I am either an agnostic (don't know, don't care - we'll all find out soon enough) or humanist. Not sure.
I am curious about death and grieving views here. What happens at death? It's all speculation - just looking for theories.
Anyone care to share?
I am sorry for your loss. Your post did not give any clue that you had recently lost your husband. I thought it was just a generic question.
I find comfort in knowing that our energy doesn't die, that it continues on in other forms.
Your husband was lucky to have someone who loved him as you did, and you were lucky to have had him and to experience such a love--not everyone is so lucky. It seems to me that you will always have that love with you, and it isn't selfish at all for you to miss him.
Thank you Joanne. You are right about our love - for me I guess that is the eternal part. There are others who were impacted by and who will remember our deep and fun love.
Thanks again.
Well, that seemed a bit harsh. But I asked.
Having just lost my husband and love of my life, I guess I'm looking for ways to deal with the loneliness of him being gone. Dead. Forever. I get it.
Does no one else struggle with the selfishness of missing a loved one who is dead & gone, forever?
Guess I'm asking the wrong group.
I'm so very sorry for your loss I understand the grief you must be feeling, and I wish that there were a way to offer concrete comfort beyond acknowledging the excruciating nature of the human condition that we all share.
Please forgive the stark responses that you've received here. You asked what we believe, and members of the group responded truthfully and matter-of-factly to your question without the benefit of the personal context that you have meanwhile offered.
I'm not trying to make excuses, but simply to assure you: If you had led with your loss, you would have elicited a different tone in the response. I have seen members of this site respond w great compassion, not least in the face of a member's grief. Our beliefs about death are generally pretty blunt, but that doesn't mean we have no hearts.
(@Joanne, in case you missed this. Nothing amiss w your own response, my friend, but I know you'd want me to give you the heads up)
Sorry for your loss, i get that you feel lonely and somewhat a bit lost due to you loss,
It quite normal to feel that way and it will take time for things to sort of feel normal, although it never quite does.
The struggle you feel isn't you being selfish, it's because you still have love and emotion and nobody to really express it to, because the thing that was your world is gone.
I hope you can make some peace with what happened, it's going to be very difficult and hard, and each person does there own little way of coping with things.
Take care of yourself, and I don't mean that in a generalising way, because it's quite easy to let one's self go after something like this happens.
Why would we be any different from any other species on earth. What happens to a chimp, an elephant, a dog, a worm, an amoeba? The switch turns off. Grieving is a bit different and we do, of course grieve those we love. Other animals do that too, but not to the same extent.
Everything is energy in different forms. When we decompose, the energy that came together to form us returns to the earth thus allowing other life to exist.
There is no reason to think/believe that our consciousness survives the death of our brains; and I don't want it to.
I wish to be buried in a mushroom suit as I see this as the greenest, and most efficient, way for my energy to be released back into the mix.
Been reading about mushrooms, they are interesting in what they do, for plants and for the Earth.
@dalefvictor And they are great in a stir fry .
@Joanne yes they are? Apparently, some of them are great for helping to get your head together.
@dalefvictor I 've never tried any of those mushrooms .
when you die the worms come and eat
you up. Unless you are cremated that is
What happens at death? You die and you are dead. This means certain physical changes set in slowly and forever. Let me explain using a toad. You have a dead toad and you set it aside. Come back and view it from time to time and see how it looks. It will dehydrate and become all shriveled up. Give it enough time and there is barely anything left. You can no longer distinguish it as a toad.
Oh, I'm sorry. You are talking about a human being so you add another property that you cannot prove and then you start making things up. Now death takes on a whole new meaning. At least some think it does, but I simply do not believe it.
No confirmed dead person has ever risen and told us what happens if at all anything happens... Who knows, maybe we are reborn on another planet in a distant far away solar system or we could enter a different kind of reality... Whooo knows
Actually what I find interesting is Becker’s ideas on death denial.
55 years ago Ernest Becker ? I. DON'T agree with his fatalistic minimizing of human political power to reform .... the Pulitzer Prize does not always go to the wisest writers
There is no way that I will find out anything once I am dead as I will be dead, you see.
The observation that human awareness is dependent solely on the functioning of the human brain does not constitute speculation.
Since I don't believe in souls or any other supernatural entities that would be needed to provide for any sort of afterlife situation, I believe that the essence of who we are is completely contained in the cells of our bodies, which, when dead (or severely dysfunctional like in late stage Alzheimer's) that essence ceases to exist.
Do you remember where you were before you were born? Same thing.
Exactly.
It can also be put like this: you were dead before you were born. Death is absence and life interrupts this absence for a while. The length of the interruption can be quite short in many cases.
Here is what I think will happen when I die...
I will no longer breath, my cells will deteriorate and slowly break down, my skin will slowly display shades of blue due to lack of oxygen, after some time I will be cold to the touch as my core temperature will reach room temperature, my skin will go a Gray/Balck colour, and I will slowly decompose.
I won't be a reaming out in pain while this is happening because I'll be dead.
I won't feel or know anything, I'll be dead, nothing more, nothing less.