(If you have anxiety about death then maybe you shouldn’t read this post, just letting you know!)
Edit: Thank you guys for being so quick to post your comments and give your thoughts, it makes me wish I said something sooner rather than dealing with it on my own. You guys are seriously awesome, and have made me want to fight way harder to be a better person for my friends and family, and everyone else around me. I think tonight I’ll finally be able to sleep, and I’m looking forward for tomorrow and to be able to talk to my Dad about how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking about all this, and to spend as much time with him as I can. Take care of yourself guys! And again, thank you so, so much. I seriously feel way better and my anxiety is a lot less now.
Before joining Lemmy I used to be a devoted Christian since my family raised me as one and have been Christians for generations. And to add important context, I’m not talking about judge mental homophobic trump supporting Christians that judge gays and everyone else they see who don’t live the way they live. I’m talking about being a real follower of Christ who loves thy neighbor and knows we have no right to judge, not what most church’s are today who just exist to make a profit. My family are bible based Christians and raised me as one too, not by propaganda machines. (Or at least the propaganda that politicians or “Church’s” who exploit vulnerable people for their money like to spread around. The “buy my book to change your life” or “plant your $1000 seed” type of shenanigans makes me sick.)
Anywhoo, while being on Lemmy and learning a lot about U.S. politics I just have never seen on other social media sites like X and Reddit, and talking about science, capitalism, global warming, and so on and so fourth with the incredible people on here, it has really broaden my view on certain subjects and be a lot more open to a lot more ideas, one of which is Atheism.
I haven’t thought about it too much, but recently my Grandfather died and so my emotions and thoughts have wandered about him and about loosing someone I care a lot about, and then a question popped into my head; is he truly in a “better place”? Do they actually go somewhere? What will happen to my Dad?
After that random thought, my brain has kind of spiraled out of control about this topic and I haven’t been able to sleep well since I’ve been having anxiety thinking about death. What is the point if all of life (our life) is truly just our brains, and our brain stops working? Is it really just, nothingness? What is the point of making all these amazing memories with family and friends that I cherish more than anything in the world, if all these memories are going to be forgotten? Whether its today, or 80 years from now? With this ideology, when I stop breathing, I will quite literally become nothing. There will be nothing. I am dead. It’s made me into this “why should I care” mood about almost everything.
I think I’ve kind of made my anxiety worse during the last few nights since I also decided to look up what its like to die and what scientists have said about the topic, whoops! Turns out our brain can still think 2-15 minutes after our hearts stop beating! I know I’m joking here which I tend to do when I’m in these situations but I have been extremely anxious when it comes to the fear of death. Not in a “I’m scared to use this knife to cut a slice of tomato” kind of way, but a “when we’re gone there will be nothing and I will remember nothing and become nothing” sort of way.
Not trying to get political here, but with this thought in my mind for the last couple of days and hearing about situations like Palestine has made me completely rethink everything like life itself, and now every time I hear about Palestine or Ukraine or whatever else going on in the world, I can’t help but burst into tears.
Sorry for the rant or whatever this is, just asking what you guys think or how you live your life if thats alright. Take care of yourself!
There isn’t one, we’re animals with higher brain function.
Try to ease suffering by being less savage and overcoming the animal instincts of hoarding and violence which are antithetical tou our capacity to form cohesive societies.
Thank you for coming to my ted talk.
My wife is soft and makes me happy.
To explore and understand the significance of your existence because from my understanding ( ignorant ) we don’t really have an answer to our origin but rather an idea. History which is knowledge passed down, is always written from the perspective of the “winner” and rarely the losers.
Here’s my take - if there’s any merit to the heaven and hell stuff, it’s purely in the last minutes of you actually dying (assuming a not-sudden death). Something your brain might conjure up before you go, premised on your remaining memories and attitudes towards life. If you mostly feel guilt about what you’ve done in your life, it will probably be an experience akin to hell. Joy, and a bittersweet sadness about leaving this world? Probably closer to heaven. And perhaps many various experiences in between that don’t neatly map to this. All mostly a play of the last final, firing synapses before the curtain falls.
If we take this approach, what does it say about living? Well, I’d say that it’s important to live as fully and well as you can. Do good things. Make good connections with other humans and love people worth loving. Help people out. Have a laugh, read a good book once and a while. Live a life that, when it’s all said and done, has honestly good material to draw from in those final moments before oblivion.
The common argument to this is why does it matter as you did not exist before your birth (unless you believe in reincarnation). It helps to learn a lot about time space. Particularly how forward and backwards does not matter much to it time wise and how long after you are dead your life could be observed if looking from other areas of the universe. So to some degree regions of time/space like our lives are eternal we just don’t realize it.
to shitpost, obviously
I frankly find the idea of an afterlife horrifying. You’re a disembodied conciousness existing eternally - not a million years, not a billion, endless existence.
And what are you supposed to in the afterlife? Have a family reunion? Replay your fondest memories like you’re watching an old VHS tape? Explore your wildest fantasies (but not the ones your deity frowns upon)? In the long term it just sounds as agonizing as hell.
I’ve seen a lot of people here comment the same thing, I find that really interesting! Maybe I haven’t thought deep enough into it, but I would much prefer an afterlife if I had the choice. But even when I still prefer an afterlife, you make a really good point as to why an afterlife sounds scarier than just dying, so thank you!
Oh my god yes!
I always thought that heaven sounds like hell. It’ll be great for about a week but eventually nonstop perfection would become so monotonous. Like playing a video game that you completed for all eternity. It’d be the worst kind of torture, to make everything you love into something you get bored of.
Real talk, as a kid Final Fantasy Legend on the Game Boy is how I got exposed to this kind of thinking, and the implications have lived rent free in my head to this day.
It’s a bit on the nose, but that kinda lends itself to a kid picking up on it.
It’s not black and empty. There’s no you to feel those things.
The mind is what the brain does. It’s a process, not a thing. It doesn’t ‘go’ anywhere, and it doesn’t sit there chewing on a lack of input either.
The brain stops doing, the mind stops being.
As for the point of it all: smoke 'em while you got 'em. Live your life, and try to make the world a bit better for others.
After all, there’s nobody running the universe. Nobody to take care lest a sparrow fall. No justice, no redemption, nobody balancing the books. The only thing in the entire universe that gives a damn if we live or die is each other.
You want a purpose, there’s your purpose. To do what only people can do: care about people and try to make their time on this rock better than it otherwise might be.
The purpose of life is to experience it. Experience as much of it as you can, before you can’t anymore. The good, the bad, the mundane, or insane.
Try to live a good life. What the definition of “good” is will be different for each person, but a few general categories include being good to others (help when you can), being good to yourself (don’t be your own worst enemy, mentally or physically), and being good to the world (leave it better than you found it).
Cherish the things that you have, and the things that you don’t.
You might enjoy the show “The Good Place”
Thanks! I’ve heard a lot of people talk about it, just have yet to sit down and watch through it. Will do though!
Life, itself, is full of incredible adventures, rewards, and amazing things to learn and experience.
In my experience, those who believe in some mythological “afterlife“ spend their time living as some of the worst, most hateful, most bigoted, and shitty people, because they falsely believe that, after they die, they will somehow be rewarded for being massive pieces of shit.
In the entire history of mankind, there has never been even the tiniest shred of evidence that this is anything which could be considered, reasonable, rational, or, especially, true.
I tend to think of more realistic terms. Enjoy the time you have, and make the best of it.
Invisible sky wizards that grant wishes are not coming to save you, nor are they coming to help or even save anyone else. They are a fantasy made up millennia ago by generations of itinerant desert nomad goat herders who never learned to read, let alone come to understand science. They are the last people you should ever be taking advice from.
Of course, if you have evidence of the contrary, I’m eager to see it.
Very blunt and to the point, thank you!
You’re very welcome. There is no freedom like the freedom you get when you cast off ancient superstitions and live in the real world Sure, it can be bleak and unsettling, but at least you’re dealing with real world problems on real world terms. Because of that, you have an infinitely higher chance of success when dealing with them than anyone, considering the problem from a false and ridiculously stupid mythological position.
Are there power is greater than us? Of course there are. Gravity is a power that’s much greater than humankind. But there is no magic to it. With science, you can rationally explain it. Just like science will always be able to rationally explain everything, eventually.
“ God did it“ will never be the answer to anything other than “how into intellectually lazy, and stupid are you?“
Negative Utilitarianism… To reduce Suffering in the world. To reduce more suffering than you cause.
How do you mean more than I cause?
I mean help people in your life, as it reduces their suffering, and it feels good for yourself in doing so. Show Compassion and the knowledge that reducing suffering either for yourself or others is more important than increasing pleasure for yourself. There is an in-balance in life. People generally have far more suffering than happiness… so it’s important to focus on not increasing other people’s suffering even more.
I appreciate it, thank you!
Try to also keep in mind what Keanue Reeves once said. I don’t remember the quote word for word but it’s like this. Someone asked him what he thinks happens after we die? And he said, “I don’t know, but I do know that the people who love you, will miss you.” And so, when you die the people who care about you suffer… This is the reason to keep living that many hold onto. Its a great quote from a very kind man.
The afterlife lasting an eternity may not be all that it’s cracked up to be. I enjoy this quote because it provides a different perspective of looking at our daily lives.
“Let’s suppose that you were able every night to dream any dream that you wanted to dream. And that you could, for example, have the power within one night to dream 75 years of time. Or any length of time you wanted to have. And you would, naturally as you began on this adventure of dreams, you would fulfill all your wishes. You would have every kind of pleasure you could conceive. And after several nights of 75 years of total pleasure each, you would say “Well, that was pretty great.” But now let’s have a surprise. Let’s have a dream which isn’t under control. Where something is gonna happen to me that I don’t know what it’s going to be. And you would dig that and come out of that and say “Wow, that was a close shave, wasn’t it?” And then you would get more and more adventurous, and you would make further and further out gambles as to what you would dream. And finally, you would dream … where you are now. You would dream the dream of living the life that you are actually living today.”
- Alan Watts
If you think there is supposed to be a point, you are missing the point. Red pill blue pill matrix shot.
Just because gods and heaven and hell aren’t real, it doesn’t mean that nothing is real. Kindness is real. Compassion is real. Understanding is real. That tingly feeling you get when you do something good for someone else is real. It may have been the product of countless years of evolution rather than divine whim, but it’s still real.
If you’re lucky, you’ll have another 60 or 70 years of awareness ahead of you. Find meaning by seeking out that tingly feeling as much as you can :)
