Death is the end

[Ninshub]

Just think back to distant prehistoric times. Whole human species lived then became extinct: The things they knew where lost. So be it too for our species if we don't leave this planet before our Sun becomes a red giant. When it does it will roast our life bearing planet to a toasty cinder destroying all life.

No existential dread, just acceptance.

Spoken like a true Zen master, actually.

It always bugged me when many of the well known atheist types say things like this more or less, "i am not afraid that death is the end of my existence. the world is so rich in scientific wonder, that my brief time alive is totally enriched by it all".... sounds to me like they be whistling past the graveyard, lol

In my experience, they say that until the end draws near... Then they defecate themselves in the same fear that the Bible thumper in the next cubicle. The great equalizer, indeed.

[Ninshub]

I hope this post isn't trolling - if people think it is, just tell me and I'll delete myself!

This thread title made me think of a somewhat obscure Bob Dylan song. Since he doesn't allow his songs on youtube, here's another version of it:



This is a special version/performance of this song: the lyrics are being read by a computer voice.

I hope this post isn't trolling - if people think it is, just tell me and I'll delete myself!

This thread title made me think of a somewhat obscure Bob Dylan song. Since he doesn't allow his songs on youtube, here's another version of it:



This is a special version/performance of this song: the lyrics are being read by a computer voice.

There have been times in my life when I truly wished death was the end...

Kamarling- Just curious. Have you read any books on the subject of evidence of the continuation of consciousness? There are many out there, and several are packed with evidence that is hard to refute. For me personally, I found the most compelling evidence to start with, was that associated with reincarnation.

Oh yes indeed. I've spent my adult life reading such material. As I mentioned, I'm pretty much convinced on - should we say - an intellectual level. I can reason with myself that the evidence stands up and that some of the attempts to discredit it are frankly woeful but, on an emotional level, the fear persists. It can't be reasoned away. 

It is a little like my other great fear - of heights. I can stand on the top floor of a skyscraper knowing that there is an inch thick plate glass window plus some railings preventing me from falling but I can't look down. Worse still, I can see a picture - like those photos of the guys working on those skyscrapers and walking along girders hundreds of feet up. I can't possibly be in danger but I look at those pictures and my stomach turns and my legs go to jelly.

The odd thing is that I can read about some famous actor - perhaps one I really liked - who has died and I almost always think of them enjoying the transition into the afterlife. I just don't know why I have doubts when it comes to myself. It is not the belief in the afterlife that is irrational, it is the fear of the alternative.

[Ninshub]

The notion that existence means nothing isn't any source of comfort either, and I have no idea how or why anyone should take it as such.

I think it IS a source of comfort for some people, who would prefer there is no afterlife or continuation of individual consciousness, regardless of whether they're proponents or skeptics or consider or know about the survival research/evidence. Although it's probably a minority (?), and certainly different from me. I think there all kinds of people with different sensibilities and temperaments.

In the "oneness" crowd of (many) Eastern-inspired meditators and Buddhists and now-moment cultivators, there seems to be an assumption that individual consciousness does not survive, and the tone is frequently of enjoying this life that much more so because it doesn't, and that meaning is an intellectual thing that actually takes you away from the richer appreciation of life. That's just one example.

My suspicious nerves begin to tingle when I see a devout atheist asking this question. Indeed, it tingles even more when the question is posed as a definitive statement: "Death is the end". Looks more like a challenge to the believers to me.

So I'd like to share what I feel and also comment on some of the reactions I've had from atheists and sceptics.

I have a fear of death. It is sometimes very debilitating, causing panic attacks if I dwell on the thought for too long. Yet I'm a proponent who, on balance, thinks the evidence for an afterlife is pretty good despite the concerted efforts of debunkers who seem to be increasingly grasping at straws to discredit that evidence. The responses I have had from atheists in my social arena have generally followed a similar theme: most (though not all) will deny any similar fear of death and I will usually get some kind of condescending remark suggesting that my fear of death is what makes me believe in all this afterlife nonsense. These remarks are often backed up by those they consider to be the most wise and intelligent people on the planet:


So - there are two assumptions being made here: one that I'm looking for comfort and two, that the evidence for the afterlife can be so easily dismissed as a fairy tale. My answer is that, yes, I do look for comfort but no, I don't blindly accept the evidence. In fact I am at pains to be sceptical without being dismissive. Shoddy evidence, bogus mediums or blind religious faith are of no comfort to me at all. I join forums like this to be exposed to the best of evidence with appropriate critical discussion of that evidence. By appropriate, I don't include RationalWiki style blanket denial.


Lastly, I'm yet to be convinced that atheists who present that kind of hard-line nihilistic worldview actually believe what they are preaching. It seems to me so cold and pointless yet I have people who are close to me and espouse those views and yet live their lives as though their lives have ultimate meaning; that love is more than mere brain chemicals and that altruism is "better for the soul" than personal gain and selfish goals. Some of the kindest people I know are atheists.

We seem not to wonder if there's an afterlife for any other living thing. Yet,
when we realize our own mortality we look for any shred of hope to cling to.

Cold and pointless and yet that produces some of the nicest people you know. What's the point of a mosquito?

The notion that existence means nothing isn't any source of comfort either, and I have no idea how or why anyone should take it as such. Dawkins has sneered at such concerns, calling them arrogant, but I don't see the arrogance in wondering/hoping that life has a point (not necessarily the point) beyond random arrangements of matter. Lawrence Krauss once claimed that a life with no existential meaning absolves us of responsibility, but that doesn't strike me as a healthy attitude; one could carry that to extremes that undermine any notion of morality.

Cutting off any possibility for life beyond its mechanics strikes me as the parochial view, not a curiosity that there might be more to it, IMO.

I can, to a certain extent, understand the attitude that life is more precious if it is finite. For other people, the idea of life being nothing but a brief material existence that vanishes without a trace upon death can lead them to regard it as meaningless and to idle away their days at unproductive mediocrity, a slow suicide of crude vices, or other unhappy lives. It's not an issue where you're ever likely to get a vast majority of humanity to agree one way or the other.

But I think your attempt to blame a belief in an afterlife on certain crimes is overly simplistic. A suicide bomber committed to an extreme sect of a certain religion is one man; there are millions of adherents to that religion who may believe in a hereafter but commit no crimes. As I just said, a certain attitude in the face of annihilation upon death, carried to extremes, can result in amorality and nihilism, but that wouldn't mean the majority of skeptics and atheists had been sold on that idea.

How many of your ancestors are not remembered because of the life they lived? If you yourself do not make a major contribution to history you will like millions of other humans alive and dead will pass from memory eventually to be forgotten. My niece traced our ancestry back to the late 1300's, there are no records going back further. Until she did that no one knew they lived and no one will ever know the names of our ancestors before that. Why would anyone think there's existential meaning?

How many of your ancestors are not remembered because of the life they lived? If you yourself do not make a major contribution to history you will like millions of other humans alive and dead will pass from memory eventually to be forgotten. My niece traced our ancestry back to the late 1300's, there are no records going back further. Until she did that no one knew they lived and no one will ever know the names of our ancestors before that. Why would anyone think there's existential meaning?

I believe their "existential meaning" is not at all in what they left behind (things, people's memories, accomplishments, writings), but what they accumulated and took with them.

Like: their experiences, and lessons. Those things made changes to their core values and those things combined with what was there already and formed a new, maybe more wise, maybe more evolved, core being. THIS is the point of what we are doing here all these decades. And it is the only thing of eternal value that we do here both for ourselves and for those whom we come in contact with. And those people whom we touched in some way, may not even know they were changed in the process.