Death

[mosimo]

Which is worse to look forward to after death either a world without God where the highest form of spiritual power is Satan or to actually cease to exist. As many atheists believe man is just a highly evolved animal which came into being by chance. Therefore death according to a atheist would be the complete loss of consciousness. Joe after he dies ceases to exist. Any ideas or secrets that he dies with are gone. That may seem distant and disconnected when you consider Joe is just someone you do not really know. Yet lets bring this scenario closer to home. Your wife or your sister or even your mom anyone in your family who you are close to or even your best friend is now on their death bed. They were in a car crash. They had year of life and opportunities ahead of them yet now it is all coming to a close really fast. They are not in pain because of the medicines that are being given to them yet their time is very limited. In a few seconds they will be gone forever. Anything that you felt together will no longer matter they cease to exist. This memory is hard to live with after you leave their bedside. After their body in now only a piece of empty matter. Then years pass. You are getting old your time is coming. You now have cancer the silent killer. You are told you have three months to live. Which really means you have three months until you cease to exist. You come to your own death bed. Feel you heart beating you still have consciousness yet coming is the knowledge that you will soon cease to exist. You will not carry away any memories of good deeds, you cannot take anything with you. You will cease to exist.

The clock rings midnight. What do you feel? Nothing you cease to exist.


Now does not hell seem more inviting then that?

[Bakiryu]

it sounds like bliss. Imagine heaven as they view it. You are aware, awake, surrounded by people, in the presence of a god who is always watching.

Nonexistence is bliss compared to that and life.

[mosimo]

No I am comparing Non existence with hell not with heaven. In the definition of hell that I am using for this thread hell is the place where everyone who cannot stand God goes. This is actually an argument against those who say God would not allow a hell but would rather allow those who die not believing to just cease to exist. Hell for in this definition would not be a place where all who do not believe would go after death. In such a place they would be given eternal life and all other benefits of Heaven just no God. Satan in reality has no real power just the desire to make others do evil, which he accomplishes through tempting and twisting peoples minds. A person of good intentions and high moral standing could enter hell and live a life not much different from this life he lives on earth now providing he is strong enough not to give in to all the others who are evil around him. The thing with having eternal life he would not most likely be able to make it. The punishment of hell comes when you cannot die and you cannot escape from their.

Yes when confronted with the choice whether or not to live eternally in a broken world or to cease to exist many might think that they would like to cease to exist. Nevertheless what they really want it a time of peace. They just want to disappear for a time but be able to later return. Think would you wish to loose all you future and really cease to exist. You might not have really pondered this question. Normally such questions only arise when you have reached the end of your string so to say. You wish to let go of the string to rest and get away from the troubles yet in reality you are not ready to take that last step and stay away for good. In my case I have desired that I could cease to exist or die for a few years and then return but to cease to exist indefinitely is to much to ask. In my case I would rather spend infinity in imperfection then infinity in nonexistence. Maybe after two thousand years I would wish to recall my choice yet I would rather even now wish to be able to resent by choice then have that choice be my only choice.

Many, myself included, fear God because of his greatness and therefore might be willing to spend eternity in hell for that reason. Yet who because of hate of life would be willing to spend eternity really in nonexistence. the word itself just leaves an empty feeling. I am not talking about eternity in a state of slumber but in true nonexistence. It is almost imposable even to understand that statement yet when understood it carries with it fear.

[Sweets America]

What you describe suits me perfectly. I like this idea of nothingness, it is reassuring for me. Concepts like Heaven or Hell do not appeal to me. I prefer thinking that there is nothing, I find it a lot more soothing.

[mosimo]

I used to like that but try thinking deeper. What really does not existing really mean?

[Bakiryu]

But hell is existence, what more hell than this world and life?

[Scheherazade]

"Hell is other people."

~ Jean-Paul Sartre

[wilbur lim]

Have no fear of Hell,if a tragedy categorically happened,no one can ascertain whether the dead souls shall go to hell or heaven.Ultimately,if the before of you were benign,humane and thrust in God,God will send you to His home,up in the Empyrean.

Satan is in charge of the torturous Hell.He is much more powerful than God,for trails and tribulations can easily be happened in anyone.Contradictory,triumphant and happiness which are from the LORD is hard to attain.
RADICALLY,INCENTIVE AND ENIGMATIC.

[Jozanny]

I used to like that but try thinking deeper. What really does not existing really mean?

Not existing is the loss of conscious identity once the physical body breaks down into its relatively few component parts. Using Satan and hell as a romantic definance against an *all powerful* being may have its attraction for those who want the comfort of immortality, but it no more or no less holds up against established doctrines.

Once upon a time I wasn't here. My mother and her brother and sister were part of the WW2 boomlet--for them, Truman wasn't a black and white newsreel. For me, he is. Now my mother is no longer here, and if anything fully confirms my lack of belief, her death does, because my mother needed Jesus toward the end of her life, needed that redemption for the suffering she imposed on her children because of her suffering in turn--it evaporated in the three years since her sister's husband found her on the floor, a victim of cardiac arrest.

Neither she, nor any of the dead I knew, walk with me, but in memory, and one day it will happen to me too. Does my will like it? No. I don't have enough time, maybe, to make my mark as a writer who will continue to be discussed, but there is absolutely no evidence that consciousness is immortal, that souls are independent essence, that God(s) and heaven(s) and hell(s) have spatial legitimacy.

It is part of being human to long for things, but that longing doesn't mean that our existence is exceptional, or has a supernatural purpose to it.

[V.Jayalakshmi]

Dear Members,

I must say I am in concurrence with Jozanny.All that is said by Mosimo is because he exists now and can think and say it.Even his concepts of hell and the supreme being are because he exists now and his endowed consciousness because of his 'live' state allows it.We really do not have enough data to know what lies once the door of existence closes.I only know that when sudden extinquishing happens as in the case of near and dear,our own 'living'state is hell with memories.Especially young deaths.

[curlyqlink]

I used to like that but try thinking deeper. What really does not existing really mean?
I find the concept of non-existence really quite simple. It's a blank. Nothing, zero, zip. Nothing simpler. In fact, I don't understand how it can be seen as complicated. Or feared, for that matter.

Think of what you were before you were born.

I am fascinated at all the ingenuity that been expended over the centuries devising various concepts of hell. From Dante's Divine Comedy (and before it), it seems that people find hell much more interesting than heaven. Heaven is usually conceived as a fundamentally boring place. It is pedestrian, either a kind of eternal family reunion or a place of placid contemplation, a kind of Yoga session that never ends. Both are things we'd do our utmost to avoid here on earth.

Hell, on the other hand, offers all sorts of interesting possibilities. Sweet revenge on our enemies, who will finally get their cummupance. Or we get our masochistic streak massaged (Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...) In any case, it's an action-packed place, filled with all sorts of cruel tortures, either physical or psychological. Conceptually, heaven really does pale in comparison.

[NikolaiI]

I find the concept of non-existence really quite simple. It's a blank. Nothing, zero, zip. Nothing simpler. In fact, I don't understand how it can be seen as complicated. Or feared, for that matter.

Think of what you were before you were born.

I am fascinated at all the ingenuity that been expended over the centuries devising various concepts of hell. From Dante's Divine Comedy (and before it), it seems that people find hell much more interesting than heaven. Heaven is usually conceived as a fundamentally boring place. It is pedestrian, either a kind of eternal family reunion or a place of placid contemplation, a kind of Yoga session that never ends. Both are things we'd do our utmost to avoid here on earth.

Hell, on the other hand, offers all sorts of interesting possibilities. Sweet revenge on our enemies, who will finally get their cummupance. Or we get our masochistic streak massaged (Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...) In any case, it's an action-packed place, filled with all sorts of cruel tortures, either physical or psychological. Conceptually, heaven really does pale in comparison.


I agree with you in the first part, but disagree with some other things you said. "Think of what you were before you were born" is a very good point, and it's an open-ended question which is not simply or universally answered. For me, the contemplation was what it would be like not to exist, after my life was over. If you close your eyes and really contemplate it, you can only barely grasp that there is another level, which is not really graspable but we can only lean towards it-- when we, the subject, cease to exist. It's quite interesting.

I also agree with you that there is nothing scary about death. I read an interesting book called "Living in the Light of Death" which talked about learning to live without attachment, I guess. Death has never been scary because I cannot say that I would want to be immortal. I cannot say that I deserve, or that the world would need, me to live to be immortal. And this is true whether I am 20 or 80. It's just that when the time comes to leave this world, there is no good value of putting up resistance. Resistance always is shown to wear the body and mind down, for these reasons I don't fear death.

Also I understand death to be complete peace, for precisely the reason that we cannot fully comprehend it. If there is nothing which is comprehending, then there is nothing that is suffering.

As to your ideas of heaven and hell; I will just say that I disagree and you should allow me to, since I am doing so simply and not attempting to confute you. We can discuss other subjects even though I believe in God and you do not.


No I am comparing Non existence with hell not with heaven. In the definition of hell that I am using for this thread hell is the place where everyone who cannot stand God goes . . .

I agree with you that what most people wish for is not non-existence but peace. For all of my life, I have had this exact view.

There is one idea that Renunciation is a valued quality. For instance, if I do not renounce anything, then I become very desirous. If you could create your own reality, then there would be some measure of how much you were enjoying. Were you playing guitar, or singing and dancing, expressing yourself, as it were? If you are able to be renounced, however, then you are not dependent on anything external to enjoy. You are not dependent for instance on alcohol, television, some kind of food, or drugs. It is not that you should renounce everything, but if you are not dependent on certain things it is much better.

Since you do not need them, it is a good thing-- this is very easily explained in the example of cigarettes. A smoker may spend $5 a day on cigarettes, but if this money were saved, it would quickly accumulate into a great amount. So the renuncation of the cigarettes is equal to the value of not using them-- monetarily, health-wise, mental and physical.

Of course some things are enjoyable which are good for you; reading, playing, launghing, running, conversing, all these sort of things; and they are natural activities. A lot of the rest that we do is not so natural, so if we resume the natural activities, our lives will naturally become much healthier, happier, and easier.