What does death mean to you? Is it the final process? Think of your first experience of life, the beginning of life after death, a joining of the spirit with cosmic consciousness, rest and peace, a continuation of the spirit? How has culture influenced your understanding of the meaning of death? How has religion influenced your understanding of the meaning of death?
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18 responses to “Death”
Death to me, means that the memories and thoughts housed within this person, “Tabitha”, cease to exist. My atoms and molecules re-assemble themselves elsewhere, at least some of them do, so, in a sense, i somehow re-join consciousness. To me, that is beautiful enough. Physics is beautiful enough, and the thought of my atoms and molecules becoming part of a cherry blossom, or something, is just fine. I do not believe in a heaven/hell, or that i meet people i once loved again when the body that houses this consciousness dies. I believe heaven is here, now. The streams and the mountains and the trees are more beautiful to me than any heaven i’ve ever been told about. Religion and culture influenced my understanding of death in my younger years. I was raised catholic and taught to believe that if you do good things, you get into heaven. Now, i just do good things for the sake of doing good things, and not for some reward when i die. I don’t believe my beliefs will stand in the way of me exercising compassion for someone who is dying. In my Social Work courses we are taught to help individuals to use the positive aspects of their faith and beliefs. If someone believes they are going to meet their deceased grandfather upon death, and they find peace in this, i foster that positivity. I don’t tell people what to believe. People can believe whatever they want.
@Scarlett
The religious misunderstanding is that if you do good things you will go to heaven.
I think it is more like if you connect and fellowship with the very Spirit of Life you are regenerated and re-energized in such a way that the good things are simply a symptom or sign of this. A good and healthy tree bears good fruit. But attaching good fruit to a dying tree does not make it healthy or any more alive.
We get it backwards in thinking that forcing the symptoms of such a fellowship, will somehow evoke that fellowship.
We think that displaying the climbing gear will cause the mountain to come to us; rather than us having to go to the mountain.
I became confused by death when people who taught us that Heaven was awesome would cry for a loss, when according to what they taught; they should be happy for that stiff in the casket.
Prior to that; I used to think in anticipatory terms that I had a trip to Disney world booked at some point in the future. Anticipation is what makes the ultimate destination a better overall experience.
I then I grew up and understood how stupid I had been. And then I grew up some more and came to understand that it isn’t an either/or question, but one that just because we don’t know the answer…that something totally our of the realms of our understanding has the potential to exist.
That being said, to act like there is something; the immediate benefits associated with contentment that are a part of what happiness is; are experiential in the here and now.
Religion uses a fundamental fear to set up a carrot for the easily manipulated. You then get confusion associated with God and religion the same way people mix up love and fucking.
I am philosophically a proponent of Pascal’s Wager. I’d be surprised if you haven’t looked at this, but if you are not familiar; look it up.
@spitfire3dc I have been exposed to Pascal’s wager. I see nothing wrong in that type of thinking as long as one keeps one mind opening to various potentialities. Personally, I feel like if we close our mind to anything completely we risk ignoring valuable info that could raise us to higher levels of consciousness. I mean, I’m not completely closed off to the ideas that were Taught to me as a small child, tho I find it highly
Unlikely. Even if we are part of a simulation, what’s the force behind that? I feel like there will always be mystery to explore.
@Scarlett
I hold that there will always be mysteries and “magnificences” to explore; provided we don’t disqualify ourselves from it as mere idiologues of death!
@spitfire3dc
Lol at the analogy between God/love and religion/fucking!
(Or being fucked!?)
Or alternatively, could religion be more like a masturbation? You on you for the sake of making you feel better?
And then doing it in a group would just be a huge circle jerk?
It’s a buncha BULLSHIT!!!!!!
@luftballooneyegouge death itself? or that death doesn’t exist?
@Scarlett
Death itself.
For decades the body is resilient, adaptable, & self-renewing with yummies.
Then all of the sudden it isn’t.
WHAAAAAAAT EVERRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!
This is one of my favorite video series on death:
I faced the Grim Spectre of death when I was 10 or 11. Society’s understandings of death we’re just way too scary for someone of that tender age, rushed into appendectomy surgery five days after the fact. The religious understandings of death were a real buffer and lifesaver for that scared little boy.
But currently I am not a fan of either the religious or the secular understanding of death. I think both have gotten it significantly wrong.
The discovering of my true spirit (vs a “lost soul” or a “temporal blip”), led me to a fuller fellowship with the very Spirit of Life . . . meaning that I daily Journey into the Limitless possibilities of Cosmic Consciousness, and reap the benefits of love joy peace and purpose greater than self along the way.
I believe the physical death of this corporeal organism, will simply mean the same process but minus the limitations of physicality.
If I’m right, I will have a huge leg up in whatever is to come.
if I am wrong, I will have lived a magnificently wonderful little life as a loving joyous peaceful meaningful temporary blip!
@griz do you believe any of your thoughts, feelings, memories from this physical reality live on?
@Scarlett
Will the phenomenological self be present? I think so, but can only make a child’s guess as to the form and degree.
The reasons I believe this are very complex, but I’ll try to articulate a few.
1. The Christian Bible. While I am no longer a religious Christian, I’ve seen too many of the principles and promises written there born out in real life to just dismiss the ones I have not yet seen born out. More and more apparent incongruities have transformed themselves into congruities in ways I would have never expected, reinforcing the notion that I am just the proverbial child trying to grasp quantum physics.
And they seem to promise there of phenomenological awareness of self as part of a greater whole/organism ( the analogy of a marriage and of shared rulership, with no disunity).
2. I see both in nature and in my spiritual fellowship the concept of a Creator-of-intent-and-purpose. Wastage seems an anathema; as does needless suffering (cast over a long enough context). Conscious awareness for no-greater-purpose then to just die, seems like such a frivolous and expensive waste of resources.
Even if we eliminate The Divine and we are left with no higher authority than corporeal temporal evolution, higher self awareness apparently has a survival value preserved forth over hundreds of thousands or perhaps even millions of years. And not just as something we can better pollute body mind and ecosphere with!
———-
There are other reasons inhabiting more the realm of philosophy. But I’m still too new in the study of this to articulate them well without running on and on!
As I may have already done!
I literally have been impressed I am unkillable.
I have been through a long list of things which should have killed me, but have not.
It is mostly an aura of grace which does this.
Or maybe I just never wear the red Star Trek tshirt.
Sadly, not a lot I can do with this superpowers. For instance, a few weeks ago I was vomiting and shitting blood for a good week until I saw the right doctor.
I can also supernaturally yell, but this probably mess with my neighbors minds.
I can not imagine not existing.
@five2one
“I think therefore I am” – Descartes
or,
‘Because of what I am, I think’ – Rogers.
I guess it depends on what you exactly mean by “death.” Are we talking about the moment of death? That moment can be so painful, so terrible, so scary, so tragic. Are we talking about the nonexistence after that moment? Probably the epitome of peace. The idea of it used to always scare me as a kid. I believed in ghosts and whatnot and watched things like Ghost Hunters and Ghost Adventures. I was scared I would be stuck in the area of my death forever. It has come to be the ultimate peace due to how I have grown to see the world and existence in general and since I don’t believe in ghosts anymore. To no longer having to deal with pain, suffering, fear, worry, heartbreak. The only real fear I have of it is if it is possible for my consciousness to be created once again. It is with that that I’m not sure if it is the final process or the absolute end.
@yin oblivion doesn’t sound bad, sometimes. Life is decent too, though. The only suffering is due to attachment, I think.
@Scarlett That’s a fair way to feel. My feelings on it is just so different or warped or whatever word you want to use. One of those things that I just can’t shake and has become a part of me. Could be worse though, I guess.
The end for the mental and physical makeup that is me. And I’m fine with there being nothing else.