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Dealing with death at the end of it all

Started by Munch, September 27, 2014, 02:00:33 PM

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Munch

I was today watching one of Steven Shives latest videos, another episode of his 'you had to ask' series where people write in random stuff to him and he answers. If you don't know him, give him a look, he does some good videos and opens some interesting debates.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubGZvo6DGjs

Anyway, one of the recent questions he was asked was something I thought would be worth asking here, since everyone might have there own take on it. The question was "How do you deal with oblivion, the idea that once you die, thats it, your consciousness ends and there is no continuation, you simply cease to be".

This is by far one of the most impacting questions for many people, simply asking them what they thinks happen when you die. For any theist, the whole reason for them being theist is because of this reason itself, that when they die they will carry on into either the next life, or their spirit will ascend to a divine place or whatever else happens to it after.
This is one of the fundamental differences between a theist and an atheist, and yet its a question that isn't often posed or openly asked of the atheist community, since theists belief so much in the afterlife they assume anyone who doesn't believe in their god will burn in their version of hell for it.

As an atheist, this to me is one of the hardest things to wrap your head around, and something that takes a lot of adjusting to, when you are face with the idea that all the things theists told you at the end of your life is a lie and they don't have any idea, and that the most rational answer is that we just simply die and our conscious mind stops, and we just cease to be. In that regard atheists have a lot more to deal with in a serious level then theists.

I think though, for me anyway, I think about it in an entirely different way now to what I did years ago, and really I don't fear the end. This is because I feel nowadays that rather then thinking of a nothingness when I die, the best way to handle it is to simply not think about it, because once I'd dead I won't be thinking about anything, and instead I would sooner think about be thankful for just getting to have experienced life.

It might sound soppy and disneyfied, but for me just getting to live life really matters more then what comes at the end, getting to eat great foods, drink great drinks, to love someone and be loved by someone, to go places and experience new stuff, to work through hardship and come out better from it, all the good stuff in life. And even when I'm having a shit day, I think about how someone else in the world is probably having a worse day when me, and what they are doing to make the most of it.

'Political correctness is fascism pretending to be manners' - George Carlin

Mermaid

Quote from: Munch on September 27, 2014, 02:00:33 PM

It might sound soppy and disneyfied, but for me just getting to live life really matters more then what comes at the end, getting to eat great foods, drink great drinks, to love someone and be loved by someone, to go places and experience new stuff, to work through hardship and come out better from it, all the good stuff in life. And even when I'm having a shit day, I think about how someone else in the world is probably having a worse day when me, and what they are doing to make the most of it.

I don't know that it's soppy, it seems practical to me and it's how I started to see life when it came into focus that I am an atheist.

It's always struck me as silly that people somehow live for eternity, but animals don't?
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

GrinningYMIR

In a roundabout way you could say that reincarnation exists, through the fact that we'll be eaten when we die, so the energy we produced continues on, and spreads  through other life and whatnot.

But I think there's nothing after we die, or we're in a simulation, or even that we're watching our whole lives on TV, and when we die, the shows over.

All kinds of fun stuff. I don't really fear death, its the actual pain of dying that's not too appealing
"Human history is a litany of blood shed over differing ideals of rulership and afterlife"<br /><br />Governor of the 32nd Province of the New Lunar Republic. Luna Nobis Custodit

Hijiri Byakuren

I'm pretty much the same as far as not thinking about it. Being dead is obviously not going to bother me once I'm dead. Unfortunately, at the age of 2 I was first exposed to death in media as something to be in mortal terror about, and that connection in my brain still exists. If I trigger it, out comes the panic attack. No matter how much I try to avoid it, the panic attack does eventually come back, so I guess that connection must be on a vital lane somewhere that I can't avoid using. Kind of sucks.
Speak when you have something to say, not when you have to say something.

Sargon The Grape - My Youtube Channel

SGOS

I think I would get bored by an eternity of oblivion.  I'm hoping it's something else.

MagetheEntertainer

If I were to die right now then I would probably be very upset because I haven't used all of my potential yet, so as far as how I would emotionally handle it I think I would be fine if I reached my 80's and I didn't have a single bit of un used talent left.  As far as actually handle the process of dieing I'm not really sure, I kinda want to try DMT because that is the same chemical that your brain releases when you die (you also release it when dreaming but in low doses) thats why people who are dieing talk about seeing god and heaven and stuff cause they are just tripping balls xD.

stromboli

My take on life and death is that you should live a life such that, at your wake or funeral, everyone is either laughing about your life or cursing it. Be remembered for living as well and fully as you can. And be ready to spit death in the eye when the time arrives.

AllPurposeAtheist

Aging only has two possible outcomes and they're both bad.. Get old or die..
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

Kirche

#8
Anything else but cliches about this either/or condition?

I'm alive, I'm dead.

Atheist need to break open newer ideas to get going.

"The graveyards are full of people the world could not do without".

In the old concepts, I passed away or out on the bus. Regained consciousnesses but felt like I was going under again. And sensed a disappointment, both at leaving life with so much undone and estranged that I was back in get-eat-meat-ville-for-the-darling-little-girl. What a mess mind.

Let us take the quantum leap here, where is it you go, stay, are, refer to, offer, create or know to go for or do try to get that "bigger then life feelings"?

Just making the next person you see the most important thing is a start to that illuminated feeling/experience.

You will be the last to know your body is over, list things to do, places to be, media to share, so you will never know anything but joy, share it, make it, be it, accept no substitute.

Here is some media to get giggly over...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeYT2ts0DdY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_Yok_IUUHw

The lead singer here reminds me of the Collins Kids guitar player...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTHQNrku0RQ

Ready for Cow's with guns, what do we do?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI

Are you familiar with tachyons, can only be slowed to the speed of light? The top speed is infinite. Knowing approximately what a hard disk drive does to access information and write information... Well here is a piece of my reality, can be anywhere I want in the past while writing my future and then some....

doorknob

what I tell people is this:

I'm not concerned with what happens to me after I die since I have no control over it any way. The next life isn't a guarantee but this one is. This is the only life we know for a fact we've got so make the most of it! My plan for my life is to have no regrets by the time I die. I want to die in peace not conflicted. That to me is the meaning of life. To learn and grow as much as possible.



'

SGOS

Quote from: doorknob on September 28, 2014, 11:17:15 AM
My plan for my life is to have no regrets by the time I die.
I don't to be lying on my death bed with my last conscious thought being that I never got around to doing something that was really important to me.  In fact, I've taken care of that stuff.  The Top Tens in my Bucket list have been done.

Mermaid

Quote from: SGOS on September 28, 2014, 02:06:03 PM
I don't to be lying on my death bed with my last conscious thought being that I never got around to doing something that was really important to me.  In fact, I've taken care of that stuff.  The Top Tens in my Bucket list have been done.
Ooh, can you share what these ten things are?
A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticise work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities â€" all these are marks, not as the possessor would fain to think, of superiority but of weakness. -TR

AllPurposeAtheist

I'm content and never accomplished even one one hundredths of the crap I had hoped to do, but they became less and less important with time as I realized they weren't going to happen anyway so no sense worrying about them.
If your goal is to do X and you don't even get close to B much less W you probably won't have a headstone with the words: Here lies a lazy fucker who never even got to B.  The truth is nobody cares if you die a complete unknown or with a Hooeywood walk of fame square. Sure, you might have a few regrets before you die, but once you're dead you probably won't care and in 1000 years nobody will even know you ever existed except maybe in some dusty archive.
If I die the moment I click POST I seriously doubt any of you will be telling your great grandkids about it unless you're already a great grandparent and the kids are sitting on your lap as my death isn't broadcast around the globe..
All hail my new signature!

Admit it. You're secretly green with envy.

SGOS

Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on September 28, 2014, 03:31:30 PM
Sure, you might have a few regrets before you die, but once you're dead you probably won't care and in 1000 years nobody will even know you ever existed except maybe in some dusty archive.
You're right of course, well, partly.  These goals won't mean anything to you when you are dead.  They will be lost to you in a void of oblivion and will mean absolutely nothing whether you have met those goals or not.  They will only have personal meaning while you are alive, but your short life is all you get, so as a matter of practicality, they must be accomplished and enjoyed during your brief time on Earth, because then it's gone.  It's all gone, and meaning ceases.

Ideally, you do the things for yourself.  And they don't have to be anything of universal value, just things that for whatever peculiar reasons, are important to you.  Fact is, if I listed my top ten, most people wouldn't care.  Why should they care?  But that's not a good litmus test for meeting goals, I don't think.  Unless you have a goal for some sort of lasting fame, then you need people to care.

Mike Cl

I'm not setting any goals for when or how I will die, nor whether or not I will have regrets.  Can't control the future--I can impact it, but ultimately, I cannot begin to project accurately what will happen in a year much less in how much longer I have to live.  I try to concentrate on today, and the moment within that day.  Does what I'm doing feed me?  Am I accomplishing what I want to right now?  There is only one certainty--I will die.  Between now and then, I will live the way that is most satisfying for me.  And I tell you what--if I can report to any of you what is after life, I'll do it.  After I've informed my daughter and her family, of course. :)
Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?<br />Then he is not omnipotent,<br />Is he able but not willing?<br />Then whence cometh evil?<br />Is he neither able or willing?<br />Then why call him god?