What is death and why do we fear it?

[Little Hater]

well.  guess that settles that.  you read it here, folks.

Sorry, I was apparently channeling Yorkshire Pud.

[UnscreenedCaller]

I don't fear nothingness. I did when I was younger, but not anymore. I've been put under for procedures and when I went out, I went out with no memory of it happening or what happened while I was out, and that is what I think death is, if there isn't anything afterwards. I think for most people, it isn't nothingness they fear so much as being conscious of the losing of consciousness and the fear  there may be pain and anxiety at the end. An experienced hospice nurse once told me most people fall into a very deep sleep right at the end and go peacefully, if that's any comfort. 

But I do think there is something afterwards. There are too many anecdotal stories down through time with the same basic structure to ignore them. I realize neurological scientists will say it's all the dying brain, but I don't buy that. Nature is, at best, indifferent to suffering. It makes no sense to me that visions, the profound peace people experience, and meeting deceased relatives could have an evolutionary basis. What evolutionary or biological purpose can there be to comfort the dying organism with these experiences when death is inevitable and the organism no longer has a use? Why set up the brain to comfort the dying person with visions? To me, this is where the limitation of scientific materialism lies. It can posit what happens, but not why.

So I do believe people who've experienced NDE's have glimpsed something beyond life. I don't know what it is, or where it goes, but I believe them, especially when it comes from children or people blind from birth who can see in their NDEs. And of all the possible afterlifes, reincarnation is the one that makes the most personal sense, an elegant conservation of energy of human consciousness, a way to redress wrongs, to learn and grow.

I once held the hand of a dying relative and when it was all over, I felt nothing but emptiness as though this was all there was, no light, no warmth, no afterlife. But now I'm not so sure. This person struggled at the end, and that disturbed me until it occurred to me that we don't remember our own birth process, and that dying from the outside may look like a fightening struggle, but may in the end be another birthing into a different realm.

[HorrorReporter]

I don't fear nothingness. I did when I was younger, but not anymore. I've been put under for procedures and when I went out, I went out with no memory of it happening or what happened while I was out, and that is what I think death is, if there isn't anything afterwards. I think for most people, it isn't nothingness they fear so much as being conscious of the losing of consciousness and the fear  there may be pain and anxiety at the end. An experienced hospice nurse once told me most people fall into a very deep sleep right at the end and go peacefully, if that's any comfort. 

But I do think there is something afterwards. There are too many anecdotal stories down through time with the same basic structure to ignore them. I realize neurological scientists will say it's all the dying brain, but I don't buy that. Nature is, at best, indifferent to suffering. It makes no sense to me that visions, the profound peace people experience, and meeting deceased relatives could have an evolutionary basis. What evolutionary or biological purpose can there be to comfort the dying organism with these experiences when death is inevitable and the organism no longer has a use? Why set up the brain to comfort the dying person with visions? To me, this is where the limitation of scientific materialism lies. It can posit what happens, but not why.

So I do believe people who've experienced NDE's have glimpsed something beyond life. I don't know what it is, or where it goes, but I believe them, especially when it comes from children or people blind from birth who can see in their NDEs. And of all the possible afterlifes, reincarnation is the one that makes the most personal sense, an elegant conservation of energy of human consciousness, a way to redress wrongs, to learn and grow.

I once held the hand of a dying relative and when it was all over, I felt nothing but emptiness as though this was all there was, no light, no warmth, no afterlife. But now I'm not so sure. This person struggled at the end, and that disturbed me until it occurred to me that we don't remember our own birth process, and that dying from the outside may look like a fightening struggle, but may in the end be another birthing into a different realm.

This was a beautiful and touching story--I know what you mean, too..

[Evil Twin Of Zen]

death is the power of life.