I keep having these periods of 'what if there's just total oblivion after death and no hope of anything being left of you ever'. I'd like to believe in a God, but all I can really manage is a vague hope for good things, not a real solid belief. And the idea that we just stop forever terrifies me so much I can barely cope. Large chunks of the time I'm not thinking about it, but if I can't distract myself and let myself really think about it then it all comes rushing back, and it makes me think this fear is always there and I'm just papering over the horror with pathetic distractions so I forget that I'm completely wasting what little time I do have and. I'm just so tired. And scared. And tired of being scared.
*hugs you* I know this feel very well. Even with my rather firm belief in a life after this one I still am just filled with terror about this.
I have moments where I can tell myself there is one, but they usually occur when I'm already happy and content about things. If it goes out the window the second my mood drops, or I feel unwell, I don't think I can call it faith. It makes me feel like the good times are just me lying to myself. I'm pretty sure the answer, or at least the best one we've got right now, is that everybody worries about this and there is no answer, we just have to keep going anyway and try to make it worth it. But even if that's probably true, it doesn't actually fix the problem, and it especially doesn't make things better when it's two in the morning and I feel too miserable to sleep and too selfish to wake anybody up just to be miserable at them. Part of me wants to say that the uncertainty is the worst part, not even knowing whether or not there's an afterlife, but on reflection I don't think I'd deal really well with a definite answer of 'no'. (Also, thank you for the e-hug.)
My worst fear is learning that the answer is a definite no. I just. Really don't know how I would handle that. If I could handle it. Also faith is a really hard thing. I wouldn't say that this necessarily means you lack faith in an afterlife, the way it works with you. Ultimately it's up to you to decide if you are faithful, I guess? Doubt's a pretty big thing with stuff like this. Especially where it concerns "fair weather faith", I suppose we can call it. But again that's your choice. Just want to let you know that you can be faithful even with that sort of thing. Shit's rough.
There is the question of how we'd even get that answer. A 'yes' just needs someone to bring back evidence, but confirming a lack of something beyond a shadow of a doubt? There's a reason why it's considered near-impossible to prove a negative, and that's with stuff we can actually see and touch. I think I generally fall somewhere in the range of 'awkwardly Deist'. I have general hopes about benevolent spirituality, but I can't manage specifics. Then again, my family isn't too big on organized religion in general. Mum's Catholic on one side of her family, Jewish on the other, and managed to come out an agonistic with a slight left turn into some of more the secular aspects of Hindu philosophy. Dad self-describes as 'an Old Testament New England Puritan', which as far as I can tell means that he's so intensely Protestant that he's a bit suspicious of all this 'Son of God, duality of Father and Son' stuff just in case it counts as worshipping false idols. He's even worse about the Holy Trinity.
Having this problem pretty bad again, by the way. Just felt a little better putting it out there somewhere instead of going with the whole [screaming internally] strategy of emotional management.
Same here :( Rationally, I know that it doesn't really matter because I wouldn't be around to experience oblivion, that's kind of what it means, but it's still a miserable thought. I felt a bit better after researching parapsychology and finding logical holes to pick in arguments against it - check out here, and I fell out with this guy over politics but he has some pretty sensible ideas philosophically speaking. I really need to break the habit of going through these obsessively though, I know perfectly well that's only making my anxiety worse.
OK. This one comes from the rationalists, so salt to taste, but: In most of the cases of brain-has-decided-to-be-existentially-terrified, I've found that it's often a matter of brain feeling bad and then making up an explanation to hang the feeling-bad on. This means that, most of the time, trying to engage it directly is Solving The Wrong Problem. I usually proceed directly to distraction and self-care. It's a valid philosophical question, but the vast majority of you should treat it like all the other times your brain decides to throw things at the wall until something sticks. Because that's what it is.
I have the problem that when I try to talk my brain out of terrifying death anxiety, I'm generally depressed enough that it finds no middle ground between that and "death sounds great, let's go grab some pills and try it".
It doesn't help that the most prominent figures on both sides of the debate so often turn out to be horrible people.
joining the same hat train I managed to get away from the childhood fear of hell just to replace it with fear of nonexistence which is an improvement, but still really sucks
My current anxiety compulsion is to read and reread articles on the things I linked to about death. I'm trying so hard to stop but did it six times yesterday, even though I know it's only going to make me feel worse later. Honestly, I don't mind if it ends with not existing, I just wish the NDE experience happens to everyone so all the lives that have been filled with nothing but shit get at least a moment of being okay :( The other problem I have with it is both atheists and super-religious people have the same attitude of "I'm cool with what I think is going to happen, screw you if you're not, I got mine". Yeah, that's great FOR YOU. The religious people thinking everyone not like them goes to Hell is obvious, but for the smug atheists, what about all the people who haven't had a great life and a peaceful path towards death as you're having? Both sides have so many people who slide into practical solipsism. (Obviously doesn't apply to all or even most of the people under each heading, but the ones it does apply to tend to be loud about it.)
If it helps at all, there is a philosophical theory that doesn't require religious beliefs; namely, if the universe is infinite and our consciousness came into existence once, it must eventually do so again. Also a scientific theory; eventually people will figure out the patterns of reality sufficiently to know how to summon up specific consciousnesses and they'll bring yours back, and put it somewhere nicer.
I'm really late on this, but do you have any links or further reading on this bit? Sounds like something that might help me a little.
