I care about.