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You don't need intellect to believe in the afterlife; you need faith.
And it's not coming up with fairy tales, again, it's faith.
Religious faith is belief without a requirement of evidence or logical argument -- and is therefore the utter rejection of intellect. It is a failed and discredited epistemology that does not lead towards truth. So yes, it's making up fairy tales, too.
How do you handle that fact?.
To me it's terrifying and depressing that I will never experience anything again for all eternity.
Why would I want to waste any part of my LIFE thinking about inevitable death?
Surely life is too precious to dwell on something you can't change?
I don't have time to fear the unknown...to debate in my mind what might or might not be...and for what?
What good is this fear of death doing for your life?
What foolishness to let fear and depression (over death) rule the LIFE you now have...a shame.
I feel the same way and I'm an agnostic theist but you seem very obsessed with it for someone who is fearful of it. I try not to think about it. I only discuss it when someone brings it up like how I'm replying to you right now so then I kinda have to get it out of my system and discuss it for a while so I can forget about it.
It's okay to see someone pass away in my favorite movies/tv shows sometimes but even then I will have certain shows or periods that I can't watch. I have never watched the end of the Notebook more than once. I always turn it off. Since I love music there are some songs if they're arranged in a certain way and have that word in it I won't like them. My least favorite song is American Pie because of that word and I don't listen to Bittersweet Symphony by the Verve because of that one line. Otherwise I would like it.
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Originally Posted by Mvpix1212
Thanks for trying to help me, but again the difference is that when I go to sleep I know ( or hope at least )that I will wake up in the morning, from death there is no waking up, it's forever, it's an eternal sleep.
That's what scares me about it.
Yeah though I used to be afraid to go to sleep personally. I know now that most likely I will wake up in the morning but I guess it goes much deeper with me. I still don't really like sleep even though I'm not really afraid of it anymore in general but I'm still a bit afraid of drug induced sleep so I think maybe part of it has to do with lack of control. I've never been able to have much control over my life so passing would be even worse because you wouldn't have any.
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Originally Posted by ladonin
That sees like a sad way to live. I'd rather believe in God and eternal life than think that this little time on earth is it. To each their own I suppose but if I was a non-believer I would live a short and reckless life and be a horrible person, cuz there would be no consequences for my actions!
Peace
Even considering this I am personally still fearful of it. It all seems scary to me no matter where I go because it's still the end of life and what doesn't help is that I've had a crappy life so my passing would probly be horrible since if god exists they have proven that they don't care about me.
I wouldn't do horrible things to people who don't deserve it because I just don't have it in me. I wouldn't like those things done to me. I know exactly how it feels to be screwed over so I find your last part ridiculous.
As to experiencing nothing forever, that is scary to me because it doesn't make any sense. How can you experience nothing forever? I can't imagine the idea. What happens when the light turns out? Do you just see black? I know that the rules of science say energy is not destroyed and that is why I'm an agnostic theist. That energy has to go somewhere. Even a lot of our parts on our body are usable for another person after our passing so it would stand to reason that our "self" would remain. I'm just not sure what "form" that would be hence the agnostic part. I don't even know if I'm making sense now because the inarticulate part of me has activated but I know that it makes sense in my head. It just might not make sense in words.
The idea of reincarnation could be the least fearful possibility. I've always wanted to be someone else but even then you have to "die" first so I guess I find the process scary too. Plus what if you end up as a bug or something in one of your lives? That would scare me just as much as the other possibilities then but I do find it fascinating as a topic of discussion. I'm just fearful of actually experiencing certain kinds of lives.
Lately I've been thinking that reincarnation is a very real possibility even more than ever because I've been thinking about how I get deja vu A LOT. I often thought it was my poor short term memory but I'll ask other people and they'll say we've never had that conversation before. I also felt it most when Cory Monteith died. I couldn't have known that was going to happen. I don't even watch Glee. But I'm not sure because if it was another life why would it be the same person? Every life in reincarnation would have to be different..maybe certain aspects of it.
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Originally Posted by bg7
And really - is it that hard to accept that this is the only life. Is it hard to accept that when a monkey dies that's it. Or when a great whale dies or a 200yr old tree dies that's it? No not really. Its human narcissism that makes it difficult for us to accept our own deaths as the end of us.
It is difficult to accept that leaving life is inevitable no matter where we go. For me it obviously has nothing to do with narcissism because I obviously don't think highly of myself. I just have fear of the other side whatever that side may be. I think another part of it might be change. Some changes I am okay with but at times I find it difficult to accept change. Maybe it's not difficult to accept that a monkey dies or a great whale dies but it's not pleasant to think about either. I also get very sad when I hear something happens to a dolphin (I don't like the idea that people fish for them). I think dolphins are actually a lot better creatures than much of the human population. I have to not think too hard when I eat any kind of meat. For that reason I could never kill my own food. The only creature that I feel is really below us are obviously bugs. I don't feel too bad about killing a bug though I only kill them if they're in my space. I may find them gross but I just run away from them when they're outside.
A tree is not sentient so that's a little different.
Last edited by Nickchick; 08-19-2016 at 06:48 PM..
And you know that energy never zaps out of existence but simply changes form.
Exactly, it changes form. From consciousness to not consciousness most likely as it loses all the coherence that is related to consciousness in any way. There is simply no reason on offer, least off all from you, to assume that conscious awareness and subjectivity survive the death of the brain.
We can measure all the energy that goes into the body and brain. We can measure the energy leaving the body through "work" and "heat loss" and the like.
And as far as I know, to this date, not a single Joule of energy is currently unaccounted for. So anyone making the "energy" argument for consciousness is postulating a new form of energy never yet observed, measured or evidenced.
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Originally Posted by SuperSoul
Look into Near Death Experiences in which distant events are confirmed...
I have yet to hear of any being confirmed under controlled and scientific conditions at all. Do enlighten us!
Certainly those who have tried to confirm them under such conditions, such as Sam Parnia, have simply and entirely failed to do so.
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Originally Posted by SuperSoul
It is naïve of anyone to consider that they know everything
If you say so, but given I am not really observing anyone doing that here, it is unclear why you bring it up.
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Originally Posted by Fleet
You don't need intellect to believe in the afterlife; you need faith.
And it's not coming up with fairy tales, again, it's faith.
Faith is not coming up with fairy tales. Coming up with fairy tales is merely a step on the way to faith.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ladonin
That sees like a sad way to live. I'd rather believe in God and eternal life than think that this little time on earth is it. To each their own I suppose but if I was a non-believer I would live a short and reckless life and be a horrible person, cuz there would be no consequences for my actions!
Peace
And yet we live in a world replete with such people who are not living that way. So your thesis is not on strong grounds as to how you think you would act if you were such a person.
The thing I think you miss is that people without god belief, such as myself, DO see consequences for our actions. We just do not see the same ones you do. And our ones are not entirely unsubstantiated as yours are likely to be if they are sourced from a theistic world view.
But it also does not paint a good picture of you that the only think stopping you being a horrible person is the consequences. What you are openly admitting to there is you ARE a horrible person. You just feel unable to act on it. Is that really the picture you intended to paint??
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Originally Posted by Nickchick
As to experiencing nothing forever, that is scary to me because it doesn't make any sense.
No it doesn't make sense. Because you are imagining a "nothing" but you are then still imagining a "you" experiencing it. Which is the opposite of what people who point out the lack of reasons to expect an after life are telling you. It is not the nothing or something that is likely being turned off when you die. It is the very "you" that is experiencing it.
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Originally Posted by Nickchick
How can you experience nothing forever?
Again people are not saying you experience nothing forever. They are saying you do not experience ANYTHING forever. A massive difference.
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Originally Posted by Nickchick
I know that the rules of science say energy is not destroyed and that is why I'm an agnostic theist. That energy has to go somewhere.
It does. As far as I am aware there is no energy unaccounted for. All the energy in our body dissipated as loss of heat, or it is consumed by other entities who then release it as heat and so forth.
The people who use the "energy has to go somewhere" argument seem to miss the fact there is no energy that is unaccounted for at this time.
If something is "going" somewhere, why is there nothing missing to balance the equations?
There simply is no arguments, evidence, data or reasoning on offer at this point in time that lends ANY credibility to the notion that your consciousness or awareness survives the death of the brain.
No one escapes death.
We will all die.
As a materialist atheist - I believe there is nothing but matter in the universe -no god , gods , spirits soul or anything ONLY atoms.
I believe we are our bodies more precisely our brains.
Our consciousness is a result of our brain.
And once we die, and our brain decomposes, that's it, we will never exist or experience anything for all eternity.
How do you handle that fact?.
To me it's terrifying and depressing that I will never experience anything again for all eternity.
Someone else already said it, but you just need to accept your own mortality and live the best life you can live each day.
No one escapes death.
We will all die.
As a materialist atheist - I believe there is nothing but matter in the universe -no god , gods , spirits soul or anything ONLY atoms.
I believe we are our bodies more precisely our brains.
Our consciousness is a result of our brain.
And once we die, and our brain decomposes, that's it, we will never exist or experience anything for all eternity.
How do you handle that fact?.
To me it's terrifying and depressing that I will never experience anything again for all eternity.
In the end, it doesn't matter what we believe. What we believe doesn't change the reality of the situation.
What scientists observe and conclude is continually changing. Everything we know is pretty much knew.. JJ Thompson didn't discover the electron until 1997. That's only a little over 100 years ago.
Science is riddled with observed, concluded, observed modified conclusions.
Albert Einstein revolutionized the concept that matter and energy are not distinctly exclusive as he derived E = mc squared as the relationship between them. That happened in the early 20th century. Sring theory is a new postulate determining our reality is in 10 dimensions.
So the more and more scientist observe and learn about our reality, it points to something more than just the physical realm that we currently reside in.
Naturalism has been dying a slow death with modern advancements.
No it doesn't make sense. Because you are imagining a "nothing" but you are then still imagining a "you" experiencing it. Which is the opposite of what people who point out the lack of reasons to expect an after life are telling you. It is not the nothing or something that is likely being turned off when you die. It is the very "you" that is experiencing it.
Again people are not saying you experience nothing forever. They are saying you do not experience ANYTHING forever. A massive difference.
That still doesn't make sense to me either. How do you not experience anything forever? What does it feel like to not experience anything? The concept does not compute. Maybe this "you" is not experiencing anything but a new you is so what would this "you" turn into? You could argue that a computer's consciousness is its filing system and what happens to those files? They are overwritten but they are still the same source.. just made into something new and our brain is like one huge super computer. Many parts of the computer can still be usable even after it crashes. Nothing in this world truly disappears. It either stays at a landfill or is recycled and the latter is more common so most things do not lose their "life" (artificial or otherwise) and the more complex something is the more this is likely. This is another reason why I think reincarnation is very possible. Even infections like cold do not necessarily die. They can come back.
Last edited by Nickchick; 08-31-2016 at 06:30 PM..
OP. As a formal student of biology, I had always heard that people who study biology are those who secretly want to find a way to eternal life. Whether or not that is true, your concern for the end of life will very likely weaken and/or change as you more closely approach the end. It seems to be one of the unwritten natural laws of human existence.
Toward the end of a normal life you may find that your trepidation of death has slowly evolved into a calm anticipation of it.
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