I'm scared, really scared (afterlife?)

[hihiip201]

I will begin by saying how scared I really am.

So I was watching the disney movie “frozen” with my friend, and I can’t find but got hooked on it because of how beautiful it is. I watched it for many times until one day I realized :

“gosh, that’s an amazing story, and I’d bet many people in real life also have story like these or better, parental love, sibling love or romantic love is so beautiful I wish they last forever for those who find them”.

my life goal is to dedicate my life for those who find happiness, or to help others to find happiness, I’m an engineer and my goal is to work in the bio-mechanical field such as medical devices or prosthetics. I graduated a year ago and although I am working in a unrelated field, I believe it is my stepping stone to my life goal.

anyways, what has always kept me going is my belief that there’s an afterlife, that all good things can last forever or something even better will kick in, but as a man of science, I must also admit the fact that there are more scientific evidences suggesting that human consciousnesses is just a process of the brain and “I” don’t really exist. And there are really little evidences that show that afterlife, or soul exist.

throughout my life I have always been nourished by the faith of a loving God, an afterlife, yet recently I just go into this deep depression and fear of the oblivious. If nothing will last, why bother fighting? why bothering studying so hard or working so hard to make lives better? to help others to find happiness when nothingness is inevitable?

I am afraid of not being, I feel depressed because all good things will come to an end and everything I have ever done will be in vain, never in my life have I truly understand the fear for death, it is not because of the pain that you may endure, nor the uncertainty of what lies ahead, but the oblivion that awaits me ahead and “I” will no longer be.

Does anyone ever feel the same way? like ever?

 

[Amandil]

There is something to be said that you refer to yourself as “I”.

That says that your “I” is distinct from your body. We can objectify our bodies. We do it all the time.

If we can refer to our bodies as “my” body, then it follows that the “I”(you) which is objectifying that body necessarily transcends that body. IOW your are more than just your body.

Granted that when we die we lose a vital way by which our “I”, our consciousness, perceives the realty around us. But the promise of God is that death is not the end, that our “I”(our souls) will be reunited with our bodies at the resurrection.

 

[fred_conty]

I think the real answer in short is Jesus Christ.

Just look at his life and study it and learn from it.

Take his words to your heart and never let them go.

Then you will have a mission worthwhile.

May God bless and keep you. May God’s face shine on you. May God be kind to you and give you peace.

 

[oldcelt]

I have had many deaths close to me and have been close a few times myself. I don’t really have an answer for you regarding the loss of your individuality at death, since that is not something I’ve really considered, but I think your plan for the years you have is an admirable one.

Have you sought any professional help, or is there someone close who you can talk too. When I am down I find that walking in a quiet environment helps. Maybe it is just the quiet, or the old “voices on the wind” notion (I’ve never heard any).

If I can give any thoughts they would be that I doubt that the I will matter much in any afterlife there may be. Live your life the best way you can, and leave death to the dead.

 

[empther]

( government agents are taking Theresa to what she’s certain will be her death )

… Perhaps it was moving away from land, but for the moment Steve and my parents seemed in another world I had already left. There was nothing they could do for me. I turned to thoughts of my eternity.

… When pushed to the brink someone can panic, or despair, or hope. I had always believed. Some people said they had doubts about God. I pitied them. How could they have doubts? Simple reasoning told me the universe could not be in the form it was without design. It might be a chaos, but the beautiful way it was ordered against a trillion to one odds of elements just happening to have exactly the properties needed to sustain life could only be somebody’s design. Besides that, people’s intellects could not be material alone and could not be hardwired to understand any concept presented to it. And my BC philosophy professor said the mistake that Kant, Voltaire, Locke, Fitche, Hume, Hegel, and many others made was assuming the human soul could operate on its own. It couldn’t. It needed God’s help moving thoughts and wishes along. But most of all, the goodness of my mother, father, and Steve was not something that could exist in animals. God made them above nature.

… I recited a prayer in my mind as best I could remember it. It was not a standard Church prayer but was fitting for the end.

*… The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie in green pastures; he leadeth me to still waters. Though I walk through the valley of death I will fear no evil for thou art with me. Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.
*

 

[Gary_Sheldrake]

anyways, what has always kept me going is my belief that there’s an afterlife, that all good things can last forever or something even better will kick in, but as a man of science, I must also admit the fact that there are more scientific evidences suggesting that human consciousnesses is just a process of the brain and “I” don’t really exist. And there are really little evidences that show that afterlife, or soul exist.

Good Evening Hihiip: Actually consciousness is considered the “hard question” in science. There is much thinking among very notable scientists of our time that consciousness may not in fact be an epiphenomenon of the brain, but rather that the brain is something of an interface between consciousness and sentient experience. The material reductionist idea that consciousness arises from the brain lacks a basis in fact, because it fails to explain how unconscious particles that produce unconscious cells that produce unconscious organs can in turn give rise to consciousness. It doesn’t suffice to say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts from a scientific perspective. And while we can see neurons fire in the brain, and certain centers in the brain activate during certain activities, these are only demonstrable as pathways. No one has ever seen a thought inside the brain or observed a picture in it and so on. Most likely it is dark. Just an interface, like a television set. It integrates signals from the sentient world with signals from the conscious world. I think it Is rather certain that we are much more than we think we are.

If you would like to delve more deeply into the subject you may want to read The Self Aware Universe by Amit Gowsami, Professor Emeritus in the Physics department of the University of Oregon. I can provide a list of other notable authors if you would like.

In reply to your main question, yes, I have existential anxiety like most everyone else. I have it on good authority that even Jesus had it on the night before the He was crucified, so we’re in good company I think. The good news is that we all have one another, and I truly believe that death, however scary it may be, is in fact only an illusion.

Thank you,
Gary

 

[fhansen]

I will begin by saying how scared I really am.

So I was watching the disney movie “frozen” with my friend, and I can’t find but got hooked on it because of how beautiful it is. I watched it for many times until one day I realized :

“gosh, that’s an amazing story, and I’d bet many people in real life also have story like these or better, parental love, sibling love or romantic love is so beautiful I wish they last forever for those who find them”.

my life goal is to dedicate my life for those who find happiness, or to help others to find happiness, I’m an engineer and my goal is to work in the bio-mechanical field such as medical devices or prosthetics. I graduated a year ago and although I am working in a unrelated field, I believe it is my stepping stone to my life goal.

anyways, what has always kept me going is my belief that there’s an afterlife, that all good things can last forever or something even better will kick in, but as a man of science, I must also admit the fact that there are more scientific evidences suggesting that human consciousnesses is just a process of the brain and “I” don’t really exist. And there are really little evidences that show that afterlife, or soul exist.

throughout my life I have always been nourished by the faith of a loving God, an afterlife, yet recently I just go into this deep depression and fear of the oblivious. If nothing will last, why bother fighting? why bothering studying so hard or working so hard to make lives better? to help others to find happiness when nothingness is inevitable?

I am afraid of not being, I feel depressed because all good things will come to an end and everything I have ever done will be in vain, never in my life have I truly understand the fear for death, it is not because of the pain that you may endure, nor the uncertainty of what lies ahead, but the oblivion that awaits me ahead and “I” will no longer be.

Does anyone ever feel the same way? like ever?

We’re material but also physical; that’s simply the way God made us. If it depresses you to think you consist of matter alone, that may be a pretty good indication that you’re not, that you we’re made for more.

 

[GEddie]

I will begin by saying how scared I really am.

So I was watching the disney movie “frozen” with my friend, and I can’t find but got hooked on it because of how beautiful it is. I watched it for many times until one day I realized :

“gosh, that’s an amazing story, and I’d bet many people in real life also have story like these or better, parental love, sibling love or romantic love is so beautiful I wish they last forever for those who find them”.

my life goal is to dedicate my life for those who find happiness, or to help others to find happiness, I’m an engineer and my goal is to work in the bio-mechanical field such as medical devices or prosthetics. I graduated a year ago and although I am working in a unrelated field, I believe it is my stepping stone to my life goal.

anyways, what has always kept me going is my belief that there’s an afterlife, that all good things can last forever or something even better will kick in, but as a man of science, I must also admit the fact that there are more scientific evidences suggesting that human consciousnesses is just a process of the brain and “I” don’t really exist. And there are really little evidences that show that afterlife, or soul exist.

throughout my life I have always been nourished by the faith of a loving God, an afterlife, yet recently I just go into this deep depression and fear of the oblivious. If nothing will last, why bother fighting? why bothering studying so hard or working so hard to make lives better? to help others to find happiness when nothingness is inevitable?

I am afraid of not being, I feel depressed because all good things will come to an end and everything I have ever done will be in vain, never in my life have I truly understand the fear for death, it is not because of the pain that you may endure, nor the uncertainty of what lies ahead, but the oblivion that awaits me ahead and “I” will no longer be.

Does anyone ever feel the same way? like ever?

Sometimes. Death is my great horror!

But take heart. If death is an uncertainty, then it cannot be a **certain **oblivion!

ICXC NIKA!

 

[meltzerboy]

I will begin by saying how scared I really am.

So I was watching the disney movie “frozen” with my friend, and I can’t find but got hooked on it because of how beautiful it is. I watched it for many times until one day I realized :

“gosh, that’s an amazing story, and I’d bet many people in real life also have story like these or better, parental love, sibling love or romantic love is so beautiful I wish they last forever for those who find them”.

my life goal is to dedicate my life for those who find happiness, or to help others to find happiness, I’m an engineer and my goal is to work in the bio-mechanical field such as medical devices or prosthetics. I graduated a year ago and although I am working in a unrelated field, I believe it is my stepping stone to my life goal.

anyways, what has always kept me going is my belief that there’s an afterlife, that all good things can last forever or something even better will kick in, but as a man of science, I must also admit the fact that there are more scientific evidences suggesting that human consciousnesses is just a process of the brain and “I” don’t really exist. And there are really little evidences that show that afterlife, or soul exist.

throughout my life I have always been nourished by the faith of a loving God, an afterlife, yet recently I just go into this deep depression and fear of the oblivious. If nothing will last, why bother fighting? why bothering studying so hard or working so hard to make lives better? to help others to find happiness when nothingness is inevitable?

I am afraid of not being, I feel depressed because all good things will come to an end and everything I have ever done will be in vain, never in my life have I truly understand the fear for death, it is not because of the pain that you may endure, nor the uncertainty of what lies ahead, but the oblivion that awaits me ahead and “I” will no longer be.

Does anyone ever feel the same way? like ever?

I think you may have what is sometimes called existential depression. You don’t see the meaning of anything since nothing will endure forever. Your fear of oblivion is something I believe is more common among those who follow Judaism rather than Christianity. The latter faith is future-oriented and offers the promise of everlasting life in heaven or everlasting damnation in hell, while the former is a faith more targeted toward the here and now and less focused on eternity, whether heaven or hell. Therefore, while Jews may fear oblivion, Christians are more likely to fear hell. Of course, there are exceptions in both cases. The only solution I can offer to your fear is concentrating on your work which involves helping people, appreciating the beautiful moments of life, and trusting and loving G-d and others. IOW if you live a life of meaning and purpose, you may achieve more than a modicum of well-being despite your fear and uncertainty.

 

[hsmomforlife]

I will begin by saying how scared I really am.

So I was watching the disney movie “frozen” with my friend, and I can’t find but got hooked on it because of how beautiful it is. I watched it for many times until one day I realized :…
Does anyone ever feel the same way? like ever?

Isn’t this akin to the definition of neurotic…watching the same movie over and over…especially in a short time period…and indwelling on an issue presented?
I only ask because I, unfortunately, tend toward the same…

 

[fhansen]

I will begin by saying how scared I really am.

So I was watching the disney movie “frozen” with my friend, and I can’t find but got hooked on it because of how beautiful it is. I watched it for many times until one day I realized :

“gosh, that’s an amazing story, and I’d bet many people in real life also have story like these or better, parental love, sibling love or romantic love is so beautiful I wish they last forever for those who find them”.

my life goal is to dedicate my life for those who find happiness, or to help others to find happiness, I’m an engineer and my goal is to work in the bio-mechanical field such as medical devices or prosthetics. I graduated a year ago and although I am working in a unrelated field, I believe it is my stepping stone to my life goal.

anyways, what has always kept me going is my belief that there’s an afterlife, that all good things can last forever or something even better will kick in, but as a man of science, I must also admit the fact that there are more scientific evidences suggesting that human consciousnesses is just a process of the brain and “I” don’t really exist. And there are really little evidences that show that afterlife, or soul exist.

throughout my life I have always been nourished by the faith of a loving God, an afterlife, yet recently I just go into this deep depression and fear of the oblivious. If nothing will last, why bother fighting? why bothering studying so hard or working so hard to make lives better? to help others to find happiness when nothingness is inevitable?

I am afraid of not being, I feel depressed because all good things will come to an end and everything I have ever done will be in vain, never in my life have I truly understand the fear for death, it is not because of the pain that you may endure, nor the uncertainty of what lies ahead, but the oblivion that awaits me ahead and “I” will no longer be.

Does anyone ever feel the same way? like ever?

Faith, and the hope/confidence it leads to, are supernatural gifts, mercifully aimed at giving you the very assurance we all need. All I can say is you have to want-and seek it. It starts with the tiniest seed. If there’s no God, there’ll be no answer. But…

 

[yppop]

hihiip201
Below is my response submitted in this forum to another thread on the same subject in January of this year. It my also apply to your OP.

*I am 80 years old and more and more, each day, heaven becomes a very important object of contemplation. I’ve decided that since I have never seen a description of Heaven that is both imaginable and plausible and also accounts for that other possibility we call Hell, I stopped guessing what Heaven and Hell are like and began to imagine what I would liked them to be. It is easier to describe my Heaven than my Hell because fortunately this lifetime was closer to a Heaven than to a Hell. So here’s what I would like Heaven to be like:

My mother, father will be in the same age-relationship with me as they were this time around. They won’t be teenagers and they won’t be ageless, they will be my mother and father. So too will my brothers and sisters, my children, their children and all the people I have known in this life time will be there just as they are or were in this lifetime. Yes, there will be the same animals, flowers, oceans, stars, and all the things I’ve experienced in this lifetime.

I will fall in love again with the same beautiful woman and live an entire married life immersed in romance, good humor, and friendship. My Heavenly life will be filled with the same or more of the laughter, wonder, love, joy, fun, peace, nostalgia, and piety that has filled this life. I will hit a baseball again; I will hear La Boheme for the first time again; I will sing babies to sleep in the middle of a quiet night again. I will eat peanuts, smell roses, hear a whippoorwill, see the ocean for the first time; see Broadway musicals, watch my children graduate, marry the same persons, and have the same children again. You get the idea.

On the Hell side, there will be diseases, earthquakes, plaques, floods, and all sorts of physical evil. But that stuff will be diminished just as social evil such as wars, bigotry, injustice, tyranny, and poverty also will diminish. Since I have had a minimum of disappointments in this life, I can’t describe a vision of a personal Hell but it would consist of far too many regrets and sins, none of which I care to share. But if I have done this life correctly, and have confessed those sins and regrets, then they won’t happen in the Heaven that is my next lifetime because I will enter into it with a more effective conscience.

So my Heaven and Hell would look a lot like my present life except there would be fewer regrets and sins committed. In other words it would be palpably better. Kind of like the movie “Ground Hog Day” in which Bill Murray repeatedly wakes up on the same day, but each new repeat, he alters his behavior for the better, and experiences more and more joy. Each new life would be closer to Heaven and farther from Hell until I and all the rest of humanity achieved that goal and we reach the fullness of the Mystical Body of Christ.*

*And how would this sort of Heaven/Hell come about. Well there does happen to be a scientific solution for my hope. It is called the Many World Interpretation of the Schroedinger wave equation. Before any of you puritanical Catholics accuse me the heresy of reincarnation, google the Many World Interpretation and ask yourself whether living a parallel life as yourself is reincarnation. I don’t think it is. And if the MWI is real, consider what that would mean if not successive lifetimes.

Anyway I am not saying with certainty that this is a theological view of Heaven in accordance with scripture and the “defined dogma” of the Catholic Church, it is merely what I what Heaven to be like. On the other hand, it describes how those that have been derived of a full lifetime of wonder, peace, and joy, like a young teen age girl with a fine mind and a body wracked with Spina Bifida can have a clear vision of hope. It also allows those now suffering in a life that Hell to eventually escape, so that all souls are saved.

In the meantime, we are making our way through our personnel purgatories in which we too often make the wrong choices by failing to respond to God’s grace. Eventually we will all escape our personal Hell’s and arrive at that perfect world we call Heaven.
*

Yppop

 

[oldcelt]

yppop,

We have similar hopes for eternity. Some of the gaudier descriptions of the afterlife hold no charm for me. I would imagine that a good many people would vote for seeing family, friends, loves, and maybe add a few things that they didn’t get to do.

 

[Counterpoint]

I am afraid of not being, I feel depressed because all good things will come to an end and everything I have ever done will be in vain, never in my life have I truly understand the fear for death, it is not because of the pain that you may endure, nor the uncertainty of what lies ahead, but the oblivion that awaits me ahead and “I” will no longer be.

What you’re having is an “existential crisis.” This is a good thing, because now your spiritual journey begins in earnest.

 

[hihiip201]

Good Evening Hihiip: Actually consciousness is considered the “hard question” in science. There is much thinking among very notable scientists of our time that consciousness may not in fact be an epiphenomenon of the brain, but rather that the brain is something of an interface between consciousness and sentient experience. The material reductionist idea that consciousness arises from the brain lacks a basis in fact, because it fails to explain how unconscious particles that produce unconscious cells that produce unconscious organs can in turn give rise to consciousness. It doesn’t suffice to say that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts from a scientific perspective. And while we can see neurons fire in the brain, and certain centers in the brain activate during certain activities, these are only demonstrable as pathways. No one has ever seen a thought inside the brain or observed a picture in it and so on. Most likely it is dark. Just an interface, like a television set. It integrates signals from the sentient world with signals from the conscious world. I think it Is rather certain that we are much more than we think we are.

If you would like to delve more deeply into the subject you may want to read The Self Aware Universe by Amit Gowsami, Professor Emeritus in the Physics department of the University of Oregon. I can provide a list of other notable authors if you would like.

In reply to your main question, yes, I have existential anxiety like most everyone else. I have it on good authority that even Jesus had it on the night before the He was crucified, so we’re in good company I think. The good news is that we all have one another, and I truly believe that death, however scary it may be, is in fact only an illusion.

Thank you,
Gary

But then what of patients of brain damage and such? people have changed behaviors entirely after accidents, so what does that mean to their soul?

PS : Really thank everyone who are replying, knowing there are people out there trying to help is already helping me depression somewhat, please don’t be offended if I am slow to reply since I have a weird shift, I just started working at Boeing as the matter of fact (graduated recently) so I am trying to put on a learner mode.

 

[empther]

But then what of patients of brain damage and such? people have changed behaviors entirely after accidents, so what does that mean to their soul?

God made man to have a soul and body, and the two work together.
If the body is damaged, the soul loses some consciousness of the environment, but the soul doesn’t change.

Why didn’t God make us pure spirits like the angels?
It’s more glorious for us to overcome the difficulties of this world and work out our salvation anyways.
Someone said the angels look at man with awe for his triumph over this world’s evils.

 

[GEddie]

But then what of patients of brain damage and such? people have changed behaviors entirely after accidents, so what does that mean to their soul?
.

“Behavior” and the like are outputs of the soul, not the soul itself.

These outputs require a working human head and body. If there is damage to the brain, the responses of the body will be changed, the soul however will not.

Your human body (psychikon soma) is energized and kept alive by entropy-driven chemistry. This means the body moves in time to deterioration and death. Your body is not compatible with eternity.

For eternal life, your soul will be fitted with a “spiritual body” (pneumatikon soma).

ICXC NIKA!

 

[balto]

anyways, what has always kept me going is my belief that there’s an afterlife, that all good things can last forever or something even better will kick in, but as a man of science, I must also admit the fact that there are more scientific evidences suggesting that human consciousnesses is just a process of the brain and “I” don’t really exist. And there are really little evidences that show that afterlife, or soul exist.

throughout my life I have always been nourished by the faith of a loving God, an afterlife, yet recently I just go into this deep depression and fear of the oblivious. If nothing will last, why bother fighting? why bothering studying so hard or working so hard to make lives better? to help others to find happiness when nothingness is inevitable?

I am afraid of not being, I feel depressed because all good things will come to an end and everything I have ever done will be in vain, never in my life have I truly understand the fear for death, it is not because of the pain that you may endure, nor the uncertainty of what lies ahead, but the oblivion that awaits me ahead and “I” will no longer be.

Does anyone ever feel the same way? like ever?

I used to be like that a couple of years ago, although I don’t think I thought things through too much to lead me to nihilism. It sounds like you want to believe in God and all the spiritual truths that come with said belief, but are mentally agnostic. The problem here isn’t that science is disproving God, the soul, the afterlife, etc. It isn’t disproving these things and could never in principle disprove them because these are not scientific questions. The problem is that modern thinking is characterized by egregious philosophical underpinnings, usually some sort of incoherent scientism and/or reductionism which says that all questions are scientific questions. Not all questions are scientific (the belief in scientism itself is not even scientific).

If you are like me then you probably were not even aware that there are alternate forms of thinking out there that make more sense of reality. And you don’t have to give up any science to adopt them . I am thinking specifically of the Scholastic philosophy that was ditched in the 17th century for no good reason in favor of the current mechanistic philosophy we have nowadays. Here’s a good place to start:

The Science Before Science: A Guide to Thinking in the 21st Century - Dr. Anthony Rizzi - I am reading this one now and I probably should have started with it a while back because Dr. Rizzi does a good job of explaining how to make sense of things in light of modern scientific knowledge.
New Proofs for the Existence of God - Fr. Robert Spitzer - This is another good one for understanding proofs of God’s existence in light of modern science. It may help you for understanding the classical arguments for God’s existence, which are usually strawmanned in modern society because they really are quite strong
Aquinas - Prof. Edward Feser - A good introduction to understanding the Scholastic philosophy which will help you understand the arguments for a rational soul, immaterial aspects of reality, Aquinas’ arguments for God’s existence, etc.

Prof. Feser also has a new book coming out in May which looks promising: Scholastic Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction. Another useful resource is his blog which has a number of interesting topics, including many about the rational soul: edwardfeser.blogspot.com/.

Anyway, I know I threw a lot of links at you but I urge you to consider reading some of this stuff. You can have science, your common sense, and spirituality, but you need to wrestle with some of these issues until you understand them.

 

[balto]

But then what of patients of brain damage and such? people have changed behaviors entirely after accidents, so what does that mean to their soul?

Building off of what GEddie said, you have to keep in mind that the powers of a human flow from their rational soul, which is really just the form of their body (it is not some magical, ethereal substance that fits into a body). The thing that distinguishes us from other animals is our intellect, which is able to grasp universals and concepts. But, unlike angels, we rely on data we receive through our senses from which we abstract these universals. We can also evoke mental images (phantasms) of things from which we received sensorial (name removed by moderator)ut in the past using our imagination. So for instance, you could interact with Snoopy with your senses and abstract the universal form of “dogness” from Snoopy and then apply it later to Scooby-Doo and Fido. How do you reduce a universal concept to a particular physical process? You cannot, because the particular image or process will lose some of the universality. A brain damaged patient will have limited access to sense and imaginative data, but the intellect remains intact.

Here is a good article to help explain this in more detail: edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2011/01/against-neurobabble.html

 

[Phalanx]

If nothing will last, why bother fighting? why bothering studying so hard or working so hard to make lives better? to help others to find happiness when nothingness is inevitable?

I am afraid of not being, I feel depressed because all good things will come to an end and everything I have ever done will be in vain, never in my life have I truly understand the fear for death, it is not because of the pain that you may endure, nor the uncertainty of what lies ahead, but the oblivion that awaits me ahead and “I” will no longer be.

Why do you think that just because things end they don’t matter?

A moment of happiness may only last an instant, but it will eternally and forever have been a moment of happiness. The essence of the time spent will always have its value, even if there no longer is anyone left in existance to appreciate it. While it mattered, it did matter, and that’s what matters