Oh boy! I'm getting ready to get really weird on you. I think about death a lot. And I can actually say I think about death enough that I'm not scared of it. The weird part is I often find myself smiling sometimes when thinking about death. It's not that I want to die, I'm just at complete peace with the thought of passing away. I've come to realize that if there is a God and he is the inventor and scientist of all the wonders and beauty we enjoy while living here, there's no way FEAR is part of his plan. A true connection with God can't be found in any building or any group setting in my opinion. God has equipped every single one of us with the ability to communicate with him and all we need to do is learn how to get out of our own way for that to happen. The two biggest obstacles are fear and pride. I've had a lot of problems with depression in my life, especially the first 25 years or so. But over the last 20 years I've learned how to control my depression without any medications. I use positive repetitive thought and what I call music therapy. Whatever my mood is, I'll match it with a genre of my favorite music and it will help calm me down if I'm feeling depressed. I don't really know how, but I think learning how to deal with my depression really helped me conquer my fear about death and God. Life is beautiful and fear can definitely keep us from understanding just how lucky we really are.
I'm going to get weirder, because I don't find anything you said weird at all. I like the way you've thought through what I would describe as putting trust in your God. As a fellow wrestler with depression, I'm happy to hear how you've coped with it. It takes me medication plus meditation and music to keep me on a relatively even keel. I, too, find that life is beautiful and that fear (except if I run into a bear) is an obstacle to appreciating how lucky I am. (That's the way I tend to think of myself -- a very lucky lump of sentient carbon.)
Thanks.
Neither of you sound weird lol. It's actually sounding really nice.
I personally also no longer fear the end. I used to be scared that the second coming would happen and I wouldn't be ready. I fear being away from my kids or them being away from me. I didn't think that God or Jesus would be scary but rather that I would be scared of my own judgement and whether I had done enough. The fear discussed here from my perspective is within the person and not from God. Like that was a "me" problem.
I believe that whoever or whatever created all this amazing universe with all the beautiful patterns and just mind-blowing way that everything just works in harmony (on a natural level without human interference) already knows everything. Has already seen every aspect of every creature and every possibility and with that knowledge decided this plan knowing how it would all be. If there wasn't love there and acceptance then the plan wouldn't be happening. But it is built into me that sense of having to earn respect and earn a place but that probably comes from every aspect of growing up human. So it's hard to escape that feeling that maybe we might not be good enough to be saved. But an all-knowing, all-seeing God would have already completed whatever the plan is because time is relative and perspective of time would be different for something with intelligence outside of our system. We just haven't reached that time point. Our experience of time to see the outcome of it all.
But yeah, different paths to righteousness and all that. I have multiple ideas and beliefs that contradict. I'm pretty sure love is all that matters some days. And there are times when I think the next life will be how we resonate before leaving the physical confines of this plane. Who knows.
Glad to see there are others who do not fear death or God. You should fear neither because why would you fear yourself? Death is nothing more or less than the transition of energy and thought from one place to another. Death is a sweet transition from one level to another. And, I believe we have done this many times before and will do it many times again.
Life is a wonderful experience where fear must be controlled and ultimately done away. Fear is designed to protect us as a natural instinct to survive and keep ourselves safe. Fear of predators and those that harm us is perfectly natural. In fear it must be determined in an instant to fight or flee in order to protect ourselves.
But to fear God is something the Church made up. God doesn’t want anyone to fear him. Fear of God is not a natural instinct. It’s not beautiful. Do children fear God? No. It is a learned behavior taught by priests and the Church.
Fear of death is a natural thing that everyone is entitled to overcome. Why does death cause us to fear? Death is the ultimate predator! It is death that harms us and literally kills us and that is what causes us to fear and worry about how it will go down. But we may learn to master ourselves and not fear the ultimate predator but flee from the very idea that it harms us and is actually a natural part of our evolution. If we learn to master life then we can therefore master death.
Amen.
Cute.
People fear death because they fear the unknown. If you have a belief system that makes you believe that it isn't an unknown then you are less likely to fear it unless there is some sort of punishment beyond our comfort levels to be facing. I think we are less afraid of punishment as we get older because sometimes life can be pretty damn punishing in itself.
People who end their lives by choice clearly fear life more than death but they haven't overcome anything. I attend a women's church group where half the women talk about how they welcome death to be with their loved ones again and they can't wait. They might be free of that fear but it doesn't free them entirely. They still have other obstacles. And I think it's easy to say you aren't afraid when it isn't necessarily staring you in the face. I don't fear it at the moment but I'm pretty sure if I were dying I'd suddenly feel fear.
Glad to see there are others who do not fear death or God. You should fear neither because why would you fear yourself? Death is nothing more or less than the transition of energy and thought from one place to another. Death is a sweet transition from one level to another. And, I believe we have done this many times before and will do it many times again.
Life is a wonderful experience where fear must be controlled and ultimately done away. Fear is designed to protect us as a natural instinct to survive and keep ourselves safe. Fear of predators and those that harm us is perfectly natural. In fear it must be determined in an instant to fight or flee in order to protect ourselves.
But to fear God is something the Church made up. God doesn’t want anyone to fear him. Fear of God is not a natural instinct. It’s not beautiful. Do children fear God? No. It is a learned behavior taught by priests and the Church.
Fear of death is a natural thing that everyone is entitled to overcome. Why does death cause us to fear? Death is the ultimate predator! It is death that harms us and literally kills us and that is what causes us to fear and worry about how it will go down. But we may learn to master ourselves and not fear the ultimate predator but flee from the very idea that it harms us and is actually a natural part of our evolution. If we learn to master life then we can therefore master death.
Amen.
While I agree that death involves the transfer of energy and matter, I don't believe that thought is transferred anywhere by death. No levels. El Fin. I don't see death as a predator, but as the natural conclusion to what we call life. I feel extremely lucky to be alive and sentient, and death is just a part of of the life experience. I think it is natural to fear the unknwown, and the brain has no referent for death. (Maybe anesthesia....)
I also don't view life and death as things to be mastered. Experienced? Yes. Accepted? Hopefully. But not mastered.
Brains are weird and humans are funny.
I have had experiences where I was sure I had died but continued and it made me wonder if we just jump into the next available timeline. Doubt we have that ability and it was probably just a panic attack lol. I agree that we shouldn't expect to master things but I think that's just nitpicking at Shulem's words. I think we all get the jist of what is being said.
This is a sad perspective; it's devoid of hope and ongoing purpose. This is how I perceive an atheist to think. Nothing wrong with that. I feel a need to have a purpose beyond living and dying. Not everyone feels that need.
You will agree that your thoughts are who you are. You are what you think. Everything you do and say is based on what you think. It can be said that thought is energy. In fact, it can be strongly argued that energy and thought are one in the same! My thoughts are energy and they can vary in intensity and frequency.
In death, you will not remain where you are. Your energy goes elsewhere. You go elsewhere. When you die you leave the room so to speak. To me, that is a transfer. To me that is going from one place to another – another level, another place, another reality in its entirety.
Yes, death IS the natural conclusion of life. That cannot be disputed or argued. Neither can it be prevented or overcome. You and I must die. Nothing can stop that. How we view death is entirely a different matter because everyone views death in their own way that is unique to them. Why do I call it a predator? Because death (ultimate predator) is going to kill you and you can’s stop it. You can run but you can’t hide. It will find you and eventually kill you. But as you say, this is the natural order of things and it is as natural as being born.
There are many who do view life as something to be mastered. Many great teachers across the great spectrum of human learning and experience encourage us to master our lives rather than let our lives just unfold in any way or manner without us having control of how we react to those things we cause to happen in our lives. I want to master life! And I have learned how to master my life. It’s a great secret and it take much time and effort. Master death? Yes, I want to master that too. I am the master over my own death and will face it head on with absolutely confidence.
I wish you well in your journey through life and death.
I don't mean to imply that my view is right and yours is wrong. I think of my sense of being "me" is part of a story that my brain tells to itself. Or maybe one portion of my brain tells to another portion. I think that thinking involves energy and that thoughts probably represent some sort of interaction of energy and matter. But, when I die, I think the energy in my brain simply disperses as entropy naturally increases.
Thanks for sharing how you think about life and death. The different ways people do that is endlessly fascinating to me.
I wish you well in your journey as well.
I think, therefore I am.
Energy has to be conserved. Where does it go? When my grandad died, he suddenly wasn't in his body. It was surreal. His eyes had frosted over and his body was empty. I had never seen that before and it freaked me out. When my daughter has been put to sleep under anaesthesia, I got freaked because she was alert and then her head dropped and she exhaled really fast and she was gone. And there was an element of oh my god that was freaky in a "did she just" die micro thought kind of way but her body wasn't empty like my grandad's was. I could sense she was still in there. I did cry, though.
I think it's all energy too. We seem to be electromagnetic beings in the brain department and I wonder if the em field is part of our being. I visualise my sense of being in my head. I think our "souls" are connected to this world by our physical bodies. And once we leave our physical bodies, I believe we are able to travel beyond the 3 dimensional world. Do we need wires and a physical body to create the field that is our being? Hopefully we learn to be wireless. If you believe in astral projection then it would be pretty odd to not believe that our thoughts and souls are able to exist beyond the alive body.
Death has ever been the marvelous and grandest off all mysteries pertaining to the human experience. First we are born, then we live, and last we die. It’s the third event that entails the mystery and has been a topic of confusion since time began. Death is the power-play used by religion to get adherents to comply with all the rules set by religion in order to gain the reward they promise is obtainable by keeping the so-called rules.
Mormonism ranks very high on the list of scaring its members with fear of being punished and rejected by an angry and vindictive God for failure to comply with the rules. Mormonism even takes it to the extreme that those who reject their religion after having received it could potentially become candidates of perdition and be cast off into outer darkness forever and ever.
In a way it could be said that Mormonism uses fear to keep their people inline the same way that Darth Vader used the Death Star to intimidate star systems and keep them in line by acquiescing to the Empire and serving the emperor.
A very large percentage of people find comfort in being told what to do, by people they will probably never meet in person, so they can hopefully one day live again with their love ones in a different realm. Do religions use fear? Yes! It's the simplest and most effective way to keep people on a path that will guide them to a peaceful and comforting death because they "know" one day they'll see their loved ones on the other side.
There's absolutely nothing that could convince my mom the church isn't true. And I wouldn't have it any other way. She knows beyond a shadow of a doubt she'll see my dad again. The fear we are speaking of is used to comfort the majority of religious people. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Do you?
There's only nothing wrong with it if you are happy with it and not implicating it onto other people without full disclosure that you believe this.
I think if churches are consciously using fear to control them this is manipulative and wrong. But in saying that, most institutions use fear if we want to dig enough. We take medicine because we fear, we take immunisations because of fear, we do/did as our parents say because of fear, we do/did our homework because of fear. There are different types of fear. I think the fear of consequences is different to the fear of strangers. Why do we fight or flight or the other Fs depending on the situation? Because the fear causing the response is different.
While I agree that death involves the transfer of energy and matter, I don't believe that thought is transferred anywhere by death. No levels. El Fin. I don't see death as a predator, but as the natural conclusion to what we call life. I feel extremely lucky to be alive and sentient, and death is just a part of of the life experience. I think it is natural to fear the unknwown, and the brain has no referent for death. (Maybe anesthesia....)
I also don't view life and death as things to be mastered. Experienced? Yes. Accepted? Hopefully. But not mastered.
Brains are weird and humans are funny.
I have had experiences where I was sure I had died but continued and it made me wonder if we just jump into the next available timeline. Doubt we have that ability and it was probably just a panic attack lol. I agree that we shouldn't expect to master things but I think that's just nitpicking at Shulem's words. I think we all get the jist of what is being said.
This is a sad perspective; it's devoid of hope and ongoing purpose. This is how I perceive an atheist to think. Nothing wrong with that. I feel a need to have a purpose beyond living and dying. Not everyone feels that need.
The longer I am an atheist, the more puzzling I find the notion that a finite lifespan = no purpose or hope. I don't feel sad, hopeless, or purposeless.
he/him When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.
Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
I don't mean to imply that my view is right and yours is wrong. I think of my sense of being "me" is part of a story that my brain tells to itself. Or maybe one portion of my brain tells to another portion. I think that thinking involves energy and that thoughts probably represent some sort of interaction of energy and matter. But, when I die, I think the energy in my brain simply disperses as entropy naturally increases.
Thanks for sharing how you think about life and death. The different ways people do that is endlessly fascinating to me.
I wish you well in your journey as well.
I think, therefore I am.
Energy has to be conserved. Where does it go? When my grandad died, he suddenly wasn't in his body. It was surreal. His eyes had frosted over and his body was empty. I had never seen that before and it freaked me out. When my daughter has been put to sleep under anaesthesia, I got freaked because she was alert and then her head dropped and she exhaled really fast and she was gone. And there was an element of oh my god that was freaky in a "did she just" die micro thought kind of way but her body wasn't empty like my grandad's was. I could sense she was still in there. I did cry, though.
I think it's all energy too. We seem to be electromagnetic beings in the brain department and I wonder if the em field is part of our being. I visualise my sense of being in my head. I think our "souls" are connected to this world by our physical bodies. And once we leave our physical bodies, I believe we are able to travel beyond the 3 dimensional world. Do we need wires and a physical body to create the field that is our being? Hopefully we learn to be wireless. If you believe in astral projection then it would be pretty odd to not believe that our thoughts and souls are able to exist beyond the alive body.
The answer to where the energy goes is the second law of thermodynamics. It doesn't really go anywhere -- it simply becomes more disorganized.
he/him When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.
Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
I have had experiences where I was sure I had died but continued and it made me wonder if we just jump into the next available timeline. Doubt we have that ability and it was probably just a panic attack lol. I agree that we shouldn't expect to master things but I think that's just nitpicking at Shulem's words. I think we all get the jist of what is being said.
This is a sad perspective; it's devoid of hope and ongoing purpose. This is how I perceive an atheist to think. Nothing wrong with that. I feel a need to have a purpose beyond living and dying. Not everyone feels that need.
The longer I am an atheist, the more puzzling I find the notion that a finite lifespan = no purpose or hope. I don't feel sad, hopeless, or purposeless.
Energy has to be conserved. Where does it go? When my grandad died, he suddenly wasn't in his body. It was surreal. His eyes had frosted over and his body was empty. I had never seen that before and it freaked me out. When my daughter has been put to sleep under anaesthesia, I got freaked because she was alert and then her head dropped and she exhaled really fast and she was gone. And there was an element of oh my god that was freaky in a "did she just" die micro thought kind of way but her body wasn't empty like my grandad's was. I could sense she was still in there. I did cry, though.
I think it's all energy too. We seem to be electromagnetic beings in the brain department and I wonder if the em field is part of our being. I visualise my sense of being in my head. I think our "souls" are connected to this world by our physical bodies. And once we leave our physical bodies, I believe we are able to travel beyond the 3 dimensional world. Do we need wires and a physical body to create the field that is our being? Hopefully we learn to be wireless. If you believe in astral projection then it would be pretty odd to not believe that our thoughts and souls are able to exist beyond the alive body.
The answer to where the energy goes is the second law of thermodynamics. It doesn't really go anywhere -- it simply becomes more disorganized.
Where did the energy come from? Disorganised but still existing? Not trying to convince you of anything, genuinely curious about other opinions.
The answer to where the energy goes is the second law of thermodynamics. It doesn't really go anywhere -- it simply becomes more disorganized.
Where did the energy come from? Disorganised but still existing? Not trying to convince you of anything, genuinely curious about other opinions.
The organization of energy in a system can increase if it has a source outside the system. in our case, the source outside of our bodies is food. The outside source for the earth is the sun. There is no energy associated with the self that is independent of the energy that powers the body -- specifically, the brain.
he/him When I go to sea, don’t fear for me. Fear for the storm.
Jessica Best, Fear for the Storm. From The Strange Case of the Starship Iris.
I like the way you've thought through what I would describe as putting trust in your God. As a fellow wrestler with depression, I'm happy to hear how you've coped with it. It takes me medication plus meditation and music to keep me on a relatively even keel. I, too, find that life is beautiful and that fear (except if I run into a bear) is an obstacle to appreciating how lucky I am. (That's the way I tend to think of myself -- a very lucky lump of sentient carbon.)
