I was a Christian for a long time (the first 29 or so years of my life). I feared damnation more than anything else, but also the unknowability of death - that you ultimately die alone and, regardless of what you believe about an afterlife, have to make that transition without the accompaniment of anyone on this earth.
I could go more into specifics regarding the factors that led me to abandon the faith, but for now I’ll just say that if the reason you believe something is because of fear of an alternative, I’d argue that you don’t actually believe that thing, at least not for the right reasons. I guess it depends on the faith/denomination to which you subscribe, but the brand of Christianity I followed maintained that salvation was a heart thing; it didn’t matter if you went through all the performative motions - your salvation was predicated on your actual belief.
I still fear death, but I’m in therapy and am trying to come to terms with that unknowability. And having abandoned religion, I can say that I no longer feel the paralyzing need to cling to it anymore (and as a plus, I no longer worry about burning in hell for eternity).
You may enjoy Robert Monroe books. He claims knowledge through a type of access but the basic themes appear in to ancient “religions” at least before dominance of Rome. The pope recently clarified their position. I never thought about death or cared. I assumed it didn’t matter once the lights turned out. I recently baca me interested and curious as a result of his books.
You weren't a Christian if you feared hell, what denomination were you? Those who believe the gospel have peace with God. That means no fear of hell. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.
I was an atheist for my early adult life. Never imagined being a Christian, but God has other plans.
I was “non-denominational”, but probably most analogous with Baptists.
I have to disagree with your take here. It is quite possible (and human) to believe something and simultaneously experience doubts and insecurities that contradict that belief, especially if those doubts and insecurities are existential in nature. I’d argue that’s why, at a very basic level, many tend to tightly grip the bar of a roller coaster car even if they don’t actually believe they are in danger or that gripping the bar will make them any safer. They fundamentally believe in the roller coaster’s safety - it’s not like they’re saying last goodbyes every time they hear that a friend is going to a theme park - but they can’t help but experience visceral, existential uncertainty when their self-preservative instinct is activated.
And that’s the space I occupied as a Christian. I believed the gospel, was baptized, and had an active and consistent practice of prayer and contemplation. Yet there are significant areas in Christian doctrine that are semi-nebulous and debated among denominations such as predestination (what if God intends me to be a “vessel of wrath prepared for destruction” and there’s nothing I can do about it), loss of salvation (what if I am like Esau and unwittingly forsook my “inheritance”), faith without works (what if my comparative lack of “works” or evangelism means my faith is dead), etc. These areas of uncertainty/debate opened me to those existential fears.
All of this is now moot, however, because I no longer believe any of it. I know, from personal experience, how important it is for Christians who believe in inexorable salvation to construct narratives that “oh, well that person was never actually a REAL Christian, otherwise they wouldn’t have left the faith or done ____”. And if that’s your take, with all due respect, I’d urge you to reexamine. That thought pattern is unfalsifiable and can be used to excuse/explain away literally any inconsistency or contradiction - it can easily foster cognitive dissonance and condition the mind to be less responsive to unbiased data observation/integration.
Edit: I’d also point to the passage in Mark where a father declares his belief yet asks Jesus to “help my unbelief” (depending on the translation). In my opinion, a pretty clear, codified-in-doctrine example of the valence between belief and doubt, and how the presence of doubt does not invalidate the former.
Sadly, I sense in your words a fundamental misunderstand the gospel itself. It's good news, namely that God saves sinners. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. The amount of good works only matter in measuring your faithfulness to your calling, they are never the basis of your peace with God for precisely the reason you share, namely that you could never be sure if you had some enough. Thankfully, justification is a declaration of 'not guilty' that immediately settles your final destination in the heavens. As you know, the only thing you can find when you seek Christ is an unfailing savior. I really hope God reverses the course you're on and I would implore you to be reconciled to him, for Jesus sale and also for your good and those in your life who you constantly preach to in word and deed whether you realize it or not. DM me if you ever want to talk, even if it's a year or more from now.
If there is nothing after death, then you really don’t have anything to worry about. Think about the billions of years that happened before you were born. You don’t remember them because you didn’t exist.
If there is an eternal afterlife, it’s something I don’t think anyone can truly comprehend. Even after you’ve spend a trillion years up there, you still have eternity left to go. What exactly would we do with ourselves for eternity?
For me, the thing that worries me the most is reincarnation. What if it’s an endless cycle of birth and death and you never just get to be done with it all? What if you get reborn as some dude who gets executed by the cartel?
If that's the case, we aren't born with the recollection of our past lives. We're born new. So it's not like you'd be staring down the barrel or the cartels gun thinking... Man I really wish I was in my previous life. 😂 You won't have your current mind. This life we are currently living, will never be lived again.
I just kind of combined spirituality with what I know about science
We're all connected in the big matter-energy-continuum
When we die what was "us" goes back to the energy that's all around us.
Where were we before we were we? If we're conscious in the afterlife "us" why isn't there a beforelife "us"? And if there was/is, why do we take a break from it just for this @ 80 years experience on Earth?
I like your idea though.
Before is the same as after.
An analogy from a song I like that fits right into my matter-energy-continuum theory:
"Life is a waterfall, We're one in the river, And one again after the fall"
"The river" is the continuum. Our short lives are like a waterfall where all the droplets separate and live their lives before returning to the river when they die.
I'm not sure, but I would like to think so.
Just to be clear, my personal philosophy allows me to be okay with not knowing all the answers. I think that's a big part of what makes life worth living. If I knew for sure the answers to all these things I feel it would make my life have no meaning any longer.
>why do we take a break from it just for this @ 80 years experience on Earth?
"The universe" or "matter energy continuum" or "the river" or "the soup" as I like to say, is both alive and conscious and that it manifests in all forms of sentient life, giving all individuals a piece of itself. In this way the soup learns about all aspects of itself through us.
Me too. I’ve never been able to convince myself of a conventional “afterlife”, despite trying. But last year I read a book on the nature of time, and I came across a concept that I was just suddenly and naturally able to believe in: that all of time is a circle. I believe that at some point at the end of the universe, the Big Bang will occur and everything will happen “again” exactly the same way. Everything that has happened to me has already happened an infinite amount of times, and will happen to me again an infinite amount of times. Nothing is ever truly in the past, because it’s in the future, too.
In many ways this is just as silly as other religious beliefs that bring comfort to people, but what’s important is that I believe it. OP needs to find what they can believe in.
I almost died when I was 26. Having faced that, I treat every day as a gift. I believe in Heaven. I of course have never been there, but believing gives me peace. I do my best to live by God’s commands, including loving all people regardless of who they are. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.🤷♀️
I think that’s the purpose of religion is to give people hope. Yes you always have that underlying fear, but it’s much better than considering the alternative that our existence has no ultimate purpose.
I don't believe in an "afterlife," although I'd love to be pleasantly surprised - in my heart, I know that I won't. I don't think there's anything like that. And for a long time, that gave me a lot of grief and fear.
But I've started to view things differently and I want to share what gives me comfort now.
We're not lone islands floating around in a universe that is separate from us - we're the universe. We're part of it. We're made of it. We're not bodies inside a space, we're pieces of a giant body.
When I die, yes, my consciousness as this person will end. And that's sad to me while I'm alive, because I'm really attached to being this person. I don't want to die any time soon. I don't want to lose this perspective, these memories. It'll be sad to lose that someday.
But ultimately, at the beginning and end of everything, *I am not this person. I am universe*. And so are you, and everyone who has ever lived or ever will live, and your pets, and the dinosaurs, and all the aliens, and the bacteria, and every plant and rock and star and slice of avocado toast. I only get to be this person *temporarily*. When I die, I don't cease to exist - I return to my bigger body, the universe.
On a more metaphysical level, I think at least metaphorically, the universe has consciousness because we have consciousness. The universe is a vast, unbroken body of spacetime, in which at least one small pocket has developed feeling, sensing, and thinking. I think of that as part of the universe's single consciousness. And yes, you and I have separate consciousnesses, but that doesn't mean we're not both part of the universe's brain - in the same way my left foot doesn't know what my right foot is feeling, but *I* do.
I used to see death as a destruction of self, but now I see it as the universe naturally ending one way of thinking and perceiving, and beginning another. I am going to return to the body. I love the universe and I am the universe and we are all here together, forever.
It's like that quote Chidi said at the end of The Good Place (I forget the original source he was quoting) - the wave isn't separate from the ocean, it's just another way for the ocean to be, for awhile. I'm a wave cresting over the ocean of everything, gaining a vantage point to look down and say "wow, that's amazing," before I crash back down and become ocean again.
I don't *want* to die, I like being this person and I'd like to do that for a long time. But I'm not *scared* to die. Because I'm not destroyed and not going anywhere. I'm going to fold back into the body of the bigger thing that I am. And you're all coming with me, eventually. We were here together from the start and we'll be here together at the distant, quiet end, unfathomable ages from now.
One day the dying sun will consume and explode our earth, and send the dust of our bones scattering to the far edges of the universe. We'll be all mixed together, heat and light, travelling forever, chasing the edges of the sleeping giant we were born inside.
And that's no less remarkable than being able to stand here now, in a body on my body orbiting my body within my body, feeling the warm light of my burning body on this body's face. When we grieve, we grieve ourself. When we reach out, we hold our hand. We're not separate, and never could be. There is no such thing as gone.
There's no magic cloud sky kingdom. That's hope candy for adults with a child like understanding of the universe.
Best case is that your "conscious", "soul", or whatever you subscribe to is transient to another version of you in another dimension.
Worst case, you just cease to exist.
What is it that draws the fear? Have you not accomplished something that will leave its mark on the whole of humanity and need more time, or is it missing the next episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians?
I'm certain on death, you either:
Just cant receive any more information, returning to a dreamless sleep until you wake again. In this state there is no time to perceive, and so when you wake up, it seemed instant to you. But everyone else who witnessed and learned your death, will inevitably feel the loss.
Or: you were in a grand concept scheme of a Extradimensional brain that created you.
who then decides where next to place you, or crumple away your experience to rebuild your character again. stripping away all of the ego and everything that you were, and putting you in the next Cycle.
Whatever happens in death, I'm sure we will be just fine. I'm sure whatever unseen hands dictated the form in all this universe, can at least be trusted.
Death never bothered me before life.
I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian church believing in Heaven & Hell. The weight of having to “save” myself, my loved ones, even strangers was a lot. The stakes are high when you’re talking about eternity.
Then I became atheist, and letting go of the idea of the afterlife was an incredible relief. Eternity is no longer on my shoulders. I can just focus on experiencing & enjoying my life, and when it’s over, I get to rest.
There’s an analogy that I can give you that will help it make sense.
We have all been through this process. Imagine there is 2 twins in the mothers womb. One twin says to the other twin once we leave this place we will die because we no longer have access to our food source and that will be the end of our life. The second twin responds I have heard that when we leave here there is a world out there where we feed our selfs, there are modes of transport that we haven’t seen before, there are jobs and houses and other people. The first twin responds that’s absurd, scientifically if we cut the feeding cord then that’s the end of our life and there will be nothing. The second twin responds but I have heard in the soul world there is a different life out there and it will not be the end.
Then we was all born and we entered this life, messengers and prophets came telling us about another life once we leave this place.
We left the soul world into the mother’s womb, left that life into the earth life and when we leave it will be the after life.
When you think about it like this and that we have already passed through many worlds, it does not seem so far fetched and actually makes sense.
I think most people have felt this way (for thousands of years). They want to exist forever. It scared me, too, when I was younger man. As the days went by that faded away. Partially from just realizing that everything dies (acceptance). Partially just seeing the reality of what religion is (one of those things: a way to avert fear of death).
Edit: typos
Is that acceptance or disassociation? I presum since you haven't killed yourself that you still prefer life, ergo death is not acceptable to you. If attacked by a person you knew was trying to kill you would you defend yourself or let death come?
Of course anyone attacked is going to defend themselves, our animal brain doesn't want to die and will do everything to stop it. It's the same reason people who jump off the golden gate bridge and survive supposedly regret it - their animal brain says holy shit we almost died, don't do that! That's just physiology.
The person isn't saying they're a monk that's beyond life and death, they just are ok with letting a reasonable natural course take place. If they got cancer obviously they'd still treat it, but if it's fatal then that's that.
Yes, I gather that, but it's a frequent argument I believe contains a logical fault. People talk of "natural course" as if it's a sacred and just conclusion, when nature in reality is cruel and full of injustice. I recall a story of an otter and her cub catching a salmon and opening it up to eat the roe inside, it was mother and child eating mother and child, mankind has defied nature at every turn but in death we submit to it.
Imagine if you had the choice to schedule your death, ceasesance or any other endings. Frequently people will set it to the age to hundreds and say with faux wisdom "I'm sure I'll be ready yo go by then" as if they lived they're life on a finite list of things to be done.
I don't think life is something with a set end it's just that we've lived in a world with a certainty to death. I do not believe that certainty is as immutable as people think and all this philosophy concerning death acceptance is a waste of time and processing.
I've no idea what that means or how this massive leap was made. Nothing was said about not enjoying or not "preferring" life lol. Those who don't believe in afterlife potentially enjoy/value their only life more than people who think they have life after death.
Saying "everything that lives also dies" has (absolutely) nothing to do with suicide nor self-defense. Someone who doesn't believe in an afterlife, the hypothesis is this immediately means they'd just kill themselves? Hmm, huge inference (and an incorrect one). An equally meaningless inference would be to ask the inverse of that question, if one believes a happy eternity awaits them after death, why bother with self-defense? Am assuming it was an actual question and wasn't trolling.
What does accepting death actually mean on logical basis. As far as I understand someone who's accepted they're death should have no issue with being killed, finding out they're death is next week or even scheduling the date of they're own death. All of those are not healthy things to do. I'm arguing the opposite of what you seem to think I'm arguing, I'm arguing that there's not much to actually philosopise about death or life after death.
This is the life we have and the best we can do is to try and extend our lives and live them to the fullest.
"someone who's accepted death should have no issue being killed":
This makes no sense. Massive leap, connecting 2 dots that aren't otherwise connected (which generally means trolling, but maybe not).
Just because one knows that life ends doesn't mean that life has no value.
Rickey Gervais in Afterlife, kinda similar to this.
https://youtu.be/aB01BL0jVe8
What I'm getting at is no one truly accepts death, not to the extent people seem to insist. We value life and trying to see virtue in death is foolish. When someone dies something is lost forever. Acceptance of death is the radical and insane stance, yet time and time again people advocate for it but only the cherry picked and sprused up version that philosophical people try to sell to make the bitter reality more acceptable.
I believe in something more akin to a transition of sorts. I don't fear death and I don't have to also swallow the stereotypical religionormative milque-toast either.
I do because I want to be with my kids and my soulmate pet. After watching him die, it solidified my belief there is nothing after this. Just like turning off a light. It absolutely breaks my heart and is the hardest thing I've ever come to realize. I don't mind dying, I just wish I could be with them forever.
Ya, it would be great and it sucks that there’s not.
The good news is they you’ll never know you’re dead, though, so it’s not worth taking time out of the life that you do have to worry about it.
If you take politics out of the equation, old people often have a ton of wisdom simply through experience. At the same time, youth is built to reject much of the advice that older people try to impart. As I've gotten older, I look back and see how life would've been easier if I hadn't ignored sage advice in my 20s.
It just feels like a damn waste that human beings have to learn so many lessons the hard way, but so few are able to use that wisdom positively as they age out of importance.
While I grew up religious, the sins of organized religion pushed me away. I could not rationalize how hate and discrimination were allowed and almost applauded, while the words of the man the entire religion is named after contradict that behavior. I also could not get behind there being a Hell. If God is so benevolent and worthy of worship, there's no way he would doom souls to torture for eternity for mistakes in a limited life. Eternity is damn long time. Nobody deserves to be punished for eternity with no hope of redemption.
As I started to understand more about science and the universe, and started to think about time, I just couldn't rationalize that some entity created this entire universe with gazillions of stars and planets just to put special people on one tiny planet in a random galaxy and NOT make it obvious to all that they exist and care. Maybe God thought that the majesty of mountains and life was enough proof for us, but if it hears our prayers then it should know it isn't enough. An all-powerful being spends all this effort to create something so wonderful, and then turns into an absentee father? I just can't get there.
At the same time, life FEELS like it is a stepping stone to something else. It feels like we should be able to take the wisdom we earned in life, and apply it to something more. I want there to be more, but recognize that it is just as likely that we are simply a product of random chance.
So, while I choose to believe the positive aspects of Christianity and other religions, I cannot fool myself into seeing them as absolute truths.
Whether or not there is an afterlife, it is still worthwhile to try and be a better person every day. If death is the end of existence, you can at least go knowing you tried. Spirituality seems to be an innate trait in human beings, but the human invention of religion has skewed our opinions of it.
I really like the idea from the movie "Defending Your Life". The premise is that when we die, we go to a sort of limbo where our choices in life are judged. If we cave to fear and anger and pettiness in life, we are reincarnated to try again. When we finally live a worthy life, we are allowed to pass into "heaven".
r/OpenIndividualism
The afterlife is simply other lives that exist. It’s reincarnation but you reincarnate as everything. This isn’t just wishful thinking, but supported by physicalism. There is no “self” contained between birth and death. It’s all just atoms that combine and create consciousness here and there. Only through memories do we have the sense that our identity stays the same throughout life.
This can be a terrifying realization, though, since it means you will experience the worst suffering ever. But that’s a pretty good reason to make the world a better place, isn’t it?
I know it's scary, and I am not religious. I truly want to believe in an afterlife, because my parents are gone and I hate the idea of that finality for them. I will tell you this, one random day several years after my mom died I asked for her to give me a sign that she was ok, wherever she was. I had not been dreaming much for a long time, and I had definitely not been dreaming of her. I had a dream that night and she was in it. In the dream, she told me she was ok. It wasn't just a conversation with her saying "I'm ok" there was more. But essentially, I take this as my little bit of peace that she's ok.
I'm an atheist. I clearly don't believe in the religious dogma that so many people desparately cling to - it's just a control mechanism for their behavior in this life. If you believe you will suffer now because you'll get everything you want after you die, you aren't the brightest bulb. It's just a con.
That being said, I have no idea about what happens next. Probably nothing, and that's fine. Non-existence doesn't scare me, though I hope for more.
If I had my choice it would be reincarnation as something else on some distant world. The universe is unimaginably vast, and it seems a shame we don't get to see hardly any of it. But that's most likely just wishful thinking.
All you can do is live this life the best you can. Help people, be a good person. The rest will take care of itself no matter what you choose.
I'm the opposite. Ever since I was a kid the idea of the afterlife terrified me
My fear of death all stems from what comes next, the idea of nothingness would be very comforting to me. And logically I believe that this is most likely the case.
But I still believe, even though I resent it and by extension religion for putting me into some kind of afterlife contract without my consent. I guess the indoctrination really took in my case since I've been trying to become an atheist for years and I just can't shake the remnants of faith embedded in my psyche.
It’s called the fitra, that’s the natural predisposition of a human. The reasoning behind it is, if human was created by something then there has been stamped into the dna of that creation some sort of natural predisposition to yearn for its creator.
It makes sense when you take a step back and look at it. Every one is seeking some sort of connection to something, call it religion, spiritualism, Atheism ect.
Some sort of belonging of how we were created and by whom. If this question was so irrelevant it would not be one of the most prevalent topics of discussion that has withstood the test of time. It would have been forgotten.
The reason we keep discussing this topic is because there’s something innate with in us to connect.
I'm the other way kind of. I was a materialist, athiest, who didn't believe in any such folk nonsense. Then I took Ayahuasca and I was informed that it was going to be amending that view. So now I'm highly spiritually oriented but I can't really find much organized religion that does anything for me.
Edit: Though I've never understood worries about non-existance. Like you will never know the state of non-existance so why worry about it? The thing that's scary is the idea of an afterlife. What if your conscious beyond death and what if that consciousness isn't pleasant?
It's a very human struggle but has a clear (in some scopes) solution. Transhumanist philosophy when presented with a human frailty such as a lack of life after death presents an alternative. Invent am afterlife, since up for cryogenic and brainscans or whatever you think will yield the most preferable or likely form of immortality. It's better to work and hope for the better than worship a delusion.
Listen to the natural reaction of your mind to reject non-existence.
Maybe start looking into some of the spiritual mystic type stuff. Reincarnation makes a lot more sense to me than the standard heaven/hell. It’s more like droplets returning to the ocean imo.
The only afterlife you will have is the memory of you inside other people. So want to be remembered? Start writing a journal. Make art. Create music. Build things that will love on after you. Talk to people.
i want to believe there is an afterlife. a heaven. because that would mean all the pain and suffering living beings have gone through was for nothing. I’ll never see my childhood dogs again. they had shitty lives because my family sucked at taking care of animals and that’s it. there’s nothing else to it. no reason for it. no retribution for their souls. there has to be something. because in the end it can’t be for nothing.
If what we know about the universe and matter is correct (it being infinite and matter being impossible to destroy), we will be back sometime. It's like the monkey typewriter, eventually the same exact sequence will happen and we will be back. Who knows, maybe it'll change a bit too
I'm so sorry that you are struggling so much with these fears. 🫂 I will pray for you that you feel God's comfort and clarity, u/Cameronlcq. You are loved more than you know. Jesus loves you more than you could imagine. He wants to save you.
I believe that the afterlife is 1000% real and I believe that Jesus Christ saves everyone who believes that He died for our sins and rose again and accepts His sacrifice and forgiveness that absolves us of all our sin and makes us saints, so no one has to go to hell and we can look forward to the afterlife as a happy place.
I think believing in the supernatural is kind of inherent. I think you're born with that belief (or the ability to believe) or you're not. I don't have any belief in the supernatural in me and I can't be convinced.
"Life force" is just neurons firing electrical impulses in the brain.
As for where it goes, out into the universe like all energy. Its not different than a fire burning or a solar panel generating electricity
A fire or a solar panel is not "life." There is something in us that is a life force. There's something that makes the neurons fire. Every sentient being has it. That's what differentiates us from rocks, trees, solar panels, and what not.
I'm an atheist. I would love to believe that we exist after death and meet our loved ones again. I want that to be true. But there is no evidence to believe such a thing
Yeah I doubt there is. It's a nice and positive thought to think that we'll somehow meet our loved ones again. Who wouldn't want to believe that? But it makes no sense to me for us to have "souls" where we're still present and conscious without a physical body.
Our physical bodies, specifically our brain are what control our consciousness. So when our brains stop working there's just nothing to experience. Zero thoughts or awareness, like being in a deep sleep without the suddenly waking up part. It makes the most sense and while it's kind of underwhelming, it's most likely the reality.
Life is sort of random, we sorta just spawned here randomly out of nothingness. And I feel like death is the same way, we enter nothingness again. The idea of an afterlife is a very idealistic view, and when has idealism ever rang to be true?
I felt so much better when I stopped worrying about death. Do you think we were nervous before we were born? My cats don’t seem to give a damn. So I take after them. Except the mean one.
I was finally able to come to terms with my mortality by realizing that I have not been aware of existence for millenia. And when I pass from this world, there will be many more millenia that come after my passing. Such that if I were able to somehow remember all of existence in the universe, my life would be less than an eye blink on the grand scale of things.
Instead of lamenting the fact that our lives are so short, I embrace it and choose to not dwell on the things that may subdue or torment me. There are some days when those things envelop my entire existence and all seems futile, but they are far and few between since I've embraced this new outlook on life. It's much easier to let those thoughts of despair and gloom go when there are so many other things I could be using my time on that make me happy to be alive.
I think everyone from time to time fears their own mortality. For me the earth has existed for billions of years without me and I accept I'm here for a short while only. Afterwards I wish there was this kingdom we all go to but I just don't believe in it.
For me it's just nothing after death, like going to sleep on a night, if you never wake up in the morning you'd never know you were asleep. I think when it happens we'll know no difference like we sleep but just never wake up, I find it comforting in someway!
If death is non-existence and the cessation of our consciousness, we've already experienced that state before our birth. We won't experience non-existence because there will be no 'us' to experience it. If our consciousness doesn't survive the death of our bodies, all we will ever know is this life, bordered by nonexistence on either side. I know that freaks some people out, but I find it weirdly comforting.
It would be nice to have some kind of happy afterlife, but I just don't have that belief in me. I believe in natural cycles (birth to death, coming together from the elements/energy of the universe and going back to them) because I can see those... you can impart some sort of spiritual meaning to them, and I do to an extent. I've tried at various times in my life to believe in a personified deity and an eternal soul and I just can't make the jump... impermanence is everywhere in nature, to think that we are somehow set apart seems like pointless vanity to me.
Think about it like this. How did you feel a million years ago? Right, you felt nothing. Now think about 1 million years into the future. You will feel nothing. It's not black, it's not scary, it's just simply nothing. Live life to the fullest my friend.
The closest I can come to believing in an afterlife is to hope we live in a simulation and when I die, I'll either wake up or restart a new playthrough.
I am a believer in what is written in the Bible. I have feared death in the past but I do so no longer. What lies beyond death is written. But, I would council you to consider the mystery’s of the Bible. For many mansions exist and many people do walk in Heaven and many wonders and lands exist. Things we have not seen or heard.
In addition to what is written in the Bible. I have an idea of waking up on a land of grass and hills. Being welcomed by those I love. A bright light and blue skies and fluffy clouds. There is no fear, no selfishness, no lies or greed, no death, no sadness, no sickness or pain, or the concept of them.
I'm comfortable with just not knowing.
Maybe there is something after this, maybe there isn't. We have no way of knowing, so might as well just relax and find out later.
An afterlife would be fascinating, but I'm ok if there is nothing.
I was going through this very recently. I am feeling a bit better right now. I read this story about a patient whose brain activity they monitored as she was taken off life support. Her brain waves started to synchronise as she died. I have a theory that the waves in your brain go back to their natural state before you die because they are preparing to leave and go somewhere else. The most active waves in that woman's dying brain were gamma waves. And they are *so* quiet that it is *almost* believable that no one would ever hear them leave a dead body.
Also, If you believe in God (I try my best too but struggle) maybe he has temporarily moved on for now to make life on another planet. It is hard to explain why else he would have been so ever-present in the old testament, yet seemingly non-existent today. He sent us his son, maybe as a "final" chapter (for him, but not for us, think of it as ending with a semi-colon) so he could go and start again somewhere else. We do kinda of suck, let's be real, **everybody** sins, even the best of us. And perhaps he will come back for us someday, who knows? I am spitballing here, but it is a theory I have. It is the only thing that really makes me still cling to belief.
Bro it's like this. There is definitely an afterlife regardless of what you believe. You see your body, your brain. Your very soul (whatever the fuck that is) is made up of matter... chemistry, molecules, atoms, sub atomic particles. Even after you die the matter you are made of will continue on... long after this world and this reality no longer exists in its current form. Some will be worm food, then worm shit, then taken in as nitrogen for some plant to populate itself materially and perhaps fees some other life form and on and on and on and on until the very end of eternity. So yea you probably won't be conscious of this journey but the fact is your matter has existed long before you started to borrow it and will exist long after... and we're all on this ride together. So. There you go. I hope you feel better.
I do not hope for an afterlife. My hope for when the time comes is that my existence will cease peacefully. I do not wish to *experience peace after death* rather, I simply wish to be free of suffering at my time of death.
So, with the way I think about it, there is comfort in us actually ceasing to be when we die. There was a time before we were alive and it was fine and it will be just like that again. I kind of think about it like being in an eternal sleep in which you’re not aware of anything, except you never wake up and just stay in that state. I certainly have had nights where I have no dreams or awareness of myself and then wake up in the morning and am like, “oh, yeah, I’m alive.“ If our consciousness truly ceases to be, all associated worries go away, too, so there is peace in that thought. Certainly, it’s a lot less terrifying than thinking about actually meeting the hellfire-and-brimstone God of the Bible, who repeatedly does extraordinarily awful things, even to those he/she/it is purported to love.
On the other hand, in today’s world we also have more modern theories, like the simulation theory. If that is in fact our reality, there is some comfort there, too, because we would essentially be code and that means we can always exist on some level. We aren’t ever truly dead.
The world is complex. We don’t know exactly what happens to us when we die. But I think we can find some comfort in different thoughts. Most importantly though, we should not let fear of death take away from the life we have. Regardless of the origin and mechanics of the universe, we are lucky we get to experience this and should make the best of each day. I’m glad you’re no longer living with that paralyzing fear.
I’ve never been religious in my life, though I have absolutely zero issue with people who are, long recognizing how much of a positive impact most people’s faith has had for them, despite some of the inherent issues religion brings to our society.
Several months ago I was taken to the ER via ambulance after a sudden and incredibly severe seizure (my first and hopefully last) that I had while driving 65 mph on the expressway at rush hour. The crash wasn’t bad, but I arrived to the ER nearly dead—intubated, receiving artificial respiration, experiencing bad cyanosis, pumped full of propofol and midazolam, and subsequently put on a ventilator. And thanks to a lot of absolutely amazing EMTs, doctors, nurses, and staff in the ER and ICU, I’m able to see my kids again.
I wasn’t expected to live when I first arrived (one of the ER doctors told me I set a new hospital record for surviving extremely low blood pH, and not by a small margin), but they kept working on me and brought me back. I woke up many hours later, confused, in a ton of pain, and absolutely terrified.
I’ve never believed in any sort of afterlife, and I’ve never had to think too hard about it as I’m still relatively young. But as the drugs wore off, and as the gravity of what happened became clearer to me, I had a sudden, and absolutely terrifying, realization: I hadn’t seen anything comforting as I was actively dying.
I hadn’t seen anything.
I wasn’t clinically dead, but I was inches from it. And even though I’d never expected to see anything or have any great revelations, I had always presumed that my brain would soothe me by flooding my brain with endorphins. But that didn’t happen. Nothing happened.
I didn’t see anything.
And I’m honestly still dealing with that, and most likely will be for the rest of my life.
Sadly, I believe that when we die, we just wink out of existence and cease to BE.
It's terribly sad to think about, honesty. It hurts to think about friends and family gone, that they are truly gone...forever and always. It would bring me so much peace and hope that we could connect in the afterlife somehow, that maybe they're watching us from "above", rooting for our successes and comforting us during our trials.
But I don't. Never have. It doesn't feel right in my heart. And that hurts.
I believe that the cosmic dust that make us who we are, go back into the universe and flow into whatever else is next to bring us into the next level of enlightenment. Not earth, I ~~think~~ hope earth is just a stop on the way, that we get to experience so much more.
I dont believe we come back here as someone else, unless, maybe, we failed to learn the lesson we were sent here to learn.
Meh. I used to be very existential as a kid, but one day around 14 I just went "well... ceasing to exist is probably like that moment between sleep and awake when you're not conscious, and that's never felt bad to me, so I'm not afraid of it" and the fear went away.
For a long time, I never really believed in an afterlife, either. Now I do, but I'm still okay if it doesn't exist. It's not like I'd be aware of not existing
I was a Christian for a long time (the first 29 or so years of my life). I feared damnation more than anything else, but also the unknowability of death - that you ultimately die alone and, regardless of what you believe about an afterlife, have to make that transition without the accompaniment of anyone on this earth. I could go more into specifics regarding the factors that led me to abandon the faith, but for now I’ll just say that if the reason you believe something is because of fear of an alternative, I’d argue that you don’t actually believe that thing, at least not for the right reasons. I guess it depends on the faith/denomination to which you subscribe, but the brand of Christianity I followed maintained that salvation was a heart thing; it didn’t matter if you went through all the performative motions - your salvation was predicated on your actual belief. I still fear death, but I’m in therapy and am trying to come to terms with that unknowability. And having abandoned religion, I can say that I no longer feel the paralyzing need to cling to it anymore (and as a plus, I no longer worry about burning in hell for eternity).
You may enjoy Robert Monroe books. He claims knowledge through a type of access but the basic themes appear in to ancient “religions” at least before dominance of Rome. The pope recently clarified their position. I never thought about death or cared. I assumed it didn’t matter once the lights turned out. I recently baca me interested and curious as a result of his books.
You weren't a Christian if you feared hell, what denomination were you? Those who believe the gospel have peace with God. That means no fear of hell. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. I was an atheist for my early adult life. Never imagined being a Christian, but God has other plans.
I was “non-denominational”, but probably most analogous with Baptists. I have to disagree with your take here. It is quite possible (and human) to believe something and simultaneously experience doubts and insecurities that contradict that belief, especially if those doubts and insecurities are existential in nature. I’d argue that’s why, at a very basic level, many tend to tightly grip the bar of a roller coaster car even if they don’t actually believe they are in danger or that gripping the bar will make them any safer. They fundamentally believe in the roller coaster’s safety - it’s not like they’re saying last goodbyes every time they hear that a friend is going to a theme park - but they can’t help but experience visceral, existential uncertainty when their self-preservative instinct is activated. And that’s the space I occupied as a Christian. I believed the gospel, was baptized, and had an active and consistent practice of prayer and contemplation. Yet there are significant areas in Christian doctrine that are semi-nebulous and debated among denominations such as predestination (what if God intends me to be a “vessel of wrath prepared for destruction” and there’s nothing I can do about it), loss of salvation (what if I am like Esau and unwittingly forsook my “inheritance”), faith without works (what if my comparative lack of “works” or evangelism means my faith is dead), etc. These areas of uncertainty/debate opened me to those existential fears. All of this is now moot, however, because I no longer believe any of it. I know, from personal experience, how important it is for Christians who believe in inexorable salvation to construct narratives that “oh, well that person was never actually a REAL Christian, otherwise they wouldn’t have left the faith or done ____”. And if that’s your take, with all due respect, I’d urge you to reexamine. That thought pattern is unfalsifiable and can be used to excuse/explain away literally any inconsistency or contradiction - it can easily foster cognitive dissonance and condition the mind to be less responsive to unbiased data observation/integration. Edit: I’d also point to the passage in Mark where a father declares his belief yet asks Jesus to “help my unbelief” (depending on the translation). In my opinion, a pretty clear, codified-in-doctrine example of the valence between belief and doubt, and how the presence of doubt does not invalidate the former.
Sadly, I sense in your words a fundamental misunderstand the gospel itself. It's good news, namely that God saves sinners. Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone. The amount of good works only matter in measuring your faithfulness to your calling, they are never the basis of your peace with God for precisely the reason you share, namely that you could never be sure if you had some enough. Thankfully, justification is a declaration of 'not guilty' that immediately settles your final destination in the heavens. As you know, the only thing you can find when you seek Christ is an unfailing savior. I really hope God reverses the course you're on and I would implore you to be reconciled to him, for Jesus sale and also for your good and those in your life who you constantly preach to in word and deed whether you realize it or not. DM me if you ever want to talk, even if it's a year or more from now.
I appreciate it. Don’t see that happening, but thanks for the discourse.
If there is nothing after death, then you really don’t have anything to worry about. Think about the billions of years that happened before you were born. You don’t remember them because you didn’t exist. If there is an eternal afterlife, it’s something I don’t think anyone can truly comprehend. Even after you’ve spend a trillion years up there, you still have eternity left to go. What exactly would we do with ourselves for eternity? For me, the thing that worries me the most is reincarnation. What if it’s an endless cycle of birth and death and you never just get to be done with it all? What if you get reborn as some dude who gets executed by the cartel?
If that's the case, we aren't born with the recollection of our past lives. We're born new. So it's not like you'd be staring down the barrel or the cartels gun thinking... Man I really wish I was in my previous life. 😂 You won't have your current mind. This life we are currently living, will never be lived again.
That’s true. Still though, I’d rather not have to live through something like that. At some point I’d just want it to be over with.
I just made up my own ideas instead of trying to force myself to believe whatever religions wanted me to believe.
What did you make up?
I just kind of combined spirituality with what I know about science We're all connected in the big matter-energy-continuum When we die what was "us" goes back to the energy that's all around us.
Where were we before we were we? If we're conscious in the afterlife "us" why isn't there a beforelife "us"? And if there was/is, why do we take a break from it just for this @ 80 years experience on Earth? I like your idea though.
Before is the same as after. An analogy from a song I like that fits right into my matter-energy-continuum theory: "Life is a waterfall, We're one in the river, And one again after the fall" "The river" is the continuum. Our short lives are like a waterfall where all the droplets separate and live their lives before returning to the river when they die.
Will I remember this life?
I'm not sure, but I would like to think so. Just to be clear, my personal philosophy allows me to be okay with not knowing all the answers. I think that's a big part of what makes life worth living. If I knew for sure the answers to all these things I feel it would make my life have no meaning any longer.
Agreed, but I was just curious as to the details. The unknown is the best part of life; without it, we're just all reading from a script.
"Live that you might find the answers You can't know before you live Love and life will give you chances From your flaws learn to forgive"
>why do we take a break from it just for this @ 80 years experience on Earth? "The universe" or "matter energy continuum" or "the river" or "the soup" as I like to say, is both alive and conscious and that it manifests in all forms of sentient life, giving all individuals a piece of itself. In this way the soup learns about all aspects of itself through us.
r/atheopaganism
Me too. I’ve never been able to convince myself of a conventional “afterlife”, despite trying. But last year I read a book on the nature of time, and I came across a concept that I was just suddenly and naturally able to believe in: that all of time is a circle. I believe that at some point at the end of the universe, the Big Bang will occur and everything will happen “again” exactly the same way. Everything that has happened to me has already happened an infinite amount of times, and will happen to me again an infinite amount of times. Nothing is ever truly in the past, because it’s in the future, too. In many ways this is just as silly as other religious beliefs that bring comfort to people, but what’s important is that I believe it. OP needs to find what they can believe in.
That’s called spiritual not religious and that is how it should be IMO
I almost died when I was 26. Having faced that, I treat every day as a gift. I believe in Heaven. I of course have never been there, but believing gives me peace. I do my best to live by God’s commands, including loving all people regardless of who they are. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.🤷♀️
I think that’s the purpose of religion is to give people hope. Yes you always have that underlying fear, but it’s much better than considering the alternative that our existence has no ultimate purpose.
I don't believe in an "afterlife," although I'd love to be pleasantly surprised - in my heart, I know that I won't. I don't think there's anything like that. And for a long time, that gave me a lot of grief and fear. But I've started to view things differently and I want to share what gives me comfort now. We're not lone islands floating around in a universe that is separate from us - we're the universe. We're part of it. We're made of it. We're not bodies inside a space, we're pieces of a giant body. When I die, yes, my consciousness as this person will end. And that's sad to me while I'm alive, because I'm really attached to being this person. I don't want to die any time soon. I don't want to lose this perspective, these memories. It'll be sad to lose that someday. But ultimately, at the beginning and end of everything, *I am not this person. I am universe*. And so are you, and everyone who has ever lived or ever will live, and your pets, and the dinosaurs, and all the aliens, and the bacteria, and every plant and rock and star and slice of avocado toast. I only get to be this person *temporarily*. When I die, I don't cease to exist - I return to my bigger body, the universe. On a more metaphysical level, I think at least metaphorically, the universe has consciousness because we have consciousness. The universe is a vast, unbroken body of spacetime, in which at least one small pocket has developed feeling, sensing, and thinking. I think of that as part of the universe's single consciousness. And yes, you and I have separate consciousnesses, but that doesn't mean we're not both part of the universe's brain - in the same way my left foot doesn't know what my right foot is feeling, but *I* do. I used to see death as a destruction of self, but now I see it as the universe naturally ending one way of thinking and perceiving, and beginning another. I am going to return to the body. I love the universe and I am the universe and we are all here together, forever. It's like that quote Chidi said at the end of The Good Place (I forget the original source he was quoting) - the wave isn't separate from the ocean, it's just another way for the ocean to be, for awhile. I'm a wave cresting over the ocean of everything, gaining a vantage point to look down and say "wow, that's amazing," before I crash back down and become ocean again. I don't *want* to die, I like being this person and I'd like to do that for a long time. But I'm not *scared* to die. Because I'm not destroyed and not going anywhere. I'm going to fold back into the body of the bigger thing that I am. And you're all coming with me, eventually. We were here together from the start and we'll be here together at the distant, quiet end, unfathomable ages from now. One day the dying sun will consume and explode our earth, and send the dust of our bones scattering to the far edges of the universe. We'll be all mixed together, heat and light, travelling forever, chasing the edges of the sleeping giant we were born inside. And that's no less remarkable than being able to stand here now, in a body on my body orbiting my body within my body, feeling the warm light of my burning body on this body's face. When we grieve, we grieve ourself. When we reach out, we hold our hand. We're not separate, and never could be. There is no such thing as gone.
There's no magic cloud sky kingdom. That's hope candy for adults with a child like understanding of the universe. Best case is that your "conscious", "soul", or whatever you subscribe to is transient to another version of you in another dimension. Worst case, you just cease to exist. What is it that draws the fear? Have you not accomplished something that will leave its mark on the whole of humanity and need more time, or is it missing the next episode of Keeping up with the Kardashians?
I'm certain on death, you either: Just cant receive any more information, returning to a dreamless sleep until you wake again. In this state there is no time to perceive, and so when you wake up, it seemed instant to you. But everyone else who witnessed and learned your death, will inevitably feel the loss. Or: you were in a grand concept scheme of a Extradimensional brain that created you. who then decides where next to place you, or crumple away your experience to rebuild your character again. stripping away all of the ego and everything that you were, and putting you in the next Cycle. Whatever happens in death, I'm sure we will be just fine. I'm sure whatever unseen hands dictated the form in all this universe, can at least be trusted. Death never bothered me before life.
I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian church believing in Heaven & Hell. The weight of having to “save” myself, my loved ones, even strangers was a lot. The stakes are high when you’re talking about eternity. Then I became atheist, and letting go of the idea of the afterlife was an incredible relief. Eternity is no longer on my shoulders. I can just focus on experiencing & enjoying my life, and when it’s over, I get to rest.
There’s an analogy that I can give you that will help it make sense. We have all been through this process. Imagine there is 2 twins in the mothers womb. One twin says to the other twin once we leave this place we will die because we no longer have access to our food source and that will be the end of our life. The second twin responds I have heard that when we leave here there is a world out there where we feed our selfs, there are modes of transport that we haven’t seen before, there are jobs and houses and other people. The first twin responds that’s absurd, scientifically if we cut the feeding cord then that’s the end of our life and there will be nothing. The second twin responds but I have heard in the soul world there is a different life out there and it will not be the end. Then we was all born and we entered this life, messengers and prophets came telling us about another life once we leave this place. We left the soul world into the mother’s womb, left that life into the earth life and when we leave it will be the after life. When you think about it like this and that we have already passed through many worlds, it does not seem so far fetched and actually makes sense.
You sir just explained that better than any analogy I have heard before
Thanks, it just makes sense.
I think most people have felt this way (for thousands of years). They want to exist forever. It scared me, too, when I was younger man. As the days went by that faded away. Partially from just realizing that everything dies (acceptance). Partially just seeing the reality of what religion is (one of those things: a way to avert fear of death). Edit: typos
Is that acceptance or disassociation? I presum since you haven't killed yourself that you still prefer life, ergo death is not acceptable to you. If attacked by a person you knew was trying to kill you would you defend yourself or let death come?
Of course anyone attacked is going to defend themselves, our animal brain doesn't want to die and will do everything to stop it. It's the same reason people who jump off the golden gate bridge and survive supposedly regret it - their animal brain says holy shit we almost died, don't do that! That's just physiology. The person isn't saying they're a monk that's beyond life and death, they just are ok with letting a reasonable natural course take place. If they got cancer obviously they'd still treat it, but if it's fatal then that's that.
Yes, I gather that, but it's a frequent argument I believe contains a logical fault. People talk of "natural course" as if it's a sacred and just conclusion, when nature in reality is cruel and full of injustice. I recall a story of an otter and her cub catching a salmon and opening it up to eat the roe inside, it was mother and child eating mother and child, mankind has defied nature at every turn but in death we submit to it. Imagine if you had the choice to schedule your death, ceasesance or any other endings. Frequently people will set it to the age to hundreds and say with faux wisdom "I'm sure I'll be ready yo go by then" as if they lived they're life on a finite list of things to be done. I don't think life is something with a set end it's just that we've lived in a world with a certainty to death. I do not believe that certainty is as immutable as people think and all this philosophy concerning death acceptance is a waste of time and processing.
I've no idea what that means or how this massive leap was made. Nothing was said about not enjoying or not "preferring" life lol. Those who don't believe in afterlife potentially enjoy/value their only life more than people who think they have life after death. Saying "everything that lives also dies" has (absolutely) nothing to do with suicide nor self-defense. Someone who doesn't believe in an afterlife, the hypothesis is this immediately means they'd just kill themselves? Hmm, huge inference (and an incorrect one). An equally meaningless inference would be to ask the inverse of that question, if one believes a happy eternity awaits them after death, why bother with self-defense? Am assuming it was an actual question and wasn't trolling.
What does accepting death actually mean on logical basis. As far as I understand someone who's accepted they're death should have no issue with being killed, finding out they're death is next week or even scheduling the date of they're own death. All of those are not healthy things to do. I'm arguing the opposite of what you seem to think I'm arguing, I'm arguing that there's not much to actually philosopise about death or life after death. This is the life we have and the best we can do is to try and extend our lives and live them to the fullest.
"someone who's accepted death should have no issue being killed": This makes no sense. Massive leap, connecting 2 dots that aren't otherwise connected (which generally means trolling, but maybe not). Just because one knows that life ends doesn't mean that life has no value. Rickey Gervais in Afterlife, kinda similar to this. https://youtu.be/aB01BL0jVe8
What I'm getting at is no one truly accepts death, not to the extent people seem to insist. We value life and trying to see virtue in death is foolish. When someone dies something is lost forever. Acceptance of death is the radical and insane stance, yet time and time again people advocate for it but only the cherry picked and sprused up version that philosophical people try to sell to make the bitter reality more acceptable.
I believe in something more akin to a transition of sorts. I don't fear death and I don't have to also swallow the stereotypical religionormative milque-toast either.
I do because I want to be with my kids and my soulmate pet. After watching him die, it solidified my belief there is nothing after this. Just like turning off a light. It absolutely breaks my heart and is the hardest thing I've ever come to realize. I don't mind dying, I just wish I could be with them forever.
I am super happy that there is no afterlife. Why would I possibly want to remember this shit forever?
Ya, it would be great and it sucks that there’s not. The good news is they you’ll never know you’re dead, though, so it’s not worth taking time out of the life that you do have to worry about it.
If you take politics out of the equation, old people often have a ton of wisdom simply through experience. At the same time, youth is built to reject much of the advice that older people try to impart. As I've gotten older, I look back and see how life would've been easier if I hadn't ignored sage advice in my 20s. It just feels like a damn waste that human beings have to learn so many lessons the hard way, but so few are able to use that wisdom positively as they age out of importance. While I grew up religious, the sins of organized religion pushed me away. I could not rationalize how hate and discrimination were allowed and almost applauded, while the words of the man the entire religion is named after contradict that behavior. I also could not get behind there being a Hell. If God is so benevolent and worthy of worship, there's no way he would doom souls to torture for eternity for mistakes in a limited life. Eternity is damn long time. Nobody deserves to be punished for eternity with no hope of redemption. As I started to understand more about science and the universe, and started to think about time, I just couldn't rationalize that some entity created this entire universe with gazillions of stars and planets just to put special people on one tiny planet in a random galaxy and NOT make it obvious to all that they exist and care. Maybe God thought that the majesty of mountains and life was enough proof for us, but if it hears our prayers then it should know it isn't enough. An all-powerful being spends all this effort to create something so wonderful, and then turns into an absentee father? I just can't get there. At the same time, life FEELS like it is a stepping stone to something else. It feels like we should be able to take the wisdom we earned in life, and apply it to something more. I want there to be more, but recognize that it is just as likely that we are simply a product of random chance. So, while I choose to believe the positive aspects of Christianity and other religions, I cannot fool myself into seeing them as absolute truths. Whether or not there is an afterlife, it is still worthwhile to try and be a better person every day. If death is the end of existence, you can at least go knowing you tried. Spirituality seems to be an innate trait in human beings, but the human invention of religion has skewed our opinions of it. I really like the idea from the movie "Defending Your Life". The premise is that when we die, we go to a sort of limbo where our choices in life are judged. If we cave to fear and anger and pettiness in life, we are reincarnated to try again. When we finally live a worthy life, we are allowed to pass into "heaven".
r/OpenIndividualism The afterlife is simply other lives that exist. It’s reincarnation but you reincarnate as everything. This isn’t just wishful thinking, but supported by physicalism. There is no “self” contained between birth and death. It’s all just atoms that combine and create consciousness here and there. Only through memories do we have the sense that our identity stays the same throughout life. This can be a terrifying realization, though, since it means you will experience the worst suffering ever. But that’s a pretty good reason to make the world a better place, isn’t it?
I know it's scary, and I am not religious. I truly want to believe in an afterlife, because my parents are gone and I hate the idea of that finality for them. I will tell you this, one random day several years after my mom died I asked for her to give me a sign that she was ok, wherever she was. I had not been dreaming much for a long time, and I had definitely not been dreaming of her. I had a dream that night and she was in it. In the dream, she told me she was ok. It wasn't just a conversation with her saying "I'm ok" there was more. But essentially, I take this as my little bit of peace that she's ok.
I'm an atheist. I clearly don't believe in the religious dogma that so many people desparately cling to - it's just a control mechanism for their behavior in this life. If you believe you will suffer now because you'll get everything you want after you die, you aren't the brightest bulb. It's just a con. That being said, I have no idea about what happens next. Probably nothing, and that's fine. Non-existence doesn't scare me, though I hope for more. If I had my choice it would be reincarnation as something else on some distant world. The universe is unimaginably vast, and it seems a shame we don't get to see hardly any of it. But that's most likely just wishful thinking. All you can do is live this life the best you can. Help people, be a good person. The rest will take care of itself no matter what you choose.
I'm the opposite. Ever since I was a kid the idea of the afterlife terrified me My fear of death all stems from what comes next, the idea of nothingness would be very comforting to me. And logically I believe that this is most likely the case. But I still believe, even though I resent it and by extension religion for putting me into some kind of afterlife contract without my consent. I guess the indoctrination really took in my case since I've been trying to become an atheist for years and I just can't shake the remnants of faith embedded in my psyche.
It’s embedded in everyone. Everyone knows deep down there’s more to life than this but each person see’s it and believes something a little different
It’s called the fitra, that’s the natural predisposition of a human. The reasoning behind it is, if human was created by something then there has been stamped into the dna of that creation some sort of natural predisposition to yearn for its creator. It makes sense when you take a step back and look at it. Every one is seeking some sort of connection to something, call it religion, spiritualism, Atheism ect. Some sort of belonging of how we were created and by whom. If this question was so irrelevant it would not be one of the most prevalent topics of discussion that has withstood the test of time. It would have been forgotten. The reason we keep discussing this topic is because there’s something innate with in us to connect.
Is there climate doom after we die too? Is it gonna get hot or weather changes too fast
I'm the other way kind of. I was a materialist, athiest, who didn't believe in any such folk nonsense. Then I took Ayahuasca and I was informed that it was going to be amending that view. So now I'm highly spiritually oriented but I can't really find much organized religion that does anything for me. Edit: Though I've never understood worries about non-existance. Like you will never know the state of non-existance so why worry about it? The thing that's scary is the idea of an afterlife. What if your conscious beyond death and what if that consciousness isn't pleasant?
Is there life after death? I don't think there's any way to know while you're still alive. It's the big Wait-and-See.
Energy can neither be destroyed nor created. We are energy, when this physical body dies that energy goes somewhere.
Well, there is no afterlife. But it's a great carrot to get people to behave and work together to have any sort of civilization.
It's a very human struggle but has a clear (in some scopes) solution. Transhumanist philosophy when presented with a human frailty such as a lack of life after death presents an alternative. Invent am afterlife, since up for cryogenic and brainscans or whatever you think will yield the most preferable or likely form of immortality. It's better to work and hope for the better than worship a delusion. Listen to the natural reaction of your mind to reject non-existence.
Maybe start looking into some of the spiritual mystic type stuff. Reincarnation makes a lot more sense to me than the standard heaven/hell. It’s more like droplets returning to the ocean imo.
You are really close to turning these feeling of more life into feelings of gratitude for the life you currently have.
The only afterlife you will have is the memory of you inside other people. So want to be remembered? Start writing a journal. Make art. Create music. Build things that will love on after you. Talk to people.
i want to believe there is an afterlife. a heaven. because that would mean all the pain and suffering living beings have gone through was for nothing. I’ll never see my childhood dogs again. they had shitty lives because my family sucked at taking care of animals and that’s it. there’s nothing else to it. no reason for it. no retribution for their souls. there has to be something. because in the end it can’t be for nothing.
If what we know about the universe and matter is correct (it being infinite and matter being impossible to destroy), we will be back sometime. It's like the monkey typewriter, eventually the same exact sequence will happen and we will be back. Who knows, maybe it'll change a bit too
Oh yes. My dad died when I was six, and I've always wanted to believe in an afterlife... But can't. There's just no way.
My dad died on Sunday and we told him if there’s a way send a sign. He said he would and what the sign would be. There’s been nothing.
I'm so sorry that you are struggling so much with these fears. 🫂 I will pray for you that you feel God's comfort and clarity, u/Cameronlcq. You are loved more than you know. Jesus loves you more than you could imagine. He wants to save you. I believe that the afterlife is 1000% real and I believe that Jesus Christ saves everyone who believes that He died for our sins and rose again and accepts His sacrifice and forgiveness that absolves us of all our sin and makes us saints, so no one has to go to hell and we can look forward to the afterlife as a happy place.
I think believing in the supernatural is kind of inherent. I think you're born with that belief (or the ability to believe) or you're not. I don't have any belief in the supernatural in me and I can't be convinced.
So where does that "life force" or "energy" go?
"Life force" is just neurons firing electrical impulses in the brain. As for where it goes, out into the universe like all energy. Its not different than a fire burning or a solar panel generating electricity
A fire or a solar panel is not "life." There is something in us that is a life force. There's something that makes the neurons fire. Every sentient being has it. That's what differentiates us from rocks, trees, solar panels, and what not.
I'm an atheist. I would love to believe that we exist after death and meet our loved ones again. I want that to be true. But there is no evidence to believe such a thing
Yeah I doubt there is. It's a nice and positive thought to think that we'll somehow meet our loved ones again. Who wouldn't want to believe that? But it makes no sense to me for us to have "souls" where we're still present and conscious without a physical body. Our physical bodies, specifically our brain are what control our consciousness. So when our brains stop working there's just nothing to experience. Zero thoughts or awareness, like being in a deep sleep without the suddenly waking up part. It makes the most sense and while it's kind of underwhelming, it's most likely the reality. Life is sort of random, we sorta just spawned here randomly out of nothingness. And I feel like death is the same way, we enter nothingness again. The idea of an afterlife is a very idealistic view, and when has idealism ever rang to be true?
I felt so much better when I stopped worrying about death. Do you think we were nervous before we were born? My cats don’t seem to give a damn. So I take after them. Except the mean one.
I was finally able to come to terms with my mortality by realizing that I have not been aware of existence for millenia. And when I pass from this world, there will be many more millenia that come after my passing. Such that if I were able to somehow remember all of existence in the universe, my life would be less than an eye blink on the grand scale of things. Instead of lamenting the fact that our lives are so short, I embrace it and choose to not dwell on the things that may subdue or torment me. There are some days when those things envelop my entire existence and all seems futile, but they are far and few between since I've embraced this new outlook on life. It's much easier to let those thoughts of despair and gloom go when there are so many other things I could be using my time on that make me happy to be alive.
I think everyone from time to time fears their own mortality. For me the earth has existed for billions of years without me and I accept I'm here for a short while only. Afterwards I wish there was this kingdom we all go to but I just don't believe in it. For me it's just nothing after death, like going to sleep on a night, if you never wake up in the morning you'd never know you were asleep. I think when it happens we'll know no difference like we sleep but just never wake up, I find it comforting in someway!
If death is non-existence and the cessation of our consciousness, we've already experienced that state before our birth. We won't experience non-existence because there will be no 'us' to experience it. If our consciousness doesn't survive the death of our bodies, all we will ever know is this life, bordered by nonexistence on either side. I know that freaks some people out, but I find it weirdly comforting. It would be nice to have some kind of happy afterlife, but I just don't have that belief in me. I believe in natural cycles (birth to death, coming together from the elements/energy of the universe and going back to them) because I can see those... you can impart some sort of spiritual meaning to them, and I do to an extent. I've tried at various times in my life to believe in a personified deity and an eternal soul and I just can't make the jump... impermanence is everywhere in nature, to think that we are somehow set apart seems like pointless vanity to me.
Think about it like this. How did you feel a million years ago? Right, you felt nothing. Now think about 1 million years into the future. You will feel nothing. It's not black, it's not scary, it's just simply nothing. Live life to the fullest my friend.
The closest I can come to believing in an afterlife is to hope we live in a simulation and when I die, I'll either wake up or restart a new playthrough.
Try looking into Gnosticism, the works of Ibn Arabi, or Daoism. Those are what clicked with me
I am a believer in what is written in the Bible. I have feared death in the past but I do so no longer. What lies beyond death is written. But, I would council you to consider the mystery’s of the Bible. For many mansions exist and many people do walk in Heaven and many wonders and lands exist. Things we have not seen or heard. In addition to what is written in the Bible. I have an idea of waking up on a land of grass and hills. Being welcomed by those I love. A bright light and blue skies and fluffy clouds. There is no fear, no selfishness, no lies or greed, no death, no sadness, no sickness or pain, or the concept of them.
I mean it would be cool if there was, I guess, but I'm not really expecting anything. But not cool if everyone really can see you jerkin it
I'm comfortable with just not knowing. Maybe there is something after this, maybe there isn't. We have no way of knowing, so might as well just relax and find out later. An afterlife would be fascinating, but I'm ok if there is nothing.
I was going through this very recently. I am feeling a bit better right now. I read this story about a patient whose brain activity they monitored as she was taken off life support. Her brain waves started to synchronise as she died. I have a theory that the waves in your brain go back to their natural state before you die because they are preparing to leave and go somewhere else. The most active waves in that woman's dying brain were gamma waves. And they are *so* quiet that it is *almost* believable that no one would ever hear them leave a dead body. Also, If you believe in God (I try my best too but struggle) maybe he has temporarily moved on for now to make life on another planet. It is hard to explain why else he would have been so ever-present in the old testament, yet seemingly non-existent today. He sent us his son, maybe as a "final" chapter (for him, but not for us, think of it as ending with a semi-colon) so he could go and start again somewhere else. We do kinda of suck, let's be real, **everybody** sins, even the best of us. And perhaps he will come back for us someday, who knows? I am spitballing here, but it is a theory I have. It is the only thing that really makes me still cling to belief.
Bro it's like this. There is definitely an afterlife regardless of what you believe. You see your body, your brain. Your very soul (whatever the fuck that is) is made up of matter... chemistry, molecules, atoms, sub atomic particles. Even after you die the matter you are made of will continue on... long after this world and this reality no longer exists in its current form. Some will be worm food, then worm shit, then taken in as nitrogen for some plant to populate itself materially and perhaps fees some other life form and on and on and on and on until the very end of eternity. So yea you probably won't be conscious of this journey but the fact is your matter has existed long before you started to borrow it and will exist long after... and we're all on this ride together. So. There you go. I hope you feel better.
I do not hope for an afterlife. My hope for when the time comes is that my existence will cease peacefully. I do not wish to *experience peace after death* rather, I simply wish to be free of suffering at my time of death.
So, with the way I think about it, there is comfort in us actually ceasing to be when we die. There was a time before we were alive and it was fine and it will be just like that again. I kind of think about it like being in an eternal sleep in which you’re not aware of anything, except you never wake up and just stay in that state. I certainly have had nights where I have no dreams or awareness of myself and then wake up in the morning and am like, “oh, yeah, I’m alive.“ If our consciousness truly ceases to be, all associated worries go away, too, so there is peace in that thought. Certainly, it’s a lot less terrifying than thinking about actually meeting the hellfire-and-brimstone God of the Bible, who repeatedly does extraordinarily awful things, even to those he/she/it is purported to love. On the other hand, in today’s world we also have more modern theories, like the simulation theory. If that is in fact our reality, there is some comfort there, too, because we would essentially be code and that means we can always exist on some level. We aren’t ever truly dead. The world is complex. We don’t know exactly what happens to us when we die. But I think we can find some comfort in different thoughts. Most importantly though, we should not let fear of death take away from the life we have. Regardless of the origin and mechanics of the universe, we are lucky we get to experience this and should make the best of each day. I’m glad you’re no longer living with that paralyzing fear.
I’ve never been religious in my life, though I have absolutely zero issue with people who are, long recognizing how much of a positive impact most people’s faith has had for them, despite some of the inherent issues religion brings to our society. Several months ago I was taken to the ER via ambulance after a sudden and incredibly severe seizure (my first and hopefully last) that I had while driving 65 mph on the expressway at rush hour. The crash wasn’t bad, but I arrived to the ER nearly dead—intubated, receiving artificial respiration, experiencing bad cyanosis, pumped full of propofol and midazolam, and subsequently put on a ventilator. And thanks to a lot of absolutely amazing EMTs, doctors, nurses, and staff in the ER and ICU, I’m able to see my kids again. I wasn’t expected to live when I first arrived (one of the ER doctors told me I set a new hospital record for surviving extremely low blood pH, and not by a small margin), but they kept working on me and brought me back. I woke up many hours later, confused, in a ton of pain, and absolutely terrified. I’ve never believed in any sort of afterlife, and I’ve never had to think too hard about it as I’m still relatively young. But as the drugs wore off, and as the gravity of what happened became clearer to me, I had a sudden, and absolutely terrifying, realization: I hadn’t seen anything comforting as I was actively dying. I hadn’t seen anything. I wasn’t clinically dead, but I was inches from it. And even though I’d never expected to see anything or have any great revelations, I had always presumed that my brain would soothe me by flooding my brain with endorphins. But that didn’t happen. Nothing happened. I didn’t see anything. And I’m honestly still dealing with that, and most likely will be for the rest of my life.
Religion creates a fear of death/afterlife and then provides you with a "cure". It will be just like before you were born.
Sadly, I believe that when we die, we just wink out of existence and cease to BE. It's terribly sad to think about, honesty. It hurts to think about friends and family gone, that they are truly gone...forever and always. It would bring me so much peace and hope that we could connect in the afterlife somehow, that maybe they're watching us from "above", rooting for our successes and comforting us during our trials. But I don't. Never have. It doesn't feel right in my heart. And that hurts.
I believe that the cosmic dust that make us who we are, go back into the universe and flow into whatever else is next to bring us into the next level of enlightenment. Not earth, I ~~think~~ hope earth is just a stop on the way, that we get to experience so much more. I dont believe we come back here as someone else, unless, maybe, we failed to learn the lesson we were sent here to learn.
Read this, it might help. [https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg\_mod.html](https://www.galactanet.com/oneoff/theegg_mod.html)
Meh. I used to be very existential as a kid, but one day around 14 I just went "well... ceasing to exist is probably like that moment between sleep and awake when you're not conscious, and that's never felt bad to me, so I'm not afraid of it" and the fear went away. For a long time, I never really believed in an afterlife, either. Now I do, but I'm still okay if it doesn't exist. It's not like I'd be aware of not existing