Afraid of Death! HELP!

1600/800 guy wrote:

Afraid wrote:

I'm so terrified of death! what happens after? I don't want to feel the world being sucked out of me! What's it like to not be "here" I hope we turn into orbs or something or go to heaven. Ever since I found out stuff like Santa not being real years back it always made me think then what if heaven isn't real and just a fable too >.

Assuming you aren't a troll, read the Bible. Seriously. Will change you forever m8. No reason to fear.

Read Harry Potter. Seriously. Will change you forever m8. No reason to fear.

another good fictional piece of reading to ease your mind

Why is this on the front page....

Brojos, please fire these mods are at least give them something else to do. I used to love coming on here and checking out the boards, now all the good threads and responses get randomly deleted and the weird random sh1t ends up on the front page.

Dying is going to be just like it was before you were born. You didn't exist, then when you die, you will not. Just like you were not sitting there waiting to be born, you will not be tossing around in purgatory after you die. You will just not be. A flame of a candle, snuffed out forever.

Only people infantile IQs really believe they live on forever up in the clouds.

RuppBuster wrote:

Read Harry Potter. Seriously. Will change you forever m8. No reason to fear.

another good fictional piece of reading to ease your mind

That was the best laugh I've had all week! Awesome response!

Dude you should be afraid of the process of dying, like having your leg ripped off in an industrial accident, or slowly burning to death in a traffic accident, or the slow painful death from cancer (and cancer treatment).

AFTER you die you are just dead. It's over. Lights out.

If you make things go boom on your way out you will get 7 virgins.

whyyyy wrote:

If you make things go boom on your way out you will get 7 virgins.

who wants virgins? Tell you what, I'll gladly trade in the 7 virgins for 3 sluts.

Edukatur wrote:

whyyyy wrote:

If you make things go boom on your way out you will get 7 virgins.

who wants virgins? Tell you what, I'll gladly trade in the 7 virgins for 3 sluts.

Well I figure at least two of the virgins have a slut inside them just waiting to be let out.

St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote:

We hear of the conversion of water into wine at the marriage in Cana, as of a miracle. But this conversion is, through the goodness of God, made every day before our eyes. Behold the rain which descends from heaven upon our vineyards, and which incorporates itself with the grapes to be changed into wine; a constant proof that God loves us, and loves to see us happy!

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/06/24/beer-wine/

The rain descends on vinyards, fields of ganja, hop, coffee bean and cacao bean and produces all good things. God loves us so much that he or she or he she it cant let the great party end. Thats why our polka friends say "...and when we're gone from here all our friends will be drinking all our beer." It could have easily been "...and when we dissapear all our friends will be drinking all our beer". But thats no fun. When I die I'll be ready to get this party started. An unending spirit unshackled by the life of materialism is a true sign that you are alive, or truly alive.

I feel trapped like I just dont want it to happen why can't we stay young forever why is there aging in organisms why can't we be like rocks!

Afraid wrote:

Why do people see this light right before death then or see their bodies above them. I also read this book called 90 Minutes in Heaven and the guy said he met people that was in his family when he was only an infant and all his family members greeted him. There's also this book where a guy said he was in this void for like 70 minutes and he got a second chance to prove himself right to God? Are people just making these stories up. I'm a young person and this scares me )';.

I realize this is probably a troll post; but the explanation that massive release of neurotransmitters explain these reported experiences are only the most plausible explanations when you put your own constraints on what is possible and not possible to fit into predefined worldview which you have come to accept and now brings you comfort. Being closed-minded is a tendency for everyone, whether you are religious, anti-religious, or otherwise.

On another note, why is this thread on the front page of LRC?

Death is the great unknown. Adventure for those who don't dread the natural consequences of life!

Afraid wrote:

I'm so terrified of death! what happens after? I don't want to feel the world being sucked out of me! What's it like to not be "here" I hope we turn into orbs or something or go to heaven. Ever since I found out stuff like Santa not being real years back it always made me think then what if heaven isn't real and just a fable too >.

Death is like falling asleep and never waking up. No big deal really.

It's going to happen. Just get over it.

You must be young. The older you get, the less it terrifies you because you realize that life is screwed up anyway.

Now...if you're wealthy or have a lot of ties to this world that you fear leaving behind...it may be tougher to deal with. It all ends.

Afraid wrote:

I feel trapped like I just dont want it to happen why can't we stay young forever why is there aging in organisms why can't we be like rocks!

I'm with you. I find dying very uncomfortable. Perhaps more specifically I find the eternity of dying uncomfortable, when I contemplate the idea of not existing forever it's like shirking up against some giant, black visceral wall of terror that I have to move back from. Thinking logically the idea of death (though undesirable) is not too terrifying, after all we already didn't exist for billions of years, but when it hits you that death is eternal...that's where it gets me sometimes.

On the brighter side, aging is likely to be cured in coming time. Some people think it might happen in 20-30 yrs, others think it will take longer; but the general consensus is there is no aspect of aging that is inevitable and non preventable. Aging happens because of specific causes. Those causes have solutions. Moreover, there is biological precedence for organisms that do not age such as the hydra. How long it takes will likely depend on what exactly happens with technological and informational growth; if it levels of then it might be several hundred years before we reach that stage. If it progresses the way some of the more "futurist" thinkers anticipate then aging might well be solved by the halfway mark of this century.

Regardless of what happens it's a damn fun and fascinating time to be alive in my opinion.

The other issue I have with dying is that ife is a positive state of being (for me anyway), death is neutral. Therefore in my opinion dying is worse than living. Now, curing aging will not prevent you from dying, but it might well mean you live 1,000 years, 10,000 years, or perhaps longer; and have the chance to die on your own terms, when you have decided you are ready to do so.

Edukatur wrote:

Dude you should be afraid of the process of dying, like having your leg ripped off in an industrial accident, or slowly burning to death in a traffic accident, or the slow painful death from cancer (and cancer treatment).

AFTER you die you are just dead. It's over. Lights out.

Yeah, this. The dying process itself might be something to fear.

But actually *being* dead? Won't know, won't care.

It is we human beings who are always concerned about death - because we are not living.

If you go on youtube, download this to an iPod,

"Stuart Wilde Miracles Audio book", it's pretty good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=20li42Y27GQ

Most of the comments favor this. I does help empower

and look past the limitations of death.

May God bless Christopher Hitchens.

I heard Christopher Hitchens interviewed a few times, read a few articles about some of his debates, and sometimes read his own writings of which I here address just three: (1) a less than one-page article he wrote on Gandhi and Maximilian Kolbe which appeared in "The Nation" in 1983, I think, (2) his book published in 1997 on that "Villain of Villains" (to borrow a phrase of Christopher Buckley uttered sarcastically in defense of that "Villain"), Mother Teresa ("The Missionary Position: Mother Teresa in Theory and Practice" - I wonder whether it was Hitchens, the publisher, or someone else who titled the book), and (3) "god is not Great" published in 2009.

In "The Nation" article, Hitchens dismisses Gandhi and Kolbe as unholy fakirs (I will leave to others any defense of Gandhi as I am less familiar with his history and I do not share as many beliefs with him as I do with Kolbe and the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (increasingly "Kolkata")). On a tissue of evidence and ignoring abundant and robust evidence contrariwise, Hitchens calls Kolbe an anti-Semite who got what he deserved at Auschwitz. The article was written in 1983, I think, shortly after the Catholic Church canonized Kolbe as a saint.

In "god is not Great" (p. 241 in the 2009 hardback) Hitchens wrote (presumably of Kolbe) of "a rather ambivalent priest who - after a long record of political anti-Semitism in Poland - had apparently behaved nobly in Auschwitz."

Kolbe (1894-1941) was a Pole who earned two doctorates as part of his formation as a priest and Franciscan Friar (the various Franciscan orders derive their names from St. Francis of Assisi (1182-1226)). Kolbe was head of a Franciscan friary (of about 700 men) in Poland while Poland was under siege first by Russian Communists and later by Nazis. He hid roughly 3,000 Poles, including an estimated 300 - 1,500 Jews, in the friary at considerable risk to himself, to the other friars, and to the Catholic Church. He encouraged others to hide Jews as well, and specifically instructed his fellow Franciscans not to inflame anti-Semitic sentiments - Kolbe had a media apostolate, producing Catholic newspapers, magazines, and the like. He even is reported to have organized the delivery of gifts to the Jewish children hidden in the Friary (the Christian children had received gifts for Christmas which the Jewish children did not celebrate). Kolbe spoke fluent German and was offered German citizenship but refused it. His father, Julius Kolbe, was a Polish patriot, one of Pilsudski's patriots, who battled against Bolsheviks in his efforts for the independence of a partitioned Poland, and for this Julius was hanged in 1914. The Nazis arrested Maximilian Kolbe in 1939 but eventually released him, only to arrest him again in 1941 on the charge that he was an intellectual. He was sent to Pawiak prison in February 1941, and in May 1941 was transferred to Auschwitz, often described as labor camp and a death camp.

Numerous records attest to Kolbe's behavior at Auschwitz. He shared his meager food rations with other detainees, and he blessed the Nazis who almost beat him to death. In July 1941, a prisoner was unaccounted for and presumed to have escaped (reports indicate he was later found drowned in a latrine). To deter escapes, the Nazis assembled prisoners and selected ten for death by starvation. Franciszek Gajowniczek, a Polish army sergeant and one of the ten, cried out in despair for his wife and three children. It was then that Fr. Kolbe broke from the ranks, presented himself to deputy commander SS-Hauptsturmf¸hrer Karl Fritzsch while politely removing his own prisoner's cap, and spoke words approximating these: "I wish to take the place of that man. He has a wife and children. I am old and alone. I am a Catholic priest from Poland." (Fr. Kolbe was 47 years old; Sergeant Gajowniczek was 39). Commander Fritsch agreed to the switch. Kolbe and the other nine men (there may be no record of their identities), were marched to a starvation bunker, stripped, and locked inside. After about ten days, only four, including Kolbe, remained alive, though Kolbe suffered tuberculosis for most of his life. After a few more days, on 14 August 1941, Nazis gave lethal injections to the four, first to the two unconscious prisoners then to the two conscious prisoners. Fr. Kolbe was the last of the four to receive an injection. He died within a few seconds. His body was cremated the next day as hundreds of thousands would be over several years. Sergeant Gajowniczek, the man spared by Kolbe's courage, died in 1995, at 93 years of age.

Hitchens' criticisms of Teresa of Calcutta are quite lame or in other ways below the belt. Hitchens tries to persuade his audience that Teresa loved poverty but not the poor. If you are fairly well instructed in Catholicism, you will find Hitchens' criticisms littered with his own misunderstanding on numerous points: he confuses the Virginal Conception (the belief that Jesus was conceived by a virgin, Mary) with the Immaculate Conception (that Mary's soul was created without original sin in a relationship with God similar to that of Adam and Eve's relationship with God before the Fall) and shows little comprehension of Catholic teaching regarding birth control, for example, the paradigmatic difference between artificial birth control, which the Catholic Church opposes) and natural family planning (NFP), of which, for the right reasons, the Catholic Church approves. NFP methods are fertility awareness methods that do not impair a woman's cyclical fertility or a man's fairly constant fertility (the Catholic Church encouraged the development of the various NFP methods: the Billings ovulation method, the Creighton method, and other symptomatic or thermal methods). He faults Teresa for calling abortion the greatest destroyer of peace in the world, though he himself elsewhere calls abortion an abomination, and neglects to offer his opinion on what precisely is a greater offender than abortion.

I'll stop there. Hitchens strikes me as an elegant stylist, but extremely lazy with regard to research, and a remarkable bigot.

Teresa of Calcutta is now Saint Teresa of Calcutta, at least in the Catholic Church.