Why fear death? (not a joke)

Anesly I never said I want anyone to pity me or change their minds for me. I am at the crossroads of teenage and adulthood. I know alot, but not as much as most of the other people on this site, so I was asking for some opinions. I thank you for giving your opinion on it, but if you think that I have problems because I ask for some opinions from the older gamers on an issue that at the time of writing the original post I didnt completely understand in the REALITY forum then go elsewhere. I had an issue that I want to be completely clear about so I brought it up on the reality forum. If you didnt like MY question then why didnt you just moved over the thread? It seems to me you do like my question seeing how you posted your opinion. Most poeple who doesnt like a certain topic stays clear of it, but it seems to me you are of the contradicting type. You say you hate my question, but yet I see your opinion below that. So, I guess I have to put my topic and then put "if you dont like the topic stay clear of this thread" in (). Wait.........nevermind I will not do that because it is not my stupidity that said:

Anesly said:
Short answer: your question sucks.
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and then proceed to say this:

Anesly said:
Long answer:

Humans have this ability to imagine themselves in someone else's shoes. It's arguably one of our most important traits.

Your question seems disingenuous to me. Are you honestly saying you can't possibly imagine why someone might fear death? I don't believe in any sort of an afterlife, and the thought of my own death just gets a "meh" out of me, but I don't think it takes that much work to come up with a couple of situations where you might be afraid of death. For example, you are a religious person, you believe that if you do certain things you will be rewarded after death, and if you do some others you will be punished. You hope your "good" column is longer than your "bad," but there's really no way to tell until you're dead, and by then it might be too late. Or you have some loved ones who depend on you for support, and you are afraid that if you die they will not be able to take care of themselves well. Or you believe you have a certain mission in life and you fear that if you die you won't be able to accomplish it. See? Not that hard.

You don't seem to like some of the answers people have given for why they fear death, which makes me think you're fishing for someone to either change your mind, or to have the poor death-fearing-schlubs be awed by your epiphany that "death is inevitable" and change theirs. Most people are already well-aware that death is inevitable, and in fact, it being something you can't escape probably contributes to, not detracts from, their fear of it. You're asking people to tell you highly subjective and personal reasons, and then arguing with them when their answers aren't good enough--like asking what everyone's favorite color is because you're "just trying to figure out" what colors people like, then telling them they're wrong when their taste doesn't exactly line up with yours.

In your first response to Kat, you start narrowing down the definition of "death" (for this conversation) to a ridiculous point. You say it's ok to fear the "before and after," but you don't understand why fear "death itself." When people speak of death they're not just speaking of the millisecond when they stop breathing (or whatever other measure they're using to gauge life vs. death)--they're speaking of the time and events
leading up to death and what might come after. Again, I find it really hard to believe that this never occurred to you.

You also say "Why make an 'event' so depressing?" Are you kidding me? Humans imbue events with meaning and build emotions around them. It's what we do. We celebrate birthdays, religious holidays, sports, get depressed about stuff that happens to our friends, at work, when our favorite toy breaks, whatever. Death is by no means the only place where we make an "event" depressing/happy/takeyourpick.

If you honestly can't imagine where people are coming from on this and you're an adult, you have issues. Big ones.
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The point of the thread is to get the issued cleared up for me, but yet you come and claim my question sucks. Ok, it "sucks" to you. Fine no problem, but then explain to me why did you give your opinion on the question that you claim "sucks"? Why tell me it "sucks" then proceed to give your opinion which sounded more like a flame against me for not being clear on "Why fear death"?

One last thing like the forum's description says:

This forums is for real life related posts. If you don't care about the real life of others, don't read it.
 
*sighs* anesly, be nice. Is it honestly neccessary to be a "you-know-what" (this aint the flameboard, ill leave it be) when the person seems sincere in the question?

Anyway, I'm with Aubrie. Even though I am a religious person whose afterlife isnt determined by my good or bad deeds but rather, what I believe; I still have some uncertainties about death. I'm not afraid of death, but certainly how I might die.
 
Aristotle had a lot to say about death, and what he figured it would be like. Maybe you should go look him up and see how he felt about it? I am a lot like you, heaven, hell god, satan don't exist to me. Going through those boring books did give me some insight into death and how other people view it. I know Aristotle wasn't afraid of death and that he compared it to a "dreamless sleep."

Now for the curcumstances under which you end up dying...That is my biggest fear. I don't want to know I am going to die. If you give yourself time to think about death, that is when it becomes scary. My mother died when I was 16 years old of breast cancer and it was a long drawn out 6 year battle....She knew it was terminal from the start but still she fought on. I can't imagine waking up every morning KNOWING that I was going to die of a horrible disease and it would be slow and painful...I still don't know how she carried on.

Another thing that urks be about death is that unless you do some amazing thing in life....200 years from now your name will be lost and all memory of you will be gone. Not to be too lame but theres a great line in Troy when Achilles is being woken up by the little boy to go fight, and the boy says that he would be afraid to fight the man Achilles was going to and Achilles says "That is why no one will remember your name." I could rest a lot easier if I knew that my name was secured as one to remember froever....
 
Really nice post Aither. My Deepest Sympathies to you and yours with your Mamma. I honestly still to this day, don't know what's worse; NOT knowing your loved one is gonna die and not bein' able to say goodbye. Or, knowing your loved one is gonna die and being able to say good bye every day and not knowing if it is their last.

I've seen both types of circumstances. (Well, actually I've seen alot of death, but I'll just use 2 examples). Of course the one example is my Sister and alot of you already know the story behind that. I won't repeat it again. Now for the story of my Mother-in -Law:

This woman was truly a Saint. I cannot think of one bad thing to say about my Mother-in-Law, Margie. She was diagnosed with the worst form of Diabetes you can get. By the time this woman finally passed, she had almost gone blind, lost her right leg, her kidneys had failed, lost her left toes, had had 2 heart attacks, and was getting ready to lose the rest of her left leg. And STILL she fought!!!! Remarkable woman. She passed on October 9th, 2003. We buried her on her 59th Birthday on October 12th, 2003.

Needless to say, I spent as much time with her as I could before she died. No regrets, got to tell her I loved her, and to stop fighting. She was free to go. I honestly can't say which I'd rather have.

My sister Angel, who I didn't get to have closure with, or someone I was able to, but had to see all that pain.

Anyway, my main bitch about this whole thread is the comment about " ... us controlling our own fate". I'm sorry but that is just the biggest bullshit line I've ever heard. I could tell stories upon stories where this just is NOT true. That is where my argument has been coming from. I feel when we are born, our path is already set before us. We have have the choice of the right road or the left road, but basically the road to the end is the same. That is all.

Btw, probably a bad example, but an example none the less. Watch the movie "Butterfly Effect". Granted it's just a movie, but I think you may get my meaning there.
 
I'm really sorry bout your Mom-in-law and your sister Kat...our family is known to have diabetes..so I need to stay healthy

And to Anesly..seriously, if you don't like the topic, then DONT make a post! If you wanna make a flame..do it in the flameboard or through PM's, I'm not going to bother arguing with you.

Sorry for off topic @_@
 
My dad told me something the other day, it was supposed to be something a writer had said or something:

"Sleep is just a tiny slice of death"
 
I feared death a little bit as a young lad, but only until I got laid.
 
anesly said:
Humans have this ability to imagine themselves in someone else's shoes. It's arguably one of our most important traits.
Click to expand...

I don't. Which is probably why I feel so detatched and inhuman sometimes. I have no ability to imagine what someone else feels, and if somebody feels differently than me, automatically, in my head, they're wrong and I'm right. My empthy and sympathy suck. I've always been detatched this way, and I don't understand it. Just like not having any unresonable fears, it makes me feel as if I missed out on something decidedly human...
 
*whistles...looks up* "Ozmg tis a giant ICBM from teh Soviets"

One would probably freak out in this situation because well, you are about to be incinerated, you can't do much about it unless you have super powers. Inevitability, the loss of control is a fear triggered solely because of the desire for people to be in control when they are fundamentally not. So I'd say its the ego: no ego = no sense of self = no control = well I'm doing alright. Obviousl;y, most people dont make that jump because daily life that we live in is a constant graping for pleasure...that soon slips away and we are content with a game of grab and touch instead of some loger lasting pleasure. I'm probably wrong though. I think its a good question, just a random one.
 
*Pats Mattaru*

Youre guess is as good as mine. It's not like any of us actually -know- the truth lol. But I am amazed that I have the same opinion on death as Aristotle. Maybe i'm smarter than I think.

I too agree that this is a valid topic of discussion. Random, but no less valid.
 
First, I gotta say, Ansley's post was very well thought-out. If you want to read it as a flame go ahead. I would venture to say that her post merely served to call out and question some of the deeper reasons this post started to begin with. She puts her "meh" spin on nearly everything she says - but it's dripping with reality and validity, if we could all take off our "defensive glasses" for a second and just sink our intellectual teeth into the meat of what she said.

Next...death is something that is unpredictable. It can't be understood. Ya'll dismissed Sneaky's comment but there's an tidbit of non-bullshit in that too. It's the same reason milestone birthdays suck. Death is the time that they say - whoever THEY are - your whole life flashes before your eyes. Now...say what you will NOW, but in that moment, in any moment of deliberate an uninhibited self-examination - you will be harder on yourself than you ever have been. I believe that the purpose of being is to leave a legacy. However small or great, your presense lives on through the bits of energy and wisdom you leave behind. Whether it be through your children, through others, through the knowledge you contributed to improve the state of humanity - whatever.....I have things I still want to accomplish that I believe will improve pockets of society. I want to get 'em done. I want to raise my children. Damn right I'm scared to die - I have a lot more living to do first.

The vision of the woman I want to become isn't realized yet. Until it is, death is not welcome at my doorstep. Okay, so if some crazed psycho killer shows up at my doorstep - I'm gonna die. If someone is out and about and chatting on their cell phone and some freak accident happens..or cancer..or a million other things that COULD happen to put a premature end to my existence happens - then it's lights out. Can't prevent it. And maybe it's even less fear I feel about that than just pure pissed-offed-ness. I'm not ready - hell, I may never be ready. I love living, and I seriously doubt that as long as the brain in my head is functioning, I will want to keep on truckin.

Final point, though, is this. NONE OF US REALLY KNOW HOW WE'LL FEEL WHEN WE'RE LYING IN THAT NURSING HOME AT 90 YEARS OLD AND STRUGGLING TO BREATHE, MOVE, OR EAT. We have no idea whether we'll be ready or not. When that split-second hits us - we really can only imagine and speculate. In the meantime - why preoccupy ourselves with thoughts of the end? The only answer I can come up with is that it allows us to focus on the NOW and reminds us that the precious few years we have here should be lived. And lived well.
 
<---Is impressed, yet again, Jez. :)

Good stuff! /cheer
 
I see her point Jez, but like I said in my last post to Anesly:

darkenatrocity said:
I had an issue that I want to be completely clear about so I brought it up on the reality forum. If you didnt like MY question then why didnt you just moved over the thread?
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I did take her opinion into account as well as everyone else. It is just the fact that I made the tread to get this cleared up for me and she comes along and flames the thread as well as me. I have the respect to over look certain topics which I would be tempted to flame the poster on how stupid the topic is.

1. she flamed the topic:

anesly said:
Short answer: your question sucks.
Click to expand...

2. she wrote her opinion:

anesly said:
Long answer:

Humans have this ability to imagine themselves in someone else's shoes. It's arguably one of our most important traits.

Your question seems disingenuous to me. Are you honestly saying you can't possibly imagine why someone might fear death? I don't believe in any sort of an afterlife, and the thought of my own death just gets a "meh" out of me, but I don't think it takes that much work to come up with a couple of situations where you might be afraid of death. For example, you are a religious person, you believe that if you do certain things you will be rewarded after death, and if you do some others you will be punished. You hope your "good" column is longer than your "bad," but there's really no way to tell until you're dead, and by then it might be too late. Or you have some loved ones who depend on you for support, and you are afraid that if you die they will not be able to take care of themselves well. Or you believe you have a certain mission in life and you fear that if you die you won't be able to accomplish it. See? Not that hard.

You don't seem to like some of the answers people have given for why they fear death, which makes me think you're fishing for someone to either change your mind, or to have the poor death-fearing-schlubs be awed by your epiphany that "death is inevitable" and change theirs. Most people are already well-aware that death is inevitable, and in fact, it being something you can't escape probably contributes to, not detracts from, their fear of it. You're asking people to tell you highly subjective and personal reasons, and then arguing with them when their answers aren't good enough--like asking what everyone's favorite color is because you're "just trying to figure out" what colors people like, then telling them they're wrong when their taste doesn't exactly line up with yours.

In your first response to Kat, you start narrowing down the definition of "death" (for this conversation) to a ridiculous point. You say it's ok to fear the "before and after," but you don't understand why fear "death itself." When people speak of death they're not just speaking of the millisecond when they stop breathing (or whatever other measure they're using to gauge life vs. death)--they're speaking of the time and events
leading up to death and what might come after. Again, I find it really hard to believe that this never occurred to you.

You also say "Why make an 'event' so depressing?" Are you kidding me? Humans imbue events with meaning and build emotions around them. It's what we do. We celebrate birthdays, religious holidays, sports, get depressed about stuff that happens to our friends, at work, when our favorite toy breaks, whatever. Death is by no means the only place where we make an "event" depressing/happy/takeyourpick.
Click to expand...

3. she flames me:

anesly said:
If you honestly can't imagine where people are coming from on this and you're an adult, you have issues. Big ones.
Click to expand...

What I dont get is why would you flame my topic then proceed to give your opinion then to wrap it up you flame me because I cant imagine something you can!? It is stupid and just makes you contradict yourself. Now what she said on her opinion of "death" is a good one, but for future purposes dont flame a topic then give your opinion then end up flaming once again. It just makes you look like a contradicting fool. If you really wanted to flame me then be my guess that is what the flameboard is for, but till then please keep your flames to yourself. Thank you and have a good day. Come again! :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: :twisted:
 
/sigh

What she was saying, I think, is that you posted this and then have glossed over some of the real input you've gotten. No, not a flame, just an obervation. We've all had external experiences with this, some arguably worse than others..however..

You asked about fearing death..defined it as that split second where the lights go out (at least that's how it read)...and then someone just tried to expose your hidden agenda. You appeared to be looking for a particular response or reaction. That is what Ansley pointed out.

And you're correct, this isn't the flameboard, but others do comment on topics here. Don't be so defensive there killer, she thinks the topic sucks. So what? Again, this isn't the spot for flaming, but a little good ol' healthy banter hurts nothing. If one brings up a controversial or emotionally-laden topic, one must be expected to see some charged responses.

I'd also be curious about your responses to the content here. Rather than be upset about her implied flame, why not respond to the comments? That would be reality.
 
lmao.........because I dont reply to all the posts doesnt mean I gloss over them. I am the kind of person where I get as much info in at once. I take the info in, organize it, and then comprehend it. If I deem it important to post back I do, but if not I just let the posts come in gathering all the opinions/information I can get. Sorry, but anesly did give her views (which is completely fine). I just dont like the disrespect because I dont comprehend things/ideas the same as him/her. By, all means if you dont like the topic either listen to what it says about the forum or just post the topic is lame or stupid and be done with it. I can careless if someone thinks my topics are stupid, but I do start to care if someone is going to flame my topic and then turn around and want to throw their opinion out there then turn around and flame me. See.....I am not going to let someone come on to the thread I started because I need some "help" and start flaming me because I havent grasp a certain concept. You wouldnt like me to do the same to you. My point is dont do something that you wouldnt want to be done to you. If for some odd reason someone thinks I just ignored their opinion please dont because that is false. I have taken EVERYONES opinion to heart. I am sorry if I dont reply to a certain post. Forgive me if you thought I have overlooked your post.

*sorry for any errors in writing I was typing fast*
 
Well, I hadn't read this topic for a while.

Ok, to start: when I said "your question sucks" I was trying to say not that the topic itself sucks--I think it's interesting to hear different people's take on the issue, but that your question was faulty because of the things listed in the rest of the post, the major one being that you seemed to dismiss the answers that didn't exactly align with yours. The idea was that the "short answer" part of the post would give you a summarized idea of one of my points, and the "long answer" explains why I think the "short answer" part is true. In other words, the sections of the post relate to each other and aren't just random paragraphs included for the hell of it.

I personally think that even if you can't empathize with someone's reasons for fearing death, you can think of what might lead someone to do so: for example, I can't really say that I empathize with the idea that we're here to do X, but I can stretch my imagination a little to figure that if I did, the thought of dying before X was accomplished might stress me out a bit.

I said:
If you honestly can't imagine where people are coming from on this and you're an adult, you have issues.
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First, note the "if you're an adult" part. In your response to my original post you said you're not quite there--so this doesn't apply to you. I was actually entirely serious in that statement--if you are an adult, and feel wholly detached from the world to the point where you can't even imagine why someone might possibly fear death, I think you should at least consider talking to someone about it.

And lastly, nowhere in the forum guidelines says you have to agree with someone to post in their thread. In this specific forum, it says "if you dont' care about the real life of others, don't read it." That refers to people who post "I don't want to hear about your school/family/social life because it's not the game" type posts, not people who disagree with you or even someone who might think you're dumb, or whatever. If you do only want to hear people who agree with you, I suggest you discuss these things with close friends whose opinions you already know instead of making it one of your first posts in a forum full of strangers.
 
In my opinion we fear death cause we dont know what will happen to us after if there is "Heaven" "Hell" we dont know where we will end up in and we might fear death for that also in my opinion i fear it because of the eternal life i dont know if we will get tired of it and if we end up in hell we will have a eternal life of pain and suffering thats my opinion and i also respect others ppl opinion
 
Well sorry its a bit late but what really caught me was Dark's thinking. It appears very closely to mine. Everytime I try to get my mother to do crazy things like skydive, she is too afraid to. She has a fear of heights that is so unreasonable...I just cant understand how it can be so bad. I dont really fear death. I dont really get upset when someone older dies. They have had a long life, and have accomplished quite a bit. Younger people are a little more regrettable, but still....just having the opportunity to live is amazing.

I have given up on organized religion. Christianity is so corrupted its ridiculous. Budhism is a riot...they created gods AFTER the religion was founded. The one I liked the most was Japanese Shinto which sadly cant be practiced really outside Japan. That does not mean I cant be a good person. Nobody knows for certain what happens after we do die. There is no sense in fearing it though. Yes I will walk more cautiously on a high ledge that is very thin. Will I freak out and start crying though? No. If I die tomorrow, I will have died having caused no great hurt to anyone, and dare I say, have made others lives better. Animals do not fear death because they cant. Now people have so much time on their hands, they can think more. Death is just taught to be feared in our culture. Others accepted and even celebrated it. In one culture, a prisoner sentenced to death would walk with great celebration.

I dont know if any of that makes sense to anyone else. But dark, I feel you. But then again we are about the same age. I dont feel immortal, but death seems far enough away that there is so little point thinking about it, that it doesnt matter.

Faedryth
 
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