What is Death?

by Blueblades 29 Replies latest jw friends

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  Blueblades

  What is Death? Is it the ceasing of bodily functions due to illness or malfunction of a vital organ reversing the order of what occured at birth? Is the body nothing more than a shell and subject to ordinary laws affecting matter once deprived of its operating force? Under the influence of the atmosphere, it rapidly decomposes and is quickly disposed of in all cultures. It returns to the earth in various forms and contributes its basic chemicals to the soil or water. Is that all that remains of man at his death?

  If that is what you believe, for some, it is this concept that breeds fear of death, fosters nihilistic attitudes towards life while one lives it, and favors the entire syndrome of expressions such as 'death is the end of it all" "fear the cemetery," and "funerals are solemn occasions."

  In the east death is the beginning, not the end. Desire to communicate with the dead is as old as humanity itself. What is death? All of us who are inquiring persons will have to wait until we ourselves get to the non- physical world, for no-one can outsmart death.

  RETURN FROM THE DEAD? Some say that they have been to that other world and returned to tell the tale about it. That is another story.

  Blueblades
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  AlanF

  Death is simply the cessation of the life functions, namely, a stopping of the biological and chemical processes that break food, water and oxygen into components that supply energy and raw materials for the maintenance of the biological structures (organs and such) that comprise a complete organism and fuel their development and movement. The absence of such functions is defined as being dead, like a piece of stone or old wood is dead.

  I see no evidence whatsoever for some sort of life after death.

  I don't fear death any more than I fear the time before I came into existence. I knew nothing then and I will know nothing after I die. I will not know that I'm dead.

  While many people fear dying, because they can't imagine a world in which they're not an observer, this is an illogical fear. I think it's a very deep rooted fear, closely tied to basic survival instincts. But it's still as illogical as most phobias, such as fear of heights, spiders, snakes, etc.

  AlanF
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  Blueblades

  Hi Alan! You sure keep me busy reading your post topics from the past. I know that you will be the first to post an OBE., or NDE., when you get evidence of it. Until then, we will just have to wait. I know from reading many of your topics that you do have an open - mind and the willingness to change if and when evidence comes to light. For now, there is no proof for either conclusions, as I posted in the past " Two camps, always Two camps". One for and one against, both claiming theirs is the right conclusion.

  Blueblades
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  tetrapod.sapien

  regarding NDE's. the simplest explanation should be the preferred one.

  death. think of an ant dying, and pretend you're the ant. that is all we can say for sure that death is. non-existence. life then no life. we observe it often. why assume more than that? to say that anything else comes after it, would be an arrogance of sorts.
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  heathen

  You can say that some fear death and some actually fear the future so much they seek death, thus suicide . I don't believe that God wants us to suffer for all eternity so believe death as a state of nothingness .
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  sonnyboy

  I guess you'll find out when you die. No living person can possibly answer your question.

  I'd like to think that there's some sort of life after death, but I'm not holding my breath (yet).
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  dh

  There is plenty of evidence out there to support some type life after death, even if it's just coming back here as someone else. There are documented cases of people remembering past lives in so much detail that it's impossible for them to have known unless they lived it, and though there are plenty of BS stories out there too, I know that there are too many genuine cases to dismiss it.

  My view, based on things I've read or seen, or people I've talked to and general life experience, is that though I do not know for sure, I think it is likely that our conscieceness survives the death of our body.

  What is death?

  What was birth?
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  tetrapod.sapien

  dh,

  i'd like to know what sort of evidence you consider solid.

  There are documented cases of people remembering past lives in so much detail that it's impossible for them to have known unless they lived it,

  this is not evidence. it would never hold water in the peer review process. there are also documented cases of schizophrenics making up entire worlds that don't exist.
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  Balsam

  
  There is much to this life that is invisible to our human eyes. Can we say they don't exist because our physical eyes can't really see it? sometimes our body feels things like the wind, and the result of the wind, but we can't see it with our physical eyes.

  I am open minded about it. I don't know if the end of the physical body brings the end of consciousness. I suppose if there isn't continued life apart from the body it will make no diffence when I die because I won't consciously know it will I? So until there is adequate proof for the afterlife to my satisfaction, I am not firmly believeing there is anything after death.

  I do frankly hope this brief life isn't all there is though, because it just seems like there should be some continuned life as say the Buddhist believe.
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  poppers

  Not to hijack the thread, but perhaps a more pertinent question to answer is "What is life?" Is it simply a body/mind mechanism reacting to/within the environment, or is there something that lies beneath/beyond that mechanism? Who/what is it that lives? When the answer to these are found then looking for the answer to your question loses relevancy.