Death

[raymond6751]

I used to be an non-believer, on the basis that any God that let terrible things happen to good people - when he/she has the power to stop it - is no God of mine.

Now, in my late 60's, I realize that God doesn't make bad things happen - he just makes all things possible, both good and bad.

Long, long ago, he made his Universal plan - not just for us. All the chemistry, biology, physics, and math that goes into keeping this old place running were laid out. If the right mix of elements, chemicals, or conditions are present - things happen.

Since the universe is never used up, nor is anything in it, life also re-cycles for us and for all manner of living things - everywhere.

I like to think there is a constant life force or pool in the universe. That is where all new life comes from, and where it returns. All living things contain souls from that pool. Think about this, even a rock is made up of living things - molecules and atoms and who knows what. Constantly cycling and containing energy - the energy of God.

I'm not fool enough to think I have knowledge to explain how it all works, it just does. Nobody has ever come back, except in here say. But, I think it possible that we all have been back many, many times already.

[August]

Originally Posted by raymond6751

I used to be an non-believer, on the basis that any God that let terrible things happen to good people - when he/she has the power to stop it - is no God of mine.

Now, in my late 60's, I realize that God doesn't make bad things happen - he just makes all things possible, both good and bad.

Long, long ago, he made his Universal plan - not just for us. All the chemistry, biology, physics, and math that goes into keeping this old place running were laid out. If the right mix of elements, chemicals, or conditions are present - things happen.

Since the universe is never used up, nor is anything in it, life also re-cycles for us and for all manner of living things - everywhere.

I like to think there is a constant life force or pool in the universe. That is where all new life comes from, and where it returns. All living things contain souls from that pool. Think about this, even a rock is made up of living things - molecules and atoms and who knows what. Constantly cycling and containing energy - the energy of God.

I'm not fool enough to think I have knowledge to explain how it all works, it just does. Nobody has ever come back, except in here say. But, I think it possible that we all have been back many, many times already.

Well said.

[vienna]

I'm going to be 68 in a couple of weeks and I've come very close to death several times; in 2004, I had major surgery after which the surgeon told me that when the ambulance brought me into the ER, I was circling the drain anf there was a fear I wouldn't survive the operation. I'm not religious and I'm still not. I had a couple of dreams in the past where I died and, both times, the moment of death was just a void, nothing to see, hear, feel, or connect with, just emptiness; at that point I would wake up. When I had that 2004 surgery, I do recall fleeting moments in the time leading up to the surgery; I recall being wheeled into the OR and the couple of minutes up to the doctor putting me under; what was interesting was, as I dutifully counted backwards, there was a sudden blackness, identical to my dreams, and I remember vividly thinking to myself how I'd been here before; after what seemed like or two or three minutes of ruminating over the void I was in, I finally lost consciousness. When I did come out from under, with the doctor slapping me in the face to try and revive me (oh, I would have pounded him, if I could have raised my arms ), I thought back to that void and realized I missed it now...

Life is a bit of an ongoing crap shoot: there's always something out there that might do you in; and the idea that a healthy lifestyle is an assurance of long life, as in a game of craps, its a fire bet, a long shot to hit. Look at James Fix, the guy who popularized running and jogging for fitness; he died at age 52, of a sudden heart attack, while on a run. Or look at John Ritter, the actor who was famed for his physical comedy; he did countless pratfalls, tumbles, and committed general mayhem to his body over the course of his career and was still considered to be in pretty god shape; he died of a tear in his aorta suffered while he was filming a sitcom. It all just a roll of the dice...

There was an actor from the Golden Era of Hollywood named George Sanders. Aside from his acting, he is know for how he died; he committed suicide:

Final years and death

Sanders suffered from dementia, worsened by waning health, and visibly teetered in his last films, owing to a loss of balance. According to Aherne's biography, he also had a minor stroke. Sanders could not bear the prospect of losing his health or needing help to carry out everyday tasks and became deeply depressed. At about this time he found that he could no longer play his grand piano, so he dragged it outside and smashed it with an axe. His last girlfriend persuaded him to sell his beloved house in Majorca, Spain, which he later bitterly regretted. From then on he drifted.

On 23 April 1972, Sanders checked into a hotel in Castelldefels, a coastal town near Barcelona. He died of a cardiac arrest two days later, after swallowing the contents of five bottles of the barbiturate Nembutal. He left behind three suicide notes, one of which read:


Dear World, I am leaving because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool. Good luck.


Sanders's body was returned to Britain for funeral services. He was cremated and his ashes were scattered in the English Channel.

David Niven wrote in Bring on the Empty Horses (1975), the second volume of his memoirs, that in 1937 his friend George Sanders had predicted that he would commit suicide from a barbiturate overdose when he was 65 and that in his 50s he had appeared to be depressed since his marriages had failed and several tragedies had befallen him.

I am not suicidal myself, but I can appreciate the desire to avoid boredom and incapacity. Myself, I have the position that there are still a lot of people I haven't pissed off yet, so I feel I still have a calling...

As for an afterlife, I feel, given the standards by which the Judaeo-Christian God and other sundry deities have imposed on mortal man, damned few, if any are going to make the cut for the upward path; I'm pretty certain if I did ,it would be cause for a call to review the selection process for possible deficiencies...

Who knows? Maybe, one day, I'll just get damned tired of it all, say the hell with it all and seek out that void...








<O>

[Rockstar]

A few years ago it occurred to me -- albeit with some shock to my scientific sensibilities -- that my two problems, that of a life‑breeding universe, and that of consciousness that can neither be identified nor located, might be brought together. That would be with the thought that mind, rather than being a late development in the evolution of organisms, had existed always: that this is a life‑breeding universe because the constant presence of mind made it so.
I have been in experimental science long enough to know that when you have done an experiment that comes out surprisingly well, the thing to do is enjoy it, because the next time you try it, it may not work. So when this idea struck me, I was elated, I enjoyed it immensely. But I was also embarrassed, because this idea violated all my scientific feelings. It took only a few weeks, however, for me to realize that I was in excellent company. That kind of thought is not only deeply embedded in millenia‑old Eastern philosophies; it is stated explicitly or strongly implied in the writings of a number of great and quite recent physicists. - George Wald


Now what happens to the state of ones mind, conscience or if you prefer to call it soul is only known by those who have shed the so called cocoon.

[Skybird]

Usually the existence and operation of a brain is seen as precondition for a "mind". I once puzzled one of my profs at university when claiming it is the other way around, maybe, that mind is the reason why there is a brain.

However, I think one needs to separate two things here. Cosmic/universal mind/divinity, and individual consciousness. I have no doubt that when i die, all what characterises me as an individual entitity, my own mind, my self-awareness, comes to an end, to a state of non-existence like before.

However, there might be "mind" in the meaning of a higher order. The divine sparkle. The eros that brings cosmos into life - and cosmos being the precondition for the logos of individuality.

Buddha once was asked whether there is an individual soul surviving death, and he denied it, very clearly. The Buddhist teaching of Athman and Anathman - self and non-self - is about this difference: that our individual self is not our real self, but only a passing entity of limited durability, an illusion, and when it dies, what remains is the real, bigger self that is all and always has been and always will be: the face we had before our birth, to lend a Zen wording. Jesus talked of the wheat grain that has to die if it wants to bring rich harvest. Christian mystics talked of the "mystical death" (of the ego) as precondition to win the everlasting life (realisation of the real own divine nature). Luke wrote: "The kingdom of God does not come with signs to be observed. Nor can one say "Look, here!" or "There it is!", for behold, the kingdom of God is within your. (Luke 17:20-21). Meister Eckhart wrote: "If God is to be seen, it must be in the light that is God himself. The eye with which I see God is the same eye with which God sees me: my eye and God'S eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing and one love."

That all gives "incarnation" a whole new twist. The common, generally used understanding of it, imo is a simplification that does more harm than good and is not just simplified, but indeed misleading.

Best expressed it all is maybe in the Japanese Enso:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ens%C5%8D


In the end, the greatest mystery of all still lasts: Why is there anythign at all, why is there not just - Nothing? Why is all this show and drama taking place, where does it come from? And most important and relevant for all of us: Who is it who watches all this, reads this text, thunks of himself as "This is me"? Just to say "BANG!" is a bit too infantile, for my taste. The Big Bang theory describes the How, not the Why, so do all other cosmological theories.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by vienna

I am not suicidal myself, but I can appreciate the desire to avoid boredom and incapacity. Myself, I have the position that there are still a lot of people I haven't pissed off yet, so I feel I still have a calling...

As for an afterlife, I feel, given the standards by which the Judaeo-Christian God and other sundry deities have imposed on mortal man, damned few, if any are going to make the cut for the upward path; I'm pretty certain if I did ,it would be cause for a call to review the selection process for possible deficiencies...

Who knows? Maybe, one day, I'll just get damned tired of it all, say the hell with it all and seek out that void...

When I was 21 some circumstances in my life caused me to contemplate suicide. When I say "contemplate" I don't mean I planned on doing it, but that I thought about it long and hard, considering all the possibilities and likelihoods from every angle I could think of. My conclusion then was that there were still possibilities I hadn't thought of - tomorrow I might find my dream job, my dream girl, or any number of other good things that might be waiting around the corner.

Now, almost fifty years later, I never got that job, never had that life, and I'm suffering from depression more and more each year. I still laugh every time I visit the VA hospital and the first thing they ask is "Have you had any thoughts of harming yourself?" I always answer "No", and it's true. I haven't. One day I started contemplating the whole thing over again, and finally came to realize the awful truth: I'm a coward. No matter how bad things get I won't give up, not because I believe something good might happen tomorrow - I'm far beyond that - but because after years of being a believer, and years of trying to prove my beliefs, I came to the conclusion that I don't have any answers and nobody else has convinced me that they do. I don't know what's on the other side, if anything, and I'm in no hurry to find out.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

When I was 21 some circumstances in my life caused me to contemplate suicide. When I say "contemplate" I don't mean I planned on doing it, but that I thought about it long and hard, considering all the possibilities and likelihoods from every angle I could think of. My conclusion then was that there were still possibilities I hadn't thought of - tomorrow I might find my dream job, my dream girl, or any number of other good things that might be waiting around the corner.

Now, almost fifty years later, I never got that job, never had that life, and I'm suffering from depression more and more each year. I still laugh every time I visit the VA hospital and the first thing they ask is "Have you had any thoughts of harming yourself?" I always answer "No", and it's true. I haven't. One day I started contemplating the whole thing over again, and finally came to realize the awful truth: I'm a coward. No matter how bad things get I won't give up, not because I believe something good might happen tomorrow - I'm far beyond that - but because after years of being a believer, and years of trying to prove my beliefs, I came to the conclusion that I don't have any answers and nobody else has convinced me that they do. I don't know what's on the other side, if anything, and I'm in no hurry to find out.

Plain, sober reasoning there, Steve. Cowardice, that you implied, has little to do with it, me thinks. You are more a stoic, or a Vulcan, than a coward.

[AVGWarhawk]

It is not so much death that concerns me, it is those that continue on. Specifically my wife. Leaving enough money she will not need to worry about anything.

[Sharkstooth]

What if......

The light that people who have touched death see, is the lights of a hospital delivery room as you are being born.
The reason babies are crying is because of the life, loves, etc that they just lost.
They cannot talk while they remember and gradually lose their memories, and by the time we can talk, memories are gone...cept for once in a while....and those are called Deja vu.

Not necessarily my beliefs, merely a ‘what if’

[u crank]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

...I came to the conclusion that I don't have any answers and nobody else has convinced me that they do. I don't know what's on the other side, if anything, and I'm in no hurry to find out.

Best comment I've read in this thread so far.

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by vienna

I am not suicidal myself, but I can appreciate the desire to avoid boredom and incapacity. Myself, I have the position that there are still a lot of people I haven't pissed off yet, so I feel I still have a calling...

So, we do share some common ground. LOL