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robertsnj · 56-60, M
atheist here not afraid of the idea but worried about the pain at some point. long rambling post to address question below apologize in advance for rambling.
The value of life comes in the finiteness of it. It is a blink of time--a micro-blink and poof gone forever and soon forgotten. No legacy (that matters to the deceased) and others may think about you for a few years after but 10 years plus not even an after thought in most others.
But it is that fleetingness is what gives it beauty. The idea i got to live for decades, make friends have pets,do things, much more things that many on earth didn't or could not experience at my level or for my durtation at least,--I am fortunate in that idea.
I am at the age where my parents are deceased, many of my relatives are deceased, co-workers, people I went to school with and friends are now deceased. I watch them fade away and understand the process for the ones that died a illness based death. A few died in car accidents but were dead on impact and probably were dead before they fully realized the danger they were in. Blinked and they were gone out of existence for the rest of space and time.
I think fear of death is actually one of the largest anchors in belief in God for a lot of believers, believers who today, live in such a data-driven world where we know so much about our existence and no evidence for any God exists. in that idea I have to confess I am skeptical when a person who anchors to the idea of an afterlife claims to not fear or worry about death. Not that it matters and it is more of a sidebar but "afraid of death" questions will have hoards of believers say not afaid while side-steppig the irony of a belief in afterlife (aka did not actually die / cease to exist) as a reason.
Nothing is kind in existence, but if you had to anthropomorphize it, indifferent. For the record it would be anthropomorphizing it. blind luck has such a huge impact on how long we live, what gene pool we got (which impacts our health) and the quality of life we end up with (with some degree of wiggle room).
In that idea life has no inherent meaning--but only the meaning we assign to it for the duration of our lifetime. The values we assign creating the value we percieve. Duration of life has such a large impact on that. Being in my late 50's I fgure I got pretty lucky and even if I don't make it to 60 got a better ride than most. I can either be bitter or have angst for the fleetingness of it or have appreciation for the decades I got to spend. I guess for me, and just a personal note that is hard to qualify but, I am going to go with the glass 1/2 full approach and fell lucky i got what I got.
The value of life comes in the finiteness of it. It is a blink of time--a micro-blink and poof gone forever and soon forgotten. No legacy (that matters to the deceased) and others may think about you for a few years after but 10 years plus not even an after thought in most others.
But it is that fleetingness is what gives it beauty. The idea i got to live for decades, make friends have pets,do things, much more things that many on earth didn't or could not experience at my level or for my durtation at least,--I am fortunate in that idea.
I am at the age where my parents are deceased, many of my relatives are deceased, co-workers, people I went to school with and friends are now deceased. I watch them fade away and understand the process for the ones that died a illness based death. A few died in car accidents but were dead on impact and probably were dead before they fully realized the danger they were in. Blinked and they were gone out of existence for the rest of space and time.
I think fear of death is actually one of the largest anchors in belief in God for a lot of believers, believers who today, live in such a data-driven world where we know so much about our existence and no evidence for any God exists. in that idea I have to confess I am skeptical when a person who anchors to the idea of an afterlife claims to not fear or worry about death. Not that it matters and it is more of a sidebar but "afraid of death" questions will have hoards of believers say not afaid while side-steppig the irony of a belief in afterlife (aka did not actually die / cease to exist) as a reason.
Nothing is kind in existence, but if you had to anthropomorphize it, indifferent. For the record it would be anthropomorphizing it. blind luck has such a huge impact on how long we live, what gene pool we got (which impacts our health) and the quality of life we end up with (with some degree of wiggle room).
In that idea life has no inherent meaning--but only the meaning we assign to it for the duration of our lifetime. The values we assign creating the value we percieve. Duration of life has such a large impact on that. Being in my late 50's I fgure I got pretty lucky and even if I don't make it to 60 got a better ride than most. I can either be bitter or have angst for the fleetingness of it or have appreciation for the decades I got to spend. I guess for me, and just a personal note that is hard to qualify but, I am going to go with the glass 1/2 full approach and fell lucky i got what I got.