Do you fear death?

[CavLancer]

Sure, but I've been in the ER with no energy and feeling like all I have to do is wait it out, though such a thought would have required too much energy to actually form. They blamed my illness on my diabetes which over the previous months is what my doc had done and why I was lying on the stretcher in the ER waiting to die. On this diagnosis they talked to my stepfather who had helped me in, and he came over telling me they wanted us to leave. I'd decided already that this was a convenient place to die, so I told him I'm not leaving until they figured out what was wrong with me, never expecting them to. If I had left I'd be dead now but it just required too much energy.

So the Doc on a hunch looks again at my blood test and sees some #s which don't seem right. These are #s which are always right. So he calls the big city hospital and asks. They transfer him around until an endocrinologist picks up. He tells her the #s and I'm off to the big city hospital. They give me the proper meds and I walk out of there a new man, alive again. That was 23ish years ago.

Not dead yet, but I still have the taste in my mouth. I had released myself I was so very far down. That was not so bad. Waiting decades with some debilitating disease is bad, but I have no worries. All I have to do is stop taking the meds I've been taking the last 20 years, and fall back into the arms of death. I'm not killing myself, I am just releasing the medicines that are keeping me here. If God wants me alive at that point well, the ball is in his court once again, so to speak.

Addisons Its there if I need it. All I have to do is wait it out and I'm gone, peacefully, depending on God's will. Headache though but I keep aspirin and ibuprofen in the house in quantity .

 

[warpus]

Believing in a supernatural entity that cares about you and is able to postpone your death and/or affect it in other ways must be in many ways comforting.

In a way I'm a bit jealous some people have that to fall back on. Must make dealing with death easier.

 

[Borachio]

I've heard otherwise.

If your destination after death (up or down) is always in doubt, as it must be I'd say, then that worries some people quite a lot.

If, on the other hand, you're absolutely convinced that nothing awaits you except total oblivion, then some people apparently go easily.

I like to think I'll meet it with curiosity. Though I do reserve the right to panic, if the mood takes me.

 

[CavLancer]

Before I got sick, when I was in my 20s I had some difficult burdens. It was hard to bare but I'm not the sort of person who gives in easy. One day it was just too much. Got on my knees and prayed. If God was real as I somehow knew he was, this is the time. If not I'd just stay on the floor. At that point I knew the love of God. Such an incredible thing it cannot be defined. I got up without any such plan or effort, walked into my bedroom and lay down. As my head hit the pillow I remember thinking, 'if this doesn't let up I'll never be able to work tomorrow.' My exact thought. Then I was asleep. Next day the burdens were gone and everything was changed. I know now. I went to work, the love was gone.

That's the truth. told the story a couple dozen times, but nobody ever believes me.

My parents never took me to church, I wasn't a member of anything.

Edit: Don't think of me as "holy", I'm not. I'm lousy at it. Only God is holy. I was like a balloon which didn't know its purpose or design until someone blew it up. Now I know. But, that doesn't mean I'm the right guy to give advice. I tend not to suffer fools though I somehow think I should, chased girls after this happened until I remarried, drank too much, but... never forgot. Never denied. This is real.

 

[warpus]

CavLancer, I believe you. I mean, it sounds fantastical, and I have no reason to believe that God exists, but I do believe people recovering from illness unexpectedly when they weren't supposed to is something that happens every once in a while and is something that has been documented.

I hope that one day, even if all religion is a distant memory, that we are able to use this amazing power of prayer and/or the placebo effect, or whatever it is, to help people. It seems like a potentially very powerful tool. We sort of understand pieces of it now, but I don't think we're anywhere near seeing the big picture.

I hope my post isn't disrespectful in that I don't attribute what happened to you to a deity. It must have been a powerful personal experience and probably means a lot to you. I've heard of scientists triggering the "religious/spiritual experience" in a lab. What I'm trying to say here is that I hope we can understand the effect and use its full power - because it does seem rather powerful at times.

 

[Kyriakos]

No point in worrying, given we all will find out if something (and in that case, what) happens when one dies.

I am not of the view that anyone can know this beforehand, anyway, no matter what happens or doesn't happen.

 

[CavLancer]

Warpus, no, its okay. Have a really good atheist friend back in Oregon who I spoke to about this once. He attributed to a release of endorphins which he thought was a defensive reaction of the brain. Thing is, the love I received was far more than I am. I didn't use the balloon analogy by accident. I think we are designed for this though, but instead of endorphins we are made to expand in order to hold God's love. Man, I hear myself talk and if I was you I'd be thinking where else on the internet might be more interesting.

Placebo's can't love.

 

[carmen510]

I'm not sure if I would like to live forever, experiencing consciousness for that long. However, I am afraid of losing consciousness forever after death, never to think or sense anything ever again.

If I could have some sort of "consciousness-cycle" wherein I could essentially sleep for extended periods of years and experience new things when I wake up without becoming too bored, I would probably do it.

 

[Kyriakos]

I would not mind maintaining/expanding with a pleasant rate, consciousness, even for a near-eternity.
I still do not think this can happen in any ethical or beneficial way in the world as it currently is.

In theory, people (of some intelligence/talent) can advance even under notably negative circumstances. But to actually strive to extend our lifespan for many many decades (maybe even a full aeon) when in other places people still get their arms chopped off because the local militia lord felt like it, is not really a sustainable end in any long run. Even as things stand the world is not sustainable, and it has been a few years since that started to become very evident.

Like i said, individuals still can create or discover amazing things. In the past this has also happened at times of nearly never-ending war. But, once more, it never became the property of the main part of the population, so in the end it was not leading to a full advancement of humanity, but to what we have now.

 

[Disgustipated]

I didn't fear death before I was married. Now that I am, I worry about how my wife would fare if I died before her. Is it selfish to want my wife to die before me?

 

[Lord Baal]

I didn't fear death before I was married. Now that I am, I worry about how my wife would fare if I died before her. Is it selfish to want my wife to die before me?

I hope, for your marriage's sake, that you're joking. Please tell me your wife was standing behind you when you wrote that.

 

[El_Machinae]

But to actually strive to extend our lifespan for many many decades (maybe even a full aeon) when in other places people still get their arms chopped off because the local militia lord felt like it, is not really a sustainable end in any long run.

Well, there are two ways someone could strive to extend their lifespan. The first is to use lifestyle modifications to maintain peak health and then take advantage of new technologies as they become available. Clearly, this might not actually help anyone else. The second strategy would be to actively invest to help these technologies get discovered faster. The advantage is that this strategy actually helps everyone who is (or will) suffer from age-related degeneration: it helps people. I actually think that combining strategies is best.

Your point about 'local militias and tyrannies' is a good one, but I don't like when it gets brought up. Inevitably, this is brought up when we discussing either funding medical research or space programs. Really, why are these the boogeymen? Why isn't it brought up when people discuss ordering take-out food, seeing a movie, attending a sporting event, buying a new car, or even reading horror literature? We spend pressingly little time and money contributing to either disease research or humanitarian efforts. If you're going to suggest that I am selfish for spending money eating healthily (instead of helping people), why I cannot I say the same when you eat expensively?

 

[Kyriakos]

I am not suggesting you are selfish for eating healthily or doing any other thing you just like/want to do. That is one thing, and it is quite another to be of the view that tech-based notable (ie by decades) expansion of human life is a goal that at the moment humanity should focus upon. There just are way too many messed up things going on now, and maybe even a nice little vortex has opened up for most of the old 'first world'. In my view one cannot really focus on solving issues which are about bettering quality of life, if one has to deal with actual issues of survival. And most have been, for millenia now (eg in most of Africa). Even more seem to be prone to deal with such issues soon, in the west too. So the timing is not correct for this particular investment, in my view- at least if you call for popular support of it.

 

[El_Machinae]

Right, but why is that investment criticised with regards to (say) polio and malaria, but hedonistic waste isn't? There are things that humanity is massively more 'focused' on that any cause of death or suffering mentioned in this thread.

 

[Kyriakos]

I think that "hedonistic waste" is foremostly a personal decision or lifestyle. So it pretty much tends to fall within the limits of the individual person, and therefore i would not really mean to criticize it as long as it does not obviously effect other people in pronounced negative ways.

Focusing on research, on the other hand, is supposed to be a public issue (at least if one calls for the public to support it) and thus can be criticized regardless of the stance towards individual lifestyles.

 

[El_Machinae]

So, is there a difference between me suggesting that people donate to death-battling charities and you suggesting people read a certain horror novel? Once there's an effort to spread the lifestyle, then there's a problem?

Additionally, given that I have maintained a consistent stance since the beginning of the thread, is there a death-battling charity you'd suggest in lieu of a disease charity? Charitable donations can either be fully selfless (e.g., women's rights in the Congo) or done with enlightened self-interest (e.g., Alzheimer's). You're apparently condemning the enlightened self interest efforts.

 

[Kyriakos]

I am not condemning anything. I just mentioned why (in my view) it can give the opportunity for mixed emotions to rise, if one 'asks for public support' for this kind of research which seems to be not what is needed by the majority of people at the troubled time being. Personally i would not support it, but i would not actively try to get others not to support it on their part.

As for donating to charity, sorry but with the current economic situation that is the last thing on my mind :/

I always wish that things get better, and people become more friendly/creative, or just more happy with their own self (since i assume the latter may always lead to every other positive trait). I also think that one has to use what there currently exists, and create what he can.

 

[El_Machinae]

Then I don't understand your criticism, and why it doesn't pop up in circumstances other than extraterrestrial progress and health.

 

[Kyriakos]

Then I don't understand your criticism, and why it doesn't pop up in circumstances other than extraterrestrial progress and health.

The ones you mentioned ask for notable popular support, and do not appear to evidently lead to great benefits for the population, only for a tiny minority. On the other hand the decisions of personal leisure (eg reading prose, even of a genre like horror that you specified) is merely the individual's right. The two issues are simply not of the same type at all, so they cannot be compared in any direct way.

 

[El_Machinae]

Why do you think that the benefits would apply to only a tiny minority?