Do You Fear Death?

Do You Fear Death?

  • Yes, because I fear I will cease to exist.

    Votes: 1 2.6%

  • Yes, because I'm afraid I will go to hell, or something similar.

    Votes: 1 2.6%

  • Yes, because of the sheer uncertainty.

    Votes: 4 10.3%

  • No, because I have no problem no longer existing as an "I."

    Votes: 6 15.4%

  • No, because I believe I will go to heaven, or something similar.

    Votes: 10 25.6%

  • No, whatever happens I can handle it.

    Votes: 17 43.6%
  • Total voters
    39
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People see death in very different ways. Some are terrified of forever relinquishing consciousness, of existing without ego, without self.

Related to this fear is the belief in an immortal soul that lives on after physical death. I won't say anything about the veracity, or possible veracity, of such claims. I don't really know.

Others, such as the Buddha, see the concept of the immortal soul as a sort of spiritual narcissism. It follows that those who ascribe to this line of reasoning might have no qualms about ceasing to exist as an "I."

Those who believe in an immortal soul usually believe it can end up in one of several places according to how one's earthly life was lived out -- often, a timeless sanctuary of purest bliss, or a sordid pit of hellish torment.


Do you fear death? There are numerous reasons one might, or might not, irregardless of the held beliefs on death.

Anonymous poll.

- subway​
 
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No, it's not due to religious beliefs or suicidal tendencies. I simply don't see anything to fear about death. I didn't exist for billions of years and my life is just a short interval between periods of non-existence. I find the idea of an afterlife more worrying. I cannot imagine how boring eternity would be. After a million years, you've probably seen everything there is to see. Perhaps existing purely as energy would change your scope or you might exist in a condition of permanent joy.

Such changes imply that I will no longer be me, so it doesn't seem all that different from non-existence.
 
Death: no.
Dying: maybe a bit. I mean the body doesn't like to die and stuff you know. It can flip out.

Or to explain it more, if I were to fall off a building, the falling wouldn't be the scary part, and the possible death afterwards wouldn't be the scary part, but there's that whole crashing into the ground thing in the middle there which is really crappy.
 
sprinkles said:
Death: no.
Dying: maybe a bit. I mean the body doesn't like to die and stuff you know. It can flip out.

Or to explain it more, if I were to fall off a building, the falling wouldn't be the scary part, and the possible death afterwards wouldn't be the scary part, but there's that whole crashing into the ground thing in the middle there which is really crappy.
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I think the falling WOULD be the scary part, for me anyway. xD

I chose "No, whatever happens I can handle it" as the closest answer that represents how I feel, but that isn't quite it. I'm not sure if I can handle it when it comes, but there is a point whenever I realize that I no longer have control over a situation where I just accept it and stop fighting or worrying. I once watched an "I Survived" episode where a guy talked about his expierence getting mauled by a grizzly bear (watched this with Enders' family actually--it was pretty gruesome!), and he described feeling how he'd always seen prey animals go limp and stop fighting eventually once they were in the jaws of another animal and about to get ripped apart before; once he became aware of the bear's sheer strength and power over his own and it had started tearing out huge chunks of his scalp and leg muscles, he felt the same way; he just fell calm, knowing that his fate was no longer up to him to decide.

When it is so unknown and uncontrollable, the anticipation of win or lose, good or bad... no longer matters.

Plus it has been nearly 20 years since I've been consciously aware that I'm going to die. I was scared of it when I was a little kid, but it's an idea I've by now accepted. Knowing that death may not necessarily be unpleasant or worse than life here helped extinguish the fear.
 
niffer said:
I think the falling WOULD be the scary part, for me anyway. xD
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Used to be scary for me until I fully realized that we're hurling through the universe at some ludicrous speed of about 4 million kilometers an hour. Falling is merely the ground being in a different place by a tiny fraction. It only takes a relative velocity change in around the ten-thousandths range of your actual velocity to make you go splat. That's how fragile we are.
 
Nah, I kind of think maybe I've done it before. Once when I was about 14 an ex-hippie evangelistic preaching handyman who told me his wife was a witch asked me the same question in an effort to either convert me to his church and/or molest me, I'm not sure which, and he seemed very nonplussed when I told him more or less the same thing.
 
I have an aversion to its finality.


There are too many things I will still have wanted to do, explore, fix, etc.
 
Sometimes at night, I become hyperconsciously aware of my existence. Sometimes during these times I fear loosing my consciousness. I do not fear death itself, but I do fear dying in a horrendous or painful manner. Dying will be like going to sleep without dreaming and never waking. I'll never even know that I've died.
 
As I've stated before, I plan on living forever until otherwise proven wrong. I fear the death of those I love more than my own. My basic tenet is that if I live my life with honor, then whenever I stand before the Creator, I will not be ashamed. The Hollywood movies love to capture crap about Native Americans and the "today is a good day to die" is something that has been shown in movies more than once. It is not a suicidal thought but encompasses what I said...that if, by chance, I die today, I have lived my life well.
 
I fear the process of death more than death itself.
I hope I am unconscious to begin with so I don't have that moment of cold realization "This is it! The moment all my life have wondered about, and knew would arrive!"

I figure after I die it will be the way it was before I was born. What that was I don't know, but don't recall it hurting.
 
The way I see it is that we're all dying a day, an hour, a minute, a second at a time. It could end sixty years for now, thirty years from now, tomorrow or even later today. Who knows? Either way, it's coming. I doubt anything we ever do will be able to prepare ourselves for it (in fact, I think preparing would be worse) so why concern yourself with it at all? It's going to be a nice, black out surprise one day.
 
Not really. There's nothing I can do about dying*, so I simply focus on making what time I have as enjoyable as possible.

*until mind-storage and transferring technologies become available...and even that would get tiresome after a while.
 
sprinkles said:
Death: no.
Dying: maybe a bit. I mean the body doesn't like to die and stuff you know. It can flip out.

Or to explain it more, if I were to fall off a building, the falling wouldn't be the scary part, and the possible death afterwards wouldn't be the scary part, but there's that whole crashing into the ground thing in the middle there which is really crappy.
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it's not the fall that kills you - it's the sudden stop!

as for me, i don't fear death or being dead. i don't think i'll like the few minutes prior to death tho. hopefully i'll be sleeping.
 
Nope, at all.
 
Death fears me, for with strange aeons even death may die.

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TheDaringHatTrick said:
The way I see it is that we're all dying a day, an hour, a minute, a second at a time. It could end sixty years for now, thirty years from now, tomorrow or even later today. Who knows? Either way, it's coming. I doubt anything we ever do will be able to prepare ourselves for it (in fact, I think preparing would be worse) so why concern yourself with it at all? It's going to be a nice, black out surprise one day.
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Living life obsessed and worried about dying is no way to live.

I read this a while back and found it interesting. Regarding dying instantly.
http://io9.com/5916677/why-you-probably-wont-experience-your-own-traumatic-death
 
The process, depending upon the circumstances, but not the concept. However, it does distress me to consider putting a significant drain or hardship on loved ones as a result of my death or dying.
 
I do fear the afterlife because I know it's not something to mess with and it's not something you can reverse. I believe there is a heaven and hell. Beyond that, i fear losing consciousness, the thought that you can't wake up as if you've just been in a long sleep. Life on earth has an end, and it's not meant to be ongoing and continuous or else. It is a one shot deal so yeah, death is a biggie. I'd rather accept that truth/reality than pretend that it isn't the case. So, yes, something as final as death is a little fearful for me.
 
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