(If you have anxiety about death then maybe you shouldn’t read this post, just letting you know!)

Edit: Thank you guys for being so quick to post your comments and give your thoughts, it makes me wish I said something sooner rather than dealing with it on my own. You guys are seriously awesome, and have made me want to fight way harder to be a better person for my friends and family, and everyone else around me. I think tonight I’ll finally be able to sleep, and I’m looking forward for tomorrow and to be able to talk to my Dad about how I’m feeling and what I’m thinking about all this, and to spend as much time with him as I can. Take care of yourself guys! And again, thank you so, so much. I seriously feel way better and my anxiety is a lot less now.

Before joining Lemmy I used to be a devoted Christian since my family raised me as one and have been Christians for generations. And to add important context, I’m not talking about judge mental homophobic trump supporting Christians that judge gays and everyone else they see who don’t live the way they live. I’m talking about being a real follower of Christ who loves thy neighbor and knows we have no right to judge, not what most church’s are today who just exist to make a profit. My family are bible based Christians and raised me as one too, not by propaganda machines. (Or at least the propaganda that politicians or “Church’s” who exploit vulnerable people for their money like to spread around. The “buy my book to change your life” or “plant your $1000 seed” type of shenanigans makes me sick.)

Anywhoo, while being on Lemmy and learning a lot about U.S. politics I just have never seen on other social media sites like X and Reddit, and talking about science, capitalism, global warming, and so on and so fourth with the incredible people on here, it has really broaden my view on certain subjects and be a lot more open to a lot more ideas, one of which is Atheism.

I haven’t thought about it too much, but recently my Grandfather died and so my emotions and thoughts have wandered about him and about loosing someone I care a lot about, and then a question popped into my head; is he truly in a “better place”? Do they actually go somewhere? What will happen to my Dad?

After that random thought, my brain has kind of spiraled out of control about this topic and I haven’t been able to sleep well since I’ve been having anxiety thinking about death. What is the point if all of life (our life) is truly just our brains, and our brain stops working? Is it really just, nothingness? What is the point of making all these amazing memories with family and friends that I cherish more than anything in the world, if all these memories are going to be forgotten? Whether its today, or 80 years from now? With this ideology, when I stop breathing, I will quite literally become nothing. There will be nothing. I am dead. It’s made me into this “why should I care” mood about almost everything.

I think I’ve kind of made my anxiety worse during the last few nights since I also decided to look up what its like to die and what scientists have said about the topic, whoops! Turns out our brain can still think 2-15 minutes after our hearts stop beating! I know I’m joking here which I tend to do when I’m in these situations but I have been extremely anxious when it comes to the fear of death. Not in a “I’m scared to use this knife to cut a slice of tomato” kind of way, but a “when we’re gone there will be nothing and I will remember nothing and become nothing” sort of way.

Not trying to get political here, but with this thought in my mind for the last couple of days and hearing about situations like Palestine has made me completely rethink everything like life itself, and now every time I hear about Palestine or Ukraine or whatever else going on in the world, I can’t help but burst into tears.

Sorry for the rant or whatever this is, just asking what you guys think or how you live your life if thats alright. Take care of yourself!

  • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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    Here’s my take - if there’s any merit to the heaven and hell stuff, it’s purely in the last minutes of you actually dying (assuming a not-sudden death). Something your brain might conjure up before you go, premised on your remaining memories and attitudes towards life. If you mostly feel guilt about what you’ve done in your life, it will probably be an experience akin to hell. Joy, and a bittersweet sadness about leaving this world? Probably closer to heaven. And perhaps many various experiences in between that don’t neatly map to this. All mostly a play of the last final, firing synapses before the curtain falls.

    If we take this approach, what does it say about living? Well, I’d say that it’s important to live as fully and well as you can. Do good things. Make good connections with other humans and love people worth loving. Help people out. Have a laugh, read a good book once and a while. Live a life that, when it’s all said and done, has honestly good material to draw from in those final moments before oblivion.

  • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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    The common argument to this is why does it matter as you did not exist before your birth (unless you believe in reincarnation). It helps to learn a lot about time space. Particularly how forward and backwards does not matter much to it time wise and how long after you are dead your life could be observed if looking from other areas of the universe. So to some degree regions of time/space like our lives are eternal we just don’t realize it.

  • Rooty@lemmy.world
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    I frankly find the idea of an afterlife horrifying. You’re a disembodied conciousness existing eternally - not a million years, not a billion, endless existence.

    And what are you supposed to in the afterlife? Have a family reunion? Replay your fondest memories like you’re watching an old VHS tape? Explore your wildest fantasies (but not the ones your deity frowns upon)? In the long term it just sounds as agonizing as hell.

    • dukeofdummies@lemmy.world
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      Oh my god yes!

      I always thought that heaven sounds like hell. It’ll be great for about a week but eventually nonstop perfection would become so monotonous. Like playing a video game that you completed for all eternity. It’d be the worst kind of torture, to make everything you love into something you get bored of.

      • Cracks_InTheWalls@sh.itjust.works
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        Real talk, as a kid Final Fantasy Legend on the Game Boy is how I got exposed to this kind of thinking, and the implications have lived rent free in my head to this day.

        It’s a bit on the nose, but that kinda lends itself to a kid picking up on it.

    • helpmyusernamewontfi@lemmy.todayOP
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      I’ve seen a lot of people here comment the same thing, I find that really interesting! Maybe I haven’t thought deep enough into it, but I would much prefer an afterlife if I had the choice. But even when I still prefer an afterlife, you make a really good point as to why an afterlife sounds scarier than just dying, so thank you!

  • Apathy@lemmy.world
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    To explore and understand the significance of your existence because from my understanding ( ignorant ) we don’t really have an answer to our origin but rather an idea. History which is knowledge passed down, is always written from the perspective of the “winner” and rarely the losers.

  • Semperverus@lemmy.world
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    The purpose of life is to experience it. Experience as much of it as you can, before you can’t anymore. The good, the bad, the mundane, or insane.

    Try to live a good life. What the definition of “good” is will be different for each person, but a few general categories include being good to others (help when you can), being good to yourself (don’t be your own worst enemy, mentally or physically), and being good to the world (leave it better than you found it).

    Cherish the things that you have, and the things that you don’t.

  • BrianTheeBiscuiteer@lemmy.world
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    As Ricky Gervais once said (paraphrasing), “If you went to see a movie and in the middle of it realized it was eventually going to end would you just say, ‘Oh, I guess I’ll leave because there’s no point.’”

  • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
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    It’s not black and empty. There’s no you to feel those things.

    The mind is what the brain does. It’s a process, not a thing. It doesn’t ‘go’ anywhere, and it doesn’t sit there chewing on a lack of input either.

    The brain stops doing, the mind stops being.

    As for the point of it all: smoke 'em while you got 'em. Live your life, and try to make the world a bit better for others.

    After all, there’s nobody running the universe. Nobody to take care lest a sparrow fall. No justice, no redemption, nobody balancing the books. The only thing in the entire universe that gives a damn if we live or die is each other.

    You want a purpose, there’s your purpose. To do what only people can do: care about people and try to make their time on this rock better than it otherwise might be.

    • helpmyusernamewontfi@lemmy.todayOP
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      care about people and try to make their time on this rock better than it otherwise might be.

      so many people have said exactly this in the comments, so thank you for being another one of them! I actually sat down and thought a lot about how I’ve treated other people and have been working on completely changing that. I’ve recently messaged someone who I blocked many years ago and said I was sorry for being an idiot and being rude where I really shouldn’t have been, cause people like you have made me realize how stupid I really have been back then and how much more important other peoples feelings are. he actually forgave me and seemed happy about it, and gave me some good advice. that was awesome! I’ve been trying a lot harder today to make strangers days better and a little happier when we meet and move on from each other (which can be pretty challenging to do with some people on the internet, but possible!) and it’s definitely made my anxiety a lot less, not completely gone away though and I hope to get back to a somewhat normal state soon where I can sleep better at night. I hope its not selfish for trying to become this person only after having someone close to me die and having these thoughts roam around my head, I just never have put a lot of thought into other peoples feelings or the situations they’re in. I have made a promise to myself though to keep trying for others even if and when I start to feel better again myself.

      wow sorry for the rant, thanks again and I really appreciate your comment!

  • serfraser@sopuli.xyz
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    I think the point is to just enjoy what you can while you can. And if you can help others you should do that too.

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    I would flip the question. If there is a heaven or afterlife, then what is the point of living? Really, what’s the point if you just get another awesome life later on? Is this all meaningless aside from proving to God that you will praise him?

    Without an afterlife, then the life right now takes on so much more weight and importance, because it’s all you get.

    • helpmyusernamewontfi@lemmy.todayOP
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      To me, it was about carrying all of those amazing moments in life you cherish so deeply and bringing them with you to the afterlife. If it does exist who knows what will happen over there, but my fear is not that I’ll just lose touch, sense, sight or smell. But that I’ll lose all of my memories and experiences with my close friends and family that I hold so close and cherish more than anything. When I die, I want to remember my Dad and everything we’ve done together for eternity. It sounds weird, but that was just my way of thinking

      • Knuk@lemmy.world
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        Maybe you’ll enjoy my point of view about this. I’m atheist, I do believe there’s nothing for us after death.

        What I like to imagine though is that through our lives, we’re weaving this tapestry with everything that we’re doing, and every hug and good moment is permanently on there. Time is a dimension we’re moving forward in but that doesn’t make the past stop to exist. Does that make sense?

        Like after all is finished, all your memories and good events are still on there, in a tapestry we’re not able to perceive but still real and permanent.

        I use tapestry because I imagine if we’re moving through time as a dimension, in a way we’re kinda a long tube of human person extending from our birth to our death and mixing with other beings in time.

        • Flummoxed@lemmy.world
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          I love this idea! New life goal: to weave joy and love into the universal tapestry as much as possible.

  • finley@lemm.ee
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    Life, itself, is full of incredible adventures, rewards, and amazing things to learn and experience.

    In my experience, those who believe in some mythological “afterlife“ spend their time living as some of the worst, most hateful, most bigoted, and shitty people, because they falsely believe that, after they die, they will somehow be rewarded for being massive pieces of shit.

    In the entire history of mankind, there has never been even the tiniest shred of evidence that this is anything which could be considered, reasonable, rational, or, especially, true.

    I tend to think of more realistic terms. Enjoy the time you have, and make the best of it.

    Invisible sky wizards that grant wishes are not coming to save you, nor are they coming to help or even save anyone else. They are a fantasy made up millennia ago by generations of itinerant desert nomad goat herders who never learned to read, let alone come to understand science. They are the last people you should ever be taking advice from.

    Of course, if you have evidence of the contrary, I’m eager to see it.

      • finley@lemm.ee
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        You’re very welcome. There is no freedom like the freedom you get when you cast off ancient superstitions and live in the real world Sure, it can be bleak and unsettling, but at least you’re dealing with real world problems on real world terms. Because of that, you have an infinitely higher chance of success when dealing with them than anyone, considering the problem from a false and ridiculously stupid mythological position.

        Are there power is greater than us? Of course there are. Gravity is a power that’s much greater than humankind. But there is no magic to it. With science, you can rationally explain it. Just like science will always be able to rationally explain everything, eventually.

        “ God did it“ will never be the answer to anything other than “how intellectually lazy, and stupid are you?“