Is Death the End?

gilwarrior

For once I will try to post a serious topic so here goes...

Most of us here have rejected most if not all of the JW teachings. I (as well as most of you) certainly do not believe that Armaggedon will arrive someday in the future and everybody who is not a JW will die and the Witnesses that are left will rebuild the Earth.

So, the question I have is this: What do you think happens when you die?

Do you go to heaven or hell? Do you come back as someone or something else? Or perhaps there is the scariest possibility: that there is no God and that when you die that is it!

Can life be that meaningless?

This question is driving me nutz!

"I have so much love to give, but no one to give it to."

William H. Macy - "Magnolia"

Naeblis

<wisdom>Life is as meaningless as you make it.</wisdom>

Satanus

Everyone has their opinion on this. I guess i have mine. I'm fairly sure the spirit lives on after the death of the body. Then the spirit goeas where it wants. 'God' doesn't interfere. Of course reincarnation is an option for a spirit. IMO

Another thing that you could do, is a search on nde, near death experiences. Try to get some from atheists. Read a few of those. Of course most scientists think those are hallucinations caused by wierd brain chemical changes.

SS of the holy spirit class

pseudoxristos

gilwarrior

Or perhaps there is the scariest possibility: that there is no God and that when you die that is it!

Having dealt with this issue myself, I know what your going through. After 3 or 4 years of dealing with the Witnesses, I was forced to drop many of my former beliefs in the pursuit of discovering what the "truth" really is. For me the belief in Hell was much more tolerable than the thought of non-existance. It took me a long time to face the possiblity that there is no God and that when you die that is it.

The thought that we become non-existant at death, does not bother me as much as it once did. I rationalize it with the idea that for many billions of years before I was born, I did not exist. I don't have a problem with not existing before, so I shouldn't have a problem with non-existance after I die. For me the process of dying is much more frightening than being dead.

Abaddon

I actually don't find the idea that there is no proof whatsoever of any existance after death scarey at all.

It might SEEM scarey, as you have been lied to so long, and had ideas about an after life or an eternal life.

But all it is is how it is.

We are born, we live, we die. Really simple.

It doesn't make things meaningless UNLESS we let it. And what could be more meaningless than living a life to achieve some promised afterlife that is just a lie?

Don't get suckered by Pascal's wager!!

I agree with Maeblis' quote; life is what you make it, and you are SO BLOODY LUCKY starting at your age - many of us had to wait a decade or more before we got out.

Try not to think of it as life suddenly becoming meaningless because it will end at some point. Try to think about it as discovering the 'truth' and being liberated by it.

Bang

Was coming here the end ?
Nope.

Ephanyminitas

There is no concrete proof that anything happens after death. There's no evidence that the spirit lives on in anyway. It's all superstition stemming from a fear of death -- or rather, non-existence.

Think about it: animals are born, they live, then they die. Do we believe in an animal afterlife? No. The concept is only used to console young children who have lost a cherished animal. So if animals "just die," and if we humans too are animals, what should make us think that we're any better?

The problem is our intelligence. We're smart enough to fear death, unlike animals. When animals fight to survive, they're merely following instinct -- their inborn reflexes. When humans fight to survive, though there is instinct involved, we mainly struggle because we WANT to survive. We don't WANT to die.

As previously mentioned, the idea of nonexistence can be a bit uncomfortable -- even overwhelming. To just poof! not exist anymore IS scary. At least at first, it is. But once you live in the real world and look only at FACTS, you'll plainly see that any other ideas are just that: ideas. There's no disembodied spirit in us. We ARE our biological minds.

To look for an afterlife is to avoid accepting reality.

truthseeker1

I feel that when we die, we die. I havent seen any evidence of anything otherwise. I guess thats why I was able to swallow the JW theories, because SOME of them were simple and strait forward.

If something happens to me after I die, great I can live on. But if this is my only life, I want to live it in a way I will enjoy it. Its hard to imagine a god that will destroy me forever if I didn't believe in some obscure belief that is taught by less the 1/1000 of the population. I guess I mostly believe that dust I was, and dust I will return to. I'd like to think there is more beyond this, but I won't know till I experience that, and I'm in no rush to find out.