Afraid of death

well that is why they call it faith. atheists today have faith Darwin got it right and some magical thing happened and all things by random chaos made us. Jews and Christians have thought for centuries that God chose to make it all so it is orderly, diverse, and works like machinery synergistically. many others have over centuries had many thoughts on religion, and science and religion are not mutually exclusive. however science can't explain all things, so everybody has to have faith in somethings.

i watched my gramma die. i knew she went to heaven. i also almost died about 7 years ago, and had no fear at all because i knew where i would go. however, another woman in ICU was screaming and it was not from pain...i could hear the fear. she obviously did not want to die as she saw nothing in her future.

i suggest you seriously at this point do a search not to prove there is a god...but search to find out if he is there what he put you here for. by the way, science can't ever prove a theory is fact, it can only find proofs that show something is NOT a fact. science has not been able to disprove creation, or God's existence, but many would like us to just accept their faith that it didn't happen. i searched myself, i found what many say is evidence that there was also others who had evidence that showed a lot of "science" was fake...so i can't trust that either. i can go into more specifics if desired. otherwise, it would benefit you personally to seek truth, not allow hate, and don't believe everything you read without searching for those who did work to refute it...i found my faith was Christian after all, and what i do not know, i have faith i will one day. i feel peaceful in that.

Best wishes for finding it.

ps: how does reason make you not die soon? you could go when crossing the street, i almost did.

 

I'm not religious in the slightest, and don't really believe in the paranormal. But I want to believe that there is something after death. The thought of just... nothingness... is so hard for me to comprehend otherwise.

 

yes, nothingness would suck.

i figure if I'm wrong and there is nothing...then i won't know right?
but if I'm right, i avoided eternal torment...i had enough evil on earth, i prefer to seek paradise after life.

isn't positive and hopeful better than a downer?

 

Deaf not faith- I love your views question - how do you not worry about Christian views on homosexuality?

 

Are you for real?

"atheists today have faith Darwin got it right and some magical thing happened and all things by random chaos made us.". It's infuriating to have you think/say that. You credulous bafoon. Stop believing what you heard from 'Dr' Hovind or 'AnswersinGenisis.org'. You might actually learn something, or better yet, ask an atheist what he/she believe rather than make a crass and untrue statement like that. Here's me thinking lying was a sin.

 

I have to disagree with Deaf Not Blind in many things but that's only natural since we have different views. Just wanted to point out that atheists don't have faith. We only believe in what can be proven through the scientific method and that usually means dismissing anything that can't.

I am going to probably be hated for what I'm saying but I find it more comforting that we just cease to exist after death. That it's like falling asleep forever. The idea of heaven and hell had never appealed to me even when I was a child and a pretty devoted Christian. It doesn't make sense to me.
I believe that this is all there is to it so we had better make the most of it. I cherish every living moment and acknowledge that I am the one who gives meaning to my life. It makes me feel confident and strong. I want to live my life with no regrets and I feel much more free than when I used to think that somebody is going to punish me or reward me for eternity. There's many things that I dislike about the idea of an afterlife. It is slightly macabre but beautiful as well knowing that you will rest in true peace at one point.

 

please refrain from name calling.
do not call me or anybody here any names again, got it?
i don't have a clue who those peeps are you mentioned.
i am 43 years old, i got my info from living.
chaos can't create anything. it takes a ton of faith for atheists to believe Darwin had it right, and that all DNA even happened by random accidents. A faith that said something started it all, but we don't know how it started or what made the objects of the big bang or why suddenly it did happen...faith big time.
I didn't call you names,
please don't try it again to me or anybody else on EC.

---------- Post added 31st Dec 2012 at 06:31 AM ----------

that is a really good question!
darn hard stuff huh?
well, it is not preached on much in my Baptist church.
since we started there in about 1999, i think i have heard the head pastor talk about it twice, that it said clearly to him that we should abstain from it, and then he moved on, about 6 sentences each time.
Although he is amazing, raised atheist, was not a good person, had been a theif, now he really tries hard to not just say what others say, he tries to study all archeology and original language translations so he can get it right for us...but I have had a couple things he said i think he got wrong.
So we are all human, we can make mistakes, and if churches have accidentally been passing on wrong views on this, then God will correct it, if He is in charge...and maybe he is...if gays go to church and are fine members otherwise, sitting there weekly, it will be harder for straights to say all gays hate God and are atheists.
If we are wrong, that does not send us to hell.
I have read the couple passages, old testament is not relevant to Christians, unless you are Saturday Adventist. Those laws were for Jews, and Jesus was supposed to be the fulfillment of the Law...so NT is what to look at, and some have said all sexual immorality we are to abstain from...and we know that many straights are not sexually pure in their lives.
I won't judge them though. God may, but I don't have the right to judge straights for having sex outside of marriage, and living together and divorcing.
there are MANY things that the Bible said God does not like us to do, but it does not say that gayness will send you and your partner to hell.
The Bible says how to get to heaven and avoid hell is to Love only God and all humans as yourself, forgiving everybody as you want forgiven.
I do things bad all the time.
So do you.
So does everybody on EC.
So does the Pope.
So does my pastor.
So does every person ever lived...but Jesus...so...
If by being perfect we go to heaven, we all go to hell.
My way for now of dealing with homosexuality and my religion is I don't have a religion...I have faith in God who is pure goodness and love, that he made me, died so he could be with me forever, and never will leave me no matter what sin i do...so...
My issues are not about being Christian and being Queer...
My issues are losing respect and friends in my hometown, politicians not listening to me because of prejudices, and if anybody rejects me in groups such as my church or school or family how it would be sad and make me hurt...about as bad as the atheist who mocked me and called me names hurt me...like that!
All humans are humans, we make mistakes, and I hope that I can be a shining light and still come out as a transgender male, and maybe a bit bisexual, and not lose much.
So far, so good.
thanks for asking.

 

Your posts make it obvious that you have a lack of knowledge concerning atheism. I wish you would not make claims like this one without having looked further into what it means to be godless. It is offensive. But even so that does not justify name-calling-we agree on that.

 

Sorry, but you have absolutely no clue what atheism, evolution or the big bang theory is. You addressing a straw man. You making stuff up and then refuting it as if it meant something.

 

why do u assume i have not looked into what atheism is?
i will just say i have looked up a lot of religions and that is why i can say firmly to believe all Darwin said happened as an Athiest and if you were to not question the Big Bang either, that would take faith,as there are gaps of information, and to fill those gaps every atheist has faith. that is not a put down, it is a statement. i find atheists to have far more faith than most Christians do.

CP, I think I will just ignore you. I love peeps, but I don't talk to bullies. I don't call you stupid, I call you faithful, and I am not going to get into a hate argument. Thank you. Best of luck.

 

Because it's evident from your post you don't know what atheism is
Do you have any idea of what science is and revolves around? It's about asking questions. The scientific method revolves around trying to DISPROVE current theories. Who told you this rubbish?
An atheist is someone who doesn't believe god exists. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less. After that, 1 atheist may accept the big bang and evolutionary theories currently accepted by science, and another may thing the world is on the back of a giant tortoise! What are you finding so difficult about this? Being an atheist is not contingent on believe any scientific models or theories and is not an indication of what one believes in or accepts, it is only contingent on the 'believer' not justifying why someone should believe. :bang:

And do you even know anything about when evolution/the big bang theory is? It's just one strawman after another with you.

Sorry to hijack the thread from the OP's original problem.

 

I believe in rebirth, and I believe that only nirvana can bring an end to birth and the suffering it entails. Unless you are a Buddha, when you die, a new you is born elsewhere.

 

The way you phrase things indicates ignorance regarding atheism. Atheism is the lack of faith. Yes, if we are to look at definitions godless would be the most appropriate synonym as that's exactly what άθεος (atheos) (the origin of the word atheist) means. But the main idea behind being an atheist is being a skeptic. Not accepting something unless there is evidence for it.

While you can argue that Evolution is just a theory, so is gravity. That does not mean that we need to believe in it in order for it to be true. But I'm pretty sure we're high-jacking the thread atm. >.>

 

You know, everyone says that science proves that God doesn't exist, but that just isn't so. The big bang theory and evolution are just mechanisms for how things turned out. Science has no explanations on how the mechanisms came about.

For example, according to "science" matter can neither be created nor destroyed. But guess what? Matter exists. That means that it has always been just "here" or that at some point matter was created. If it had always been just "here" then where did it come from. Looks like it was created, then. Science is organized observation, and anything that can't be directly observed is out of the realm of something that science can comment on. God cannot be directly observed, so science cannot say that God exists, but it also cannot say that God doesn't exist. Science can take no position on that.

And as far as evolution, if you were a divine being, wouldn't you set it up so that organisms are self-sufficient? I would. Just sayin'.

 

yes i agree that as evolution is a theory so is gravity. and there has been even recently theories long held that they found surprisingly facts to prove not true, so we (should anyways) discard them. But we can't prove something is true...we can only find through study what is not true.

I am not good at phrasing things, best not look to that. I suck at English and it is my 1st language! But as my last attempt to explain what i mean by faith, it is not to say there is a GOD...
In the morning, your dad going to work puts the key into the ignition and turns it. He does it to start the car. He may not know exactly how a combustion engine works, but he has a faith that the key will make it run and not explode.
There is a faith that in the case I was mentioning to the OP at the start of a type of atheist who believed in Darwin's theory of evolution as it was originally stated and in the theory of the Big Bang. This particular type of individual I have found to have faith in gaps in the theories that it is still true...and my point was that in life we have many things we do not know, and we have faith to fill in those gaps.
In Darwin's original theory, he thought that from animals man evolved, however they have never found all the pieces to prove this, as I stated you need evidence to DISprove not prove...however, without the many things to prove to a person that animals became black humans then eventually lighter skinned, then eventually blonds...that is needing belief and that takes a lot of faith to accept without evidence. Not all peeps who believe in evolution today ascribe to Darwin's original racist theories and many Christians believe in it and are not atheists, that was beside my point, hope it clarifies though. In my statement I was thinking about how the Big Bang started it all. No intelligence, just a bunch of accidents...that is things bumping and exploding whatever you want to name and label it, it is a chaos theory. But the amazing things that we have to believe it all happened by chance, well, i took probabilities in college and that is a big odds, i would like to win the lottery because it has better odds. So that again awes me with the faith that the complexity of the human eye or the way RNA works in replication is from a random explosion, and that object made life...that is something I must say those who can believe it have a lot of faith, in the peeps who told them it is true, in those who come up with the ideas, a lot of faith in scientists. And how it all began, that nobody set it to happening, but it just did, for no reason, practical nothingness in a void, one day it decided to start everything that we have so beautiful and it all is meaningless, and that these objects...they just existed, no explanation how or why just "Because I say so" which to me leaves a lot of questions, so I just find those people who believe in it to have a lot of faith, some are of religions, but many are atheists.
Atheist is a term meaning to not have a god, but most atheists of today do believe in a form of evolution. Atheists before the 1800s, had other theories I am sure. They may lack a faith in a living diety, but they have faith...and we all do...in various things.
Continuing then on what I was meaning as to the OP's statements, my idea of faith is the not knowing aspect of something, sometimes something VERY important to ourself even if others think it is stupid, and that faith is based on our collection of knowledge and facts, it can change over time, be lost, new ones be found, but always there are faiths we have in something.
I simply found for myself that I was strangely not afraid of death because of my Christian faith that I had done enough to go to heaven and that made me have peace. But so ya know, i was afraid of being splattered on a wall and that i was going to have a closed casket funeral, and my gramma would have to id my remains. So i prayed God would not let me die that way for her sake, and i didn't die...but i did have a lot of damage.

Okay, I need some sleep. 7:30am. Peace

---------- Post added 31st Dec 2012 at 07:32 AM ----------

OP, i read once that you can have a thread deleted if it does not die. If you want to ever use the option, I think you just ask a Mod.

 

In my heart of hearts, I believe there is nothing after life. Though it's terrifying to imagine at first, you have to realize that you would not be conscious, so it wouldn't be like eternity in darkness. You would simply stop. Think of it like the way you are in deep-sleep, but even deeper than that. Obviously that's not better than heaven or reincarnation, it's definitely alright (at least compared to an eternity of floating in darkness or something, which you must realized would require just as much magical religion to make conceivable, for your conscious to exist without your body, in any form). My thoughts are that if I can make it until 90 years old or so, it won't be so bad. It's terrifying right now because there's so much I want to do and see. I was speaking with my great-aunt, who's 98 years old, still lives in her own house and is actually in pretty good health for a nearly century old woman. But she told me quite plainly that she was ready to die. She wasn't upset or depressed or anything, in fact she's quite satisfied to be where she. She just says she's lived her life, and she's getting tired now, too tired to do much anymore. I see where she's coming from; her body has degraded to the point where just being able to keep her house clean is an achievement, so for her, she's not losing all that much when she passes.

I would be more afraid to get to 98 years old, look back, and think "My life was boring, I wish I'd done this, and that, etc, etc." To think that I wasted the one life I'll ever have would be a terrible thing. However, if I get to that age, and I can look back and think "I've experienced many wonderful things, I've helped improve other people's lives, and have made an impact, even just a small one, on the world.", I think I could die in relative peace.

 

If there is nothing after death (which I don't believe) I am pretty certain it will not be unpleasant. Was it torture to be "dead" for billions of years before you were born? Of course not, and assuming again there is no immortal soul, it will be just like that.

If there IS some part of you that survives, I'm certain that it is capable of dealing with eternity. The Buddhists may have it right in saying that you eventually join with everything. An easier way of saying it is that you become a piece of God.