thoughts on death

[james]

Agreed.

[pboyle]

well.. I said in a sense we don't exist.
We do. Just not the way that we perceive it.

It works like this: There is a common misperception that we live on the edge of our eyeball. You see it, its real. But thats not true. What you see are only representations of reality. The things we see aren't created by our eyes, but our minds. Light doesn't touch our brain. It is all interpreted. That interpretation is recreated even in our dreams. You see a horse in life and its pretty much the same as in a dream. The only difference between dreams and reality is the fact that, in our waking hours, the world works on universal laws. In dreams you can fly and stuff. You can't do that consciously.

And as for us never experiencing life, its again all based on interpretation. The world is split into two parts- Phenomena and Noumena. Phenomena are what you see all around you. The computer you sit in front of, and the hands you use to type. You are a phenomenal person in a phenomenal world. The REAL real world consists of Noumena. No one has ever seen the noumenal world because it can't be done. It's like trying to unplug from the matrix, but you can't. It's impossible.

it's all part of Kant's trancendental illusion.

and the only reason we can claim experience is because we mistake phenomena for noumena. Which is entirely forgiveable because nothing can be done about it.

You aren't a dreamer, you're part of a dream.
The phenomenal/noumenal world doesn't come from your head. You're a part of it.

So, who is the dreamer?

Some people say there is no God.
My philosophy teacher can prove there isn't one.
But he still believes in one.

So again, why worry about death, when we can't even fully understand life?

and just to reply to rxsleven, I never said we don't live. And I enjoy and cherish my life. Sure, I believe what I said before about phenomena and noumena, but if phenomena is as real as it gets, I won't complain. Because it's phenomenal.

Just a new perspective.
Thats all life is.
Varying perspectives. Look at colorblind people. There world is your world. Just a different view.

[Pieces]

Death. This terrible epidemic has been plaguing humanity since times long past. You might even be caught by this horrible disease already!

If you would like to know if you will die, please check for these symptons:
Life


If you or a loved on are suffering these symptoms, please report immediately to your local Casket shop and begin picking out your future home. Thank you.

This message brought to you by Applebees, and viewers like you.

[rxsleven]

ok ok i understand exactly what your talking about pboyle. i didnt know you were relating to that theory. its amazing that touch,hearing,seeing,tasting, and smelling only contributes to 10% of actual reality. maybe we need to open up the other 85% of our brains and then we can truly know what "reality" is. thats a good way of looking at it, only what we think we see as reality. and i would LOVE to know how your philosophy teacher can prove theres no god.....if you believe in your "theory" (cant remember what its called), then everything your philosophy teacher is saying would be false. he cants perceive past 10% of the world around him......so how can he claim theres no god if his mind isnt able to grasp knowledge that large? i too have a very hard time believing in god. yet i choose to because there are so many times i have encountered "unexplainable" events, and i look around and i say "how in the world can there be no god?" i guess i thought the birth of my niece was very special and i couldnt fathom anything but the hand of god making her as cute as she is. watching life be born is an eye opening experience in itself. i guess i just think that god has blessed me, no matter how many times i think ive hit rock bottom. i can always look around and say...well shit, tomorrows another day and im not dead. time to start new

[pboyle]

well.. its not really so much a matter of reality, when it comes to determining the existence of God.

there are different arguments for the existence of God, but I won't dive into them because there is a lot of information.
But the argument against the existence of God is from the perspective of evil, which in a simple explanation says if "God" created the universe, there wouldn't be any evil or else "God" would not be all-good. Because the definition of God makes him an omniscient, omnipotent, all-good creator, there can't be a God because of the existence of evil. God simply wouldn't be able to create it.

There is the Free Will defense, saying people create evil.
But, if there was truly free will, there could not be a God. An omniscient God would know that I'm posting this message even before I joined the forum. So, I would never really have a choice in doing it or not. An omniscient God would imply fate, thus no free will.

Free will would mean I could choose to do otherwise without God knowing. The only way that is possible is if there is no God.

You could make the argument that Thomas Acquinas made, that we cannot know good without the reference of evil, but even still, God could not be its creator.

Does this mean there is no God? Logically, with all the details, yes.
Does it reaaaally mean there is no God? No. It means we can't come to know God on the basis of religion. Religion can't just say "there is a God who does these things and acts this way". Just doesn't work out.

[rxsleven]

ok...but once again...to combat your theory that god doesnt exist, philosophy and science are basing their theories on the bible. saying god is an all powerful, omnipotent god....referring to the bible for their theory. whos to say that god isnt comprised of both good and evil? the bible states he is infallable and perfect, but the bible was created by man. an interpretation of what god had to say. whos to say that we got it right. the human mind has limits...yet gods knowledge is said to be limitless. so how do you think 12 men wrote there different interpretations of the word of god and got it right? dont you think this would be similiar to asking a baby to write down everything you say and to understand it all. but to also give you what is said to be the origin of evil would be the story of lucifer. gods right hand angel, thought that god wasnt the all powerful omnipotent god he was supposed to be. so he decided he wanted the thrown for himself. he waged war and god sent lucifer and his followers to a realm he could call his own.....hell. and now lucifer is said to spread evil amongst the world to spite god at his own game. to take as many souls as he can and wage war on god again one day in hopes of overthrowing him. so the concept of "evil" is said to have come from lucifer, and his first victim was eve. tainting man and women as they sat in the garden of eden,so the root of evil stemmed from the beginning. growing with every human born. so in theory....NO ONE KNOWS WHERE WE GO. not one person knows if we goto heaven, hell, we are reincarnated, become a blue orb and join with the force, we all become part of god, or just die. not one person knows! one man was said to rise from the dead and that is jesus, but only in theory. we are basing that theory on 13 apostles who were said to have seen him. are you going to base a theory on what 13 people said? i would LOVE to have your philosophy teacher prove me wrong. in fact, i would be very intrigued if you gave this exact paragraph, and then ask him wether or not he retracts his previous statement of knowing whether god exists or not. unless he has a time machine......and becomes the 14th apostle.NO ONE will ever know.

[pboyle]

well.. what I said before proves that we can't come to know God based on religious context. I'm positive that I even said that. The philosophy behind what I said takes root in a religious concept, but it proves the religion wrong. You don't have to go back in time to know what happened. You can look at the world and say "something is said to be this, but these are the reasons it cannot be".

Its pretty straight forward. You don't even need religion to prove it. By definition, aside from pagan gods or gods from polytheistic religions, God, a singular creator, is considered to be omnipotent, omniscient, and all-good. Thats just how a universal creator is defined. Its not a catholic thing. Just straight forward.

And, no, but I won't argue this with my philosophy professor. I just don't see how what you say can hold water against a man who has written 35 books, both fiction and nonfiction, has composed music, given talks, written chapters and papers, and basically knows the deeper understandings of the concept of Zero. Look him up.

Dr. Daniel Kolak.

And in regards to lucifer, you can't say my argument is bad because it comes from religion, especially when my argument puts down religion. The lucifer idea is not only religious in context, but religious mythology. It isn't even some sort of religious truth - just a sidestory.

So no, God can't be good and evil.
The Lucifer concept doesn't work because, God would have created him
And he would've known he would be bad.
And God can't create bad.
so, no God.

Even if you think my argument against God isn't good, show me one that shows he exists.
I know two.
And I can show you how they are wrong.

[rxsleven]

thats cool that you professor has written 35+ books, but to say that his word is bar none......the truth, is well, bullshit. because your professor is one of the greatest minds wrapped around philosophy doesnt mean that his idea of the universe is better then mine. it means he has gotten recognition, and created success in what he believes and does. but for someone else not to be able to argue with him is a niave concept. thats like stacking someone in the UFC against an average joe and saying that just because this man in the UFC is world renown doesnt mean that mr. average joe cant beat the shit out of him. to say that arguing with your teacher is pointless is completely false. i dont know how many teachers have told me,"dont ever take a teachers word as the truth", because they can make up some random fact and you would nod your head in agreement just because he gave you the impression it was fact. challenge what he has to say, if nobody ever challenged knowledge to gain more, we would all still think the world is flat and that we are the center of the universe. and yes....name the two other theories please if you would. but to make every word you just said a lie, the only thing i have to say is look at the theory you believe in. or atleast take as the most credible. your basing your theories on a man, one who has knowledge of only 10% of the world around him, only has the capacity to use 15% of his brain, and cant even reach the end of his own universe......not even to take into consideration there are infinite galaxies. and whoever made up this theory that god has to be infallable and omnipotent and all good? how the fuck did the person who made the theory conjure that shit up. what does he know. hes a HUMAN. not capable of understanding many things beyond himself. like i said about the baby comparison....in the eyes of the baby,the parent is basically god and perfect. but then again that is not the truth.....the parent is corrupt and comprised of both good and evil tendencies. so whos to say that we dont have the same undersrtanding of god?

[SanguineSolitude]

well i think the point was more that good philosophers look at both sides of arguments and weigh them as evenly as possibly and then decide which side they think is correct. this is something the average joe doesnt do. most people are taught a religion and philosophical ideal from day 1 and never question that till they die. they are sure that whatever their family decided to believe whenever that was, must be correct. so since daddy and mommy say the bible is right, heaven forbid anyone tell them different.

God, if he existed, is clearly neither not all good. at best he is indifferent to the suffering of his creations. if he is all good, he is powerless as he doesnt answer prayer and doesnt prevent horrible things from happening.


put me in a ring with chuck liddel and he will destroy me.
its true that one cannot take the side of the teacher without question, but saying his thoughts on a matter he has done more research and thinking on arent at least a little more well informed than the average joes is crazy.

[pboyle]

its not the fact that I don't want to bring an argument against him.
I have no issue doing that.

its even encouraged.

I just won't bring your argument against him. I just straight up know that it isn't worth my time or his.
and it isn't true that man only uses 10% of his brain. Your entire brain is used, just only 10% at a time. Its divided into sections that control different aspects of you. Motion, thought and so on. You only use 10% of that. It isn't like a big CPU where only 10% is being used. You can't overclock your mind. Thats just silly.

The arguments I make aren't his arguments. They're real, solid, historical, and renowned. Immanuel Kant, Renee Descartes, David Hume. It stems from them.
Aristotle and Socrates too.

Now, because you asked (not kindly, but you asked), I'll list the whole arguments for the existence or God.

-The Cosmological Argument for the Existence of God
1) Everything comes about as the result of some external cause.
2) The universe exists.
Conclusion: The universe came about as the result of some external cause*
*and that cause must be God.

This argument is self-defeating and commits a double standard fallacy. That would mean God came as the result of some external cause which, can't be true. Then he is not God. He's just some higher being. double standard fallacy is when something is said to be true, but contradicts other truths, like that everything comes from an external cause except God. There are no exceptions to universal truths.

-The Argument from Design
1)Everyting that is well ordered comes about from some higher order.
2)The universe is well ordered.

Conclusion: The universe came about as the result of some higher order.

True, if you consider the universe well ordered. I personally think its chaotic but thats a perspective issue. I can't prove that its well ordered. Lets just go with that though.
So our well ordered universe came from some higher order. Again, it cannot be God. That would mean God came from some higher order. There is no super-god. No super-duper-god. Self-defeating double standard fallacy.

-Argument from Evil against the existence of God.
1) Either God could have made a universe with less evil in it than this one, but didn't want to, in which case "God" is not all-good and therefore not God; or else God wanted to make a universe with less evil in it than this one but could not, in which case "God" is not omnipotent, and therefore not God.
2) Evil exists
Conclusion: God does not exist.

American Heritage Dictionary states God to be: A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.

Perfect. Evil is considered to be part of imperfection. So God cannot be nor can he create evil.
He can't be a halfass diety either. There is no "oh yeah i'm God... whatever" God. Its this way, or it simply isn't God.
A powerless, indifferent God might as well just be me. I create. I can be indifferent. I have no power.

Just to make it clear, both my professor and I believe in a God.
Don't ask me how he does.
And he's my Professor. Not my teacher. Teachers lie and try to strip you of your individuality (http://hometown.aol.com/tma68/7lesson.htm).
He'll even tell you he isn't a teacher.

And you can totally understand many things beyond yourself. You can know the unknown. Just reason things out. Look at things both a priori and a posteriori.

[rxsleven]

you make great points....but you have still only given me theories....to actually prove there is no god, you have no real answer. just conclusions that you come to with your own thought and what your professor has come to the conclusion of.

sanguine.....if you want to argue logically then you also need to be philosophical.....stating i cant go bar to bar because hes a professor means nothing. your right, he has spent many many years behind books researching and writing philosophical ideas on religion, science, language, art, and personal identity. but also because of all of his acheivements his knowledge is biased and limited by the knowledge he has gained. all he knows is knowledge and philosophy, and quite frankly im sure its racked.......just like someone who does nothing but equations all day. he will become frustrated because his mind is cramped.....yet mine is open and free to other thoughts besides cold hard facts and equations. by no means am i comparing myself to his achievements, but to say i cant hold my own is a niave comment.

as for the 10% we use....actually that is true....its not at a time...it is the limit that our brain has unlocked.period.....so yah....we basically use 1% at a time to put the equation into spec. researchers find we have not unlocked all of it....so 10% is all we have possibly.......and i would never compare a human brain to a computer.....computers aint got shit on the human mind as far as terms for capacity of use and "overclocking" as you would say.

as for god and evil. you only state theories made by man. like i said before.....how is man supposed to grab the concept of god if he isnt able to?our minds are limited....until we actually create a universe of our own then we will have no idea. the only thing we have managed to actually create out of thin air is "anti-matter". its impossible. you still havent answered this question and i would like to know how anything you say holds ground if you cant explain that? man knows jack shit! how do you expect to know the order of the universe if we dont have the technology or minds to study it. we know principles, but no hard facts. who is to say any equation is in fact correct? from the knowledge we have gained now we have equations that work, but what happens when our knowledge expands? the equations will most likely become obsolete, and then what? knew ones that become obsolete with more knowledge. its never ending.


Not one person "knows" god. so again.....who in the fuck decided one day he was gonna wake up and state god is infallable, omnipotent, and all-good? man has no clue....was this something stated in one of those science fiction movies or books people like so much.....cuz you know...lol....those were written by man also.

and sorry if my rational and statements are blunt and offensive, but to truly debate i feel i should use vocabulary and thoughts to the fullest. so i apologize if i come across offensive and rude.

[pboyle]

Its okay to put out a good statement but... you really don't have to throw down and say things like "who in the fuck decided". All that shows is that your pissed or something..

but okay.. here we go:
1) nothing I've stated is a theory. Its simply an argument.

2) There is no way a philosophy professor can be biased. It's impossible. Philosophy puts emphasis on free thought. A philosopher is a lover of wisdom and wouldn't be tied to only one view. Sure there is room for argument, but there is always room. And equations and facts aren't cold. You should take comfort in their consistency. Unlike everything else, they won't change.

3) We use 100% of our brain.
http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percnt.htm
http://psychology.ucalgary.ca/factoid/lashley.html
http://faculty.washington.edu/chudler/tenper.html -For Kids!

4) The mind is not limited, but rather limitless. How do you think it is possible for people like Stephen Hawking, a man with an extremely debilitating disease, to consider the life of the universe in reverse, up to the big bang itself. Or John Nash (if you've ever seen a beautiful mind). The man was looked down upon, was schizophrenic, and still made huge advancements in mathematics and game theory. Its limit is only set by the person using it (or not using it).

5) Cold hard fact - you can reason something to be true or false. As much as it hurts and you don't believe it, its true. If you look at the moon, can you believe that it is made of cheese? No. You know it isn't. It's synthetic logic.

6)Sorry but, unfortunately equations will never change. Numbers aren't created by us. They are abstract and exist outside of space and time. We create representations to them and apply numerals, but if the numerals are roman or chinese, it still represents the same idea. Oh, and "Idea" is the greek word for "Form". Socrates presented the "Forms" as abstract concepts. They're hardset and cannot be changed. We don't control them. Morality is a Form too.

7) I've never known an equation to be "obsolete". I'm pretty sure they all still work. Sure, there are variations on the processes behind them, some being easier than others (like logarithms compared to trigonomic functions) but they all work just fine.

8 ) Everyone knows what God is. He is supreme. He can't possibly be less than that. Being less than supreme would mean he isn't God. It would mean that it is just some diety of a higher order than us. God is meant to be the end of the line. But as far as my arguments go, and they are real arguments - you can look them up, God can't be the end of the line because there is no end. Thus no God. And the arguments are only logical. Not theological.

9) It doesn't matter if something comes from man or not. Just because something is said by a man, it doesn't mean it is his creation. That is the beauty of thought. Especially human thought. You can reason. If I say 2+2=4 it isn't because I claim it. It's because its true. plain and simple. No one in the entire world could tell me I'm wrong about that. It can't be done.

10) how is man supposed to grab the concept of god if he isnt able to?

How is man supposed to grasp the concept of God if he isn't able to? Why wouldn't man be able to grasp the concept of an ultimately supreme creator? I mean, I personally find it harder to play jazz piano than to understand the idea of God. People have done it for centuries. I don't think we could be having this argument if the concept couldn't be grasped.

So as far as logic goes, God doesn't exist, numbers are constant, the mind is limitless.

Just accept that you're basically plugged into the matrix. Don't worry about unplugging yourself. Its impossible (please don't argue this... lol we did this already).

And to make an overall final point, let me refer to my first post in this thread. You claim we can't ever understand our universe. That is what you claim- that we're limited beings.

If this is true, you'll never be able to question something that no one can claim to have experienced (death/the afterlife/whatever). So why ponder death, when you can't understand life. I mean.. we don't exist.

We do exist.
Just not the way we believe.

[pboyle]

I'm pretty sure I'm done here.

Someone else please post your thoughts on death.
Typing these increasingly long rebuttals is getting exhausting.

[rxsleven]

lol.......you could be put in to terms that we agree to disagree on the subject of you coming up with the answer to the question you have still have yet to answer. god is a concept, for you to prove that he does/does not exist has still yet to be answered. your comments about the matrix....lol....well they are funny.

and if you decided to read everything i wrote then you would see that i apologized for my blunt and rude words. using them isnt a crime nor does it show im pissed off. it is a form of expression, and the only way i could think of telling you in a certain tone of voice was to use the word fuck...went nicely with my sentence i thought. but im sorry if i hurt your virgin ears.

obsolete is used in the term of no longer useful....yes equations have changed to become more efficient......we could say 2+2+2, or would could just say 2*3 and whala.....same outcome, more efficient.

and once again...god is an idea....not everyone knows god. a child will have no concept of a higher being unless he is told so.....if he went through his whole life without ever questioning the world around him and just accepted it, he would never know of god. so once again god is a concept handed down by man.

and once again....what i mean by the concept of god i mean his personality and overall reason for why he created us. i think you should look that up and see if anyone can tell you what god meant by creating the universe. god is a concept....not a fact, to prove he exists, doesnt exist is impossible.

and yes, we do not understand our universe....try and talk to a scientist at your university instead of a philosophy major. the scientist will tell you in a flat out manner....we dont know how anything has really come together, how long we have left, how black holes are everywhere, and etc etc. all they have are theories and ideas....not cold hard facts

logic is obviously limited.....we do not have the ability yet to reach the end of our solar system and make it back.....we have not found the cure for cancer or aids......so once again we still as humans are limited in knowledge and thought.

and your right, you should probably keep to your philosophy and not debate too much. it will just leave you feeling like your talking to a brick wall because not everyone is gonna believe what you have to say is fact, or even consider your thoughts viable....they are just retorts using philosophy...but again, no facts....like you said you could supply when i asked you to prove if god existed or not

[pboyle]

why are you so damn nasty about this?
I understand that you apologized.
And I didn't say anything nasty in response to need you to say "sorry if i hurt your virgin ears."
I said saying fuck connotes anger. and it does. Sorry..

And you don't know me. My virgin ears.. I curse like a sailor most of the time. I'm just having a reasonable discussion, making points, and you gotta jump on me. What? Are you "pwning" me with your circular statements? Everything you've said so far has holes. Big ones. Your words change with every post. All with the exception of "and once again". I mean... you type so much, but say so little.

when I said I was done, it wasn't to try and diss you or anything. I'm just honestly tired of typing so much. its a lot.
I'm not in the business of tearing people a new one. It was just a debate. And having just joined the forum, I'm not looking to get kicked off for saying something I shouldn't because I know I will.

So I'm done.

[rxsleven]

kk....apologize again for the blunt and rude comments. they were more meant as joke....may bad. you make great points and yah...i restate my view since they havent been answered.

im a little bit rude and blunt on debating, my views are generally just a question that i choose to weigh phylisophically. i believe in god but i also try and think logically about the situation, and think of more ways to prove that i might be wrong.

since your done....nice debatin with yah

[cypherkk]

What about the fact the "evil" doesn't actually exist. Evil is merely the absensce of good. If this is the case you cannot state the evil in any form is or ever has been created.

[stevehookah]

IMHO God has His own to worry about. If you; generic you, can't get along with others, that is not His fault. Islam says jihad will end when allah says it ends. IMHO, that's a cop out to just reak havoc on innocents, because allah/God will never speak to us on this earth. They gave it to US, and we are destroying it. I dunno about you, but that angers my God. To destroy a gift, means you did not deserve it.

As far as 'death' its self goes? I've been dead. 3 minutes.... And all I saw was dark, with no memories of those 3 minutes. No virgins. No golden gates. No angels. No God.. No devil.. No dreams.... Nothing.... Just woke up with a sore chest from the paddles, a bloody nose from my blood pressure shooting to the roof, and the urge to strangle the first person I saw.

The doctor forgave me though.

[ioannisds]

I don't really want to add to the volumes that have been written already, but I just have to say this. Why is everyone so afraid of death? I mean, really think about it. It is something we have absolutely no control over whatsoever. NONE. Kinda like birth, right? No control over how or when or if you are born... They are two sides of the same coin. You didn't worry about being born (as you did not exist), and you shouldn't worry about dying. Even if you blip out of existence, you are not going to care, because, well, you don't exist anymore. A lot of people worry about "the black", "the nothingness", etc, etc. These all imply some kind of consciousness, of which you will have none. Part of the problem is the great difficulty in understanding what it would be like to truly not exist.

I consider myself a very religious/spiritual person, but I don't believe that anyone can say with any validity that there is or isn't an afterlife. If there is, great, hooray for me. If not, and I just cease to exist, well that's ok too, and there is no sense worrying about it. I'm not going to know I'm gone one way or the other. The only people death really hurts are those living left behind.

[stevehookah]

I consider myself a very religious/spiritual person, but I don't believe that anyone can say with any validity that there is or isn't an afterlife

Well.. I did not 'see' anything in my experiance. However, I HAVE seen 'ghosts'... So, I am in a 'split'..

I will not bore this thread with my experiances. But, let's just say.. We are NOT alone...

[Hokis]

This is why taking risks is the shit. It brings meaning to life and you don't waste it. Who knows what'll happen when we die, i feel like it's the 4th dimension or something lol. Just do whatever you can to make your life useful and you pretty much will die happy lol dont really know if there's such a thing but whatever. Hope yall live a good and happy life

[johnchain]

Personally, I've seen a lot of shit in the world and had to experience it, that's why death doesn't concern me that much.

I realized this after taking dissociative drugs (drugs that basically dissoaciate your brain from your body, total sensory shutdown) and at one point I thought I was dead because i could establish that I was breathing since the effects were really strong. And I thought to myself (after traveling through time and reliving flashbacks) that I really didn't care that I was dead. Quite a disappointment when I came out of the trip though (like 4 hours later), I really felt one with myself, and when I came back I remembered all the shit i was coming back to.

As for life itself, there are so many things that are unexplainably beautiful, like my dancing-milk avatar , and I'm just plain happy to see it all. My personal belief is that death is simply like being unconscious, or like that feeling i had while dissociated. Either one would please me just fine. Even though I am very young, I have seen quite a bit of life, and I don't care when I go.

I wish I had the discpline to be a Buddhist, I'd probably observe much more natural beauty.

Peace y'all......and don't do drugs*.

*Except for hookah

[camelflage]

im not one to generally voice my opinion, but here is my philosophy:

i try to treat every day i have as a gift. sometimes i forget and complain about how things are going, but when i sit back and think i have to say that i have thoroughly enjoyed the things i have done and the people i have shared my time with. death doesn't bother me in the least. ive lost many close friends and fmaily members, been to as many funerals as i am years old, and carried half a dozen people to their respective resting places. (apparently being a large fellow is like wearing a shirt that says "why yes i like to carry caskets")

i tried once to explain to a friend who was going to commit suicide my reasons for why i value my life and my time here and his response was "i can't look at it that way, God doesn't do it for me because that is just tooo simple." but i say why does it have to be complicated? if i believe that God will let me wander around this place until he wants me to be done - and there is nothing i can do to prevent that - then i can go about living each one of my days as best i can, helping who i can and enjoying who i am with.

i don't need to fear death because it is not something i can cantrol. i completely agree that the promise of an afterlife and post-death rewards for meekness are great ways to supress the masses, but anyone who thinks that a cushy afterlife means you shouldn't try hard to make the most of this life is, to be blunt, already a lost cause. if you believe in heaven, great, if you don't, great, either way you should earnestly try to make sure that you have no regrets in what you do. people get too bogged down with the dogma of religion to see the common thread of love that makes life meaningful. sure i am sad when i lose someone, but i dont dwell on the fact that they are gone, i dwell on the good times we had and what they meant to me while they were here.

we are but ghosts in this, make a difference in someone's life and you will be with them forever.





thats my opinion, and as such you can agree or not, either way it means you care enough to keep living and trying.

[Gorlax]

My Thoughts-
1. Like hank Williams once wrote Death Is Only a Dream
2. I believe when you die you don't really do anything. Kinda when you sleep and don't remember dreaming You just remember you went to sleep.
3. If you live your life on earth the way you want to then thats better than life.

[sicklecow]

As a wise pedophile from ancient Greece once said, we have great reason to hope that death is a good thing. Either it's just eternal sleep, in which case we should welcome it (after all, how many of you wake up in the morning with the sole desire of going back to bed?), or it's an afterlife, in which case we get to hang out with all the greatest minds ever to live.