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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   3951 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 23, 2023

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Depends on whether the idea of life after death makes you feel better. Not so for me.

I feel the same way, and so arguments like this are puzzling to me. I find the idea of an afterlife incredibly disturbing, and felt that way even when I was a Christian. At the time though, I did enjoy feeling that there was a God looking out for me.

Same. I always hated the idea of living forever, even in paradise. It used to give me panic attacks as a kid. There's an idea that stories about the horror of immortality are just cope because we know we're going to die anyways, so we pretend it's a good thing, but for me it's very real. I have never found the idea of ceasing to exist too frightening (though it's a little creepy), though some people find it utterly terrifying. The only thing that frightens me about death is the possibility that it's not the end.

What about it seems disturbing to you? The idea that it never ends?

That's exactly it. I have a terrible fear of eternity and the infinite. Makes my mind want to crawl into a little hole and shut down.

That's really interesting. Do you like existing currently? We can overthink the meaning of "billions/trillions/quadrillions of years", but the duration is somewhat irrelevant. There's just Now, a moment which all of time passes through, and which I never want to end.

I love existing! But I love existing in this world that I know. Existing in some other form could be terrible and that's very scary to me.

Heaven is essentially defined as perfect felicity, though. And in any case you can imagine some post-life event which does make you feel better.

Sure, but if I'm just making up my own ideal eternal existence and deciding to believe in it I don't know if that really counts as 'religious.'

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