The General Mental Health Forum is now a Read Only Forum. As we had two large areas making it difficult for many to find, we decided to combine the Mental Health & the Recovery sections of the forum into Mental Health & Recovery as a whole. Physical Health still remains as it's own area within the entire Recovery area.
If you are having struggles, need support in a particular area that you aren't finding a specific recovery area forum, you may find the General Struggles forum a great place to post. Any any that is related to emotions, self-esteem, insomnia, anger, relationship dynamics due to mental health and recovery and other issues that don't fit better in another forum would be examples of topics that might go there.
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Kristen.NewCreation and FreeinChrist
What does this mean, by the way?Well, that is and is not a solution to your problem.
You fear the ending of (your) existence... and your "solution" is to assume that there will be no ending of existence. That may alleviate your fear for now.
But it doesn't solve the general problem... because as long as you do exist, there is the option of non-existence. And so your fear will never go away.
So ultimately, for your fear, it doesn't matter if there is a Heaven/new earth/afterlife, or if there is not.
The only real solution is the realization that non-existence is nothing to fear.
Indeed. But that has almost nothing to do with the solution for this problem.
The connection may not even be in the direction of "I am an atheist, so I have to find a solution for the problem of death.", but in the opposite: "Death / non-existence is not a problem, so I don't have to find a theistic or atheistic solution for it."
Atheists are often asked how life can have a "meaning" if it is limited. The answer, in line with this thread's question, is of course: as long as there is life, there is meaning. Without life, the question for "meaning" has no meaning.
You might say that but it does not mean it is true. This statement is no better than some atheists who say that talking or praying to a nonexistent God is a mental disorder. Both statements are ridiculous.I could even say that not fearing non-existence is a mental disorder.
Correct, I really don't understand it. Please explain it to me.It should be clear to all that death is very scary. I don't believe you have really understood how scary it is.
Interesting. Perhaps this is based on a wrong understanding of "nothing". Which isn't a major problem, because as I see it, it is impossible to understand "nothing".Think, for example, that there was nothing. Not only no spacetime but no laws of physics either. To me this thought is for some reason very frightening. The way the universe's size is limited is scary, also.
Hm. Existence is obvious. So we already have "all this"... and I admit that "all this" can indeed be very scary in its incomprehensible vastness to a limited puny little human mind.But what if in addition, there is no God in control of all this? AAAAAAAA! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And that is what I am trying to tell you: this problem is irrational. It is simply not existant.And being dead doesn't make me anxious, the thought of it does.
It's an inside joke. One of the... well... more unorthodox posters here made the comment that all believers believed in the same deity... just "theologically different". Except those pesky atheists of course.What does this mean, by the way?
"Devout believer in a theologically different God"
Your life began, and before that, you had no meaning. Your life will end, and after that, you will have no meaning.Having a life is the greatest gift of all, but atheism would mean I don't have one. My life ends and is meaningless so I never had one to begin with.
Living forever in the past is not even possible. That way I would be infinite years old. And everyone knows that you can't ever finish infinite years, there's always more, so there would be no possible way to arrive in the present. On the other hand, living infinitely into the future is possible (not considering the heat death of the universe).Your life began, and before that, you had no meaning. Your life will end, and after that, you will have no meaning.
You are alive now, and you have meaning.
Embrace what you have, not what you will have... or else you might lose what you had.
Fear of death may be useless, on a higher level (it does protect me from dying to some degree). However it's not irrational. That my life could be limited is something to fear, but that fear doesn't just help me at all.Correct, I really don't understand it. Please explain it to me.
Interesting. Perhaps this is based on a wrong understanding of "nothing". Which isn't a major problem, because as I see it, it is impossible to understand "nothing".
But I still don't get why that should be frightening.
Hm. Existence is obvious. So we already have "all this"... and I admit that "all this" can indeed be very scary in its incomprehensible vastness to a limited puny little human mind.
And that is what I am trying to tell you: this problem is irrational. It is simply not existant.
It is already irrational to be anxious of things that cannot harm you. Most phobiae are of that kind, but they are still real... and they relate to situations that can indeed happen.
But this... it simply is impossible for this to happen to you. The one situation where the "end of existence" is completely irrelevant is in nonexistence.
There simply is nothing to fear about death.
It's an inside joke. One of the... well... more unorthodox posters here made the comment that all believers believed in the same deity... just "theologically different". Except those pesky atheists of course.
I pointed out that, in this case, atheists also believe in this same deity... just theologically different in the way that they believe that this is a nonexistent god.
And it's a good conversation starter.
That is a massive misunderstanding of the involved mathematics, in both these cases.Living forever in the past is not even possible. That way I would be infinite years old. And everyone knows that you can't ever finish infinite years, there's always more, so there would be no possible way to arrive in the present. On the other hand, living infinitely into the future is possible (not considering the heat death of the universe).
Using a wrong frame of reference for that. The value of something is limited to this something, is not a fixed value, and isn't streched out to cover instances beyond this something.There is infinite time and my lifetime (likely around 80 years) is 0% of it. Even if my life is very important, it's value can be calculated by multiplying it's importance with that zero. It always gives 0. Life must be eternal to have value.
You keep repeating that it is something to be feared... but you never bother to explain the reason.Fear of death may be useless, on a higher level (it does protect me from dying to some degree). However it's not irrational. That my life could be limited is something to fear, but that fear doesn't just help me at all.
And it didn't elevate or bother "you" in any way... because there was no "you" to hope or fear. It will be the same after you die.I must add that before I was born, there was still hope. I was to be born in the future.
I will readily admit that I am no psychatrist or psychologist or any other kind of mind-tinkerer. I do not really understand what motivates you here.Same with sleeping, anesthesia and 1000 year cryopreservation, nothing to worry about. I will wake from it. Death, according to you, is permanent.
If I popped back into existence for a day every million years, it wouldn't be scary.
You want me to accept that death is nothing to fear. I can easily stop fearing it but it's still a very undesirable state. Living is a good state to be. Death is neutral because you don't experience anything or even exist. You are trying to convince that death is not bad, but I never meant to say so. It's merely worse than living.That is a massive misunderstanding of the involved mathematics, in both these cases.
In the first case, it is inevitable to "arrive in the present". Every single moment along this infinite line of time IS the present.
But here, this is not the problem. Consider: if you exist - and especially if you exist in a situation where you once didn't exist - there is always the possibility of non-existence.
If you - irrationally - fear non-existence, and exist eternally... you will never ever stop fearing to not-exist.
Using a wrong frame of reference for that. The value of something is limited to this something, is not a fixed value, and isn't streched out to cover instances beyond this something.
If you followed the mathematical reasoning of your example, it would mean that in an eternal life, no single event could ever have any value... because any possible value divided by infinity is also 0.
Congratulations, you now have eternal life, and this eternal life has "value". But nothing IN your eternal life has any value.
It simply doesn't work that way.
You keep repeating that it is something to be feared... but you never bother to explain the reason.
And you also shift your targets. That your life is limited is indeed something to be feared. Death is something to be feared. It is real, it will happen, and it will harm you. You have to deal with this fact and with this fear.
But you started with saying that "not experiencing anything" is the thing you fear... and that is irrational... because it is absolutely, totally, completely 100% IMPOSSIBLE.
It is not only something that is unlikely to happen to you, or, if it does happen to you won't harm you in any way. It is something that just is not real.
And it didn't elevate or bother "you" in any way... because there was no "you" to hope or fear. It will be the same after you die.
I will readily admit that I am no psychatrist or psychologist or any other kind of mind-tinkerer. I do not really understand what motivates you here.
If you came here and told us that you feared open places, I wouldn't know how to deal with that. The fear of open places is irrational, but open places do exist, you can experience them, and this might cause you fear.
I could tell you that open places are nothing to fear... but you just do. It is nothing rational. I understand that... I just don't know how to solve this.
But you are also here to defend your fear. You adamantly insist that open places MUST be feared. That people who do not fear open places are suffering from "mental disorder". And that you only do not succumb to your fear because you KNOW that all open places will be roofed over and narrowly walled in.
It seems to me that you don't want to remove your fear... you just use it as a cherished tool to defend your personal view of a solution.
I don't want to sound contrarian here... I think we are getting closer in our opinions.You want me to accept that death is nothing to fear. I can easily stop fearing it but it's still a very undesirable state. Living is a good state to be. Death is neutral because you don't experience anything or even exist. You are trying to convince that death is not bad, but I never meant to say so. It's merely worse than living.
Yes, thinking about non-existence is hard... because in order to do it "right"... you would have to stop thinking about it. To stop thinking at all.Our brains aren't made for thinking about non-existence (I can see this a bit in your reasoning too).
Well, from the other side... because Jesus didn't rise from the dead, and God doesn't exist... you still don't need to worry about all this.By the way, because Jesus rose from the dead, God exists and I don't even need to worry about this at all.
They way I think about it as that I was dead for billions of years before I was born..... and it was OKThese panic attacks are becoming more common.
As a person who is very interested in physics, I'm reading quite often about complex and very deep scientific theories. Somehow that leads to me thinking about nothingness, or what if there was nothing instead of a God and an Universe.
Then I start to panic as I realize no one, and most importantly me, wouldn't exist. I couldn't think, feel, affect my environment or anything. There wouldn't be anything to experience, EVER! (((((Normally reading the previous sentences doesn't make me anxious but when you think about them really hard, it does!))))))) At this point I am sweating, my heart rate and anxiety levels are very high. I get a fight-or-flight reaction and want to run outside, quickly.
The climax of my attack occurs when I realize that yes, I am really going to die! Forget about Heaven, it's just a lie made to comfort people!! The thought of nothingness is scary enough even if it doesn't happen to me. At this point the anxiety and horror is so great that I distract myself and relax.
I am very unsure of God's existence although when I believe in Him, I believe that Jesus died for my sins etc. and therefore consider myself a Christian.
So these are the scary things that scare me:
- the complexity and weirdness of everything (pick any object and just think about it)
- WHY does the world exist??? If God created it, who is He to be SELF-EXISTENT!!! This is scary! This leads to:
- what if the world didn't exist at all?
- what if God doesn't exist and I will be non-existent in the future
What should I do?
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