The terrifying thought of no afterlife

[jimmorrisonbabe]

There's a reason behind why heaven/hell/the idea of an afterlife was created, and that's because humans can't handle the idea of being gone for eternity after you die. I remember I was about 6 years old when I experienced my first 'deep' thought - I was sitting on the floor of the assembly hall at my school with a few hundred other kids surrounding me and had this terrifying thought; when I die, the world is just gonna go on and on. Everything is gonna go on forever. I'm never gonna be alive again! In my mind i was panicking, but then I looked around at everyone else and thought 'well, they're gonna go through the exact same thing' and everything was alright again.

My question is.... do you believe us atheists/non-believers in the afterlife are more likely to be scared of the eternal nothingness after death, because we know that's what's gonna happen to us? I've never really been scared of the thought cus I know I won't be aware at the time, but it's just the thought of being dead forever, after you die, that gets me a lil! And when you see it that way, you can really see why people find comfort in believing in an afterlife.

[PoopShoot]

I don't find that b3eing dead will bother me at all.  I'm fairly afraid of dying, but not of being dead.  I'm not to keen on the fact that feeling myself die could potentially be pretty uncomfortable, but after it's over I doubt I'll care.  eternal existence frightens me more than eternal nonexistence.

[SSY]

I don't find that b3eing dead will bother me at all.  I'm fairly afraid of dying, but not of being dead.  I'm not to keen on the fact that feeling myself die could potentially be pretty uncomfortable, but after it's over I doubt I'll care.  eternal existence frightens me more than eternal nonexistence.

I am the exact, polar opposite to you. I would choose to die in the most gruesome way if it meant prolonging my life.

One quote I remember reading that did help to greatly soothe my fears went along the lines "I have already been dead for billions of years and it did not inconvenience me in the slightest".

[notself]

Isn't that a quote from Mark Twain?

[PoopShoot]

One quote I remember reading that did help to greatly soothe my fears went along the lines "I have already been dead for billions and it did not inconvenience me in the slightest".

Probably the same quote I thought of while writing my previous post.  Mark Twain said it.  He said "I hadn't existed for billions of years before I was born and didn't suffer the slightest inconvenience from it" (or something almost identical to that).

[SSY]

Looks like it was from Mark Twain then.

[i_am_i]

My question is.... do you believe us atheists/non-believers in the afterlife are more likely to be scared of the eternal nothingness after death, because we know that's what's gonna happen to us?

I don't know what's going to happen to me when I die. I'll die, that's all I know at this point, and I'd be lying if I said that I'm looking forward to that.

I'm guessing that I've got about twenty more years of life, tops. I figure I'll die when I'm in my late seventies, probably of some kind of cancer. Nice stuff to think about, no?

At this point I just feel pretty indifferent about it. Life is happening now and I've got things to do. Right now I need to go upstairs, get another cold beer and watch the Braves lose to the Giants.

[teifuani]

Death bothers me for a number of reasons:

A) I can't control when it comes and how.
B) I probably won't live a long life because of stupid choices I made when I was younger (I've been trying to fix them but not a whole lot of success yet) and my crappy genes.
C) I've wasted a lot of time in this life already, at least partially because I used to think I had an even better one waiting for me. (Though now my brain just goes, "Eh, what's the point in doing anything productive? Might as well enjoy yourself while you can," so I can't really blame religion. )

Rationally I know there's no reason to dread it so much and worry about it so much, but emotions get in the way a lot.

[SSY]

I'm basically holding out for actuarial escape velocity, I hope I live long enough for it to happen, there's a pretty good chance that the first person to live to 1000 has already been born (so I'm told).

[joeactor]

... I plan to live through it.

Yeah, I agree - it's the dying part that's scary.

Nobody knows what comes after.

At the very least, your atoms will rejoin the cosmos.

Heck, my skin, hair and nails have been doing that for years.

I wonder how much of "original JoeActor" is left?

Maybe I'm gone already!

[elliebean]

Why be scared of something that, by definition, you'll never notice?

[joeactor]

Why be scared of something that, by definition, you'll never notice?

(dunno why I didn't notice 'till now, but... I used to live in NerkAhia...)

[Sophus]

No afterlife means complete nothingness. Being afraid of death is literally being scared of nothing.  

[Velma]

I don't find that b3eing dead will bother me at all.  I'm fairly afraid of dying, but not of being dead.  I'm not to keen on the fact that feeling myself die could potentially be pretty uncomfortable, but after it's over I doubt I'll care.  eternal existence frightens me more than eternal nonexistence.

Same here.  The thought of being dead doesn't frighten me, but the thought of a long, drawn-out, painful process of dying does bother me.  If it comes down to it, I'll take a life that is a few days or weeks shorter rather than a longer one filled with excruciating pain.

[notself]

I volunteer at a Hospice House.  All of our patients are "actively" dying (death is probable within days or weeks at most).  None are in pain.  Every effort is made to control pain without make the person unconscious although sometimes it can't be helped. In the past week we have had terminal cancer patients, kidney failure, cirrhosis of the liver.  All can be extremely painful but all of the patients are comfortable. Terminal patients treated through hospice actually live 4-5 months longer than people who are hospitalized or cared for by their usual doctor. Hospice home care nurses are equally well qualified to handle pain and provide comfort care at the patient's home if a doctor has stated that a patient has less than six months to live.   If you are afraid of the pain of death, I suggest you volunteer at local Hospice.  It will help remove that fear.

No one will force religion on you either.