Is Death Really So Bad?

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I have been obsessed with death since I can remember. And it's not a happy place to be. Went though a serious depression, hospitalized, etc. This and other past experiences has made me wonder more and more about death.

According to Christians, the afterlife is beautiful. If you have perfect bodies and all that, then why so much sadness. I am often moved to tears when someone dies because I will miss them. Selfish? Yes, absolutely. And I dont like being selfish.

I have a couple relatives with a genetic terminal illness. Will I be sad when they die? Maybe, maybe not. Really hard to say how I'll react to death on the outside.

I want to be happy when people die. They no longer have any pain because they are dead. They have finally escaped the pain and hell that I often perceive to be this world. Sometimes I am jealous when I read obits. Sometimes I am jealous when people are hit instantly by a car and die instantly. When kids die like that instantly, I am not sad for the child. I am relieved that they will no longer experience the hurtful world. But am absolutely crushed for their loved ones.

I ask myself, but what about the happiness and joy in the world? don't people deserve that? They sure do, but they are dead and won't miss it.

I am not having a good day with words so excuse me. Can anybody help me make sense of this?

Death could be a good thing. It challenges lots of people into doing things they would normally never do. (not dangerous, usually)

I prefer life over death.

I much prefer it now too. I am in no rush to speed up the process of death in any way.

I am just confused as to why it's such a sad occasion.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWC6SUp1o8w[/youtube]

Seriously, I'm glad it'll end some day.

I'm only 27 and I'm already tired of it some days.

Wouldn't know, haven't tried it yet.

I've been close to death many times....though nothing hospitalized, a lot of freaky things.

I feel that death isn't something we should focus on, for me...I know I am supposed to be here. I have a purpose, and when it is up, I will die. (Hopefully it is a long time away though). If I live my life the best I can, then I will end up in paradise at the end, and then the celestial kingdom after the judgement. this is what I believe.

Death is nothing but the absence of life. It is not a good thing. It is not a bad thing. It is nothing. There is no way to enjoy death, because after it, you cease to exist. Saying you wish for death is equal to saying you wish you had never been born. It's the same thing.

The universe has existed since the beginning of time (and possibly before that). You were not born at the beginning of time. You will not die at the end of time. Everything as we know it will continue on. Knowing this is one of the major things that gives me the will to live. I don't want to die until the story is over. We're living in the climax of humanity. In the next 100 years, our ultimate fate will likely become obvious. We will either become a type one civilization, and work our way up to becoming masters of the universe, or we will annihilate ourselves doing so. If I were to get hit by a car and die tomorrow, I would never be able to find out what will happen to us. Don't you ever think about people who have died and wished that the person could be there to see how things have changed? I mean, what would Sir Issac Newton think of our work today? What would he think of the theory of relativity? Of quantum mechanics? I wish I could live forever, so that I can see how much more we'll know in 500 years from now.

Last edited by SammichEater on 01 Aug 2011, 1:00 am, edited 2 times in total.

Not in relation to others.

Good. It's helpful to explore those ideas and get really solid with them. To start off, no death is really not so bad. Certainly suffering prior to death and the loss of someone you love can be painful. But Death itself is not bad.


I don't agree with the Christian viewpoint about life or death, even remotely. So this point is somewhat moot to me. I believe that the apparent separation between Life and Death is an illusion. I furthermore reject the idea of people having an individual soul or an individual consciousness. After we die, we (can) lose the notion that we are just one person/mind/soul. So I don't believe in the afterlife. We can either meld back into pure universal consciousness or we can strive after experience and stick around in a body of some form or another.
Like I said earlier, I think that the sadness people feel after someone dies comes from either a painful suffering beforehand or a profound emotional loss. But it's especially bad when it happens quickly. I'll give you an example:

My mother died when I was 15, after a decade-long battle with cancer. She had been in a long decline and had suffered for years. When she finally died, I had already worked through a lot of the sympathetic pain for her suffering, and the grief involved with the loss of a parent. But that is because she died very slowly. I was able to prepare. A person who gets an illness and suffers and dies quickly will probably be more difficult for loved ones to deal with.

I do that too. I think it's normal for a person to feel that way sometimes, particularly if life is really hard at the moment. You can look at death and immediately see relief.


You got it. During life, we long after sensations... happy things, and sad things, and exciting and fearful and fascinating things. When we die, we are freed from that cycle and don't have to be bogged down by all the fleeting sensations. Dead people won't miss it. Or they might. In which case, like I said, they'll probably end up in a body of some kind again.


Did I? Maybe just a little bit?
I hope you can make peace with death.
My suggestion for you would be to focus specifically on what you believe happens to a person after death.
Do you believe the Christian viewpoints on death, or do you have other ideas about exactly what happens?
Because if you can nail that down, then all the stuff surrounding the event won't seem so sad and painful.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOzkEwaMnaE[/youtube]

Watch this, I had a HUGE case of Thanatophobia (fear of death) and this video helped me get over it. I feel like after death, the energy that makes me up could either come back, meld with a universal consciousness or even simply be the one speck of energy that causes a star to go supernova. All of these things are possibilities and sometimes I still fear what could come, and I still fight with that fear on a daily basis, but people like Tyson here are really helping me.

^ Love that guy.

Hm my only problem with death is that it is too finite. No going back, unless you are a ghost.

Imagine a box of Lego blocks. With the blocks, you build a house. What happens when you take the house apart and put the blocks back into the box? Is the house in the box? Where did the house go? If you rebuild the house exactly like it was, is it still the same house?

Now, imagine that the blocks are atoms, and the house is your body. There is no such thing as a soul. There is no such thing as an afterlife. Your consciousness is only electrical impulses being fired off in your brain. Electricity is the flow of electrons, which are particles, and can be represented by Lego blocks. All we are is a bunch of particles.

If I could drink something and become immortal like Tuck Everlasting I would. I do not want to die. Having said that, there are worse things than death. I know from firsthand experience. I worked in a nursing home for 6 miserable months. And if I have to choose between death, and slowly wasting away, forgotten by my family I choose death.