Are you afraid of dying/death?

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Curious, I find that all living things fear death or pain. I wasn't as was close to suicide.... once.....


Very personal.

yes it is one of my major fears i get really worked up about it sometimes i also hate thinking about those close dying my gran is 94 nearly 95 so I think about it.

I'm not afraid of dying, not anymore I'm afraid of not existing. I believe in reincarnation, but I get scared that I'm wrong. And if so, maybe after death you just never exist again. That's what frightens me, because I really want to exist.

I'm not afraid of death, I'm probably afraid of HOW I will die. I hope I won't die infirm, I prefer quick death..like in a battle. Or in a sleep. As for reincarnation, I think that even if we will never exist as people anymore, we will exist as spirits (may be, called ghosts, may be angels ). We'll never quite disappear, it's impossible...I think

Last edited by Chaotica on 31 Jul 2008, 5:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Usually only of the pain involved in getting there. Due to much past experience, I'm terrified of getting (another) disease or illness and spending the rest of my days in a hospital trying desperately to get generally uncaring, condescending medical personnel to listen to me and maybe even try slightly to lessen whatever pain I'm in. I am relatively certain that if it got to a really bad point, I'd rather off myself than repeat my childhood in my old age.

But then sometimes, usually late at night when I'm alone and thinking too hard, I become terrified of the fact that one day there will be no Me... that I won't think or feel or create or do anything that I like to do now, that I simply won't exist anymore. Having only the vaguest of religious convictions (basically that there is a Person or Thing or Series of People or Things that exist and created me and everyone else for some obscure greater purpose), I have no idea what to expect for an afterlife, if anything, but the fact that I can only start to conceptualize nonexistence before something about it doesn't compute makes it absolutely unbearable. As much as the Heaven-Hell dichotomy of afterlife is easier to understand, it seems so easy, so simplistic, so HUMAN that I can't really believe that that's the real deal. However, I would like to think that death's not the end... something about that just seems fundamentally wrong, like it's a waste just to have it all end. I guess I'll have to see.

Animals aren't afraid of death. They aren't aware of themselves so can't be afraid of losing that self. They are afraid of pain however.

I won't say I'm not entirely unafraid of death, I'm more worried about sustaining a life long injury. If I had a choice between death or life long injury, I'll take death.

i had my brush with death. it was worse for the people around me than it was for myself. i am not afraid of dying or being dead. we are all dying the older we get. it's supposed to happen so why fear it? i know i wouldn't want to live forever, not in this hellish body anyway.

It's true. Humans are the only species that is aware of it's own death. Animals live moment to moment and have no fear of the future because they have no consciousness of a "self" apart from the environment. That's why they react to mirrors as if it were another animal.

I used to be afraid of death, but reading NDE's from other people reassured me quite a lot. There are a TON on the web. If you google "NDE" you'll get some interesting pages. It doesn't matter if you believe in them or not - the sheer volume and consistency, scientifically, lends weight to the idea.

I'm not scared of death, not one bit. It's part of life and our eternal existence. I know that when we die, we will go to a spirit world either paradise or prison. For the ones that lived righteously, will go to paradise and rest from their cares. The ones in prison will be taught the gospel by the ones in paradise. They will either accept it or don't. I know that each one of us will be resurrected and be reunited with our bodies again. I just hope that I endure to the end by keeping God's commandments, like going to church every Sunday, reading the scriptures every day, and praying twice a day.

I'm rather apathetic toward it. If I die tomorrow, oh well. I'm off the hook as far as having to make life work. If I die in 50 years, I'll have had time to have my fun and see what life is about.

But as someone else was getting at earlier, who can say for sure what I'd tell you if death was really imminent and I knew it.

I'm very much afraid of death and I feel almost like I don't fit in here because of that.

no, you are totally free to fear whatever you want. i understand why some people would be afraid of death. because by dying we leave behind all the connections we've made on Earth, through the things we have worked hard for, through relationships with people we care about, and through the possibilities of a brighter tomorrow. that's a lot to loose, but in the end, we were never meant to keep all those things forever. it is rather quite fascinating the depth of meaning we put on things, places, and events in our lives. i could ramble more but i think i made my point.

I copied this conversation from the "Would you like to have a terminal illness?" thread:
There is nothing I fear more than death, and nothing is more important to me than my own life. I wish I could live forever, and stay young forever...and being invincible would be nice aswell, but I would want to still be able to kill myself, just in case I change my mind after a couple thousand years. I would want to be immune to all fatal injuries caused by other people or by accident. Bullets would bounce off my head, and if someone dropped an atomic bomb on me, I would stay in one un-injured or at least healable piece...unless I was the one who (purposely) dropped it.
I wouldn't kill myself with a bomb though, because that would kill other people too.

There are many, many, many things a person can do in this world, and there isn't enough time in a human lifespan to do even 1% of it. If I were immortal I would do everything...except for most crimes, most drugs, and I wouldn't injure myself on purpose...

After a few millennia, I might get bored. That's why I said I'd still want to be able to kill myself. I wouldn't die unless it was my choice...

Also, regarding your comment that "Being mortal makes life more fun": Spending my whole life worrying about death is not fun. Not having to worry about death would make it a lot easier for me to enjoy myself.

I can't honestly say that i'm afraid of dieing.
The only thing that matters to me is that it's not too painfull.
People always make a big deal about these things.
Once i can enjoy things more, and have as great a life as the average person i may change my mind.
But until than i'm not worried and just living it day by day.
If you start worrying about this it wil only make you sad.

That is the biggest reason why I fear death.