For those without a belief in the afterlife/reincarnation

Like the old game, "paper, scissors, rock", love reigns victorious over fear. I don't believe in fear. I believe in love. What situations will come, I embrace, in love. It's a freeing thought, and a liberating experience.

 

Do you mean fear doesn't exist, or that there is no reason to be afraid?

 

First principle of Thermodynamics!
Couldnt help myself.
Queue the geek insults!

I agree with what you are saying though

 

Neither. Not so philosophical an approach. Just a practical means of overcoming fear, through love. Without love, you can't truly overcome your fear of something. All you can do is to try to counter it with a good defense. It's the combative way. Love is actually the more powerful approach. Love is strong, like a living tsunami.

 

my thoughts on death: when i die, just throw me in the trash

 

There is a Buddhist meditation on your own corpse, which I find interesting.
(Here's a Thich Nhat Hanh quote on it: http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/Thich-Nhat-Hanh-meditation.html )

I go back and forth between really not wanting to die, to not worrying that much about it.

On a practical side, if I had better life insurance I wouldn't worry as much, because part of the worry is how the family makes out. I think they would be okay without me, but would need some money.

On a more mystical side, our conciousness changes every moment. Our thoughts, feelings, etc. So, part of me is dying every moment. Maybe there is something underneath all that that is the "real me," but the only way I could realize that is if I let go of my thoughts and feelings, etc. The part that doesn't want to die seems to be the thoughts, feelings, etc. which really die all the time.

I like to think that there is some underlying fabric that encompasses us all. A universal mind or spirit. That our time in this life we know is just an expression of part of that fabric. So, when the expression of that part of the fabric is over (we die), it doesn't mean that that part of the fabric is gone. Maybe it will be reused by many more lives in part or in whole. Maybe hundreds of new expressions of the fabric will contain some of my old part.

Just reading this thread, I feel connected and effected to those making the comments. Your college friend's conciousness still affects you, and she is no longer living. Just someone you pass on the street and smile at (or don't) is affected by you and it may change the path of his/her entire life. Just a chilly breeze (or something else as seemingly insignificant) may affect my life profoundly. So...there's definitely some kind of a fabric there that's visible right on the conscious level.

But....I still get extremely sad thinking about death. The older you get, the more death you encounter. It is just so sad that we have to say goodbye to loved ones and never see them here again. I'm thinking of several right now. I wish I could just celebrate their lives instead of also feel sad for their death.

My parents are getting old, and I often wonder how they feel about it. I know it bothers my mom especially. I know she wants to stay.

 

Life is like the ticking of a clock.
If the ticking ceases, has time stopped forever?
I think not.....

 

I believe death is something to not be afraid of.
I do hope there is a place after death that we can visit our long lost friends and family and be with them again (hence the great appeal of religion) but I have my doubts from the perspective that we as humans aspire to be almost like a kingdom unto ourselves (I think Spinoza quoted that) and as such we want to believe things that ease our conscience and provide us hope, but in looking at it from an objective point of view it's just wishful thinking.
I lost my father a month ago, and hope to see him when I pass away, but I also accept this may not happen. In taking such a view, I can look at it as a depressing thought, or as a seize the day now and tell those you love how you feel about them before it is too late.
I tend to gravitate towards the latter than the former, if only for my own minds sake!

 

I believe energy and conscious are different things. Just like the leaves metaphore, the leaves come back in spring but those are different leaves just like the energy of an individual processes to something else. It just seems the most likely to me that we seize to be after our death. That no man is an island during his life is also a matter of conscious and does not mean to me that there has to be a connection after death. All this does not frighten me happily, only thing I will be scared of when my end is near is a painful lengthy ending. Also, I wouldn't mind to be proven wrong about the existence of an afterlife since I certainly have no fear of hell, judgement and reincarnation doesn't sound too bad either

 

I just want to be here at the moment. I will perhaps write something more later...

I don't think we have to die. I know this can sound offensive, as there was once a time I would have found it so, quite innocently.

Am I nuts? Does this certify me?

If we're all eachothers afterlife, what's the point of one?

 

Just worms eating: the body is in time from now on; the mind regurgetates constant spaitiality vs. finite closure:
the limit of time = the limiting by space.

 

willedwill:

The earth doesn't want to swallow me up. Worms do

So the mind is the equator in this?

Ideally, but the bakery is presently a circus.

You'll need to break it down for me, like a worm would.

I don't understand this!

 

For myself, I think death will be a lot like the 60's...

I didn't exist in the 60's.

 

When people die, their brains release a chemical commonly known as DMT. It brings a trip like no other. I'm convinced that this was mistaken for 'proof of insurance' in the religion department, by that one lone person who happened to come out of it alive. That's all it would take, one guy. I mean if a guy you saw die comes back a time later trying to explain a DMT trip, I'm sure you would be all ears. I mean there is no making that shit up.

Enough rambling, sorry. I go about everyday life with a swagger. I don't just cope with it, I walk tall and with confidence in my step. What a waste of time to sit around thinking about your own mortality, its thoughts like these that spawned depression, i swear. Why die twiddling your thumbs thinking "Oh geez is this the end"? Die with a smile on your face, or at least don't end up with a look that says you lamented it. If your smart enough to know your going to die, your smart enough to realize that over thinking it does nothing good.

See what I mean?

 

Relaxxx

Yeah you did, you ungrateful afterlife! Death isn't like anything. Life doesn't know death in experiencing it. It's partly why we keep on doing so, but also why we could give it up completely! --Dreams are real! Everyone is afraid to lose their mind! If we manage to do it at the same time, we'll find we won't, and don't have to. Fear can just disappear, unlike us, who trust in our dust.

Consciousness can become its own matter!

 

Lol

 

To understand death takes a comprehensive understanding of life or more specifically the verb living. I think right off the bat we should acknowledge that being alive as a human is the combination of many aggregates. I hope we all agree that whatever living is, it takes place in the brain. There consciousness is directly experiencing thoughts, feelings (emotions) and sense objects. Now to inject human ignorance, the brain is astronomically complex. More complex then earths weather patterns, a supernova, galaxy formation and as of this post is the most complex phenomena that is known to exist with the exeption of the universe which contains them. One more aspect to keep in mind is that the brain has been developed by a process that is driven ONLY by the propagation of genes by fit individuals. The brain is very expensive evolutionarily, to think that three lbs of it takes a full 20% of the glucose and oxygen your body consumes. This is why other animals seem to have nervous systems that meet the bare minimum of what they need to survive and have no capacity for higher learning, art, and culture. (For those interested the common hypothesis is that brain health and therefore intelegence is a good measure of fitness as it very fragile to disease and genetic problems. Our early hominid ancestors reached a certain threshold of intelligence and from then on it was sexual selection that drove brain development analogous to the birds of paridises' featers and dance)

Anyhow there are many more possible brain states then there are atoms in the known universe. Most people think of consciousness as continous since that is our perception, but how could we perceive it any other way? By definition you are not conscious of the gaps and they are so small that they do not interfere with everyday experience. Exactly the same way the eyes take 24 stills a second and your brain makes a movie. We measure this process of activity-nonactivity as brain waves, there's no crest without a trough. Therefore each brain wave contains a *"birth" and a "death" since there are measurable moments of inactivity as the neurons build up their action potentials to fire again. To argue that consciousness flows continuously is unfounded in science. I argue that these "flashes" of consciousness are unrelated to each other. In a lightning storm no one argues that there is one or two "lightnings" *that disappear and reappear, thats crazy! The physical conditions for lightning arise again and again as the charges build up and are released each time as new lightning appearing from non lighning. Consciousncness works the same way. No two flashes are related, they each arose individually from the phenomena of the brain which being made of matter is inherently not conscious.

My conclusions:
*Death is the end of the individual as human experience is directly correlated to the insane complexity of a healthy brain.

The fear of non existance is evolved and not inherent. All thoughts an emotions you have, while unique to both the individual and to the moment in which it occurs, are following a pathway that has been favored by evolution over millions of years for the simple task of making and raising children. Fear of death has it's obvious implications in survival but from there it gets more subtle.*

Each flash of consciousness in the brain is exposed to memories giving it a lived in, continuos feeling that is unshakeable in normal existence but can be shed through deep meditation, mental illness, and dissociative drugs etc.*

This may all be proven wrong some day but it is scientifically based world view that comforts me while also syncing with the Buddhist concept of Anatta or non self.*

You are as dead now as you will ever be so enjoy it and focus on the betterment of your life and the lives you affect.*

Peace to all and sorry for any grammar mistakes, I wrote this on my iPod and it has been thoroughly frustrating enough to stop now

 

"I can't understand how an atheist could know that there is no God and not kill himself on the spot."

 

Think about this for a second...I came up with it during a conversation I was having with a friend of mine about a week ago after a 'few' beers.

"Reincarnation is full of shit" I said, "What makes you say that" my friend replies. To which I say "Human Medicine is advancing quicker and quicker. The human lifespan will continue to increase with the amount of medical knowledge and technology. Once medicine is able to save enough people, to the point where there is more people alive than has ever been dead, reincarnation will be full of shit...officially"

Mainly because the 'well of souls waiting for a second chance' will have run dry and we will officially be creating 'new souls'.

Anyone have a hole to punch in that? I'm anxious

 

Why Live: http://youtu.be/DU6bc_Gsp7s

You should watch all this guys videos, refreshing rational thought.