Fear of Death.

Chuck Stone

I was watching a documentary about longevity of age and one of the scientists said she was terrified of death (not dying but ceasing to exist).

So it got me thinking and being the curious fool person that I am I thought I'd find out what was the general attitude to death of the freaks good folks of AH.

Here are the parameters of the vote. We have no proof of an afterlife so let's assume, for purposes of expediency, that when you die it's over - you cease to exist except in the memories of loved ones.

So does the idea of ceasing to exist trouble you?

Mr Benevolent

So does the idea of ceasing to exist trouble you?

No. It's people around me ceasing to exist that troubles me.

MagicMarker

''Where death is, I am not; where I am, death is not.''

Epicurus

Trigger13222

People close to me dying would be a bigger fear.

bbam

I don't see the problem...
You die.. we all have to....

Either:
1. There is an afterlife and grand we all have a happy existence..
2. There is nothing and I know no difference because I became nothing, fine too

When i was small used to freak me out what happened after u die.
Not really bothered now unless the buddists are right and u come back as something truely horrible like







jedward

KeithAFC

I welcome death. Death is essential. Without it, we are in trouble. Have no fear.

Immaculate Pasta

Trigger13222 wrote: »

People close to me dying would be a bigger fear.

This.

Watching my Grandparents getting older, and seeing they're still in good health, I'm certainly not ready for them to pass on at the moment.

I'm not afraid of death. I don't want to die of course but I feel if my time has to come then so be it. Hopefully it won't happen for a very long time but if I get knocked down by a bus tomorrow then so be it. I won't let a fear of the inevitable hinder how I'm going to live my life.

Sindri

Everyone is afraid of death. They find a way to cope with it, but the problem with death, why we fear it so much is that we cannot control it, it will happen, so to cope we presume we will die at some undisclosed date far in the future or we turn to religion or god.

Death is also n attack on our ego and self esteem.

Lone Stone

Death brings peace to the suffering and loss to the living im a poet.

RichieC

Ive been dead for Eternity.. it's life we should worry about.

whirlpool

Death doesn't bother me. It's the pain that my death will bring to the people who love me that bothers me.



(yeh yeh, "well ye needn't be too worried, so!" etc etc.)

stoneill

All those molecules that you are made from need to be recycled somehow.

Chuck Stone

Sindri wrote: »

to cope we presume we will die at some undisclosed date far in the future or we turn to religion or god.

I suspect that a large part of belief in an afterlife is motivated by the fear of death.

Sindri wrote: »

Death is also n attack on our ego and self esteem.

This is so much to do with it.

bleg

Chuck Stone wrote: »

So does the idea of ceasing to exist trouble you?

Terrifying. Singularity FTW!!!

whirlpool

P.S. Re-incarnation is my biggest fear.

Imagine - this, all over again. Or much worse.

Micky Dolenz

Chuck Stone wrote: »

So does the idea of ceasing to exist trouble you?

I don't believe I will cease to exist after I leave this world.

stupidusername

I use my fear of death as a motivator to do ballsy things. when i think of it.

Chuck Stone

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

I don't believe I will cease to exist after I leave this world.

Do you mean you believe you will continue to exist in some form?

mandate

I am afraid of not leaving behind something of significance that I created, for example, I would hate to think that all I left was a thousand Exel spreadsheets and Word documents that no one will ever read.

Micky Dolenz

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Do you mean you believe you will continue to exist in some form?

Absolutely.

Badgermonkey

Sindri wrote: »

Everyone is afraid of death. They find a way to cope with it, but the problem with death, why we fear it so much is that we cannot control it, it will happen, so to cope we presume we will die at some undisclosed date far in the future or we turn to religion or god.

Death is also n attack on our ego and self esteem.

Afraid of the process of dying perhaps - especially so if it's slow, painful and/or undignified. But death itself, no.

Chuck Stone

Micky Dolenz wrote: »

Absolutely.

Fair enough.

ZombieBride

To me, as long as someone remembers I existed then I'll never die.

Ghandee

Meh.....

I didn't exist before I was born, and I'll cease to exist after death.


Life is but a mere break from non existence.



Ghandee. Jan 2012 ©

WindSock

I have a bigger fear of regret on my deathbed.


'I wish I thanked more posts on boards'

'I should have started more threads on immigrants'

'Perhaps I should have had a wittier signature'

:eek:

My name is URL

I don't fear it.. I just don't want to be there when it happens.

Actually, screw that.. I do fear it. I don't get how people can say that they don't fear it in any way. Surely the fear of death is one of the best survival tools we have?

Sindri

Chuck Stone wrote: »

I suspect that a large part of belief in an afterlife is motivated by the fear of death.




This is so much to do with it.

People are afraid, don't mind that bollox of how it's necessary or we have to die or how I will just cease to exist nonsense. There just coping mechanisms and if one analysed them even minimally they would know that for themselves.

The people who god honestly are not afraid of death are the ones to watch out for.

Most problems of depression and of unhappiness manifest themselves usually due to some existential quandary or an existential quandary is usually relevant to it.

44leto

The idiom every body dies,,well I'm not convinced yet,

Chuck Stone

Sindri wrote: »

People are afraid, don't mind that bollox of how it's necessary or we have to die or how I will just cease to exist nonsense.

Sorry, could you clarify that ^^ for me?

Dravokivich

hmmm, when I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, fearing it or the consquences of such won't change much of anything, so I don't.

Sindri

Chuck Stone wrote: »

Sorry, could you clarify that ^^ for me?

The normal response to our first contact to the concept of death is fear. Everything else afterwards is a coping mechanism to alleviate that fear.

What I was referring to was that some of the responses read like bad movie dialogue and that if one analysed the logic or reason behind those comments they would see that they were poor fatalist responses which is a coping mechanism to deal with death, as is nihilism, as is religion and as is quite a lot other things.

A rational egotistical being will always be afraid of the end of it's existence, and when we cannot cope to it, literally I mean do anything about it, we find a way to deal with it such as fatalism or nihilism, or any other concept at which we arrive at to make it easier, which are both effects of our inability to deal with death.

EDIT

See ^^^^ above for an example. That poster arrived at that conclusion using an egotistical invested reasoning. It is fatalist, yes, because that is one of the few responses with which we feel comfortable with as it is better than the alternative of depression. The other popular response is that we don't die.

cloud493

I've been willing to accept death before. I've even tried to bring it about myself. And while my attitude has changed somewhat, we're all going to die at some point*. Everyone in the world dies, life moves on. People can waste their entire lives, fleeing from death, but it will catch up with everyone in the end. So why not embrace the relatively short time we spend on the earth?

*Except the Doctor. The Doctor never dies.

jaja321

I'm more worried about not living my life to the fullest tbh

Doc Ruby

I vary between gibbering terror and meh. If there's nothing, I won't know about it, and if there's something, well I call that a win.

I've studied various religions extensively, and while obviously there is no evidence to prove the assertions of one or the other, I would say many if not all of them have some threads in common, it gets more interesting the further back you go, like flood myths. This leads me to believe that a) there's a lot more to the world than we know and b) if there is something, you'd be as well off to respect the common threads.

Sky King

I am not afraid of death itself but I am afraid of a potentially protracted and horribly violent death like drowning or being eaten by a crocodile.

Everyone always says going in your sleep is the best way to go but i would love to know how the fk they can be so sure.

I reckon there is a percentage of those people who 'go peacefully in their sleep' actually wake up in terror and expire slowly in absolute agony knowing they are dying.

But yeah, few naggins, be grand.

crosstownk

As posted before, I'd be more fearful of loosing a loved one while at the same time I'd also be fearful of leaving loved ones behind and how they may feel. When I'm dead "nothing really matters to me - anyway the wind blows......."

Yakult

I fear the death alright. My mind simply cannot comprehend what will happen when I die or how it will feel drifting in to the unknown. You have no other choice but to accept it and you just gotta live every day like it's your last.

Sky King

Interesting vid of a guy in a plane who gets into a flat spin and is finding it difficult to recover from it before he hits the ground (normally a death sentence - or at least serious injury - and pilots generally know that).

You can hear him say to the camera 'I think this is it' about 20 secs before projected impact.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvbS-oHi9ro

he managed to recover barely in time - about 10 seconds to go - and crash land the plane in a condition of semi-control. He was alright in the end, luckily for him .

Linguo

It's easy to dismiss death sometimes when you're caught up in day to day living and safe with all the people you love around you, when it feels like it will never really touch you!

However I think everyone's had those nights lying in bed where you start thinking about an eternity of not exisiting and you're gripped by the horror of it! I definitely have.

It's more the thought of the people I love the most leaving, specifically those few people whom your whole life and heart is tied to completely, the thought of them dying would devastate me beyond anything I could bear.

But I'd rather follow them into an eternal rest than linger on while they died around me.

I think about the billions of years none of us existed, which will be exactly like death unless we're lucky enough to see a heaven, and it doesn't seem quite so unknown then but it's something I'd rather not think about most of the time.

I often think of the quote though "Life is but a thin sliver of light between two immensities of darkness"

Temptamperu

I'm more afraid of life to be honest.

sonic85

im scared sh!tless of dying to be honest and scared sh!tless thinking about my loved ones dying so basically im just scared sh!tless. do my utmost not to think about it too often though

Lady Chatterton

I'm not afraid of death itself but I would be distraught if an Oncologist told me I had only months to live I don't think I'd like to know that I was dying.

Shiroki

This is a cool vid I like to watch from time to time. It kind of adresses the fear of death and how we as a race deal with it.

http://youtu.be/Ela3ChTzFcA

orchidsrpretty

I have watched many people die(I have worked in nursing homes) and it has made me petrified of dying. Every single last person has been so afraid when they realise that they are going to die. The last moments of life are quite anti climatic though

byhookorbycrook

I take a medication once a month that has 1,000/1 chance of giving me a possibly fatal and certainly incurable brain disease.So, no, I don't fear death,I just get on with things.

we'llallhavetea_old

the thoughts of dying young horrifies me. sure me child would be fecked!

TeddyTedson

I'm not afraid to die of a natural death.
Now dying in a plane crash or being sucked into an engine would scare me all right. Remember the story of the drunken kids who were drinking and fell overboard on some cruise with their parents who were believed to have been shredded in the engines, stuff like that would scare me, the impending inevitable more than anything I guess, then panic of a plane plunging into the sea.
But dying in my sleep or even dying of a disease doesn't scare me at all. If death is the price I pay for life then it's a small price to pay.

Karona

You are dying from the moment you take your first breath.

BrokenArrows

Im not freaked out about dying because once you die that's it. I'm not a believer.

I think if I was a believer I would be freaked out about dying because most people are going to hell. Belivers fool themselves into thinking that they are going to heaven but if you actually read any of the various belief systems you go to hell for pretty much everything.

Doc Ruby

Karona wrote: »

You are dying from the moment you take your first breath.

You're living until you take your last.