(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.
I'm a necrophobic (fear of death or death related things). My specific phobia has to do with corpses, but I think it will still serve a purpose here. Also, I am joining this discussion late and haven't read the many pages of replies, so I may be going over things already mentioned. Sorry, if that's the case.
Anyway, when I see a corpse, it elicits a high level of stress in me that's brought on by the fear of nothingness. That is, dead body = nothing, no life. I have only been an atheist for the last couple of years, but the fear has plagued me since I was a small child. I realized something after I became an atheist, and it turns out it's along the same lines as a famous quote. I think it was Mark Twain who said, I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. Basically, if the thought of not existing BEFORE my life doesn't bother me, why should the thought of not existing AFTER my life be any more worrisome?
I suppose one argument might be that we came into existence (and therefore consciousness) gradually, and we'll be going out relatively quickly. But that still does not address the issue of not existing. Both before and after life, we were non existent. So to me, it gives me comfort knowing that my final resting place will be oblivion. Heaven and hell exist simultaneously on the same plane...this world. In one sense, as long as you look for the positive things in life, you're in heaven. But once you realize you're about to die, you can see it as leaving behind all the hell this world dished out...and no longer can it harm you! That, my friend, is UTTER PEACE!
