(If you have anxiety about death then maybe you shouldn’t read this post, just letting you know!)
Edit: Thank you guys for being so quick to post your comments and give your thoughts, it makes me wish I said something sooner rather than dealing with it on my own. You guys are seriously awesome, and have made me want to fight way harder to be a better person for my friends and family, and everyone else around me. I think tonight I’ll finally be able to sleep, and I’m looking forward for tomorrow and to be able to talk to my Dad about how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking about all this, and to spend as much time with him as I can. Take care of yourself guys! And again, thank you so, so much. I seriously feel way better and my anxiety is a lot less now.
Before joining Lemmy I used to be a devoted Christian since my family raised me as one and have been Christians for generations. And to add important context, I’m not talking about judge mental homophobic trump supporting Christians that judge gays and everyone else they see who don’t live the way they live. I’m talking about being a real follower of Christ who loves thy neighbor and knows we have no right to judge, not what most church’s are today who just exist to make a profit. My family are bible based Christians and raised me as one too, not by propaganda machines. (Or at least the propaganda that politicians or “Church’s” who exploit vulnerable people for their money like to spread around. The “buy my book to change your life” or “plant your $1000 seed” type of shenanigans makes me sick.)
Anywhoo, while being on Lemmy and learning a lot about U.S. politics I just have never seen on other social media sites like X and Reddit, and talking about science, capitalism, global warming, and so on and so fourth with the incredible people on here, it has really broaden my view on certain subjects and be a lot more open to a lot more ideas, one of which is Atheism.
I haven’t thought about it too much, but recently my Grandfather died and so my emotions and thoughts have wandered about him and about loosing someone I care a lot about, and then a question popped into my head; is he truly in a “better place”? Do they actually go somewhere? What will happen to my Dad?
After that random thought, my brain has kind of spiraled out of control about this topic and I haven’t been able to sleep well since I’ve been having anxiety thinking about death. What is the point if all of life (our life) is truly just our brains, and our brain stops working? Is it really just, nothingness? What is the point of making all these amazing memories with family and friends that I cherish more than anything in the world, if all these memories are going to be forgotten? Whether its today, or 80 years from now? With this ideology, when I stop breathing, I will quite literally become nothing. There will be nothing. I am dead. It’s made me into this “why should I care” mood about almost everything.
I think I’ve kind of made my anxiety worse during the last few nights since I also decided to look up what its like to die and what scientists have said about the topic, whoops! Turns out our brain can still think 2-15 minutes after our hearts stop beating! I know I’m joking here which I tend to do when I’m in these situations but I have been extremely anxious when it comes to the fear of death. Not in a “I’m scared to use this knife to cut a slice of tomato” kind of way, but a “when we’re gone there will be nothing and I will remember nothing and become nothing” sort of way.
Not trying to get political here, but with this thought in my mind for the last couple of days and hearing about situations like Palestine has made me completely rethink everything like life itself, and now every time I hear about Palestine or Ukraine or whatever else going on in the world, I can’t help but burst into tears.
Sorry for the rant or whatever this is, just asking what you guys think or how you live your life if thats alright. Take care of yourself!
There isn’t one, we’re animals with higher brain function.
Try to ease suffering by being less savage and overcoming the animal instincts of hoarding and violence which are antithetical tou our capacity to form cohesive societies.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
You might enjoy the show “The Good Place”
Thanks! I’ve heard a lot of people talk about it, just have yet to sit down and watch through it. Will do though!
Actually there is no afterlife whatsoever.
I turned existential a few years ago contemplating existence.
Then I started asking questions like what is that reincarnates? Nothing. When I die the atoms will be used by the universe for something else. My memories will be gone.
And I realized it’s all just a game. It’s the part of the illusion. I know I know. It sounds made up.
But hey now that we are here do what you want to do. If you don’t feel like doing anything then that’s fine too. Have a simple and a minimal life.
I think a lot of our stress to be something comes from social conditioning.
The society keeps saying you have to be something. They give you a list of things and tell you to follow it in a particular order and say viola you are a respectable human being now. As if you weren’t a human being before haha.
So maybe stop focusing on being or becoming someone and focus on actions maybe? That’s fun.
But yes everything goes to nothing in the end. The reason we feel it shouldn’t end or why is it the way it is or it’s unfair is because of the thinking mind.
The mind likes to create ideas and concepts. We sir are living in one hell of a conceptual world. You and me are tied down by the concepts. We can’t accept the absurdity of the nature of this futile and impermanent life.
That’s how nature works. Then our mind comes up and creates psychological dramas on how sad it is. Hahaha.
It’s all part of the game. Play it. No one gets alive. There is no one to get out alive. Hahahaha.
Actually…
You mispelled ‘In my opinion…’
Sure.
The common argument to this is why does it matter as you did not exist before your birth (unless you believe in reincarnation). It helps to learn a lot about time space. Particularly how forward and backwards does not matter much to it time wise and how long after you are dead your life could be observed if looking from other areas of the universe. So to some degree regions of time/space like our lives are eternal we just don’t realize it.
I frankly find the idea of an afterlife horrifying. You’re a disembodied conciousness existing eternally - not a million years, not a billion, endless existence.
And what are you supposed to in the afterlife? Have a family reunion? Replay your fondest memories like you’re watching an old VHS tape? Explore your wildest fantasies (but not the ones your deity frowns upon)? In the long term it just sounds as agonizing as hell.
I’ve seen a lot of people here comment the same thing, I find that really interesting! Maybe I haven’t thought deep enough into it, but I would much prefer an afterlife if I had the choice. But even when I still prefer an afterlife, you make a really good point as to why an afterlife sounds scarier than just dying, so thank you!
Oh my god yes!
I always thought that heaven sounds like hell. It’ll be great for about a week but eventually nonstop perfection would become so monotonous. Like playing a video game that you completed for all eternity. It’d be the worst kind of torture, to make everything you love into something you get bored of.
Here’s my take - if there’s any merit to the heaven and hell stuff, it’s purely in the last minutes of you actually dying (assuming a not-sudden death). Something your brain might conjure up before you go, premised on your remaining memories and attitudes towards life. If you mostly feel guilt about what you’ve done in your life, it will probably be an experience akin to hell. Joy, and a bittersweet sadness about leaving this world? Probably closer to heaven. And perhaps many various experiences in between that don’t neatly map to this. All mostly a play of the last final, firing synapses before the curtain falls.
If we take this approach, what does it say about living? Well, I’d say that it’s important to live as fully and well as you can. Do good things. Make good connections with other humans and love people worth loving. Help people out. Have a laugh, read a good book once and a while. Live a life that, when it’s all said and done, has honestly good material to draw from in those final moments before oblivion.
I’ve been raised roman catholic, but am agnostic.
No afterlife just means that your current existence has even more meaning, because it’s all you will ever experience. I want to be a nice and caring person, not for the promise of some afterlife where i get rewarded (which might happen or not), but for the sake of everyone around me, who also just have this one life - enhancing their lives has more meaning as well. If everyone would live in this spirit, our existence would be a much nicer experience.
Even if you disappear into nothingness, what you did and what you said will echo through the times; every kind action will live on through the people that experienced it, and will encourage them to do the same, having a multiplying effect.
If there’s no sequel to a movie, what’s the point of watching it?
Hi I’m also a religious person. Some religions have a big emphasis on what happens when we die, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Judaism basically says, “I dunno, maybe we get reincarnated or resurrected or just go be with God. Anyway, do you want any mustard or mayo on that?”
God didn’t put us here just as a test to see if we pass or fail. God didn’t put us here to ignore the brokenness in the world either. God put us here to make things better. Our job is to be the light in the darkness and to leave things better than we found them.
At least that’s what I believe. And I don’t think you have to even believe in God to live that way.
Science as we know it is not equipped to answer the Hard Problem of Consciousness. There is no explanation or path to an explanation for what we are as self aware beings, how we are conscious, how we came to be so, or why this universe exists in the first place.
Religion may not be the best answer to these questions either, but it does offer a way to live with purpose.
Thank you!
The purpose of life is to experience it. Experience as much of it as you can, before you can’t anymore. The good, the bad, the mundane, or insane.
Try to live a good life. What the definition of “good” is will be different for each person, but a few general categories include being good to others (help when you can), being good to yourself (don’t be your own worst enemy, mentally or physically), and being good to the world (leave it better than you found it).
Cherish the things that you have, and the things that you don’t.
