I suppose theres a little piece of me that assumes that I’m immortal and I can’t die anyhow (the glories of youth). I hear it only takes three generations for the average person to be forgotten. (Couldn’t find a source on this but I would love one)
For me its terrifying if only because it’s unknown. I’ve always believe death was like a dreamless sleep or when you blink and six hours have passed. But its like, what is it like to not exist? Its not like anything, but its not like I’ve ever experienced nothing, therefore I don’t know to cope with not being anything. You can’t experience nothingness. My brain is always cranking out 40 thoughts at once and then it just stops?
And from there I usually spiral into an existential crisis.
Add +1 to the “beats the alternative” crowd.
Can you imagine a friggin’ eternity?
No you can’t - after the first 10,000 years, you’ve met everybody, know all their life stories, and just want some peace and quiet.
You know, like all of us, who simply ceased to be, have had for 10,000 years…
As to effect on the living?
snort, chuckle…
I have known for many, many years, that, if my death makes the news, the story will include:
“…authorities entered the residence after neighbors reported a strong smell.”.
If you want to worry about dying - throw that prospect into your calculations.
It doesn’t bother me at all.
No, not really. One of my of my greatest terrors is that my consciousness would survive my death, and I would spend eternity trapped in a decaying body. So simply ceasing to be, which is what I think happens, sounds wonderful by comparison.
The idea that someday I will fall asleep and never wake up again terrifies me and I just hope that I manage to live long enough that physical immortality becomes feasible and affordable.
Doesn’t bother me at all. In fact, belief in an afterlife would scare the bejesus out of me. My lack of belief is what makes this life so meaningful.
I’m in the “Meh, what can you do about it?” camp.
I had a heartattack last year and looked death in the face for a bit. Once I made sure my Advanced Directives were on file and my gf knew how much I loved her, I felt peacefully serene.
I think the meaningless of existence means that it only has the amount of meaning you give it.
I think the lack of afterlife is a pretty sad state of affairs, and I’ll always carry with me a certain melancholy because of that. I think the saddest thing is seeing people acting in a petty or mean-minded way, and thinking “there’s so little time - why act like that?”.
But they and I will be dust, forgotten in the end, and in the meantime consciousness is its own reward.
I find the meaninglessness of existence to be comforting, actually. It means I get to, have to, make meaning myself rather than having it assigned by some higher agency of uncertain benevolence. And the lack of an afterlife is also a good thing; it means that this life is not a test.
Doesn’t bother me at all, to be honest, I really struggle with the thought of not existing. In the abstract, I hurts my brain trying to imagine, me, personally, not existing. I KNOW it, but I can’t imagine it.
The only thing that I worry about is suffering some random, traumatic, violent death.
I’ve known pretty much forever that life ends when we die, so I’m perfectly used to, and in acceptance, with the proposition.
It’s no big deal. And if I live long enough I may even welcome death. Sort of like Monty Python in “The Meaning of Life.” I’ll invite him in with a glass of chardonnay and a smile.
Doesn’t bother me at all. I never found the slightest shred of solace in the thought of an afterlife, even when I was an admittedly lousy believer.
I don’t fundamentally understand the idea that life has no meaning without an afterlife. Would the afterlife require an afterafterlife to have meaning?
I don’t want my loved ones to die because I am losing them and my life without them is smaller and sadder.
Think of someone who died during the glory of Rome, watching the world after his death and seeing all he helped to build destroyed, with his descendants killed or driven off. No thanks. The past is not that great either, but at least your ancestor won out to the extent of leaving a bit of themselves which became you.
No thanks, I’d rather be oblivious.
The eternal dreamless sleep does not frighten me.
I believe the transition from life to death will be unsettling, though. Not looking forward to that.
I believe that many people want to believe that there lives had meaning, and that there is some sort of fairness, justice, or some kind of balance to the unfairness we see in our lives. Spiritual and/or religious beliefs are, in many ways, an attempt to address that, I think.
I have no choice about it, so it doesn’t really matter.
I’ve heard this before, but I don’t buy it.
I don’t mean to pick on you (several other people have made similar statements) or claim that you don’t believe what you’ve written, but when I really think about this, it doesn’t work for me.
The reason I’m afraid of future unknowns is that time is directional (or at least I consciously perceive it directionally). I’m not afraid of the time I didn’t exist prior to becoming conscious because that’s in the past. I’m also not afraid about the time I nearly drove off a cliff in high school, or how I might have died of a nasty infection a few years ago, although I sure as hell was afraid of those things at the time. But now that those things are in the past, of course I’m not afraid of them. And I know that in all three cases, I made it. There’s no existential crisis in not having existed in the past because I exist now. That’s not the case with my future death.
To answer the OP: I am both troubled by and content with there being no afterlife. I do fear death, and I wish I could live longer. Perhaps not forever, but certainly much longer than I’m likely to. On the other hand, I’ve come to terms with it. No point in constantly worrying about something you can’t change. Reality is what it is.
With apologies to Arthur C. Clarke, “Two possibilities exist: either there is an afterlife or there is not not. Both are equally terrifying.”
Does it trouble you that there’s no Santa Claus? Do you spend sleepless nights wishing there were a Tooth Fairy? Do you wish you lived in a reality that had an Easter Bunny?