//this is a topic i've been wanting to discuss on here, and since this was very heavily the theme of my last post, i figure now is a good time. also, as a person who has been dead at least twice in my lifetime, i feel specially qualified to speak about it. if you don't care to hear about my feelings toward death throughout my life, you can skip to the "--".
as i may or may not have mentioned in my last post, dying has never been a fear of mine. in fact, knowing that a great deal of people struggle with the fear of death has confused me for about as long as i've been alive. however when i was a kid, i remember being afraid of hell, both the concept of it and the possibility of going there. knowing that God was reading my mind every moment, sometimes i would struggle with having impure and stupid thoughts, and i would feel a sense of fear that God knew that i was thinking those things, and that whenever i died, i would burn forever as atonement. i don't know how i feel about explaining the concept of hell to children, because on one hand it could be quite scary even to a brave child, but on the other hand, the thought of it certainly keeps a lot otherwise bad children in check and acting right. if i had to pick one or the other, i think children should be taught about hell, but it's not up to me so who cares.
this idea as a child was the only true fear of death i could say i've experienced. as i grew older and began to have a much better understanding of God, heaven, and hell, this fear of spending an eternity in a volcano with satan would flee from me. but funnily enough, i don't look back on those feelings of fear and find them to be silly, i still to this day understand why i had those thoughts and feelings.
with the concept of heaven or hell removed, it makes absolutely no sense to me that someone would fear dying. maybe this is the take of a young, stupid, or depressed man, i don't know. but really, if you're dead, you won't know that you're dead, so what is the fear? maybe people think there is a pain associated with dying by natural causes, because obviously i understand the fear of being stabbed or shot or something similar, the fear of pain is much more rational to me. i've even heard many times before, people saying that they are afraid that when they die, they will be simply "locked inside a prison of black, alone with just thoughts forever." to me this seems like a ridiculous idea, but if you've never been dead before, i could certainly understand why someone might think that this may be their fate, although, i don't think even the cruelest of gods would doom each human to this sort of ending without an ending - nor would it make sense physically or biologically.
there is one thought about dying that sort of haunts me a little bit, and that is the thought of dying and not having any trace or record that you were ever here. i guess this may be the point of this site when i think about it, otherwise these files would sit on my computer and never be seen by anyone. but the idea of putting my writings on a server, that will certainly outlast me, and a whole lot of people after me, it gives purpose to an otherwise useless act. it is a hope that whenever i die, there will be many things that i've done that will outlast me. maybe i won't be forgotten as quickly. i wonder why i care about that anyway.
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if you found out you were going to die in the next five minutes, would you be happy with the way you've lived your life so far? are there any regrets that immediately come to mind? it seems to me that the common perception is that people will only regret the things that they did not do. but i think this is extremely an extremely hollywood/disney version of what real life is. "oh but just think, you'll always regret not saying something to that one girl! you'll never know what your life could've possibly been!" you absolutely cannot think this way. if you're always thinking about the paths you didn't take or the opportunities you passed up on, you'll "what if" yourself into insanity. God gave us an adventure and we made our choices along the way, whichever direction we decided to go in made the most sense to us at the time of making the decision, that's why we chose what we chose. you didn't have the knowledge you have now. i mean, do you think about every decision you make now under the guise of, "i wonder what future me knows!" that's ridiculous. you choose a path and you move on. also you never know, you may have ended up getting murdered, or squashed by a bus, or ended up with some weird incurable disease if you had went down the opposite path that you're so heartbroken about missing out on.
so it's very silly to me to regret things that you didn't do, because all we have is our imagination on what could've been, and as we know, we tend to be believe that the grass is always greener. and that's why i think this idea of "you won't regret the things you did do" is complete dreamland bullshit. people absolutely regret things that they did do. i see it all the time, and so do you. some of us choose to ignore this, i was one of them, when i was much younger. and as you could imagine, i've grown up to do a lot of things that i definitely wish i didn't do. definitely err on the side of caution when making decisions. you don't want to end up feeling stupid forever because you said some stupid shit that you didn't mean at all trying to get one of your girlfriends back. your emotional wellbeing, and happiness cannot depend on the outcome of a given situation. this is the only way to ascend past the point of acting like a chimp when things don't go your way. because usually in life things usually don't go your way, and the less you freak out when this happens, the less likely you are to do something that 50 years from now you look back and say, "man, i wish i hadn't hit that guy with a pipe all those years ago, because then i would've never have gone to prison where i got stabbed by that shank with aids on it." or even worse, "i wish i had just left that girl alone, now she's accused me of rape and i have to move to another continent if i ever want to have a shred of a normal life again."
if there's anything to gain from reading this, it's that you must be 1000% outcome independent. buddhism states that desire is the root of suffering. to want, is to suffer. and it's easier said than done, but you absolutely have to separate your feelings from the real world. this is what all of the world's most successful religions are referring to when they talk about "enlightenment." they all say it in much different ways, but this is the core goal of all of them. buddhists say it the most blatantly, and perhaps have the most straightforward path to achieving this goal. christianity and islam want this for you as well, but they have much different ways of going about it. the point is, this is a major key to staying sane in the face of wild adversity, and when things really don't go your way, keeping this mindset will keep you from doing something you regret or acting in a way that you otherwise wouldn't.
a lot of people today, especially in western countries, are relatively protected from most traumatic experiences that extremely poor or third world people regularly go through, this allows them the luxury of dealing with the 'flesh' all day. but they owe this privilege to modernity, because even the richest people during the biblical era still had to worry about all sorts of crazy shit like their kids getting kidnapped, a rival group ransacking their village, droughts, famine, disease, etc. it was never-ending for them. people needed religion to cope, they didn't have the distractions that we do. their problems were right in front of them and they couldn't look away, so they sunk their faith into whoever, and hoped that after this life, we pass on to one that is much more forgiving. it is a very wholesome thought, actually. now that that need for such cope is no longer there for many people, religion is fading away.
since the modern day secular man and woman ditched religion for self-worship, the idea that how you act when you no one is looking means anything, is starting to lose weight. "if there's no hell to worry about, why should i act properly if it doesn't benefit me?" and to someone who doesn't have God, it's actually a really good question. because why should you? why shouldn't you try to experience as much pleasure as possible while you can? why not hoard as much as you can, and stuff your face at every meal, and steal things when no one is looking? if all there is is the flesh, then there really is no good reason to be a good person. and you know, i find it really funny when reddit freaks say stuff like, "i don't need God to be a good person," while they themselves are one of the most deplorable people you've ever seen. but that's just the thing though, i do need God to be a good person. most people do. that's why redditors have the stereotype that they have, and the 'white, christian, khaki wearing family next-doors' have the stereotypes they have. but i think that the redditor type is actually very afraid of death, contrary to what they say. i think their love for things like science and technology is rooted in their fear of getting sick/growing old and dying. and i believe their obsession with things like marvel movies, funko pops, video games, anime, and nintendo, is because they are seriously terrified of actually growing up. if you told a redditor he could never play a video game again it would be like telling a regular dude that you have to amputate his penis. i'm using the term 'redditor' because they are the prime example of the type of person i am talking about, but of course there are others with these same tendencies.
for the man of God, life is a chance to experience the flesh, to suffer, to toil, to sacrifice, to love, to hate, to laugh and cry, just as Christ did. our strength and faith is tested through trials and hardships, but in the end our soul enters paradise to spend the rest of eternity with God, and what an honor it would be. the holy man has no reason to fear death.
for the atheist, nothing matters, do whatever you want. watch porn, don't start a family, be as selfish as possible, only worry about yourself. we are just stardust, kill your babies, watch the avengers, and disparage everyone else in the process.