Back again with the same ole same ole...

Existentialism.

I don't feel comfortable discussing this in this forum for it's possible I would add to someone's depression.

For those who have truly, I mean truly, grasped Sartre's death consciousness and the possibility of no eternal life after the coffin...for those who have truly grasped Becker's Denial of Death...please email me so we can talk. I've tried to bring up this subject with my Psych. Who is religious, believes in an after-life and all that, but she overlooks the angst this is causing me (that this life may be the end for us all, that we will return to the biomass, no eternity of this thing called spirit) and tells me with a smile on her face (which tells me that she, too, has this denial of death thing going on) that I need to just get a job and stop thinking about these things.

Please send me an IM and I'll respond with my email.

Annie

I don't have much to say but I believe we are not driven by a divine force and there isn't a plan laid out that will be followed. I think our lives are our own and we get the choice in how to live.

I don't believe there is anything after this. We exist and then we don't.

I think you are entitled to believe what you want. Some people feel connected to religion and an eternity in heaven, some people cannot stomach the idea.

I wish you luck in resolving this conflict.

I'm having a real hard time accepting the "possibility" (I say possibility because no one knows for sure), that we all end up as a rotten piece of meat in a coffin. When I reflect on the people I know or have known when blood was coursing through their veins, yes, I have an extremely difficult time knowing the significance of their life only to have it end with grand finality at the coffin (and slowly decaying...just stating the realities of life). Literally pushing up daisies...a return to the biomass.

No disrespect intended but you can't know for sure there is no divine force...that's tantamount to the Christian, for example, who believes without a doubt in the divinity of Christ.

Maybe I should get on some OCD medicine? Seriously, this a real problem for me.

Anna who once saw "God" eveywhere

That's the hard thing about this is because all we have is what we believe. No one can saw what is right or wrong because we just don't know.

What we believe and what we know are two different things. We won't know until we get there of what the end is.

I'm sorry these thoughts are so troubling to you. OCD medicine could help if these thoughts are compulsive and you just can't turn them off. Have you talked to a psychiatrist? He would be able to help you understand if there are medication that could help you.

Is your therapist any help? If not maybe find a new one that can help with this issue?

I don't believe in an afterlife, yet I also don't think "returning to the biomass" cancels out the value, or "significance," of the life preceding that state.

There was this reporter who spent a year traveling around, interviewing in-depth a lot of ordinary people. He would literally pick a town at random, drive there, go to a phonebook, and randomly select people to call and ask if he could interview them.

The interesting thing was how everyone he talked to had this great story to tell. Certainly none of them discovered the cure for a disease, or became rich and famous, but they all had touched the lives of others in some way, and done things worth talking about and that were interesting to hear about.

I think we are too close to ourselves and can be totally blinded to what is significant about ourselves and our lives, not to mention our potential.

Just my two cents....

--Ceara1010

I will say this much on this topic- in my life I have had many beliefs before I became firm in the one I have now. There was a point in time I believed Satan was better than God although I did not worship Satan nor would I have called myself a true Satanist. There was also a time when I dabbled with some of the mystic side of things. Then there was a point in which I got frustrated with everything and decided "there was nothing" - we were guided by ourselves and ourselves alone, we were born into the world by a mere happenstance that mom's egg and dad's sperm decided to survive long enough to combine and the things that happen around us are not within an outside force's capability to control or protect us from but rather only we can do that - and when we die everything ceases for us while the rest of the world remains without our awareness nor will we ever again be aware because we will never again be reborn, at that point i developed a pure hatred toward God - and then things changed to give me the complete solidarity in the faith i have now. So I understand you even though I no longer agree with you. I hope you will find the peace I have.

My Thanks to all who responded.

I don't know what has happened to me. I used to believe in God, an after-life, eternity of the soul, and all that. I even believed in soul mates. Now I say, "What in the hell were you thinking, girl?" I guess I bought into what billions of humans buy into because...because they have no real death consciousness or have some DC and are freaked out about the possibility of them, their children, the people they love, humankind in general no longer existing, not in spirit form either.

I feel I have faced head-on the "possibility" that I, me, you, everyone alive at this moment will one day--and very soon when one considers the age, the very old age of this universe; our lives are just a blink in time, truly--will be, and I'm going to honest here, a rotted piece of meat, probably in a coffin (or a rotting piece of meat headed for the crematory)...food for the insects, fodder for the future anthropologists who will study our bones...no afterlife, no eternity of spirit (egocentric man likes to think he has this eternal spirit "created in the image of God" which includes the animals who go around whittling people's heads off...please). Nothingness.

It makes me sad to think of me, you, all of us including our children, soon, very soon, in the grand scheme of things, the possibility of me, you, them, those billions who have come before us, those billions who will come after us...sad to think that none of us, after living this brief moment of time, will no longer exist in any shape, form or fashion except as ashes or a rotting piece of meat in coffin. Our aliveness just a memory, a short term memory, because who in a hundred years is going to know we existed, certainly know our laughter, our hearts, our joys, our pain, talents, how our skin smelled.

Possibility of this. I just don't know and not knowing, well, it may be the way things are, but it isn't good enough for me.

My Psych, a rather devout Catholic, just smiles when I bring up this subject. She just smiles because as a former very religious person I can attest that
if she truly considered this possibility, it's simply too horrific for most. And horrific for me. She says with a smile, "I just need to get a job and quit thinking so much."

So do I do as most have done and take the happy pills? Yes, there is much beauty in our world, but there are just about as many heinous things. As a result, for most, most, people I consider the ADs, more like denial pills...if we really face head on what this world of man is like, hell roy, everyone would be depressed (except for those animals whittling off people's heads). Very normal to be depressed.

But depression can be more than awful, and so, well, there's always the denial pills.

One thing, one thing only, which led to all of this...

I'm surrounded by elderly people. Most battling stroke, cancer, diabetes, broken hips, arthritis to such extent they can hardly walk....I have this to look forward to? Sure none of the above may happen to me, but odds are, yes, something will. We like to believe that we'll live to be ninety, die peacefully in our sleep, travel on in spirit form to live with God, even see our soul mate there. This is a story I used to believe...now I think how did I ever buy into this "possible" fairytale? I guess before this new found thinking I grew some psychological balls.

Anna

Hi Fuzzy Bear...

I'm looking at your icons and thinking, "Life is so darn perverse." But they did make me smile...got to smile at the perversity of it all. Oh, gosh, life is a real trip, ain't it? . Some kind of ride, that's for sure.

Anna

See - the thing is, I came full circle (in some ways) on my beliefs. I was taught them at a young age, dismissed them at age 12, went through many others and landed on a slightly altered variation of the one I was taught based upon an experience I had (not near death) that proved to me what was real and what was not. I still only tell the details of that experience to those who want to know because I have found doing so otherwise emits anger, I also do not require someone believe what i say just that they do not call me a liar. However like I said that is how I got mt questioning answered and whybI understand you.

I don't think that we just cease to exist as soon as we die. And I don't really believe in God or any particular religion's afterlife. But let me throw something at you that always makes me feel better: we are made of stardust. When stars exploded to form the earth, and the earth formed us--if you don't believe in the Big Bang or evolution, that's cool--we were made from the same materials...stardust. I just find that fascinating. Like, you look up into the night sky and say, 'hey, you might be my Uncle'. Just kidding, but it makes us seem a lot less...insignificant. Also with your biomass idea...when we die, our matter is given back to the earth. There is always the same amount of matter in the earth. So eventually, you'll become a flower, or a long-lasting ROCK, or maybe even a 'brand-new' little human. Because we're all recycled. How very efficient!! So just because you die does not mean you do not move on. You do, in other forms! I hope this helps you!

Hi...I'm glad you understand me...because I surely as hell (are curse words allowed...?...the former secular nun now cursing--on rare occasions--and it feels good) don't.

In some ways I'm at least trying to circle. From my earliest memories to about two years ago, I had a very strong belief in "God" and the after-life. Was always in the role of listener and encourager. In fact, I was known to say to everyone, "Look up and look within". I said it from a strong spiritual perspective.

What strengthened my belief was that in the midst of the tragic things which happened in my life (from suicide of others to car crash in which I was in the passenger searand the heart of my family driving and killed...I could go on and on), there were these "whispers", sometimes loud messages in my "spirit", from The Other Side, we shall say, "telling" me that I was loved unconditionally and that "He" would carry through these more than arduous events, carry me in the "shadow of his wings".

Then about two years ago, something changed in me. I started to look at all those people experiencing what we would call heinous events. For example, the beheadings and the burning of the Jordanian pilot. Where was "God"? I then started to really doubt that the "messages in the spirit" I had received were indeed from The Other Side. I mean, why would "God" carry me through these arduous events, even rescue me as I had thought from some of them, and yet seemingly ignore the sufferings of so many? It was then that I seriously wondered if these "messages"/kisses on the cheek from The Other Side were just nothing more than coincidences...we are really toast if "God" plays favorites or only responds to the "right" kind of religious prayer.

I want very much to hear your story. Like you, I don't relay certain details often...most people wouldn't believe them anyway.

I have never called anyone a liar.

I looked at your profile...I see that you, too, are in TN. Would you like me to PM my email address to you...?....I'd really like to do so. I have to laugh...even my email address has "spiritual" meaning. Chosen years ago when I was the secular nun, of course.

Thank you,

Annie

Sure you can pm your email to me or we can just pm back and forth whichever you prefer

I really won't mind telling you what happened to me and I am glad you are open to it

I do have thoughts on why God allows certain things to occur and intercedes with others though I cannot understand it all nor be certain of any of it because only God truly knows the reasoning. If you would like me to share that with you as well, please let me know.

Take care and I look forward to speaking again.

*hugs*

Hi...I really do appreciate your efforts, but just being honest here, no, your post didn't help me. To go from a place of believing with all my heart that the essence of, say, my mother, the children in my life, my friends...that their eternal spirit continues on forever after their shell has literally rotted away...believing this so strongly to thinking their decayed matter is all that's left of them, that an atom of their rotted physical form might be a part of a flower, a small part, and that there is nothing more of them that lives on, well, no, that isn't enough for me, is a really hard pill for me to swallow.

I remember what the actress Ann-Margret once said about her deceased parents..."I wouldn't be able to go on if I thought I would never see my parents again." So, the flower thing isn't enough for me, although I'm trying so hard to be brave and make it enough. Wish I could go back in time when I "believed", but once you have left that possible safety/playpen, there is no going back. A Christian friend once said to me, "Just play dumb and believe." There is no going back and playing dumb.

I do appreciate you and your help, though.

Annie