For my fellow Atheist and People who dont believe anything happens when you die, how do you personally deal with the fact that theres nothingness?

[AdaSmiles]

Some people wrote "return to nothingness", which most people consider eternal. But if you return to that point, you also have started at a certain point in the past, right? This would mean that nothingness is not eternal, because you were born. If there is eternal nothingness, nothing would exist, nobody would be born.

Just a while ago, I saw an interesting video, where some physicians stated that there is no nothingness in the universe.

Already the fact that there is a word for nothingness and that we talk about, implies that there has to be something.

However, even if nothingness is not eternal, there is no hint how a further existence could look like.

Practically, at least some minerals are left from our dead body, when we are gone. So maybe we just end up as fertilizer and we will be a flower

Just some thoughts.

 

[bigbeatmanifesto]

I've told this story on here before but one day I tried a particular therapy called TRE (trauma release exercises). I was pretty tired after the session so went for a nap in the afternoon. Upon waking from the nap (still half asleep), I had this vivid image in my head of my dead corpse strewn over the top of a garbage truck.

The weird thing though, was that when I saw this image in my mind's eye I felt this unbridled sense of peace. Even though I was seeing my own dead corpse literally tossed in the trash, I got this feeling like it didn't matter and that my body wasn't really me anyway.

A lot of people who do psychedelics experience 'death' and they always say it's the most peace they've ever felt. And when you go further into spiritual inquiry you realise that you as your own ego or how you see yourself is ultimately just an illusion.

None of us really exist - we're just consciousness experiencing itself and our egos create stories and narratives like 'the afterlife' to convince ourselves we're not just a transient bag of meat that will one day die.

 

[lachrymost]

It's hard not to have the FOMO, but it's well worth it to avoid The Horrors. What's really tragic to me is that I had to be born at all. That's the thing that really gets me--that the nothingness got interrupted in the first place.

Dawkins writes in Unweaving the Rainbow about how improbably fortunate we are to be born at all, and I think about it all the time, as a misfortune.

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

How it feels to me, and I guess to you as well, is that the present moves from the past to the future, like a tiny spotlight, inching its way along a gigantic ruler of time. Everything behind the spotlight is in darkness, the darkness of the dead past. Everything ahead of the spotlight is in the darkness of the unknown future. The odds of your century being the one in the spotlight are the same as the odds that a penny, tossed down at random, will land on a particular ant crawling somewhere along the road from New York to San Francisco. In other words, it is overwhelmingly probable that you are dead.

In spite of these odds, you will notice that you are, as a matter of fact, alive. People whom the spotlight has already passed over, and people whom the spotlight has not reached, are in no position to read a book… What I see as I write is that I am lucky to be alive and so are you.

In spite of the odds, here we are, suffering, wanting out but simultaneously having to come to terms with our mortality. If you stay in the void, you never have to do that.

 

[Eternal Oblivion]

The death part is easy, you won't have to do anything, the hard part is getting there. How will I experience death is what bothers me, and that's why I wish I had N readly avaliable.

Cancer? Desiese? Anything at all that gets me fucked up? Go home and drink N, and it's all over. That would give me such a piece of mind to live my days It would be unbeliavable. To think I had made the transfer for D and WU returned my money by being considered "a suspecious transfer" makes me think there is some sort of God fucking with me.

 

[y0dha]

Lots of people in the thread seem to wish for the nothingness but for me it scares me a lot, cause I kinda wish I got another shot.
I got influenced badly and made also bad decisions which left me in a terrible physical and mental state but I know I had lots of potential and I blew it. issue is there no fix for me so i'm stuck and I will never be able to do what I could do before...

I kinda hope reincarnation exists but from a logical standpoint there's really poor chance that's it's a thing.

 

[BipolarExpress]

The death part is easy, you won't have to do anything, the hard part is getting there. How will I experience death is what bothers me, and that's why I wish I had N readly avaliable.

Cancer? Desiese? Anything at all that gets me fucked up? Go home and drink N, and it's all over. That would give me such a piece of mind to live my days It would be unbeliavable. To think I had made the transfer for D and WU returned my money by being considered "a suspecious transfer" makes me think there is some sort of God fucking with me.

That's exactly how I feel. I'm not afraid of being dead; I'm afraid of dying an unpleasant death.

 

[SamTam33]

I'm sure others have already expressed similar thoughts, but nothingness is what I desire.

It's only our twisted egos that tell us there should be 'something-ness'

I doubt any other living creatures contemplate what happens when they die. Who are we to think there should be something?

Nothingness is sufficient. This world will turn with or without us. I can handle that.

 

[whitefeather]

What did we experience before the womb.. ?!

And during our 9 months in the womb ...?

University of Arizona is researching "After Death Communication" , documenting the so-called 'dead' communicating w/ the so-called 'living'

Hu Hu :o)

 

[Celerity]

You can intellectualize it all you want, but IMO, any honest look at the matter will always reveal an animal fear of death. I don't think it's possible to remain 100% at peace with it for any appreciable amount of time. Committing suicide is an act of desperation, but it is also often brave.

To put it simply, I think it is exceedingly easier to be unaffected and "rational" under A/C in a comfortable chair in front of a computer than it is with your fingers wrapped around a pistol or your feet parked at the edge of a cliff or with the salty, metallic taste of SN on your tongue. I'd like to see mental masturbation about how we're all stardust happen then.

To answer your question, OP, the fear of death and the nothingness after is less something I cope with than one I tolerate, just like most things in life.

 

[ryo the frog]

I believe that there is nothing after death. no sensations, no thoughts, no consciousness, nothing. with that being said, why be scared of death when I wont even realize that I'm dead.
hearing clinically dead stories helped me get over that anxiety.

 

[Tiberius85]

The state after death - nothingness - is the same state we were in before our birth.

Part of life is dying. In fact, we are born to die. Nothing scary about it. Tthere is nothing inherently bad about the fact that there is nothing after death. It's only our opinion about it that makes it out to be something bad.

But it's not. It's natural. Adjust your view and see it as the most normal thing. So many before us are gone, so many will go after us. All forgotten sooner rather than later.

With that in mind: the party is now. Do the right thing now. There my not be a later. Death can come every minute - we don't know how much more time we have. Do what's good and right in the here and now. It's the only thing we truly possess: the current moment.

 

[tardis]

You can intellectualize it all you want, but IMO, any honest look at the matter will always reveal an animal fear of death. I don't think it's possible to remain 100% at peace with it for any appreciable amount of time. Committing suicide is an act of desperation, but it is also often brave.

To put it simply, I think it is exceedingly easier to be unaffected and "rational" under A/C in a comfortable chair in front of a computer than it is with your fingers wrapped around a pistol or your feet parked at the edge of a cliff or with the salty, metallic taste of SN on your tongue. I'd like to see mental masturbation about how we're all stardust happen then.

To answer your question, OP, the fear of death and the nothingness after is less something I cope with than one I tolerate, just like most things in life.

Thank you for saying this. I find such a lack of substance in the other answers here.

I think the pessimism on this forum is often a cope in a weird way. It seems people don't want to admit that there is something invaluable about life that you miss out on when it becomes unbearable or when you die.

 

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

There's comfort in knowing that one day, the culmination of suffering I've been through in my life will come to a close. Other than that, there is nothing that helps me rationalise death or cope with the endogenous fear that accompanies it.

Like many of you, I was raised in a very religious environment, but never truly believed it in. From a very young age though, I was terrified of death, hellfire, and brimstone, in all of their ghastly glory. Even as a three year old toddler, I'd poke my grandma every so often when we were sleeping in bed, absolutely aghast with fear because I was horrified that she may die in her sleep and god might sent her to "the bad place."

Realistically, I know that I won't be aware of my death after it happens- if my conviction that there is nothing after life is correct. This doesn't make dealing with it any easier though. Watching my grandfather die in an undignified and traumatising way a few years ago solidified many of my deeply seated fears about death. It was so gut wrenching.

I cried every single day watching him lose all mental faculties, deteriorate to a state where he had to use diapers because he had become skin and bones and could no longer walk, he could hardly breathe. He couldn't even eat any of the meals he liked anymore. All while he was panicking about what awaited on the other side, what if he hadn't picked the "right" religion to believe in, or hadn't done enough to prove his faith? To see someone grappling with these questions, scared senseless while on their deathbed breaks you in ways you wouldn't imagine.

Failing my attempt caused a lot of those fears to resurface. Even though I'm dealing with problems that can't be solved, I'm still afraid to die. Bypassing those basal animal instincts is beyond our ability, in moments where there truly is a possibility of dying and we're so viscerally aware of it. I would like to believe otherwise, to dismiss these concerns as fleeting and fickle emotions driven by hesitancy and uncertainty, but I know in my case that even though I want to die and have known this for many years, I will always be afraid of the horrors and the unknowns that dying entails.

 

[hey.howare.u]

I drink a lot. Smoke a lot
Take a lot painkillers and hope every day that i dont wake up

 

[123hopeitspainfree]

I imagine it like when you sleep without a dream and nothingness is where we were before we were born pretty creepy when u think about absolute nothingness I overdosed when I was 19 and had a out of body experience while I was Unconscious and was floating against the Ceiling and could see my body I could hear my mom freaking out calling 911 saying help me put him in the tub I kept saying I'm fine don't put me in the tub I'm fine (I really wasn't saying anything though) funny part is by the time the paramedic arrived as soon as he walked into the bathroom my actual body looked up and told him that Idk why they put me in the bathtub I'm fine he just looked at me like yea I'm so sure lol then as soon as I get to the hospital this lady come and asks did I oversose on purpose (I hadnt) I told her no I just woke up and did my usual morning shot of heroin to not feel sick and she kept asking u sure u didn't do it Intentionally which I kept telling her no I even went into detail how I rolled a blunt went and did the shot looked in the mirror saw a piece of weed on my tooth and went to get it off and "woke up" floating lol

 

[SamTam33]

Thank you for saying this. I find such a lack of substance in the other answers here.

I think the pessimism on this forum is often a cope in a weird way. It seems people don't want to admit that there is something invaluable about life that you miss out on when it becomes unbearable or when you die.

What is the invaluable something no one wants to admit missing out on when they die? Are you able to describe it?

 

[tardis]

What is the invaluable something no one wants to admit missing out on when they die? Are you able to describe it?

Having conscious experience seems to be a prerequisite for value. Dead people don't value anything
including their so-called "peace."

If there is nothing making your life unbearable then even simple things such as breathing or
watching a sunrise can be very pleasant.

There is quite a lot of undeniable good things:

Being healthy and in good shape
Having relationships and friendships and connecting with other people
Getting an education

The point isn't that these things give you hedonic pleasure, the point is that to get pleasure
at all you have to be alive and conscious.

To me, if you have so many problems that you can't enjoy the things above then you are experiencing
a tragedy. Because you had the unique experience of being alive and it was wasted.

 

[SamTam33]

Having conscious experience seems to be a prerequisite for value. Dead people don't value anything
including their so-called "peace."

If there is nothing making your life unbearable then even simple things such as breathing or
watching a sunrise can be very pleasant.

There is quite a lot of undeniable good things:

Being healthy and in good shape
Having relationships and friendships and connecting with other people
Getting an education

The point isn't that these things give you hedonic pleasure, the point is that to get pleasure
at all you have to be alive and conscious.

To me, if you have so many problems that you can't enjoy the things above then you are experiencing
a tragedy. Because you had the unique experience of being alive and it was wasted.

Oh, you're saying we could find things to occupy our time like paying for continuing education or watching the sunrise.

Good health and friendship isn't guaranteed, but if the presence of those things makes life invaluable, it's fair to say the absence of them makes life worthless.

 

[AloneInCollege]

I don't. Whenever i think about it too much I get a really bad panic attack.

 

[ARW3N]

Grew up Catholic. Went to Catholic schools. Studied to be a priest 4 years undergrad, 2 years grad school. Helped raise three children. Taught CCD (religious ed). A lector at Mass. Even prayed the family rosary (!). All three children shed their religious delusions by the time they graduated from high school (USA). Asked myself: WTF? Years went by. I asked my adult children: Why? Turned out I was a "liberal" Catholic and the kids told me that the message to think for yourself came through in spite of Mass, CCD and family prayer. At age 65 I followed their example in spite of fear: what will hold my life together? Shedding the delusion of religion turned out to be the most liberating experience of my life. Fuck afterlife. There is only this life. It is full of regret, sorrow, and loss. Thanks to the support of this awesome community, I have acquired two methods to make my self-determined exit. (One method was made readily available by the so-called "pro-life" conservatives in the USA.) Not ready to (literally) pull the trigger, but have no problem with picturing my metabolism stopping and that's it. End of consciousness. End of sadness. End of regret. Just one less of eight billion humans currently destroying the planet. Nobody will notice. Thank god.

There's a famous Indian mystic called Ramakrishna who proclaimed all religions to be true and lead to God. My own experience has proved to me that none of the religions are true and that God doesn't exist. Science tells us that before the universe burst into existence there was no space and time and no before and after. There wouldn't even have been a consciousness of any "nothingness." That's essentially how I think about death.

 

[regal20]

Some people wrote "return to nothingness", which most people consider eternal. But if you return to that point, you also have started at a certain point in the past, right? This would mean that nothingness is not eternal, because you were born. If there is eternal nothingness, nothing would exist, nobody would be born.

Just a while ago, I saw an interesting video, where some physicians stated that there is no nothingness in the universe.

Already the fact that there is a word for nothingness and that we talk about, implies that there has to be something.

However, even if nothingness is not eternal, there is no hint how a further existence could look like.

Practically, at least some minerals are left from our dead body, when we are gone. So maybe we just end up as fertilizer and we will be a flower

Just some thoughts.

A very good point. There is a perfect balance in the universe. Eternal nothingness would contradict that. Nevertheless, at the moment of death, our memory will certainly be completely erased and the ego irrevocably destroyed. Our consciousness will be reduced to its most primordial form(mindless) but that doesn't mean we won't rise again. The only question is how exactly this would work and whether our deeds and attentiveness play any role in this process.

 

[AdaSmiles]

A very good point. There is a perfect balance in the universe. Eternal nothingness would contradict that. Nevertheless, at the moment of death, our memory will certainly be completely erased and the ego irrevocably destroyed. Our consciousness will be reduced to its most primordial form(mindless) but that doesn't mean we won't rise again. The only question is how exactly this would work and whether our deeds and attentiveness play any role in this process.View attachment 101511

Agree!
I think, nothingness is not eternal and life is also not, but the cycle of life and death is neverending.

Everything in the universe seems to be perfectly balanced. Something is born, something dies, something is born again etc.

It seems valid for everything: people, other animals, plants, planets, stars and whatever. Always the same pattern.

A neverending cycle of life and death.

 

[bluville]

It's kind of freaky to think about, but at the same time if there's nothing then there's nothing to feel so once I'm there I wouldn't care anyway lol.

I think the idea that I was wrong about there being nothing more terrifying.

 

[borderline-feline]

I find the lack of an afterlife comforting. When the brain stops functioning and consciousness fades away, you can no longer feel any pain. The idea of having to live after death just sounds like inhuman torture, regardless of whether it's heaven, hell, or otherwise.

 

[umbra_]

Seems like a common sentiment -- I'm comforted by the oblivion.

 

[HermitLonerGuy]

That's what I believe is after death non-existence forever . non-existence nothingness forever is the best thing to me. I don't see why non-existence is bad. I didn't exist for 13.8 billion years and all that time I didn't have a problem with not existing. It will be just like that again after this animal prison i'm in dies . I won't even know I'm dead or don't exist just like before I was born and won't have any problems nor chance of pain suffering disease old age nor 1000 things I hate about life and this world. imo religions are just fictional tales people invented hundreds of years ago to control others .

The brain creates consciousness. Even fish or birds are conscious. A bird or a fish sees a prey or predator with it's eyes then that image is formed in the brain and the bird views it.

I think it's a big lie that humans are not just other animals .

All animals have basically the same brain. The only difference I see is that humans have expanded or learned language capabilities but look how long it takes a human baby to make a complete sentence of 3 or more words 3 years. 3 years of that brain learning and connecting neurons at a faster rate than at any other age.

I think most of science and technology would have to be wrong for there to be an afterlife or reincarnation.

Finally a thread for atheists and people that believe there is no after life no reincarnation only non-existence forever .

I 100% agree with your assessment, humans just made up these after death fantasy because 1. The human brain is imaginative and 2. being self aware and self concious makes us fear not existing so we lie to ourselves. The human intelligence is a blessing and a curse.

 

[IJustWantToTalk]

I like the idea of there being nothing after this. I hate the idea of living eternally, I find it comforting to know that everything just goes black. No more living or suffering. That's just it.

 

[Parting Sorrow]

For me, the belief and I what I really consider the most likely scenario, this being the end, is actually kind of a nice thought I think.

 

[KlMeNw]

This has been really bugging me lately, i believe that once we die thats it. No afterlife or reincarnation. I am glad people have the comfort of a heaven or reincarnation but i cannot in good conscience lie to myself and delude myself into believing things out of hope or fear.

I am 100% sure in my mind after thinking about thing logically that once we die we cease to think or feel ever again.

How do you deal with this notion?

I used to be the same as you, thinking through the idea of God and the afterlife through a rational logical lens, mostly because science says it's rubbish, and I came to the same conclusion you did. Until I realized that all that logic left me was a feeling of despair and fear. I mean the thought of no God means that not only is there nothing beyond death but that the journey of my life (which was mostly pain) was meaningless, that all I have endured was for nothing. I can't sit with that idea constantly. So now I say why can't there be a creator? Maybe not the one that's in all the books of different religions, but a more grandiose and mysterious creator, one who is unknowable by design. Maybe he's in line with what science has taught us. Meaning that he created the universe 14 billion years ago and he has watched his creation evolve from small one celled critters, all the way to the complex creatures we are today. One that doesn't interfere in our affairs and truly leaves us to our own decision's, whatever the consequences may be. Maybe he's waiting for us when we die. Or when we die we may simply be no more. But does my ceasing to exist when I pass mean that God does too? I don't belive it does. True death may just be what God had planned for us. For it is his existence that comforts me, regardless of what he has fated for me.

 

[Specific_Milk]

Why are you afraid/worried of nothingness hermi?
For me nothingness is the ultimate bliss, sure there's a contradiction in that statement since you won't feel 'bliss' or anything for that matter when you're nothing. But I prefer non-existence to existence. If existence comprises of pain and suffering surely non-existence will have to be the negation of these things. The ultimate hell would be the existence of an afterlife. The primal assumptions of heaven and hell is the former a place of infinite pleasure and the latter of infinite pain but I can't see how infinite pleasure itself won't lead to disillusion and ultimately the same dissatisfaction as in hell.