Death

[em2nought]

After my father died some bible study layman took it upon herself to tell my mother that she won't be with my dad in heaven as man and wife. Really? How do you know? WHY tell somebody that? Have you been there? I seriously don't know what I'd have done if I'd been there when it happened, I might have gone to jail and I'm no violent man. Shut your fracking pie hole! My mother was terribly upset.



...of course there will be dogs there, I'm not exactly sure I'll be there as I am a Trump supporter.



I just hope I die after my 93 year old mother, she already lost my brother and father. It's enough to bare. If I could get to retire for a few years it would be icing on the cake!

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

Evidence aside, personally I find it highly arrogant for folks to say what the afterlife (or God for that matter) is like. Most of us can't even keep a checkbook balanced yet we opine in great detail about the attributes of a supernatural being that we have never seen in person.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

2.

[Jimbuna]

When I was younger and a LEO I was sometimes called/expected to face some potentially life threatening situations (baton only v knife wielding threat) etc. and the thought of fatality seldom was taken into consideration, possibly because of the adrenalin rush?, I can't say for sure. After the event you were often suddenly overcome by the realisation of what could of been and vowed to yourself 'never again'....until the next time.

These days, being far more sedentary in lifestyle and taking into account the increasing number of funerals I visit for family and friends (the latest being that of a cousin last Friday) I take stock of the situations and find myself thinking more of the fact it will eventually be my turn.

I don't know what if anything awaits me after death but I take comfort in the knowledge I am doing my utmost to ensure those of my family who survive me will benefit from my demise either in financial or property terms.

[Mr Quatro]

I don't believe in religion ... religion is just a disciplined way to serve God and we don't all have the same God, but I do believe in a personal relationship with Jesus, the son of God. Who promises a judgement day ... a judgement day for our sins.

Religion also has different forms of rewards and promises such as the Muslims for being a martyr and receiving 72 virgins or a Buddha lover or a Hindu lover and believing in reincarnation.

So if you believe in a reward for your behaviour you will more than likely behave.

What's to keep a non believer in going berserk and wiping out his or her entire family? What about the senior Army general's in charge of nuclear weapons that don't believe in a punishment phase and of course think that this life is all there is?

What's to keep them from wiping an entire civilization?

That's why I believe there is an invisible hand on every believer and non believer since time began or we are all doomed to the will of a crazy general or admiral or submarine captain out there in the deep blue sea.

King Solomon said it best: Ecclesiastes 3

To every thing there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones,
and a time to gather stones together;
a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to get, and a time to lose;
a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to rend, and a time to sew;
a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate;
a time of war, and a time of peace.


and then again in verse 3:13
And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.

[mapuc]

I will say thank you a lot, for your answers in my thread and especially thank you to Skybird.

Fear or worried is not the correct word when it come to death itself. I know that death is one thing that is very certain in our life.
The only thing I'm worried about is how will I die. Will I be in severe pain weeks before death comes at take me or will I die right on spot, not feeling anything.

My grandma died of Cancer in her stomach and was, despite painkiller in severe pain weeks before she died-That is something I hope will not happen to me and if it does, I hope they have better treatment today then they had when she lived and died.

Or as the elderly man who, day before Christmas fainted and died on spot while he was walking on boardwalk. he was hit by what the paramedics called acute cardiac arrest. Of course it's a sad story when you think about the day he died on.

Another thing was. I didn't just had some thoughts about death and then posted here in our GT.

I had some thoughts around it. If I post a new threads about death, will it turn into a religious discussion.

It didn't and that I'm thankful for.
My thread shall be seen more like a psychological discussion people have about death and what they may be worried about.

Markus

[u crank]

In my 68 odd years on planet earth I have run the gamut of belief about death and the hereafter. From atheist to Evangelical Christian to a now pretty much a confirmed Agnostic. How can anyone possibly know?

My own personal belief is now that when you die, brain function stops and you cease to exist. Your consciousness returns to the same state that it was in before your father's sperm went for that fateful swim. You'll be dead but you won't know it in the same way that you weren't alive and didn't know it. There can't be any fear of death if you can't think about it anymore. In some ways it will be a relief.

Regardless no one gets out alive.

[Sailor Steve]

You had to go there...

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

What's to keep a non believer in going berserk and wiping out his or her entire family?

What indeed? Why don't thousands of non-believers do that every day? Possibly because we're more concerned with our feelings for our family and friends (and strangers) than we are for some promise propounded by some priest? Another thing to consider is the observation that if your only reason for doing good is the promise of a reward later, or the threat of punishment later, then you're basing your "goodness" on a carrot-and-stick principle rather than an actual desire to help others.

Yet another problem with that reasoning is that when such atrocities do happen they are equally likely to be perpetrated by a believer as a non-believer.

What about the senior Army general's in charge of nuclear weapons that don't believe in a punishment phase and of course think that this life is all there is?

Same as above. Bad behavior - whether it's as simple as cheating on your spouse or as complex as starting a war - is equally likely to be done by believer and non-believer alike. In fact, a great many atrocities have been committed and wars started by believers specifically because of their beliefs.

Morality is an observed phenomenon. Some people are good and some are bad. What they believe doesn't really seem to come into it.

What's to keep them from wiping an entire civilization?

Possibly the thought that they are pretty likely to be one of the ones wiped out?

That's why I believe there is an invisible hand on every believer and non believer since time began or we are all doomed to the will of a crazy general or admiral or submarine captain out there in the deep blue sea.

Believing doesn't make it so.

This started out as a discussion on life and afterlife. Why not keep it that way?

[Mr Quatro]

Ought oh I pulled Steve's chain, but my view does lend to the discussion on life and afterlife. I did put religion in it's place ...

My view doesn't match your view that's okay with me ... I'm not trying to convert you. We should all be thankful for something ... I'm thankful my God is keeping the devil at bay

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

My view doesn't match your view that's okay with me ... I'm not trying to convert you.

But you were claiming that your view is superior, and the correct one.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I will say thank you a lot, for your answers in my thread and especially thank you to Skybird.

Fear or worried is not the correct word when it come to death itself. I know that death is one thing that is very certain in our life.
The only thing I'm worried about is how will I die. Will I be in severe pain weeks before death comes at take me or will I die right on spot, not feeling anything.

My grandma died of Cancer in her stomach and was, despite painkiller in severe pain weeks before she died-That is something I hope will not happen to me and if it does, I hope they have better treatment today then they had when she lived and died.

Or as the elderly man who, day before Christmas fainted and died on spot while he was walking on boardwalk. he was hit by what the paramedics called acute cardiac arrest. Of course it's a sad story when you think about the day he died on.

Another thing was. I didn't just had some thoughts about death and then posted here in our GT.

I had some thoughts around it. If I post a new threads about death, will it turn into a religious discussion.

It didn't and that I'm thankful for.
My thread shall be seen more like a psychological discussion people have about death and what they may be worried about.

Markus

Markus,
again I see it a bit stoical there. Is it worth to be worried by something that you cannot avoid: that is the circumstances of your dying? You will die the way you do when your time has come, and nobody can tell you in advance what it will be like. The issue must not concern you, because what will be - will be, and the time until then will be of the same length, no matter whether you spend it worrying, enjoying life, laughing, or fearing.

Also,and I do not say this easymindedly, you owe nobody to suffer to full lengths what awaits you, you are always free to prepare yourself while you have time left, and if fate does not knock you out and render you helplessly all of a sudden, you have any right a born being can have to decide yourself when and how to leave the show on stage. Nobody has any claim for you, you can decide freely - I just recommend to not decide for it easily and too early - but then, also not too late. Some will say this is cowardly, or weak, or that it is against any god's law, and that we must fight until last breath, and bla and bla and blablabla, on, but you are not competing in a sports championship, it is not them living your life but yourself is living your life, and it is your pain and suffering if there will be pain and suffering, and finally there have been many cultures and traditions where the dishonour lies not "opting out early", but in holding out until the last breath possible, showing no courage to discover the "undiscovered country". I claim this right for myself, and thus I must accept and will it for others as well. I urge you only to not form final decisions of this kind in any state of emotional arousal, may it be positive or negative, may it be enjoyment of anger, fear or hate. Decide such things with a clam and peaceful, balanced mind.

Personally I live with the prospect of most likely going early, due to health issues. I decided that the likely natural end will be such that it means only misery and a pityful sight, and so I claimed this my birth right to leave one day by my decision, self-determined. Believe it or not, but I live freer since then, since accepting that, I lost quite some sorrows and found greater freedom from others' claims for my acts and responsibilities. Its a tricky balance, however, for when I wait too long, I may get struck and then being so helpless that I cannot carry out what I want, and the others will not help me to do so: the older I get, the riskier the gamble to wait longer becomes. Well, so is life. There are no certainties, but even the dying does not last forever.

I think we modern people in the West have a very pathological relation to death, and it does not serve us well, nor is there dignity in it. We run away and pretend to be young, and behave like younger people - that we are no more since long. That is very immature, imo, and is a life driven by fear, fear of death and fear to miss something. But our life will never be complete, and there will always be a plethora of things that we miss and will not finish. One wave shows up and disappears, or it simply turns into another wave that it meets, opens up in it, or the ocean just flattens out for a moment.

Its all just one, Markus, and time is only a function of the mind: t=f(m). Its an illusion. The things being, the experience of ours, do happen, we notice it for sure: but they show us unreal imagery only that we cannot really own, or hold, or even just touch. To me, it all is a dream that dreams itself, its all one circle, or better: one point, without anything second. We dream this conception of energy, and like freezing water turns into snow and ice, this lended energy for a limited sequence in this dream's ever running images condensates into a more solid format, making it the matter of things and the word being. But when the sequences is over, we have to give it back , and the million things vanish again into the never-ending flow of the images. Some people may have fear of this and think they can save themselves by trying to stop this, trying to grab the images they associated with their life, their "self": but we are not the images, nor is our life the images: its is the images moving on, that is what life is. Hang to your life, therefore means loosing it.

Thus my advise to you is: take note of your worries and concerns, but do not hang on to them, let them flow on and watch them come and go. Do not desire to speed them up or to slow them down, do not emotionally react. The flowing pictures is the nature of our mind, there is no sense in seeking calm places and wishing for a contemplatory lifestyle, or meditating in quiteness without moving and trying to bring the flowing images in your mind to a standstill. In Zen they call this misled understanding of spiritual practice the trap of the dead void. And many people fall for it, believe me, I had to deal with this a lot (I taught meditation for 15 years and counseled on spiritual crisis and questions). A good teacher will notice it and will not let his student get away with that, and do anything needed to crash him and get him out of that false understanding of "meditation": its only a lifeless standstill where the air becomes stale and the brain starts rotting and turning green and black. There were occasions where I turned extremely rude just to break into and shattering the cosy nest somebody had created for his dozing mind (twice I even hit people ). There is no pardon, not when it comes to life or death! An enlightenment that only lasts in the stillness of one's own cabin or the meditation hall, but fades when turning for the noise and dirt and stress and action of the "world", is no enlightenment at all, but just another dream of the last night that fades when the sun goes up. Beware teachers wanting to lure people into spiritual practices and secluded lifestyles! There is nothing that can be gained by that, and there is no different kinds of mind, freedom, there is no separation between profane and sacral, there is nothing "holy".

Live on your life and do not mind for what your end may look like, Markus. You have all the present moment there is, and there is nothing beyond that: for what you remember to have been, is no more, and you remember it only in the present, and what you fear or hope for, is not yet, and you hope for it or fear it in the present. It is not so much the things that troubles our minds, but our expectations of them. Answers find him who is open and ready for them, and who is not, can ask as much as he wants, they will avoid him. You cannot be early and you cannot be late. You can only be right on time.


25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?
28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. (Matthew 6:25-34)


Bon voyage, Markus. This quest is for you. Avoid it, and you will regret it. Take on it, and you might get delightfully surprised.

[mapuc]

^ Thank you so much Skybird. I will remember some of your advise when I get those thought about death and how I may die.

This thread was not just about me, even thou I have given my expression I have had about this and some of my worries.

It was also about the thought about death and afterlife people may have when they have reached a certain age.

As mentioned before I can't be the only one who have had these thoughts which have become more present now that I have passed 50(I'm 53)then I was 27 years old.

Edit I forgot this in your lastest response

"
I think we modern people in the West have a very pathological relation to death, and it does not serve us well, nor is there dignity in it. We run away and pretend to be young, and behave like younger people - that we are no more since long. That is very immature, imo, and is a life driven by fear, fear of death and fear to miss something. But our life will never be complete, and there will always be a plethora of things that we miss and will not finish. One wave shows up and disappears, or it simply turns into another wave that it meets, opens up in it, or the ocean just flattens out for a moment
"
I'm as mentioned above, 53, I have no intention to get or try to get younger, to avoid death or run away from it.

Markus

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by mapuc

I'm as mentioned above, 53, I have no intention to get or try to get younger, to avoid death or run away from it.

I did not mean you specifically, individually, when saying that, I was about pointing out a detail that is quite common in contemporary Zeitgeist. This idea that one could cheat on death (and life, for that matter). This obsession to optimise yourself. This fixiation on physical shine and health alone, food, sports. The idea that it is good when you become the slave of your app that controls your daily life by statistics and timetables, and turns you into a remote controlled spoirts and eating puppet and makes you do what others think is best for you. Very old people dressing up like 20 year old.

[Rockstar]

I'm 57, I've heard that on your death bed your life will flash before eyes. So make it an eventful one that puts a smile on your face.




btw, well said SkyBird.

[Buddahaid]

Having experienced both of my parents deaths in the past couple of years I have no fear of death. I fear becoming old, confused, and dependent more.

An afterlife? I'll take Navajo Sky Dancers coming for me.

[Eichhörnchen]

I'm with Steve on the 'God' thing... it's not simply a craven fear of the Almighty that keeps myself and my friends from murdering everybody around us, just the simple civilised desire to be decent


Aside from that issue, I note this week that the finger-wagging brigade have been on our backs again:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-46439892

To which my answer is this other news story:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/20...r-paul-sherwen

This guy was an athlete and younger than me... now he's dead from heart failure