exchristian

As someone who is very depressed, the idea of heaven and hell kind of disturb me. I'm so very, very tired, and I just want it all to stop. I want to stop experiencing, I want to stop doing, it doesn't matter how nice. Suicide is so appealing because I could just turn it all off.

I talk about this because I think an eternity in conventional heaven would eventually depress you. I think that faced with eternity, true infinity, eventually you'll have wringed out every last drop of happiness you can from existence and you'd long for rest just as much as I do.

Sorry, I want to be comforting to you and to me this is but I doubt it is to you. I'll leave you with this thought--because I don't believe there's an afterlife punishment or reward, it makes being the best person I can be all the more important. My actions are driven from me wanting the world to be a better place, not from me trying to earn a reward.

Nothing can stop the good times we've had from having happened.

I've had an overall decent life. I still have a lot of time to live with my friends and family. But I take solace in the fact that I will just cease to exist when I die. Or obviously, that's my opinion anyways.

I don't want to argue my beliefs, but that's how I feel about it.

It seems like a just end. Literally nothing. A final sleep.

adding another comment as I like this woody allen quote. Its not that im afraid of dying its just that I don't want to be there when it happens.

I suppose it depends on how attached you are to this life. The loss of fear, worry, pain, drama, hunger, thirst, illness, etc. It might help to look at scientific talks about time. In particular if it does have a direction. Basically you perceive this thing happening in the future but that is just an artifact of existence as your future is no more separate than the past.

Do you fear the void before birth you emerged from?

Same shit.

I think of it this way. Do you remember your great grandparents? How about your great great grandparents? How about your great great great grandparents? At some point, you'll go, "Gee, I've never thought of them before."

But do you think they mattered? You may not know what they did, what they hoped for, and the struggles they faced, but had they not existed, neither would you have. They mattered, even if you remember very little about them, and on top of that, you can probably learn about many of them with some effort in genealogy.

You may not have some cosmic importance with the power to change the world, but neither did most Christians, even when you were a believer. But that doesn't mean they didn't matter, and it doesn't mean you don't matter.

Christianity teaches you the lie that to matter, you must have permanence, but consider this:

Your life is like a plate of cookies, warm and sweet and delicious, and it is best when shared with people you love. One day, that plate of cookies will be empty, but the cookies are no less delicious and the sharing no less meaningful just because there is a finite number of cookies.

One day, my plate of cookies will be empty, but if I am remembered fondly, then it will have been a life lived well. I don't need infinite cosmic importance to matter, and neither do you.

There's no use in fearing the inevitable. It will come, whether you like it or not, and no amount of fighting can stop it. Fearing it only makes you focus on some indeterminate time in the future and lose sight of the now.

Without trying to sound too metaphysical. I look at it this way. The atoms that make up my body were forged in the hearts of stars. These atoms have existed in some form across the universe for billions of years.

I don't remember what patterns my atoms were before they became this one, and I don't know what pattern these atoms will take once I am done with them, but these atoms will remain.

This consciousness that has arisen from this pattern of atoms may give way to a different consciousness in a different pattern of atoms in some untold amount of time. While this consciousness may not know of that one, and that one may not remember this, it eases my mind to know that the stardust that originated these atoms will still exist.

It eases my mind to know that in the infinite void of nothingness, this pattern of atoms and this consciousness have impacted those around me. The short period of time that this consciousness is around gives me the opportunity to experience the wonderful breadth of the human condition, because this will be the only time these atoms are in this exact pattern. Every moment of my existence I am unique.

I am of the universe, I have experienced the universe, and others have experienced the universe through me.

Practice radical acceptance

There is no benefit in attaching ourselves to the suffering and rumination of that which cannot be changed. We practice radical acceptance in this instance because it, more than any other instance, is unchangeable. Allow yourself to feel the frustration, sadness, grief, anger, etc that you feel when you think about death but allow yourself to let the thoughts pass by rather than attaching to them. If you struggle with it (which of course you will, you’re only human) reflect any analyze your resistance to being able to accept.

It takes practice. There’s a lot more to it, I’m paraphrasing a lot. It’s worth reading about if you’re really struggling

Embrace the void, like the womb it is. Safe, tranquil, forever at peace. Closest thing to a real heaven

We all have a fundamental drive to avoid dying. Our awareness of this inevitability is in direct conflict with this. The solution is often a change in how you think about things and yourself.

My personal view is that I have something analogous to a soul. It is the 'me' of me. It is also fundamentally tied to the structure of my brain (and body). When that structure changes, I change, when it goes, my 'soul' is destroyed with it. Critically however is that it is not alone. I can imagine what friends and relatives would say or do. In some ways, I have a weaker copy of their 'soul' within mine.

I also imprint part of my soul onto others in other ways. I create ripples in the world. Changes that wouldn't happen, were I not alive. Those ripples propagate through others, changing them. Some of those ripples are weak, only affecting 1 person. Others are stronger, affecting several people. A few are strong, able to spread, grow, and change the world (if only slightly). While those ripples, or their echoes exist, part of me does too.

My goal in life is 2-fold. Maximise my happiness and maximise the positive ripples I can create.

A quote by Terry Pratchett put it more poetically.

"No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence."

There is a difference between knowing and feeling. Rest in the feeling of your life before birth. What do you feel?

For me, it's easy to not fear it when I'm healthy, but as soon as I have health problems, I get this strong fear of mortality. It's a visceral thing though. In my mind, I know it's fine, it's inevitable, and there has never been a better time in history for medical treatment. But the fear I feel is separate from that rational knowledge. That is what's hard for me to harmonize. There is an anxiety underneath it all. And the funny thing is I never used to get that either, but after my brother committed suicide, I have had this visceral, mortal fear.

Daily meditation has helped me identify the feelings, but has not helped much in overcoming them. It has helped me find peace among them, which is a decent middle ground.

The mortal fear also helps me clearly prioritize things in my life, so it does have its benefits.

From an uncertain genesis to a certain end. You do not remember being born, but you know someday that you will die. This is awareness. And there is some comfort in this.

In the past you have remembrance or memory. The things that you were or the things that happened to you. In the future you anticipate what could come, or what your hopes are. You make plans. And that's fine. It's part of the human condition. But the now is the only thing that is actually happening.

Seize this moment. This moment is where you are. This moment is where you live. Being kind to yourself, being kind to others, being a person that others would wish to be, if they were examining your present person.

To build the world, or at least your small part of it, in the way that you see fit is all that our tiny hands can do. And there is a certain satisfaction in that. To live moment to moment. And to build your station. And to build others stations around you. To empower yourself and others. These are the things that build satisfaction. Gratification. These things are real. And these things do not require anything of the past or future.

Eventually you can stretch this now into the whole of your life. And it will provide wholeness that is not dictated by any sort of belief. For belief is not necessary. Let me repeat. You do not need to believe in anything to have wholeness and fulfillment in your life. But it certainly helps to be kind to others for its own sake. For that is the rule that others will measure you on as well.

I hope that helps.

PS. If you dig on this kind of thing, look into stoicism.

The counterargument that works for me is - why must it be terrifying to return to nothing? It’s something immutable. We weren’t owed anything by the universe - why bemoan what we don’t have, when we could enjoy that which we do?

Take a walk outside. Read a book. Snuggle something furry. It’s perfectly natural to fear death, but if it stops you from enjoying your life, isn’t that a little self defeating?

All the good times we had, and will have, with anyone or anything ever will totally annihilate into nothingness.

No. They will still have happened. You will still have experienced them. You can only really ever experience whatever is happening to you now. If there is only nothingness after death, then you will not experience it.

Make the most of your life in the way it make sense to you. That could be having more shared laughs with loved ones or dedicate it to saving the critically endangered purple-spotted pygmy shrew.

In short: You will experience your life, you will not experience "the great void of death".

We were never nothing. Matter cannot be created nor destroyed.

I used to be scared of death, too, then I realised how terrible life was. Now I look forward to it so there will be no more suffering. Oblivion is better than pain. I'm still scared of the pain of dying, just not of what may lie beyond.