(May 31, 2019 at 1:02 pm)TristanJ Wrote:(May 31, 2019 at 9:24 am)Brian37 Wrote: I fear death too, but I don't fear not existing. I also was not around 4 billion years ago.True, good points
You don't need a fictional forever to be motivated to live. Think about mundane things in your life you do that also you know end.
You go to a movie knowing it ends, but you still go and enjoy it. You go to a music concert knowing it plays a last song, but you still go and enjoy it. You go to a sporting event knowing one team will win, one will lose, and you still go and enjoy it. You read a good book knowing it has a last page, but you still read it. You get a pet cat or pet dog, you enjoy them, but you live longer, and even after they die, you might get another one and enjoy that one too.
Saying that life ends does not have to make you depressed nor is it fatalistic or pessimistic to accept that reality. What you have now is important, and life while you are alive is what you make it, not what others say you have to believe or do.
You can still feel love, you will still have some pain, but you wont be tortured for eternity by anything.
I fear prolonged pain, I fear my loved ones missing me. But again, I have no fear of fictional punishment anymore than I fear life before I was born.
I still see lots of good in life. I still have family and friends I love. I simply do not assign anything good or bad that might happen in life to old mythology.
(May 31, 2019 at 9:26 am)Fireball Wrote: Go look up all the histories of hell, and then you will realize that they are the products of ignorant, fevered imaginations. That'll help you deprogram yourself from that fear.
Iv'e not looked up the history's of hell or the bible because i'd rather waste my day reading psychology or something useful even though it wouldn't harm me to look into it
I've watched a lot of things and i'm not sure the fear of hell is my biggest concern anymore or that it'll be solved because i think it's a very irrational fear?
(May 31, 2019 at 9:44 am)Aegon Wrote: Why do you feel compelled to let those beliefs go? Why is it important to you?I want to understand psychology and our minds and i can't understand how our minds fully work if i'm also not willing to let go
also even if i end up wrong, does it matter? what matters is i remained open minded. Hopefully.
I can't help others if i can't learn to help myself that's what motivates me i also almost died not long ago in a really stupid way, but stupid or not its made me reflect on what's important, on what's the "here and now" instead of the "What could be" i always have reflected on this but iv'e been doing it more.
It isn't as complicated as one might think.
1. Humans worldwide in antiquity had no clue how things worked, like we do today.
2. That scientific ignorance back then made humans fearful, so we made up answers as a way to cope.
3. Our species does better when we group and socialize. But a group can be successful and dead wrong about the beliefs that group centers it's society around. For 3,000 years the ancient Egyptians were successful and believed that Ra controlled the sun, and Osiris and Isis and Horus were real gods. But they were not real one bit.
You do not need a god belief or a religion to value now. And death, while scary is normal, because it is the same fear that makes us look both ways before crossing a busy street, is a fact of reality. So you can fear the unavoidable needlessly, or live your life now without fear of things you cannot change.
