I'm so hoping there is something, and something better than this.
I fit pretty firmly in the category of "doesn't want to die, just can't stand living".
Actually, I really do want to live, just not on this miserable planet. I only want to die out of resignation, and I feel resentful of that. So, I guess all I'm left with is hoping that there is maybe something better hereafter?
If there isn't I guess I'll be none the wiser, it still bothers me though.
Any thoughts are appreciated.
or change the planet ? Greta Thunberg is doing it...
There are as many views on this subject as there are people on the planet. I believe we are part of something much larger than ourselves and people who are afraid to die are simply attached to their egos - they can't imagine a reality where they don't exist, so they make up an after life where there is reward and punishment but where they still exist. I think we merge back into something much larger than ourselves, back to universal energy but without the egoic identifiers. This thought brings me a lot of peace, but you will have to find your own beliefs. No other person's beliefs can help you when you are contemplating your own death, as most people here are.
I think other peoples' beliefs can help. This is what Wikipedia says, I like how they put the instinctive views of children in with this:
Regarding the
mind–body problem, most neuroscientists take a
physicalist position according to which consciousness derives from and/or is reducible to physical phenomena such as neuronal activity occurring in the brain.
[105][106] The implication of this premise is that once the brain stops functioning at
brain death, consciousness fails to survive and
ceases to exist.
[107][108] Theoretical physicist
Stephen Hawking rejected the concept of an afterlife, saying, "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark".
[109]
Psychological proposals for the origin of a belief in an afterlife include cognitive disposition, cultural learning, and as an intuitive religious idea.
[110] In one study, children were able to recognize the ending of physical, mental, and perceptual activity in death, but were hesitant to conclude the ending of will, self, or emotion in death.
[111]
In 2008, a large-scale study conducted by the University of Southampton involving 2060 patients from 15 hospitals in the United Kingdom, United States and Austria was launched. The AWARE (AWAreness during REsuscitation) study examined the broad range of mental experiences in relation to death. In a large study, researchers also tested the validity of conscious experiences for the first time using objective markers, to determine whether claims of awareness compatible with out-of-body experiences correspond with real or hallucinatory events.
[112] The results revealed that 40% of those who survived a cardiac arrest were aware during the time that they were clinically dead and before their hearts were restarted. Dr. Parnia, in the interview stated: "The evidence thus far suggests that in the first few minutes after death, consciousness is not annihilated.