What do your beliefs say about death?

[allfoak]

I've been wondering how far our emotional responses to death are in fact conditioned by our beliefs. The way we see death often greatly shapes how we behave in our own lives and how we value it or what we value about it. So I wanted to see if people have very different or very similar views on it and how you feel about it.

This maybe a little gloomy- but it will be interesting if someone says they are looking forward to dying and can share the wisdom we can hope is behind that view. It would certianly be more pleasant to look on the bright side about how we will fertilize the soil and bring forth new life but I find that hard to do that with a striaght face. Its just weird to associate death with flowers growing out of your eventual compost.

I'm under the impression that western cultures have a very negative view of death whereas other cultures are more positive. The taboos surronding death are not universal which is interesting. So if you have an example of a belief or culture that takes a more positive or laid back view of death you're very welcome to share.

Any thoughts? Make Your move against the reaper...

The reaper is my friend.
He like the giver of life travel with me wherever I go.
They are there for my benefit.
If i want to know anything about life or death they are there for me to ask.

 

[Spiderman]

Death for the vast majority is when you drop the physical body, review the life you've just lived and get ready for the next one.

I agree...death is just leaving the body behind.

 

[arthra]

I've been wondering how far our emotional responses to death are in fact conditioned by our beliefs. The way we see death often greatly shapes how we behave in our own lives and how we value it or what we value about it. So I wanted to see if people have very different or very similar views on it and how you feel about it.

This morning I received news that a dear friend of mine passed away or as we Baha'is phrase it ascended to the Abha Kingdom. Our belief is that the soul ascends to the spiritual worlds after separating from the material body and material world. It is also presented as a parallel with the foetus in the mother's womb.. When you were in the womb world all your needs were met.. sustenance and warmth and so on.. Consider the birth process, this could be a terrifying prospect. Your womb world would come to an end and you would enter "life" as we know it. There was a button that I recall seeing many years ago with the following message: "Is there life after birth?"

My first reaction on hearing the news was sadness... sadness that I wouldn't be seeing her again or working with her but a presence of her told me grieving wasn't what she wanted... rather she would be wanting us to be happy for her. She was an exemplary person ... a teacher by profession and beloved co-worker in the Baha'i cause. She will be sorely missed by the friends and we'll gather soon to offer our best wishes/prayers for the progress of her soul in the spiritual worlds.

 

[Deeje]

For me as a non-mainstream Christian, death is an entirely foreign element in my life. Like most normal people, I have a strong desire to go on living in this mortal body in exactly the same way that Adam and his wife were promised in the beginning.

There was no death from natural causes in Eden. The only way to bring about death was to disobey the only command that carried the death penalty....and that is what they did. Adam was told that he would simply "return to the dust" from which he was created.
I have no belief in an afterlife where a spiritual part of me lives on.....I believe in resurrection, which is what Jesus Christ taught and demonstrated. Death is nothing more than a peaceful sleep, from which Jesus said he will awaken us, just like he did Lazarus. (John 11:11-14; John 5:28-29)

We are not designed to die....we are programmed to go on living....not in heaven, but right here on the planet that God lovingly prepared for us. I believe that we will one day achieve that goal when the Creator re-introduces his rulership back to mankind. The dead will be brought back to life and everything will go back to the original plan. (Isaiah 55:11)

 

[Laika]

This morning I received news that a dear friend of mine passed away or as we Baha'is phrase it ascended to the Abha Kingdom. Our belief is that the soul ascends to the spiritual worlds after separating from the material body and material world. It is also presented as a parallel with the foetus in the mother's womb.. When you were in the womb world all your needs were met.. sustenance and warmth and so on.. Consider the birth process, this could be a terrifying prospect. Your womb world would come to an end and you would enter "life" as we know it. There was a button that I recall seeing many years ago with the following message: "Is there life after birth?"

My first reaction on hearing the news was sadness... sadness that I wouldn't be seeing her again or working with her but a presence of her told me grieving wasn't what she wanted... rather she would be wanting us to be happy for her. She was an exemplary person ... a teacher by profession and beloved co-worker in the Baha'i cause. She will be sorely missed by the friends and we'll gather soon to offer our best wishes/prayers for the progress of her soul in the spiritual worlds.

Sorry to hear that. thanks for sharing your thoughts. For what its worth, I'm giving you a mental hug. I hope it gets easier.

 

[siti]

I don't believe anything of me will survive death. I don't have a prescribed religious view about death or afterlife. But I do believe that a lot of religious thought is derived from a desire to solve the riddle of death - to try to make sense of life's often pitifully short span and despair we feel at the thought of our own finitude.

Personally, I'm convinced that this life is all there is and that if anything survives it can only be our genetic and, perhaps, social/cultural legacy. The challenge is to try to leave at least something worthy for the next generation to build on. On the whole, whilst I am not particularly looking forward to my own demise and will actively postpone it as long as I possibly can, I think I am generally in favour of death - it should, ideally, I suppose, be like an honourable discharge after a challenging but rewarding tour of duty.

I have written a couple of poems around this theme which express my views figuratively (but please don't mistake my poetic use of religious imagery for statements of belief or faith). Here's one in which I have stolen imagery from Shakespeare (mortal coil), Dylan Thomas (green fuse), Jesus (seed dying), the Apostle Paul (same idea) and the writer of the Bible book of Job (Sons of God = stars).

The Butterfly
I said to God I wondered why
He had ordained that I should die
Just then a butterfly flew by
Its iridescence caught my eye
The fly said: Now, can you see why
The caterpillar had to die?

A seed recumbent in the soil
Must shuffle off this mortal coil
Before the green fuse can uncoil
Igniting flower with fragrant oil
The bloom of youth, the perfect foil
For agéd parents anxious toil

The sons of God themselves are wound
With mortal fetters, barred and bound
In dusty ocean to be drowned
In deathly pangs; yet then be crowned
And wrapped in glory, more renowned
Through progeny, thus death confound

What selfless act, what noble deed
Could laying down one’s life exceed?
In fatal throes then leave your seed
To germinate, then to accede
To take the torch and so succeed
While you make way as God decreed​

 

[David T]

"I'm under the impression that western cultures have a very negative view of death".

That may be true. I do do find early Christianity had a rather different understanding than say modern christianity they are not very simuliar at all. In early early Christianity it was lifedeath singular there wasn't a duality. Pope clement says as much in 80 AD in a sermon about the pheonix. . Ironically today Christianity takes on more of the Germanic Valhalla narrative without the beer. Personally i only understand lifedeath singular but that's more my neurology, and really doesn't have much to do with beliefs which actually I don't really understand very well. I believe McDonald's is down the road to the left of I drive that way that's about as far as I take beliefs. Ok I believe that Scarlett Johansson won't be able to resist me!!!! Oh wait that's like the shiatt I read here and laugh at !!!! I am delusionally normal apparently I am gonna die never having sex with Scarlett !! DAMN there is no god....

 

[Kapalika]

I've been wondering how far our emotional responses to death are in fact conditioned by our beliefs. The way we see death often greatly shapes how we behave in our own lives and how we value it or what we value about it. So I wanted to see if people have very different or very similar views on it and how you feel about it.

This maybe a little gloomy- but it will be interesting if someone says they are looking forward to dying and can share the wisdom we can hope is behind that view. It would certianly be more pleasant to look on the bright side about how we will fertilize the soil and bring forth new life but I find that hard to do that with a striaght face. Its just weird to associate death with flowers growing out of your eventual compost.

I'm under the impression that western cultures have a very negative view of death whereas other cultures are more positive. The taboos surronding death are not universal which is interesting. So if you have an example of a belief or culture that takes a more positive or laid back view of death you're very welcome to share.

Any thoughts? Make Your move against the reaper...

I think if something is truly dead it stays dead. It's more like a gradual process than something sudden, like most people think of it. What I mean is, you can "die" but in theory you are not dead until a certain point after that when the body starts to break down. If there was any way for the mind to remerge after the body is mostly destroyed (say they find a way to save the brain and put it in a robot) you wouldn't really be dead. People have been revived hours after medical death and with no heartbeat or anything with little to no brain damage. So so long as your proteins don't breakdown and the brain somehow escapes enough damage you are not really dead. Perhaps going even further, purely conjecture, but the total death of the body may not nessisarily destroy the mind/consciousness. And so maybe we don't really ever die but without knowing that it's more sensible to just assume that when you die in this body you are dead for good.

I don't think death is feared for evolutionary reasons not for cultural ones. I don't particularly see it as valuable to celebrate death.. Most religions dwell on death. I prefer to live religion as dwelling on life.

Death is the greatest mercy of all.

I can't imagine how miserable someone's life would have to be to sincerely hold this view for more than a few moments. I've been down that road and having nearly died myself once by my own hands I can tell you it is one of the worst experiences I've ever had. Oddly enough it was actually loosing things close to me that let the finality and reality of death set in. They are just... gone. Is that mercy? No, death even your own is one of the worst things that can happen to you.

 

[whirlingmerc]

The righteous don't fade away, they go out with the brightness of the noon sun.
(A very loose paraphrase of part of Psalms)

This is because even as what looks like loss of things to the world, the righteous can look forward to heaven. And it is God's presence that makes heaven to be heaven.

 

[loverofhumanity]

This is the Bahá'í view about death:

"I have made death a messenger of joy to thee. Wherefore dost thou grieve? (Baha'u'llah)

“Bahá’u’lláh says that were we to have the proper vision to see the blessings of the other world we would not bear to endure one more hour of existence upon the earth. The reason why we are deprived of that vision is because otherwise no one would care to remain and the whole fabric of society will be destroyed.”

Excerpt From: Hornby. “Lights of Guidance.”

 

[gurthbruins]

I've been wondering how far our emotional responses to death are in fact conditioned by our beliefs. The way we see death often greatly shapes how we behave in our own lives and how we value it or what we value about it. So I wanted to see if people have very different or very similar views on it and how you feel about it.

This maybe a little gloomy- but it will be interesting if someone says they are looking forward to dying and can share the wisdom we can hope is behind that view. It would certianly be more pleasant to look on the bright side about how we will fertilize the soil and bring forth new life but I find that hard to do that with a striaght face. Its just weird to associate death with flowers growing out of your eventual compost.

I'm under the impression that western cultures have a very negative view of death whereas other cultures are more positive. The taboos surronding death are not universal which is interesting. So if you have an example of a belief or culture that takes a more positive or laid back view of death you're very welcome to share.

Any thoughts? Make Your move against the reaper...

 

[gurthbruins]

I've been wondering how far our emotional responses to death are in fact conditioned by our beliefs. The way we see death often greatly shapes how we behave in our own lives and how we value it or what we value about it. So I wanted to see if people have very different or very similar views on it and how you feel about it.

This maybe a little gloomy- but it will be interesting if someone says they are looking forward to dying and can share the wisdom we can hope is behind that view. It would certianly be more pleasant to look on the bright side about how we will fertilize the soil and bring forth new life but I find that hard to do that with a striaght face. Its just weird to associate death with flowers growing out of your eventual compost.

I'm under the impression that western cultures have a very negative view of death whereas other cultures are more positive. The taboos surronding death are not universal which is interesting. So if you have an example of a belief or culture that takes a more positive or laid back view of death you're very welcome to share.

Any thoughts? Make Your move against the reaper...

My views on death: What is death? What happens to our 'soul'? Is there such a thing? Is that meaning consciousness? Identity? Memory? What is commonly believed is dubious to say the least. I don't feel the need to know such things.
Suppose I got to know the answers to some of these things. I doubt whether that would make any difference to the way I live. I can't know this, though. I don't think we need to know anything more than an animal does. Just live according to your lights.
As for ceremonies such as funerals etc, just do as you please. It makes little difference to the society you live in as a whol, which is now more or less a global village.
Death is just a fact. Not worth bothering about. If someone else's death upsets you, then deal with it according to your lights.
Act in accord with circumstances, as the Yi Jing suggests. And just feel what you feel.
Problem solved.

 

[TDselector]

To date, not a single believer in God or deities (Muslims, Jews, Christians, etc.) have challenged Nature's laws in order to confirm that their existence may indeed be God given. To do so would be to challenge Nature itself, which as findings show, supersede man's deity theories.

 

[rusra02]

I believe what the Bible says about death. 1 Corinthians 15:26 calls death our enemy. The Bible promises that "death will be no more" at God's due time. (Revelation 21:4)

 

[Viv22]

I know exactly what happens when you die and it applies to everyone.
I will abbreviate the process.

You leave your body and enter Limbo.
Someone will visit you to take you forwards-your call.
Once forward The Judgement from God. Mainly on how kind and 'Love thy neighbour 'you have been. (here Christianity scores!)
After judgement there are four options.
Paradise (12levels). Place of Correction (15levels) Purgatory (3levels) and Hell Your earth behaviour determines where you go. Apart from Paradise dwellers you are likely to try again with another life. We all have several or more. Some Paradise dwellers opt for a new life for altruistic reasons.
I neither know or care what your belief system is because this is the truth.
If you are an evil person or misdirected by your religion ie Jihadists you will pay a very heavy price.
Your value is purely about how you impact on others. Earth values are not important.
I hope this is of interest and is helpful. Don't bother to argue with me because you cannot argue with the truth of God.

 

[Cerridwen33]

In July 2016 I was admitted in hospital right to the ICU because I couldn't breath. I was put on an oxigen mask. Half an hour later my doctor for the lungs (I suffer from asthma) sat beside me and told me my lungs could go on working six month, an year at most. I took it so cooly that I surprised myself. My only thought was, 'well, it seems that soon I'll be meeting daddy again'. My mum and a cousin of mine outside the unit were crying. I was in the ICU for only one day and then a month in a common room. I recovered, the dr was mistaken. But I didn't think the news he gave me the first day were so bad...
I posted this poem in another thread in this forum. It pretty much summarizes the way I see death and where my dad is. I hope you like it.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

 

[james bond]

It's a game that we all will not win.

What I believe is that our consciousness lives on and we will have to find our way before reaching our final destination. What happens when we finally cross over is not known, but has been prophesized as final judgment and destination.

EDIT: This may just be my analytical side talking, but what I've been able to find investigating near-death experiences is that our worldview comes into play during our consciousness period. That is, how you will find you way is through the worldview that you held. This may be in the form of voices or visions of people we knew reflecting our worldview. I'm not sure whether it is a tunnel or a hallway and it could be light for some while it is dark for others. I am not sure who gets the dark and who gets the light. I have not heard it to be a open space, so it is a pathway of some kind and some travel is involved. As for my personal experiences of death of loved ones, what I experienced was once they leave us physically, their presence does not remain on earth. They are whisked away to someplace not on earth. Where they go, I do not know but it seems upward. They take the form of millions of invisible stars and leave us. That is how I see God in our material world as billions and billions of invisible tiny stars that permeate all of life and the universe.

 

[Boiled Brain]

There is no death, and your life is neverending (relative to you of course). This is because you're noticing yourself alive while you're living, and while you are dead you never notice your death.

 

[DragonHawk1959]

I've been wondering how far our emotional responses to death are in fact conditioned by our beliefs. The way we see death often greatly shapes how we behave in our own lives and how we value it or what we value about it. So I wanted to see if people have very different or very similar views on it and how you feel about it.

This maybe a little gloomy- but it will be interesting if someone says they are looking forward to dying and can share the wisdom we can hope is behind that view. It would certianly be more pleasant to look on the bright side about how we will fertilize the soil and bring forth new life but I find that hard to do that with a striaght face. Its just weird to associate death with flowers growing out of your eventual compost.

I'm under the impression that western cultures have a very negative view of death whereas other cultures are more positive. The taboos surronding death are not universal which is interesting. So if you have an example of a belief or culture that takes a more positive or laid back view of death you're very welcome to share.

Any thoughts? Make Your move against the reaper...

As a pagan my views on death are that it is simply another aspect of the God of Nature.
But my views on death are shaped at least as much by my life experiences. I have danced with the Shadow Lover a few times. So I do not fear death. But I have duties in this life, so the long dance will have to wait.

 

[dianaiad]

For me, death is passing from one state of existence to another. I believe I existed prior to this mortal life and will continue to exist after it ends. (And no, I do not believe in reincarnation.) I believe that "the more we learn about the gospel of Jesus Christ, the more we realize that endings here in mortality are not endings at all. They are merely interruptions—temporary pauses that one day will seem small compared to the eternal joy awaiting the faithful." (Dieter F. Uchtdorf)

....for some reason, I'm not being allowed to click the 'like' button. Ah, well.

Katzpur and I share belief systems, and I heartily agree with what is written here. I DO have a little extra--I can't say 'insight,' because that's not the word-- but perhaps a slightly different viewpoint. Unlike most of you, I have a little more, 'notice,' perhaps. I have Multiple Myeloma. That's cancer of the bone marrow, and it is one of the few cancers that is still considered incurable.

Don't get all nervous about it, guys. It's ALSO one of the cancers that one can live with for quite a long time with a good quality of life, if one is fortunate (or blessed) and I happen to be one of those. I've had it for four years, and there's no reason to believe that I won't still be around and doing very well for another four, or ten, or fifteen. However, it is a challenge: I've already lost my hair, teeth and eyesight over it (OK, again don't get maudlin over it; I got a better smile, improved eyesight (from 20/400 to 20/15...who can complain?) and my hair grew back just fine, thankyouverymuch).

The point is, I've not only dealt with the process of dying and had to deal with death as a more than 'someday we all die' abstraction, but I know exactly what's going to 'do me in,' unless an asteroid clobbers me or I get eaten by an alligator. I've had to look right AT it. There has been a time or two when I was pretty certain that waking up wasn't going to be an option, and the surprise was life, not death.

So I have thought about it as considerably more than a philosophical after dinner entertainment, or as a debate forum exercise, and I came to a couple of conclusions. They might even be, looked at from 'outside,' contradictory ones.

First, I actually DO believe as Katspur does; our religion teaches that we lived before we were born, in a spiritual realm, that we live here as mortal beings for a reason, and that when we die, we return to that spiritual realm. I, personally, think that my own belief system makes the most sense of all religious belief systems.

On the other hand, if I'm wrong, then death means that I will personally cease experiencing anything at all. Death, either way, doesn't scare me a bit.

This 'dying' thing, though, sucks.