Discussion Anyone ever wonder if death is worse than life?

[bananaolympus]

Sometimes i do, many religions have a negative view on suicide plus i do believe in ghosts

 

[Groundhog_Day]

I've had 4 general anaesthetics, and each time there was complete nothingness - no dreams or thoughts etc.

My only worry is that as I arrived here from complete nothingness, it seems possible that the same awareness could arrive into another life, maybe on a different planet, or different universe, out of the void. This might sound crazy, but it seems crazy to me to come here from nowhere in the first place, so I can't rule anything out.

 

[Trex]

Sometimes, no often, but sometimes, I worry there may be an afterlife and that it may be worse than life currently. I was brought up a Christian, with Jesus & Satan, Good & Evil, Heaven & Hell, etc. Obviously, I don't really believe in it now, but sometimes the worry of an afterlife, not even just the Christian ones, but one in general, might be worse than my current life. It doesn't help that all my life, whilst depressed, it was nailed into my head that people who commit suicide are sinners who committed murder and are going to hell. I think my fear of afterlife is rooted from that.

Anyways, does anyone have similar worries?

God is not the creator of the world because every activity has a motive.
Although God, who before creation is alone, is endowed with all kinds of powers since he differs in nature from all other beings, and hence is by himself capable of creating the world; we still cannot say he actually caused the world to exist. This is because the world seems to depend on a motive for its creation, and God has no motive to create it.
Everyone who does something has a motive—either to benefit themselves or others. But God, who already has everything he could ever want, wouldn't gain anything by creating the world.
And the idea that God created the world to benefit others doesn't make sense either. A merciful God wouldn't create a world so full of suffering—birth, old age, death, and so on. If God did create the world, he would have made it a completely happy place.
Therefore, because God has no motive, he cannot be the cause of the world.

But God's creative activity is mere pastime, as is seen in the world.
The motive which prompts God--all whose wishes are fulfilled and who is perfect in himself--to the creation of a world comprising all kinds of sentient and non-sentient beings dependent on his volition, is nothing else but sport, play. We see in ordinary life how some great king, ruling this earth with its seven continents, and possessing perfect strength, valor, and so on, has a game at balls, or the like, from no other motive than to amuse himself; hence there is no objection to the view that sport only is the motive prompting God to the creation, sustentation, and destruction of this world which is easily fashioned by his mere will.

Partiality and cruelty cannot be attributed to God on account of His taking into consideration other reasons in that matter, because the scripture declares it to be so.
It must indeed be admitted that the Lord, who differs in nature from all other beings, intelligent and non-intelligent, and hence possesses powers unfathomable by thought, is capable of creating this manifold world, although before creation He is one only and without parts. But the assumption of His having actually created the world would lay Him open to the charge of partiality, in so far as the world contains beings of high, middle, and low station--gods, men, animals, immovable beings; and to that of cruelty, in so far as He would be instrumental in making His creatures experience pain of the most dreadful kind.--The reply to this is 'not so, on account of there being regard'; i.e. 'on account of the inequality of creation depending on the deeds of the intelligent beings, gods, and so on, about to be created.'--Scripture and Tradition alike declare that the connection of the individual souls with bodies of different kinds--divine, human, animal, and so on--depends on the actions of those souls; compare 'He who performs good works becomes good, he who performs bad works becomes bad. He becomes pure by pure deeds, bad by bad deeds. In the same way, the reverend Parāsara declares that what causes the difference in nature and status between gods, men, and so on, is the power of the former deeds of the souls about to enter into a new creation--'He (the Lord) is the operative cause only in the creation of new beings; the material cause is constituted by the potentialities of the beings to be created. The being to be embodied requires nothing but an operative cause; it is its own potentiality which leads its being into that condition of being (which it is to occupy in the new creation).' Potentiality here means actions.

And that the world is without a beginning is reasonable and is also seen from the scriptures.
But before creation, the individual souls do not exist; since Scripture teaches non-distinction: 'Being only this was in the beginning.' And as then the souls do not exist, no action can exist, and it cannot therefore be said that the inequality of creation depends on action.--Of this objection, the Sūtra disposes by saying 'on account of beginninglessness,' i.e. although the individual souls and their deeds form an eternal stream, without a beginning, yet non-distinction of them 'is reasonable' (i.e. may reasonably be asserted) in so far as, previous to creation, the substance of the souls abides in a very subtle condition, destitute of names and forms, and thus incapable of being designated as something apart from God, although in reality then also they constitute God's body only. If it were not admitted (that the distinctions in the new creation are due to action), it would moreover follow that souls are rewarded or punished for what they have not done, and not rewarded or punished for what they have done. The fact of the souls being without a beginning is observed, viz., to be stated in Scripture, 'The intelligent one is not born and dies not'. So also the fact of the flow of creation going on from all eternity, 'As the creator formed sun and moon formerly.' Moreover, the text, 'Now all this was then undeveloped. It became developed by form and name' (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad I, 4, 7), states merely that the names and forms of the souls were developed, and this shows that the souls themselves existed from the beginning. Tradition also says, 'Do you know both Prakriti and the soul to be without beginning?' (Bhagavad Gīta XIII, 19.)--As God thus differs in nature from everything else, possesses all powers, has no other motive than sport, and arranges the diversity of the creation in accordance with the different actions of the individual souls, God alone can be the universal cause.

And because all attributes (required for the creation of the world) are possible (only in God, He is the cause of the world).
As all those attributes required to constitute causality which have been or will be shown to be absent in the Pradhāna, the atoms, and so on, can be shown to be present in God, it remains a settled conclusion that God only is the cause of the world.

 

[Life'sA6itch]

No. I just want to be done with it

 

[ShatteredSerenity]

Yeah I think about the afterlife, imagining an afterlife seems be an innate instinct. Our entire waking existence is spent in our consciousness, so it's natural to believe that the same consciousness or some variant will continue forever. There may not be any physical basis for such a belief, but we might feel it in our guts, and this is also something we often want to belief.

The problem with the afterlife is that there are so many possibilities, so which one do you choose to believe? Out of the afterlives that are posited, some may be better than life, others worse, and others will be too different for comparison. I just live my life being the best person I can, and hopefully that minimizes the chance I end up in an afterlife where I'm worse off, while maximizing the chance I end up in one of the others.

 

[ThatStateOfMind]

This is an important point. Every day you're alive you run a nonzero risk of unspeakable pain by accident or maybe even torture. When you're dead the probability drops to zero.

You know, never really thought of that before.

I wonder if when we're dead, we'll wish we were alive. If we do wish to be alive after we die, we probably would seek to reicarnate, and thus work through karmic lessons further. I do believe there is a waiting room there, that is sheol or hades; a place for dead souls.

Even in life, the grass is always greener on the other side, that may not be so different if there's consciousness in death

Personally, for me, I think there is peace after death. It just doesn't make sense that any life after death would be necessarily bad, in fact, I just believe we go to our ideal afterlives, which could be bad or good depending on how you see it.

That would be ideal. If I could choose, I probably would choose permanent nonexistence.

I pondered on these thoughts while reading 2 books, one about the Comanche indians, and another about American slavery. What I wondered was whether the afterlife would be worse if I committed evils during my life. But reading about the brutality of the Comanches, and also the brutality of the Americans against both the natives and the slaves, helped me become satisfied that I lived with sufficient morals to earn a decent afterlife if there is one. Hope that helps.

It's terrible how barbaric history, especially American history, is. By those comparisons, I am an absolute saint.

Yeah I think about the afterlife, imagining an afterlife seems be an innate instinct. Our entire waking existence is spent in our consciousness, so it's natural to believe that the same consciousness or some variant will continue forever. There may not be any physical basis for such a belief, but we might feel it in our guts, and this is also something we often want to belief.

The problem with the afterlife is that there are so many possibilities, so which one do you choose to believe? Out of the afterlives that are posited, some may be better than life, others worse, and others will be too different for comparison. I just live my life being the best person I can, and hopefully that minimizes the chance I end up in an afterlife where I'm worse off, while maximizing the chance I end up in one of the others.

This viewpoint is very broad and accepting, I like it. I don't think anyone on earth could simply not think about an afterlife.

 

[avoid_slow_death]

Nope. Am a firm beliver that after you close your eyes that final time, you slip away back into the ether to rejoin the stars from which we were all ultimately born. In other words, your matter dissipates and becomes one with the universe once again. To me, that's the most beautiful thing ever.

 

[CandleShade]

Death would come either way, there's no point wondering about that. If life is no good, its fine to just speed up the process a bit

 

[ma0]

There's only one way to find out, isn't there?