[AnnaBettina]

Posted a few times in this forum then had to stay off the computer a lot in order to take care of a relative...

Just saw the movie, Sunset Limited. What White expressed is exactly how I'm feeling. The difference is...until recently I was just like Black, White never was.

What makes it especially hard is to go from a place of great belief to agnosticism. I stupidly thought this movie would end with White believing...that Black would say something to convince him (me) of eternity.

Been searching trying to get my faith in a God, an after-life for our "souls" which I believed were eternal. The thing is, the more religions I seek out in order to regain my faith, the greater my unbelief. That I can see that each may just be a story, a story of some king that man needs in order to cope with his own mortality, that of his children, everyone, and futility of it all. Man is, as far as we know, the only animal who knows he is going to die, to one day be a rotting piece of meat in a coffin (just calling it the way it is), and most everyone simply can't handle that. They can't...hence, the stories.

I want to be able to handle the possibility that this is it for us and everyone we love, for humankind in general, but it's hard, so very hard for me especially considering where I used to be....the secular nun, they called me.
I keep hearing in my head, have courage to face this possibility, to face what is truly the unknown.

Let me go pop an anti-anxiety pill...it's that hard.

Annie

[Thunder Bow]

After reading this, I am going to pop an "Avatar".

[alchemy63]

It could be that the producer did not wish to lead people to believe or not believe but instead only wished to present the age old question in a fresh new way.

I see god as an energy. People have been attempting to define god's energy since time began. Who and what god looks like will change for as long as people exist. It's a story. Nothing wrong with that, a lot can be learned. If we are merely stories our selves, what's wrong with that? Enjoy your story.

[AnnaBettina]

****, pardon my french sez the former secular nun (quote below)...that's one of the things I fear about this Paul Simon Flowers Never Bend In The Rainfall moments.

That what many of us believed, that we have some kind of eternal spirit which lives on after the disintegration of the human body (disintegration being a "nice" way to put "rotted piece of meat in a coffin") and goes on to a "place" of peace and love is just a fairy tale made up by these animals with the supposedly large brains who can't handle the rotted piece of meat possible reality...that you, me, our children, all the people we love, all of humankind really don't have this eternal spirit, that the true reality is we all will one day be nothing more than fodder for the anthropologists of the future, just like the billions, billions of unknown humans who have preceded us. We are just one of billions. BILLIONS. This even being the reality of Donald Trump (though in his madness he can't see this possible reality...won't see it, humans thinking their **** don't stink and all, and eternity is only for the "highly evolved" animals known as the human species of which he belongs).

So how does one enjoy his/her story especially when one is one of those humans who have had their heads whacked off...not just the Muslim terrorists doing that...I believe Judith in the Catholic Bible cut off someone's head. Heads being whacked off or poverty and hunger so extreme that even the starving bellies of children are the size of a woman's six months pregnant stomach.

I guess if one has enough to eat, reasonably good health, an education, etc. that story has a good chance of being enjoyed. Taking a good hard look at reality (and not Elm St. in the USA), I see most humans' stories are more like the kind described in the preceding paragraph. In other words, if you were an alien, supposing they do exist, and stood at a distance from the earth, you would hear far more moans than laughter coming from this planet. So many having such enjoyable stories .

Annie who may just now be growing up at the age of 58

"If we are merely stories our selves, what's wrong with that? Enjoy your story."

[Thunder Bow]

Heads are rolling in this thread. We are just another animal on this planet, and subject to the same things as the other animals are. Our brains are not that fully evolved yet. Now I am going to run off and take another "Avatar" followed with a "Jungle Book" chaser.

[AnnaBettina]

Whatever gets you through the night, baby...anti-anxiety pill, a good fairytale read before bedtime or an avatar .

Hey, listen, folks, I'm not saying there is No God, no afterlife, etc. All I'm saying is I'm considering the possibility that all of this is just a story because almost all of humankind can't deal with the possibility that we don't have one of these magnificent eternal souls, and when our lives end here on this planet, that's it, we become a part of the biomass and that's it. No hanging out on some cloud with a harp.

An older neighbor...

I didn't share all of this with her. After all she's 90 and...and...a fundamentalist Christian. If it gives her peace about her nearing future of being in that coffin, of being a corpse, to believe that she serves a "Living God, has been saved by Christ and given eternal life (like I said, that story may be true, just considering the possibility that it isn't), so be it.

I did think to myself, though, if she can take the leap that she serves a living God who always was, always has been, just was and is, why can't she and others take the leap that this universe was and always has been. Why does the human mind most always have to have a creator for something...well, a creator for everything but God (the latter....what a huge leap)?

Annie

[alchemy63]

Hi Annie,

I'm not offended by your graphic description of what happens to our bodies, I'd say you're pretty much on target with that. I'm not convinced there's amy sort of afterlife and I'm really not at all hung up about it, this life keeps me busy enough right now, if there's something after, I'll know, when I get there. I think, as long as I keep an optimistic attitude as much as possible in the now, then, if there is an after, I'll enter it optimistically, which I think is the best I can do.

I understand what you mean, that, enjoying your story, while others suffer either means that you aren't paying attention or maybe you just don't care. I gave you the shortened version in my answer above, I wasn't sure how much explanation you'd be interested in, and, the long and short of it is that, enjoy.

Let me explain further. There was a time when i so ached for all the suffering people of this world and I still do. I could clearly hear the wailing cry coming from this planet that you mentioned. I dug down deep in my spirit and I made my best determined effort to help everyone I could, I mean, I really made an effort. I went without food and sleep at times.

Then, I realized, no matter how many I thought I was helping, the stream of more pain coming in from the people who hurt around me was stronger than I could keep up with. I realized too, that I wasnt able to heal every ill. It was then that I became aware of the power of my own limitation. I'm content now, helping where and when I can and taking time to enjoy the things that are enjoyable. Humans need this balance in order to have the energy that is required to be of any help to anyone. People need to be able to find beauty in what is around them, even though at times, it might be buried. If someone finds no joy in healing, and by being healed, then why would anyone believe the process of healing, which is sometimes a pain of it's own, is worth it?

[AnnaBettina]

Thank you, Alchemy.

Wish, Pray, that I can accept things the way they might be without angst as you do.

There is something quite powerful and profound about loving the people I know while blood is coursing through their veins, loving their laugh, the significance, huge significance of their lives. Believing with all my heart life doesn't end with them being sealed in a coffin, that they have an eternal spirit which can transcend the grave and be in peace and love with a loving, beyond our comprehension, "God". To have believed that with all my heart for 50 something years...and to one day wake up and consider the possibility, Possibility, I may have simply believed in another story, one which has an after-life and most loving "God". Just a story. It doesn't necessarily make me sad for myself, but for all of humankind for them to possibly end up as "just a rotted piece of meat in a coffin"...that is all, all, and fully ends there.

Annie

Originally Posted by alchemy63

Hi Annie,

I'm not offended by your graphic description of what happens to our bodies, I'd say you're pretty much on target with that. I'm not convinced there's amy sort of afterlife and I'm really not at all hung up about it, this life keeps me busy enough right now, if there's something after, I'll know, when I get there. I think, as long as I keep an optimistic attitude as much as possible in the now, then, if there is an after, I'll enter it optimistically, which I think is the best I can do.

I understand what you mean, that, enjoying your story, while others suffer either means that you aren't paying attention or maybe you just don't care. I gave you the shortened version in my answer above, I wasn't sure how much explanation you'd be interested in, and, the long and short of it is that, enjoy.

Let me explain further. There was a time when i so ached for all the suffering people of this world and I still do. I could clearly hear the wailing cry coming from this planet that you mentioned. I dug down deep in my spirit and I made my best determined effort to help everyone I could, I mean, I really made an effort. I went without food and sleep at times.

Then, I realized, no matter how many I thought I was helping, the stream of more pain coming in from the people who hurt around me was stronger than I could keep up with. I realized too, that I wasnt able to heal every ill. It was then that I became aware of the power of my own limitation. I'm content now, helping where and when I can and taking time to enjoy the things that are enjoyable. Humans need this balance in order to have the energy that is required to be of any help to anyone. People need to be able to find beauty in what is around them, even though at times, it might be buried. If someone finds no joy in healing, and by being healed, then why would anyone believe the process of healing, which is sometimes a pain of it's own, is worth it?

[AnnaBettina]

One other thing, "graphic"? I don't see it as graphic, simply a reality and calling things the way they are. Facing with courage this reality.

Annie

Originally Posted by AnnaBettina

Thank you, Alchemy.

Wish, Pray, that I can accept things the way they might be without angst as you do.

There is something quite powerful and profound about loving the people I know while blood is coursing through their veins, loving their laugh, the significance, huge significance of their lives. Believing with all my heart life doesn't end with them being sealed in a coffin, that they have an eternal spirit which can transcend the grave and be in peace and love with a loving, beyond our comprehension, "God". To have believed that with all my heart for 50 something years...and to one day wake up and consider the possibility, Possibility, I may have simply believed in another story, one which has an after-life and most loving "God". Just a story. It doesn't necessarily make me sad for myself, but for all of humankind for them to possibly end up as "just a rotted piece of meat in a coffin"...that is all, all, and fully ends there.

Annie

[AnnaBettina]

Another thing...

Ernest Becker, his book the Denial of Death. Thought I had understood it when I was a college student but didn't and now see what Becker and Freud for example were really saying...

Man can't fully grasp this graphic description, and so on some level he goes into denial via having these stories and expresses that he knows he is going to die but sees his own death in an abstract way...one day far in the future, he
believes he will die but hasn't fully grasped it. To fully grasp it and the possibility of which I've spoken, "one has to go a little mad" .

One other thing, something which really bothers me. When something horrific happens like 9/11 many, many, said, "But for the Grace of God go I"...they survived and the others didn't because of God's grace? What a capricious God. Those who believe supposedly in an after-life, an afterlife of great peace, love, no suffering. If they truly believe this, then why don't they say, "There for the grace of God go those who didn't survive."

Oh, and Freud believed, as many others have, that the root of most all anxiety is the unconscious feeling that the coffin may just be it for all us.

Annie

Originally Posted by AnnaBettina

One other thing, "graphic"? I don't see it as graphic, simply a reality and calling things the way they are. Facing with courage this reality.

[AnnaBettina]

I'll end this now. Think I'll go get my nails done tomorrow and try to find the perfect outfit for a friend's wedding.
"All is vanity under the sun"?.

Originally Posted by AnnaBettina

Another thing...

Ernest Becker, his book the Denial of Death. Thought I had understood it when I was a college student but didn't and now see what Becker and Freud for example were really saying...

Man can't fully grasp this graphic description, and so on some level he goes into denial via having these stories and expresses that he knows he is going to die but sees his own death in an abstract way...one day far in the future, he
believes he will die but hasn't fully grasped it. To fully grasp it and the possibility of which I've spoken, "one has to go a little mad" .

One other thing, something which really bothers me. When something horrific happens like 9/11 many, many, said, "But for the Grace of God go I"...they survived and the others didn't because of God's grace? What a capricious God. Those who believe supposedly in an after-life, an afterlife of great peace, love, no suffering. If they truly believe this, then why don't they say, "There for the grace of God go those who didn't survive."

Oh, and Freud believed, as many others have, that the root of most all anxiety is the unconscious feeling that the coffin may just be it for all us.

Annie

[Macavity]

Haven't seen it but I've heard its really good

[alchemy63]

I appreciate your kind comments Annie. Let me tell you something. It's not my wish to end the conversation with some sort of sappy happy ending. What is my wish is that you Will take from this a kind of hope, for yourself, and that you will use your hope to give it to others.

When I said that I tried, really tried, helping all I could and that I went without food and sleep at times, it isn't to gather your pity or praise. It's to show that the burden of healing all the world, in the story of “god”, had already been bestowed on one man and the lesson we can learn from his story is that it is impossible for one man to heal the world. Maybe that is why that man was promoted to “god” status in the story. What needs to be understood is that the spirit can be stronger than the flesh, that, as humans, we have limits and unless we care for our bodies, we will die.

All that is to mean that one person alone can not save humanity. But, if we all do our part, though it may seem little, together, it is huge. That is why every one of us matters and every one is important.

The be-headings, the tragedies, the pain, the sorrow, all of it terrible and un-hoped for. What we can take from it is not a joy that all things which happen are good, but that, in all things that happen, can be found that which is to be considered as sacred. Life is sacred. Everyones. Yours too.