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I've held on to Christianity for quite a long time - largely to delude myself into believing that death isn't final. I've decided that I have to stop kidding myself and that I'm actually Agnostic. I don't necessarily believe that death is it or that there is no Supreme Being, but I've also come to the reality that death may be final and there may not be any creator or Supreme Being after all (and especially not a Christian God).
How have other athiests and agnostics dealt with a fear of everything ending?
How have other athiests and agnostics dealt with a fear of everything ending?
I think when I was much younger I did feel a certain fear of my existence coming to an end. Now that I'm 60 I've gradually come to understand that death is a natural event and nothing to be afraid of. In fact I think that many people who are elderly feel like they've lived their lives and the aging process has become a drugery and they feel that death would be an end to their suffering. I happened to get into a conversation at a bar with a guy who was in his eighties and he told me he was looking forward to dying. His wife had been dead for a number of years, he was almost blind and life was very difficult. I felt bad for him but I can understand his point of view.
I think when I was much younger I did feel a certain fear of my existence coming to an end. Now that I'm 60 I've gradually come to understand that death is a natural event and nothing to be afraid of. In fact I think that many people who are elderly feel like they've lived their lives and the aging process has become a drugery and they feel that death would be an end to their suffering. I happened to get into a conversation at a bar with a guy who was in his eighties and he told me he was looking forward to dying. His wife had been dead for a number of years, he was almost blind and life was very difficult. I felt bad for him but I can understand his point of view.
By realising that I've been dead (at least not alive) for a lot longer than that I've been alive.
Since the moment I've realised that letting go (or losing things and people) is a natural (and inevitable) part of life and that there must be an end in order for there to be a beginning, I don't fear death at all.
philip roth is widely read here as an internationally reknowned author and has been given much publicity with respect to the topic since we are very aware of being an aging society. which is not only a demographic problem, as the relevant academics are drumming into us, but an individual experience so far hardly given the attention and evaluation it certainly would deserve.
It's natural to fear death. You were born with a strong instinct for survival. You're biologically bred to desire eternal life and fear death.
So you are fighting your instincts, which is always hard.
But when you are asleep, do you miss being awake? When you're dead you won't miss being alive, either. There's no more reason to fear death than there is to fear sleep.
The only trump card the christians have is that there is an afterlife with consciousness and that there awaits either heaven or hell.
Obviously if you buy into the well proven myth of hell being either the grave (hades, sheol) or gehenna/valley of hinnom where they sacrificed to the god molech - a defunct rubbish dump outside Jerusalem, now a grassed park with trees, then all that is left is heaven.
Of course they still have the lake of fire but that is also from a book of symbols which the majority of them cannot agree what it is anyway.
The Universalists have an opinion that all will be refined in this lake of fire and even in that camp there are views that the LoF is myth and only for the sins of the man not the man himself and the devil and his angels.
In essence, there is only conjecture and folk believe what they want to to make their bias tingle.
The older you get, death becomes inevitable and like many have said you kinda stop wrestling over it.
No one came back from the dead to tell us how it was there so all NDE's etc can be dismissed as none of them were really dead.
Were you aware of yourself pre-birth?
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By realising that I've been dead (at least not alive) for a lot longer than that I've been alive.
