Hello all.

Lately I have been having a lot of anxiety about death. I am 23 and in good health, so I really have no rational reason for me to be so obsessed with this topic, but it's been plaguing me as of late. I worry about what happens to us after we die. To me, my worst fear would be that death is like sleep; just as endless void of dark nothingness, where our thoughts and sensations just end. Oblivion. It's been hard to sleep lately because of it. (And in case anyone was wondering, I am currently in therapy dealing with this issue).

I am not religious. I grew up Catholic but left the faith when I was still in high school. I would like to believe that there is some kind of higher power or afterlife, but having no religion in particular that seems "right" to me. It's not that I think any one religion is wrong, I just don't find any comfort in them or their explanations of the afterlife, so I was hoping you could help.

So I was wondering:

For those of you who are religious or strong of faith, what are your views on death? What makes you confident there is a place for you after you die?

For those of you who are Atheists, what are your views on death? Is it comforting to believe in oblivion, and if so, why?

And to those who are questioning like me, what are your views on death?

I had something similar for a very long time. My father attempted to raise me Christian, but nothing about it ever sat right with me so I drifted into Atheism for a while, and then a few years back I found witchcraft. While the practice itself is not inherently religious and can be completely secular, I found gods through it and my devotion to them I found a bit of a peace with the afterlife.

I don't want to go too much into detail, but I've found comfort in the idea of a place for our spirits to go. Not like a heaven or hell situation, but more like the Greek idea of hades; you end up there no matter what so long as you are of the faith. What makes me confident in that is nothing more than my own faith in my pantheon, as surely as any Christian or Catholic has faith in their God as the reason they believe in heaven and hell.

Honestly though, I don't think too much on it usually. In my opinion too many people spend too much time on something that isn't going to matter once we're dead one way or another, and something we will likely never have answers for. Focus on life, not on death ^^

Athiest raised Christian. I went to church with my grandma as a kid by my teens I stopped going. I get that same anxiety about what happens after. I don't believe there's anything after tbh but I hope that there's more than that. I hope my consciousness (soul/spirit/whatev) goes to another vessel or maybe just be an invisible watcher through space and time. WHO KNOWS? The dead know...or do they? :anguish:

I'm a bit late to this but I've thought about it a lot more this past few years. I actually heard one really weirdly comforting thing a while ago that I think about if I get nervous about it. It was on some episode of Getting Doug With High, a show I don't even recommend or enjoy lmao. But one guy said, when he gets nervous about it, he thinks about how before he was even a baby he didn't exist, and he has no bad feelings about that time at all. So it's a familiar concept. I liked that thought a lot. It's a place I've already been! I have no bad feelings about before I was born so it will probably be the same after I'm gone.

I also kind of like thinking about how my matter will keep going even after I die, in a way how that's still life. Cells in my body might "rot" but even that's still a form of life. It's part of a cycle that's bigger and longer than any single human life. We're like a weirdly sentient growth on the big living ecosystem that is the earth. "We're a way for the unvierse to know itself." I like that a lot, I can imagine me looking at the starry night is like the universe looking in a mirror. That consciousness itself might feel like individual "life" when we're alive, but the human condition continues on after us, consciousness continues, so maybe my little life energy is just gonna get displaced and re-assigned to some other part of the universe. It all seems very natural.

My dad was diagnosed with cancer this year and it's made me think about death a lot. He's been talking about death for like the past ten years, or longer. He always wanted to make sure my sister and I were aware of that, maybe since after he lost his parents. It's hard to think of, losing my folks someday, but then I think, if I had a kid I'd be making them live through that someday too, and I would hope they wouldn't be mad at me for not being there forever you know. It feels good to think I will follow in my parent's footsteps, since I look up to them. It feels natural...

I guess I keep coming back to that concept, it feels very natural, like part of a cycle. And that brings comfort to me. It's not a problem I personally have, dying, it's something I have in common with literally every living thing. Wow, amazing! I guess it's not so bad if we're all doing it. xD

I'm not religious but I wouldn't say atheist either, tbh I'd rather not be part of any group or label if I can help it. ^-^ Who knows really? "Death is but the next great adventure!" Maybe there's a heaven, maybe we're reincarnated, but all of these things are still a big cycle that we have in common with every other person so maybe it's just so totally normal and not something to worry about. Maybe it's cool we're all linked to each other into this really odd life/death loop we don't even totally understand. Idk but the more open I am about it and the more I talk about it with others the less stressed it makes me, I really feel connected to other people through this, is that weird? xD

I talked to my girlfriend about it after typing this and she said, to simplify and summarize, "While you shouldn't necessarily be eager to find out, it's a comforting thought to know when we die we'll have an answer to the question of what's on the other side of it, you know?"* xD So, at the very least, we will get to finally see what's next after all this living business is done.

*She took the keyboard and typed that herself lmao

In the end though I'm alive right now, so I have to remind myself that after going down this rabbit hole- not dead yet! xD So I better absorb and experience as much of life as I can, just in case we're actually some kind of alien computer simulation designed to created random experiences and learn from it or something ridiculous like that. Then at least I want to be a helpful little node and get as much terabytes of useful info on living my best life as I possibly can! Me @ me after typing all this up:

xD

But LexicalGal, or anyone else who feels stressed about death, if you ever wanna talk about it you can ping me or send me a PM or anything! I am always down to chat if you feel stressed.

I decided to ping you because I'm very late to your topic. If you haven't subscribed to it you won't know I've posted unless you keep checking for replies.

I'm a naturalistic pagan. I'm also 70 so I can wave to Death and say "It won't be all that long before I'm meeting you." This is how I vew things.

I'm as old as the universe itself. First there was the Big Bang. Over millions of years the first matter formed the first generation of stars.

Are We Really All Made of Stars?

I have been a star that died in a supernova. I have been recycled through umpteen millions of organisms since life began on the planet. My thumb could contain atoms that once existed as a trilobite while my nose might be formed from atoms that once hunted as a Tyrannosaurus Rex. When this body comes to an end I shall be recycled again. What will I be next?

I also share Mackenzi's view that "We're a way for the universe to know itself." so I love this Carl Sagan quote - “We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring.”

I have had similar existential anxiety. I relate to what you said.

One thing that helps me immensely is to remember that when I die I will become part of the earth again. I think of the famous painting, The Great Wave off Kanagawa. There's an idea that we are all drops in an ocean. And when a wave crashes and drops of water spray out of the sea, those drops are like souls becoming individuals and living their lives. And when the drops fall back down into the ocean, their lives are over, and they do lose their identity and individuality, but they become part of the whole again. Where they were before and where they were meant to be.

That idea is what helps me when I have that existential dread and I feel my anxiety increasing.

I will become part of the whole again. It feels peaceful.

As an atheist, death is something that I think about frequently. And fear. My sense of mortality is extremely high. Not just my own, of course, but for everyone around me. My family, partner, friends, anyone. I have been lucky enough not to experience too much tragedy in my life, so I feel that I've been shielded from the true impact of losing someone close to me. But I know it comes for everyone eventually, and that thought keeps me awake at night and give me spouts of anxiety. To think that people just come and go so easily in life. It's frightening. It's not even just random tragedies that scare me. It's also growing old and dying in old age. All of that stuff freaks me out a lot.

I can't handle the topic, so whenever my brain goes "hey.. you know DEATH is gonna happen some day.." I go "nope-nope-nope-nope-nope-nope-nope" and think happy thoughts.

If there is anything after death I hope it's like that movie "lucy" where I would merge with a larger consciousness. You know, instead of living and experienced just my life I would have experienced everyone's life :)