This post has been un-graped by the un-grapist.
I’m a little younger than you, Quasi. I am 56 and am comforted by my Christian faith, the miracles Jesus performed, and the promises He and God made to us. But I am human, and a scientist, and sometimes there are doubts, weak points in my faith.
I see life as a fascinating journey, the people we encounter, the places we visit and see, and the experiences we have. Hopefully it continues for many years, but no one knows when I’ll get run over by that beer truck. Each day is a gift, and I don’t worry about death. It comes to us all. My faith comforts me.
I’m 62 and recently my husband died from a heart attack. He was 55. Ever since his death, I have felt the emptiness that his loss caused and wondered if there was something for him after death. I am an atheist and have no expectation of any afterlife, but it seems that grief can make you indulge in wishful thinking.
I also wonder if he felt the wings of the dark angel fold around him and cried out to be spared, but he died alone in our bedroom while I was out so I will never know. I know, that’s morbid and not what Quasimodem was after.
Dying doesn’t scare me too much. I believe like all atheists that once I’m gone I’ll have nothing to worry or think about ever again.
It does however bother me greatly. I think of it like the ultimate show ending cliff hanger episode where they cancel the show after the last episode. You never find out what will happen.
I think of all the books, movies, TV shows, and music that will happen after I’m gone and I’ll never even know. I think of my kids and future grandkids and what happens to them that I’ll never know.
That’s what bothers me the most, the not knowing. Things that happened before I was born I can at least read about.
Fortunately, once I’m gone I won’t care about the not knowing either. But until then, it bothers me.
To what I said earlier, I’ll add: death itself doesn’t scare me. I’d be afraid of dying too soon, particularly while the Firebug is still growing up and needs his dad. And I want to see as much of his adult life as I can, to see what sort of person he’ll become once he’s on his own.
But the thing that worries me most isn’t dying, but the last stages of getting there. Most of the people I’ve known who’ve died at an advanced age (in their 80s or later) have gone through a period of weeks or months when they were in a state where they could communicate with the rest of us very poorly if at all. Maybe that state is less onerous from the inside than it looks from without, but I’m guessing it probably isn’t really.
Death doesn’t scare me at all, but dying terrifies me. I just know it’s going to be spectacularly unpleasant.
I have sleep apnea, and have had some nasty near-suffocation experiences. It’s a little like being water-boarded: at a certain point, a kind of deeply visceral panic sets in, making the event horribly nightmarish. I’m really afraid that dying will be like that.
I’m 52, and have thought more about my parents being near the ends of their lives (they’re in their eighties, and don’t seem particularly concerned). A cousin’s 24 year old son was killed in a car accident a couple of weeks ago; that was sobering, since someone from my kids’ generation went before anyone in mine. I identify as Christian, but am mostly agnostic regarding an afterlife. There could be something, but it has nothing to do with how I live this life.
I too have sleep apnea and am about to get a CPAP machine, so I hope that will extend my life just a little. Other than that, just changing my diet and being (more) careful, is about all I can do. I just cannot believe there’s nothing. Just nothing after death. Trying to get into the mindset of reincarnation, but that won’t work unless I can remember that I was me before I got this new body.
What’s strange, though, is that Dr. Eben Alexander mentions nothing of "judgment day, pearly gates, who will know who, who chose the right religion, etc. Just that wherever you wind up, it will be a beautiful place where no one can do wrong.
Thousands claim to have made the “journey”, and if only one is telling the truth, shouldn’t that be enough.
Venturing too close to Debate, so I think I’ll hang out here a bit and see what else y’all think.
Thanks
Q
I say no…because there’s no conceivable way of knowing which one is actually correct. Their stories have interesting similarities, but they also have crippling differences: they certainly can’t all be right.
It’s a little like saying, “All the world’s religions posit life after death. If only one of them is right, shouldn’t that be enough?” And the sad fact is, no, that, alone, isn’t enough, because it doesn’t give us any concrete guidance.
(Maybe some new religion – the prophet hasn’t yet been born who will reveal it to us! – is “correct.” There is no possible way of rebutting this possibility!)