RE: Problem dealing with death as an atheist
March 10, 2011 at 1:49 pm
(This post was last modified: March 10, 2011 at 2:01 pm by Zenith.)
(March 4, 2011 at 9:41 pm)Cynical8 Wrote: I've been dealing with an issue that I believe only atheists could really help me with, and so I came across these forums. I just joined, and after a quick browse didn't see my issue anywhere, so I apologize if this is a repeat topic.
Anyway. I'll do my best to explain my issue:
I'm an atheist and I also have a few problems with depression and anxiety. My problem, however, is that I've recently developed a MAJOR "fear" of death.
Specifically, I am convinced, beyond a doubt, that there is no existence after death. I am 100% convinced that when I die, there will be nothingness... no afterlife, no me, no thoughts, no blackness, no sleep, nor any ability to think. I won't even know I died, and I won't even be able to acknowledge that I don't know I died. At this moment, I feel like I really understand what that means, and I am deeply deeply disturbed by it. I'm not sure how to cope with it. I can keep it out of my mind for short periods of time, but ultimately I'll read an article about someone dying, see a news report, and so on and start thinking about it again.
If anyone has any advice or thoughts or hopefully some sort of solution to my problem, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.
Why fear death? It's INEVITABLE! Sooner or later would happen, anyway.
It's so funny that some people really believe that man would overcome death by a scientific method or something. You know, even if it would be possible by a scientific method (though I doubt it), no common man would have access to it. You know, with the current death rate, the population of the Terra is already very large, so it would be very destructive to make everyone live forever (because of breeding - and many wish to have children). So perhaps only people like the Catholic Pope, Kings and other very important people would have access to such thing. Again, I doubt that a scientific method would ever be found for a man to live forever.
Well, I'll tell how you can not wish to live forever: if you realize the misery of people (friends that betray you for nothing, girlfriend or wife that cheats you, people that either despise you for not being like them, envying you if you are better than them at some things, etc.) and the fact that most of the time you spend is by doing what you don't like (e.g. a job, eating, sleeping, paying bills, and other things that must be done) you will realize that you do too much and receive to little. And most people are not "good guys" either, and you'll see how crappy they are when they are tested: if there is famine, one might even beat up his best friend to take his bread. In other words, people would do everything possible for them to be happier of more wealthy, even if that means to do a great evil to a very good friend, taking by force the last dollar of a poor man, etc.
About what happens after death... I never died, so I can be neither precise nor trustworthy. Anyway, it is interesting that it seems that life after death is not a christian invention: it was also believed by the pagan greeks, etc. And it seems that even many of the diabolical punishments in "hell" (tortured by demons, etc.) were also not a christian invention:
http://www.deathreference.com/Gi-Ho/Gods...Death.html Wrote:Though many ancient mythologies explained how death came into the world, comparatively few promised a better life to come. Their underworlds were mostly gloomy places, into which the dead were thrust by hideous demons or fierce warrior-deities, and there either forgotten by their creator or made to stand trial before some dread underworld lord such as Osiris in Egypt or in Chinese Buddhist myth the Four Kings of Hell, who guard the Scrolls of Judgment in which all past lives are recorded. No wonder that many underworlds are filled with unhappy souls, like the spirits led by Gauna, death in the myths of the Bushmen of Botswana, who are so miserable in the world below that they keep trying to escape and take over the world above.
And it is interesting that, either most or all beliefs, even before and unrelated to Christianity, believed in life after death and even punishment by the gods in a "hell".
A few references, if you are interested:
http://www.deathreference.com/Gi-Ho/Gods...Death.html
http://www.deathreference.com/Gi-Ho/Hell.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science...rience.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science...-death.htm
http://science.howstuffworks.com/science...rience.htm
Hope something of what I said is useful.
By the way, there are atheists that believe in transcendence. At least I knew one. He said that what expects us after death is a mystery, that only when we will die we will find out.
