(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!
I think the point is to just enjoy what you can while you can. And if you can help others you should do that too.
Thanks! it just all seems so temporary and unfair
For you it is. But the impact you leave will be remembered for generations to come. I live by; be good for the goodness, and good stuff breads more goodness. Enjoy the sweet time you have here, and so what if the lights turn off one day, you preolly won’t even know
Thank you!
This is how I think of it too. My body will die but my influence will continue, so I try to have a good influence.
I would flip the question. If there is a heaven or afterlife, then what is the point of living? Really, what’s the point if you just get another awesome life later on? Is this all meaningless aside from proving to God that you will praise him?
Without an afterlife, then the life right now takes on so much more weight and importance, because it’s all you get.
To me, it was about carrying all of those amazing moments in life you cherish so deeply and bringing them with you to the afterlife. If it does exist who knows what will happen over there, but my fear is not that I’ll just lose touch, sense, sight or smell. But that I’ll lose all of my memories and experiences with my close friends and family that I hold so close and cherish more than anything. When I die, I want to remember my Dad and everything we’ve done together for eternity. It sounds weird, but that was just my way of thinking
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
“It was a musical thing. You were supposed to sing, or dance, while the music was being played.” -Alan Watts
That’s the clearest I’ve heard it proposed so far, so I’m sticking with that.
You didn’t exist before you were conceived, and you’re not anxious about it. You will just return to that state.
For me it’s really the opposite, why would anyone want to live if there would be such a better place like heaven where everything is awesome for ever?If there is nothing after life, only then it’s worth living, because this is it, everything you can experience, god and bad you can only experience here and now, so you better make it count. Give your own life meaning, don’t wait until someone else does.
In the end the universe will die a heat death and in the long run everything in meaningless. But in the short run, everything is full of meaning, it’s exciting, dangerous, beautiful, horrible and so on.
Carl Sagan famously said, “We are a way for the universe to know itself.”
This reflects his view that human beings, as conscious and curious creatures, are a product of the universe’s evolution and serve as a means for the cosmos to become self-aware. Through our capacity for science, art, and philosophy, we explore and understand the universe, essentially allowing it to observe and contemplate its own existence.
You didn’t exist before you were conceived, and you’re not anxious about it. You will just return to that state.
Sorry, may you clarify a bit more on this?
The point is that before you were born you existed in your mothers womb, but before that - specifically before you were conceived by your parents - you did not exist. Somehow this does not make you distressed that you did not exist, why? Once you die it will for you be the same as before you were conceived.
Another topic related to this is something you did not mention with afterlife: “eternity”
I myself have been afraid of this since I was 9 years old and heard about the concept of heaven and eternity in church. I wrote it down as a blog post a couple of years ago: https://jeena.net/apeirophobia
The concept is explained in a more humoristic way by this comic: https://existentialcomics.com/comic/213
Omg there is a name for that. I definitely fear eternity more than I fear death. My only consoling thought is the idea that time is a construct of physical reality so we “have time” to experience living and that really the entirety of time is happening all at once. I have no idea why this idea brings me comfort though.
You bring a really good point, thank you!
I’ve been raised roman catholic, but am agnostic.
No afterlife just means that your current existence has even more meaning, because it’s all you will ever experience. I want to be a nice and caring person, not for the promise of some afterlife where i get rewarded (which might happen or not), but for the sake of everyone around me, who also just have this one life - enhancing their lives has more meaning as well. If everyone would live in this spirit, our existence would be a much nicer experience.
Even if you disappear into nothingness, what you did and what you said will echo through the times; every kind action will live on through the people that experienced it, and will encourage them to do the same, having a multiplying effect.
Many people have speculated on the point of life but the way I see it the only universal point of life is to reproduce…
You can make your own human existence about whatever you want though.
To me it sounds like you could benefit from helping people locally. Seeing the news of things happening on the other side of the globe can make you feel helpless but if you help out locally by volunteering or some other way that makes sense to you, you can combat that feeling of helplessness.
Life is self-emerging. There is no higher or predefined purpose. You can live without one, or define your own, which may or may not change over time.
Regarding death as the ultimate conclusion; you can make of it what you want. You can consider what you leave behind. You can see life itself as worthwhile, without a need for an end-goal that follows after.
Whether or not you believe in the afterlife, the answer is the same. Bring joy to others, help people who need it, have people that depend on you. If there is confirmed no afterlife, I would keep living my life the same because I want my kids to have a great life, and grow up to be great people. That is a mission that makes me want to live as long as I can.
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.
So many great replies here, already.
But I haven’t seen an answer to the “pitch dark forever” idea. I’ve had a perspective shared with me, which I think actually is more accurate:
The collection of atoms that currently think they’re me will someday join other collections of atoms that think they’re a rabbit, or don’t realize they’re a tree, and eventually, some will join a new collection that think they’re someone else entirely.
If I leave the world a tiny bit cleaner or kinder then I found it, I’m doing a favor to those future collections of atoms that once briefly thought they were me.
Well said, I agree completely!
As a Buddhist if nothing happens after death most problems are solved lol. This is why I always find “secular” Buddhists funny. Either way being compassionate and a source of wisdom to others is important.
lol thanks man appreciate it!
Well, you’ve alrady been “nothing”. And that was before you were born or better, conceived. You’ll return to that state of not existing, after you died.
And I think the point of living is what you make of it. There are nice things out there. You can do things, learn things. Experience everything, Love someone… Leave something memorable behind…
to shitpost, obviously
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Very blunt and to the point, thank you!
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