esp if you’re one of the devout ones who think they’ve been really good
Careful that’s how you end up drinking the blue Kool aid.
The ending of life is a sad thing, it can be frightening to imagine losing that control.
Faith is one form of trying to capture that control. Please try to cherish the life you have here and make the most of it. For most I suspect there’s no need to rush it.
Faith is also trying to cherish the life you have, and make the best of it. For example “God gave you a talent, don’t waste it” or saying grace and focusing on what you’re thankful for in life. I even knew people who use prayer as a form of mindfulness meditation to keep them grounded in the present.
Regardless of how much you look forward to what comes after and how certain you feel about it, no one is going to want to go through the pain that comes with dying.
What if dying feels like letting go of all your pain? I can imagine dying feels good. The best part about dying is you can’t be certain what it’ll be like. It could be the ultimate punchline, the ultimate letdown, or just utter nonsense as you fall asleep.
Just like life, dying is out of my control so I’m just going to go with it and try to enjoy it as much as I can.
I mean, maybe after your heart stops and your brain function starts to slow down it might be peaceful, but unless you’re on a lot of painkillers the process up until that point tends to be excruciatingly painful - at least personally, thats the scary part.
i see you said this was your personal anecdote…
that said, this is just is not true (for everyone), please dont say this to people. not everyone dies in pain, or has a journey filled with it.
i work in hospice, your words could not be farther from the truth.
hugs
You’re a big guy.
But yeah I totally agree. I still feel mortal fear in my daily life, especially in dangerous scenarios.
But isn’t that what the ultimate high would feel like? In order to look forward to dying you have to be able to look forward to limit experiences and bad trips, which is insane.
I just hope that if I die in a violent accident I’m listening to “Last Surprise” from the Persona 5 soundtrack because I would really appreciate that.
The good afterlife is only available to them if they have been “good people” while alive, and dying early is not being a “good person”. Also, after their death, they supposedly get “judged”, and everybody is going to worry about the X number of “sins” that they did during their life that might end them up in hell.
That’s not true even for all of Christianity, let alone all religions…
For example orthodox Christians believe everyone goes to heaven, and that we are all bathed in unconditional love from God. Hell is finding yourself unworthy of that love because of how you lived.
Orthodox Christians believe that everyone has sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God, that the punishment for sin is death, Jesus is the only way to The Father and the way or forgiveness of sins. It’s not everyone. If everyone went to heaven that would mean sin would go unpunished.
Punishment is a part of catholic dogma, and makes no sense if you think of God as absolutely good and loving.
If we have allowed our hearts to be purified, then God’s presence will be healing, joyful, and life-giving. If we refuse God’s healing embrace, then His love will burn like fire, “for our God is a consuming fire” (Deut 4:24, 9:3, Isa 33:14, Heb 12:23)
You don’t see any cognitive dissonance with that statement coming from an absolutely good and loving being?
Absolutely good and Absolutely just.
Not absolutely loving. Source: Bible
“I loved Jacob, but Esau I hated.” Malachi 1
Yeah. As someone who really likes thinking about metaphysics I’m really excited to die and see what it feels like. That being said I also really enjoy living and I’m not in a rush to die. It’ll happen eventually and I want to try to do as much as I can while I can.
Everyone should be excited to die, not just religious people. Being excited to die means you lived a good life that you’re satisfied with.
Is there any reason to feel different after you’ve died than before you were born?
The same reason why you feel different today than when you were just born? You don’t even need dualism to have a basis for life after death.
I feel different today as my sensory as well as sensory processing organs have developed.
Being dead, just as before being born, I possess no such organs and expect not to “feel”.
But my position isn’t the interesting one, @RadicalEagle suggested something I interpreted as still having perception beyond life, and I was wondering if that excludes having perception before life, and how that ties into their metaphysics.
Being excited to die means you lived a good life
The problem is, most of the current generation is well aware they haven’t lived good lives. Not to mention, the conundrum of living longer implies a chance for an accumulation of more misdeeds. Personally, the most likely scenario is almost everyone becomes aware there is likely nothing afterwards at some point. Religion is more there like the bumpers for kids cosmic bowling, ensuring zero gutter balls. Keeping you playing, until the day you’re old enough to remove them and pay taxes, revealing life is a subscription, and childhood was a free trial all along.
Not everyone can live a “good” life by your definition of good, but they can live a good life by their definition of good.
Current generations realize that what older people are trying to sell them is a scam, and they’re working on building a new better reality based on their fresh perspective on what reality is.
You can look at religion through many lenses, but at the end of the day religion is just an unprovable fiction we choose to believe because it’s how we want the world to work. My belief that if you want to live a good life you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you is religious. Game theory and my life experiences support my belief, but it is ultimately an unprovable belief because of Hume’s Guillotine and the fact that my definition of “good life” is subjective.
It’s 100% possible that I’m just tricking myself into thinking helping other people is good and makes me happy, but I will still choose to believe.
“To die would be an awfully big adventure” - J.M. Barrie
