A Correct Understanding Of Death

[Brother Jeff]

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about death recently, and I’ve realized that everybody actually knows the truth about death. Most people don’t want to deal with the truth, but they are aware of the truth. Everybody instinctively knows that death is “THE END“; that death means nonexistence. We reveal that instinctive knowledge with the use of phrases like, “he’s past caring”, when referring to the dead. Death is not an easy thing to deal with emotionally. Most of us recoil in horror at the thought of our own personal extinction. It’s an understandable reaction. Life is a wonderful thing, and what healthy person wants it to end? But the truth is that life will end. Everybody dies.

 

Death may seem like a morbid subject to be preoccupied with, but it’s actually fascinating to think about. Death itself may not be particularly fascinating, but our thinking about it and fear of it certainly is.

 

What is death? Death is defined as:

 

1. The act of dying; termination of life.
   
2. The state of being dead.
   
3. The cause of dying: Drugs were the death of him.
   
4. A manner of dying: a heroine’s death.
   
5. A personification of the destroyer of life, usually represented as a skeleton holding a scythe.
   
6. a. Bloodshed; murder.
   b. Execution.
   
7. Law. Civil death.
   
8. The termination or extinction of something.
   

So, what is death? Death is simply the cessation of life. Death is nothingness, a complete lack of sensation. As Brother Epicurus, the ancient Greek philosopher said, “Grow accustomed to the belief that death is nothing to us, since every good and evil lie in sensation. However, death is the deprivation of sensation. Therefore, correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes a mortal life enjoyable, not by adding an endless span of time but by taking away the longing for immortality. For there is nothing dreadful in life for the man who has truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living. Therefore, foolish is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will cause pain when it arrives but because anticipation of it is painful. What is no trouble when it arrives is an idle worry in anticipation. Death, therefore — the most dreadful of evils — is nothing to us, since while we exist, death is not present, and whenever death is present, we do not exist. It is nothing either to the living or the dead, since it does not exist for the living, and the dead no longer are.”

 

Or, as someone else once said, “Life is just an interruption in an otherwise peaceful nonexistence.”

 

Death is a complete lack of sensation. There is nothing terrible about not living, and yet we fear death so much that over the centuries thousands of mythologies about death and what supposedly happens after it have been devised. The two primary afterlife paradigms insist that we are either judged after death by a god and sent to a heaven or a hell or that we return for another life based on the one just lived, basically passing judgment on ourselves. I submit that both paradigms are false - fascinating, even compelling, but FALSE. Despite the assertions made by religions and religious teachers that there is life after death, after thousands of years there remains no good evidence to back up the claims and much good evidence to prove the claims false. The scientific case against our survival of death in some form is very strong. The mind is completely dependent on the brain. When the brain dies, the mind ceases to function as well, and we cease to exist.

 

Mankind has lived for thousands of years fearing death. The more enlightened among us, such as Brother Epicurus, have realized that there is nothing to fear in death, and they have tried to pass that wisdom on to the rest of us. And yet, we do fear death. We fear it so much that we have invented many euphemisms for it. A list of euphemisms for death is available here:

 

http://phrontistery.50megs.com/longpig/dead.html

 

But, why fear death? Why fear the unavoidable and the inevitable? What good does fearing death do us? The answer is that it does us no good at all, but it can do great harm. Worrying about death and fearing it can rob us of the enjoyment of this life while we have it. Don’t worry about death! Death will come, but there is nothing to fear in it.

 

What happens after life? Think about that question. Think about that phrase. What is after life? After life. What happens after we are finished living? What comes after life? Well, NOTHING! So, is there an afterlife? NO! Brother Richard Dawkins believes that notions of an existence after death are dangerous nonsense, and I completely agree. This dangerous nonsense of gods and afterlifes has produced tremendous evil and much bloodshed. There is no god and there is no afterlife. If everyone accepted these facts, we would have a much more peaceful world devoid of religious terrorism.

 

Religious myths are built around the fear of death and what happens after it. Accept death for what it is - the complete lack of sensation - and the fear of it vanishes along with fears of what might happen after it. Nothing at all either can or will happen to us after we die, rendering religious threats and fears absolutely baseless. I have no reason to fear threats of hell and no reason to rejoice over offers of heaven. I know it’s all mythology with absolutely no basis in reality. Nothing either good or bad can or will happen to any of us after we die. Rather than seeing death as a looming threat, we should see it as the natural end of existence that it is, with nothing to fear in it. Rather than blindly clinging to ignorance-based religious mythology or saying that we just don’t know what happens after death, we should say with confidence that we do know what happens after death - NOTHING. A correct undestanding of death removes all fears of it and all religious fears related to it. Glory!

[hereticzero]

When I was a Christian, I was terrified of dying--I wasn't good enough to die yet. Now, after leaving the church, I am much more at peace within myself and I'm not afraid of dying. Punishment and rewards are for the living; even the babble says god is a god of the living, which means after you die, you are not going to need god. Another way to look at that statement is that when we 'die' as mortals, we will live on as something else without tasting death, we won't die in the ordinary sense of death but our energy lives on when it leaves our bodies. That part of us will not die. I totally agree Brother Jeff, there is no way to prove what happens after death. Every culture and every religion has its own idea of life after death or no life after death.

[Guest eejay]

I think it's impossible to know for sure the actual reality of death until we get there. Like Heretic Zero, I was much more afraid of death as a x-tian, than I am now. The fact that I had a reservation for etenal roasting when I died made me very uncomfortable with the subject. I am a lot more at peace with it than I ever was, now that I believe the whole x-tianity thing is fake. I don't think any of us really like to think about the end of our lives here on earth, but we can't escape it and every day that goes by, we are closer to the inevitable. It would be nice for sure if science was able to prove that mystery, because religion as we know it, would fall apart instantly if the threat of hell could actually be proven to be bogus. Who would even dream of going to church then?