Death scares the crap outa me..and I believe

[White Crane Feather]

I wouldn't worry about the atheists. God has got to understand, being that He has made it so hard for rational people to believe in Him.

Plenty of rational people believe in god... And it's not that hard.

[SHaYap]

god ain't handing out prizes on who meets him first

unless god is she, then you don't want to keep her waiting ....

Edited April 13, 2013 by third_eye

[Frank Merton]

Plenty of rational people believe in god... And it's not that hard.

First of all, one can be rational and still have irrational beliefs. In the end anyone who has given it study and a lot of critical thought ends up not believing. They may not dis-believe, but believing in God is irrational, and in the end believers admit as much by resorting to faith or personal experience or something along those lines. They believe what they want to believe and they have faith and the idea of God's spirit and of course the community and how they were raised to enfoce it. None of that makes it rational.

[AsteroidX]

Noone should fear death. Billions have died before you or I and they have no ill effects from it.

[Frank Merton]

Noone should fear death. Billions have died before you or I and they have no ill effects from it.

Except that they are dead.

[Frank Merton]

The tunnel is to my knowledge a recent and entirely Western idea. The Vietnamese think ghosts are spirits of people who died violently before their time, as in accidents or wars or disasters. When their time comes they will be reborn just like everyone else.

[flbrnt]

I have some expertise. I have had a triple bypass, a heart attack occurring on the table, my second pacemaker and 10 stents-what is called a full metal jacket. I have been living like this for years-far longer than I ever expected to. I have passed through the stages of dying into one of acceptance. Everything looks different from this perspective and I no longer have the fear associated with dying. Does something come after? I can't say. It doesn't seem important, but I am open to the possibility. When I was young I dreaded this stage but now I am here life is as good, maybe better, than it has ever been. Happiness is at the end of the rainbow.

[White Crane Feather]

First of all, one can be rational and still have irrational beliefs. In the end anyone who has given it study and a lot of critical thought ends up not believing. They may not dis-believe, but believing in God is irrational, and in the end believers admit as much by resorting to faith or personal experience or something along those lines. They believe what they want to believe and they have faith and the idea of God's spirit and of course the community and how they were raised to enfoce it. None of that makes it rational.

I think you are wrong on this one frank. There are plenty of people that have given it a tremendous amount of study and critical thought, and come to the opposite conclusion. Leaving personal experiences aside for a second. Once one looks deep enough the existence of what some would call god seems to be a near certainty. I'm not talking about a god of any particular religion, I'm speaking of a universal consciousness, The spirit that moves through all things, wakan tanka, Krishna, the great spirit etc etc.

One only needs to understand 2 things to pretty much ensure the existence of something we might call divine. The nature of 'Time' ( which I know we agree on), and evolution. Having a tad bit of knowledge in the quantum mechanics department helps to shed some eronius pits that people fall into though.

Edited April 14, 2013 by Seeker79

[Frank Merton]

"God" is a person -- that is, he or she has personality, individual identity, maybe even emotions and certainly individual thoughts. God acts in time and in history. All this is just simply absurd and can be dismissed by people who have not been trapped by the Western religious indoctrination.

What you speak of is something else, and something that I will agree is quite rational, in fact, almost undeniable, but pretty much incomprehensible. The Tao is the Chinese name for it and when Buddhism entered China they instantly saw the worth of the idea. It is what natural selection tapped into to give early organisms progressively more and more sentience, to give the mammals emotions and to give us intelligence and free will. It is what makes karma (in the non-Judgmental Hindu/Buddhist sense) work and gives right and wrong objective reality. It may even be what makes up the universe (Spinoza-like Einstein thinking).

[mysticwerewolf]

As an atheist I am not afraid of death, most of the time, I know that I will simply fade away, cease to exist and not know anything more. all the pain and problems and misery and taxes and everything else will simply be Gone. POOF . Every once in a while I temporarily move towards a more uninformed view of the universe. is there a greater plan or something beyond this present realm that I do not and or cannot understand? ..... but the moment I look out into the universe I see children starving and people dying of disease and war and murder and all the other horsemen who were never given names I return to unbelief.

I saw a bumper sticker a while back that said..."So god made me an atheist, who are you to question why." Nothing personal to anyone here or their beliefs but if there is some all powerful, all seeing, sadistic, Petulant child punishing his toys because they won't play the way it wants, magic man god out there somewhere then it fits. and I know that stating what I just stated would have a lot of people pushing the Dislike button if there were one.

Next to the first sticker was another bumper sticker that said " Someone has to go to h... to make heaven worth while. Might as well be me."

Edited April 14, 2013 by mysticwerewolf

[Mikko-kun]

I dont frankly know what's on the other side, but I've come to accept death more and more. It's not what's on the other side, nor even what you believe in, not fully, but how you work out your own beliefs. You can throw everything you think you know aside because if you haven't died before, no memories of it, and if you had and remembered, that'd say something wouldn't it.

Death is a release and alleviation of universal living space in this realm we live in. When death takes, new space is opened for new life to flourish, and the new space is needed because this realm can support only a limited number of life due to living things eating each other and having personal conflicts. So through death we find new life. Just like through replacing old ideas in science with newer ones we find more enlightment.

[onereaderone]

the simple answer is the hardest to swallow ... a dimension has at least these three qualitys ... 1)an infinite quality ... that is the 2) finite quality multiplied and infinite number of times. 3) the base quality is a system of measurement as much as a quality...

eternity for exsample is a moment that repeats and infinite number of times ... the period of the change is time ( the base )

infinite space ... is a single location repeated a infinite number of times .... space is as much the unit of measure as it is anything else ...

as for god ... that is hard to nail down untill you look at what a personaly awareness really is ... it is a condition of orderly behaviors , unique to a place and a time . its more than a interface between time an space... but it is written upon that interface ... inbetween the mind and the body...

the mind lives in time and history.... the body occupies space and size or location ... that infinite multiplier makes little sense untill you see the whole universe as the thing that repeats ....

you personaly are a tiny part of a thing that repeats eternaly... and as a fraction of a infinite thing... you personaly are eternal .... except as you are disorderly to the whole ... that part is inverse to the infinite, or void ...

christians call that sin...

but frankly speaking... a christian will never understand or even beable to read this... for fear it might make sense... and not be in the bible ... and muslims will want to kill me if they think it makes sense ...

but the simple truth is... this is not just true , it is a word discription of a computer model , that discribes the physic's with precsion of reality ... frankly speaking , scream at me all you like... this is simply the way it is with or with out your bible or beleif system .... and for the athiest... bad news... there is a god , and he really does love you .

[Frank Merton]

We might as well accept death; we have no choice in the matter.

[onereaderone]

infinite space is one dimension ... awareness is the transdimension ... time is the other dimension , each personal awareness is the interface between a mind that feels and records change , and meters time as change happens...

and the interface with the body that has location , weight and measure of space .

awareness / soul or person-hood is not either body or mind... a death body lacks awareness... but a person playing a mmorpg is very much aware ... because their being is in the space of the cyber-space .

practicaly speaking... god is real and i can measure him/her ... define god and its not that hard , getting god to fit a computer model is a bit harder , but only a bit harder . getting god to fit the easter bunny and santa claus is something i will leave to church's ... frankly speaking, religon as a class of behavior needs to hide behind mystery so people stop thinking ... very much like the goverment hides ufo data / reports and evidance .

[onereaderone]

... death is over rated ...

your awareness is a reincarnation of a eternal soul .... the wow news is " you always come back as you , and you live the same life , eternaly being you ..." you do not live 10 , oo diffrent lives... you always live the same life your living right this moment...

...in other words...

your eternal you talks to you all the time... its that still soft voice in the back of your head telling you not to go out on this date... because you know whats going to happen even before you get in the car.

[White Crane Feather]

"God" is a person -- that is, he or she has personality, individual identity, maybe even emotions and certainly individual thoughts. God acts in time and in history. All this is just simply absurd and can be dismissed by people who have not been trapped by the Western religious indoctrination.

What you speak of is something else, and something that I will agree is quite rational, in fact, almost undeniable, but pretty much incomprehensible. The Tao is the Chinese name for it and when Buddhism entered China they instantly saw the worth of the idea. It is what natural selection tapped into to give early organisms progressively more and more sentience, to give the mammals emotions and to give us intelligence and free will. It is what makes karma (in the non-Judgmental Hindu/Buddhist sense) work and gives right and wrong objective reality. It may even be what makes up the universe (Spinoza-like Einstein thinking).

Well.... Yes. I however am not inclined to totally dismiss the possibility of a superconcious personality. Indeed it would seem that evolution of 25x10^300000000 billion years might be capable of evolving a divne like being or two.... Or ten.

Consciousness is very stable once it can consciously evolve itself it's an exponential explosion. The only things that exist into the future are things that are stable or can reproduce themselves and evolve as conditions evolve. Of course give an infinite amount of 'time' before ours this means it's already happened and we are most likely living within it and apart of it. There are dozens of ways for a divine like being to fall out of enough evolution. I have often wondered if life on earth is actually a developing embrio of a much larger and sophisticated life form. But these musings are irelevant. It is not illogical to believe in divinity. In the end it is not going to bend to the anthropomorphic tendencys of man, but that does not mean it has consciousness that is dispersonal. Indeed if I knew the bacteria in my stomach were living thinking emotional beings, i would want to have a relationship with them. After all they are apart of me.

Edited April 14, 2013 by Seeker79

[onereaderone]

...get over it...

you know what i am saying is the truth , just reading it... something in you is jerking back , making you blink .

the simple truth is the hardest thing in the world to understand , you want it to be more , or diffrent... or complex .

its not hard to understand or see... but you do need to open your eyes and stop trying to make up magical spirits and spooks... fantacy is so much more fun... but see with your eyes , feel with your heart , think with your brain... do not confuse the roles....

[onereaderone]

you do not need billions of years... you do not need evolution... you need two or more dimension ... and the force function of a crystal amino asid ... driven into reality by order ... an eternal order which is more than everything.... and your a peice of it... you look like it... your patterned after it...

[Frank Merton]

Well okay, I can accept the idea of the Tao being a sort-of evolved life form, but I doubt it. It seems to me much too anthropomorphic and unnecessary. It just is. There is no need to worry about where it came from because it didn't.

The Buddha rejected questions of this sort -- it is asking where the poison arrow was made -- but Buddhism in China merges so easily with Taoist philosophy (more difficulty with Taoist religion) that the two seem to each solve the riddle the other leaves alone.

[onereaderone]

this is really not that hard to understand , if all the forces are the same.. the outcome will be the same ... and you will reoccure , as everything around you will reoccure ... the grand pattern is like a train... but the sparks flying from the wheels change... how great the change is asking , how great is the train that drives it...

[onereaderone]

buddhism does not take it far enought... the void is not simply nothingness.... the void is the infinites...

not just the infinites we know... but the infinites we can only guess at... and infinites we can only feel .

buddhism seeks this state of balance out.... and they have not the slightest clue what they are seeking...

the void is a nightmare... it is the thundering scream of changeless horror... pain would be invited in void just to relent from the singleness of it

[onereaderone]

to know void , is madness ... if you can manage to grasp the void for more than a few minutes , you will feel thousands of years and fractions of seconds , eons of space in the cosmic , and subatomic smallness... all in the same gasping horror... the ele of polarity ripps you apart , the psy fills you with knowing of being.... and you....

you are aware as god is aware... and your not up to the task , you are very much not up to being where god stands in the void...

[White Crane Feather]

There is no need to worry about where it came from because it didn't.

I'm not worrying frank. I'm exploring. The reality of the great spirit probably quit literally cannot fit into my head. I'll let other people let it cause them stress. It gives me a wonderful wonderment and deep appreciation for all life and existence. Many times in meditation in the wilderness a deep elation of pure existence has come upon me. After a recent experience I have been learning to carry it with me. Stress is a necessary part of evolution, from life forms themselves, to the mind. The Buddha mabey didn't teach this, but he defiantly practiced and went through it. If I want to be like someone, I don't do what they say, I do what they do.

[onereaderone]

... put bluntly ....

been there , done that ... and i was not a happy camper ...

its not hard to go crazy and loose the minds hold , find your self babbleing about stuff no one will ever understand.

... and honestly , you end up very happy that you do not have to stare down eternity alone ...

the military application is that you can also take peices of history from the future ... and your not bound by space .

you can see the solution before you arrive at the problem ...

[White Crane Feather]

... put bluntly ....

been there done that.... find your self babbleing....

I don't doubt you a single bit.