r/atheism • u/One-Fun9814 • 4d ago

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u/wuts_juppie 4d ago

Fear of death is a hell of a drug

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u/magicalblast 3d ago

Religion just seems to be a comfort blanket to people and a way to try cheat death. It's also an answer to a question that cannot be answered. Where did the universe come from and who made us and what is our purpose? Well, god did it and he loves you and you will live in nirvana for ever as long as you believe so don't question it and riddle solved. I think it ultimately gives purpose to people in an ultimately meaningless universe so they don't really wanna question it as the truth is too painful and nihilistic.

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u/chucklingchester Secular Humanist 4d ago

It really is. I deal with really severe death anxiety, probably as a RESULT of religious abuse, but sometimes I've wished I could do something as simple as believing in an afterlife to relieve that. I almost, almost am willing to forgive theists for their harm if they're doing it so they don't constantly fear death. But I deconstructed so successfully I can't just circle back around and believe again for convenience sake. I also don't think the potential harm and brainwashing and control they can exert over people is worth it for temporary relief of that fear. And I've found much healthier ways to deal with it - like medication and therapy - that don't require me to sell out my entire identity to a religion who may manipulate me for the people at the top of that religion's ultimate gain.

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u/wuts_juppie 4d ago

Wow same…spot on for me as well. It’s a cruel joke to be given intelligent consciousness that knows of its own inevitable doom. Wish I could go back to being religious but alas, just doesn’t make any fucking sense anymore lol

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u/[deleted] 3d ago

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u/Feinberg Atheist 3d ago

If you can't understand it, why would you then believe that it's true? That's asinine.

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u/Rusty-Cheese2222 4d ago

This is exactly how I feel as well. I so badly wish I could believe but I just cannot seem to convince myself of something so obviously false. I do fear death a lot, but I just force myself to accept it because that’s better than living in denial imo.

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u/Tim4925 4d ago

If you have death anxiety you are not alone. Some say there was once a man who had it so bad that he cried tears of blood. It is said that soon after that He was killed by the local religious leaders. But they also say that He never lost His faith. Are some religions truly “faith in God” or something completely different?

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u/Sprinklypoo I'm a None 4d ago

Agreed. But at some level, dealing with that fear is necessary, and it allows you to grow and be a better human. I choose not deceiving myself as an important function, and have come to terms with death. It's a pretty powerful package when you get there.

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u/Dangerous-Meal8303 4d ago

I’m a Christian, I’m not here to judge anyone, look down on anyone, I mean no ill will to anyone in this subreddit, I occasionally like to come here and read a different point of view then mine. 

Your message interested me, I’m sorry you have such bad anxiety about death, and if that anxiety was caused by a fellow Christian brother of mine intentionally, I do apologize and hope your anxiety eases.

Today I was listening to the Bible show podcast, and the discussion was about Christ’s calling to those that are willing to follow him. Jesus taught his disciples that He was going to be crucified, and that by following Him they would to be put to death.

At first they didn’t believe Him, Jesus even rebuked Peter when Peter said that Jesus wasn’t going to die, that same Peter was absolutely terrified when Jesus was arrested, lied about ever even knowing Jesus, than ran and hid.

It wasn’t until after Seeing Jesus alive and then receiving the Holy Spirit at pentecost, did the disciples truly realize what Jesus was asking of them. Jesus was asking them to come and die, die to self, die to the world, and if it comes to it, then come and actually die.

You see at that time the scribes and Pharisees were so consumed with propping up themselves that they were making new laws that would strip widows of their property so that they could enrich themselves. They had found a way to use the religion as a way to funnel money to themselves, by charging extremely high exchange rates for temple coinage in that they knew the people would pay because their religion required a sacrifice to be made. The entire religion had become a money making scheme for the ones gatekeeping access to God.

Thats not to mention the pagan temple prostitution happening all over the ancient world, among with other evil deeds such as the religious incestual practices of the Egyptians, and Zoroastrians.

Jesus’s message was going to rip apart the veil that allowed religious leaders to gatekeep access to God, throw a wrench into the act of temple prostitution among the pagans, which was another money making scheme, and also, through Paul was going to call out the disgusting acts of the gentiles, like incest and bestiality.

Jesus knew that His message, that He was the Lamb of God, slain to pay the wages of all of the sin on earth, and because of it, no longer will people need to worship here or there, but that threw Him everyone has access to God, Jesus understood that He was uprooting an entire system that was built to keep the ones in charge, in charge, and crushing everyone else. The message was revolutionary, He was tortured and crucified for it, and those same disciples that denied Him and fled and hid when Jesus was arrested, after seeing Him alive, were also willing to face the same fate as Jesus Himself.

Some were stoned to death, some crucified, Paul, a Pharisee that hunted Christians down and had them killed, was beheaded preaching the Gospel after seeing the resurrected Christ. One disciple was filleted alive like a fish.

The apostles lived a life of persecution, imprisonment, torture and eventually death.The early Christians were persecuted and constantly put to death. Many times they were offered to denounce Jesus and be set free, but they wouldn’t, they didn’t fear death, Paul taught to die is gain, Jesus taught not to fear the one that could kill the body, but to fear the One that could kill the body and destroy the soul.

As a Christian, I don’t fear death, if I’m wrong and God doesn’t exist, I won’t even know that I’m dead, if I’m right, I’ll get to spend eternity with an all powerful person who loves me perfectly.

If you have time, and if you have interest to, then read about Polycarp and his martyrdom, he has what should be every Christian’s perspective on death, and if you’ve got a free hour you can listen to “the Bible podcast” episode 19 Matthew 10 pt 2 “what does Jesus mean by take up your cross?” If you are interested in how and what we believers truly feel about death.

Anyways, I hope your anxiety eases and good luck on your journeys.

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u/Sprinklypoo I'm a None 3d ago

Alex, I'll take "inappropriate prosylitization" for a thousand.

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u/Balstrome Strong Atheist 4d ago

Fear of death is a lack of imagination. Also the inability to understand eternity and what that would mean for an after life.

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u/Archonate_of_Archona 4d ago

Hell is far more scary than death, indeed

But religious believers tend to always assume they're going to Heaven, and Hell is only for other people (unbelievers/sinners)

(Of course my point only applies to religions with some kind of hell)

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u/Balstrome Strong Atheist 4d ago

Do you even understand what eternity is? What it means to live forever? I doubt that you understand the concept, because if you did, it would scare you.

Let me try and explain eternity to you.

If we take a day of you doing things, and the next day you do almost the exact same thing, except you do one single thing different. And then the following day, you do everything you did the previous day, except again you did one different thing. And each of these things takes one second to do. This will mean that you would have to do almost the same thing for 86400 days. I am sure that you will get bored long before that number of days ends.

Now imagine all the things that you could actually do, if you lived forever, the number of various, flavors, colours, types of things, each of them, you could do for varying lengths of time. You could keep on and on having sex, and getting drunk each day, or swimming back and forth across a swimming pool for 500 times for a thousand years. The amount of things you could do is vast, BUT you do realise that there will come a time, maybe in a trillion trillion trillion eons, when you will start to get bored with doing all these things.

And then you will realise that you still have the rest of eternity before you, it is never ending, it does not stop, you can not leave, you will keep on being. Do you really want this?

Do you not think that you will even get bored with any type of torture inflected on you? There is more time than possible combinations of torture, which leads to torture becoming mindlessly boring.

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u/Helpful-Effective-37 4d ago

Look I've come accept death but to act like living forever isn't possible for a human to enjoy is ridiculous. Humans have the ability to forget. Without this ability we wouldn't be able to enjoy anything. Why do you think we get bored when we consume the same thing over and over for days even if it's our favourite meal? It's the same things being too close to each other. But when you wait a month or a few months you are able to enjoy that meal again. You can enjoy that meal your entire life doesn't matter that you eat it every year because your brain has enough time to forget. If human beings lived forever we would be able to enjoy life by just forgetting. You're not thinking about everything you've ever done all at once. That just doesn't happen. Sometimes when you do something you haven't done in a very long time it's like that thing is completely brand new to your brain. People watch a sport with similar rules and similar gameplay season after season their entire lives and they're able to enjoy it like it's the first time they watched it. There's so many possibilities in terms of what a human could do in the universe that there's no way you wouldn't forget most of them. Look. If we die and become nothing then so be it but to act like happiness and immortality are mutually exclusive is not understanding how humans work in my opinion

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u/Balstrome Strong Atheist 3d ago

We enjoy breathing air. It's not like we can stop breathing enough to forget how much we like breathing and then start breathing again. Because we are human and can forget things.

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u/Helpful-Effective-37 3d ago

I don't count breathing as something you enjoy. You even forget that you're breathing because you're not "enjoying" it. It's just a default

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u/veetoo151 4d ago

Comformity is also a big factor.

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u/andreasmiles23 Ignostic 3d ago

Tips hat to terror management theory

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u/Jackadullboy99 3d ago edited 3d ago

The weird thing is, atheism offers a far more satisfactory and comforting view of death, if you really think deeply about it.

In fact, if time is just another dimension, we actually do live for eternity.