Comments on: Children, God and Death

By: LeaT

LeaT — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:34:50 +0000

I hate to admit it Waldheri but I am a little with EvilLord666 here :p That the idea of a finite life does give life another form of value since we know there is a finite amount of time to achieve the things we wish to do in life. What motivator do we have if we can do it whenever we want? However, I don't see death as an end but rather a continuation of an endless cycle since for death and life are not necessarily dichotomonies in an absolute sense but both are very well needed to maintain the cycle of life properly.

When I was very young I too used to imagine how it would feel like to be immortal (I was as well very fascinated with vampire stories and I am and a huge elf follower too) and played with different scenarios of what you would do with your life. What we do see is what EvilLord666 said, the population would decrease as the need for a constant population is no longer as dire: the shorter the life span of a species the more offspring it can produce. I think turtles and the ilk are exceptions to this rule, but given the very hostile environments they are forced to live in not much of the offspring will survive to further the race in the next generation.

However, my issue with immortality rather lies in the problem of satisfaction: at some point you will achieve everything you want to do in life and once you've done that what else is there left for you to do? If you ask many middle-aged people who had relatively good lives they will most likely tell you they aren't so afraid to die because they did what they wanted in life and had good lives, they feel satisfied and maybe even relieved by the thought of dying so they can leave space to the next generation and making it possible for them in return to fulfill their dreams.

I think once you feel you've accomplished your major goals you see death as welcoming; the reason why many elderly might still fear death is because they are often very unhappy, they lost their partners they have lived with all their lives, they migh be sick and so on. This brings up another question whether it is actually healthy to live as long as we do. I am basing this on the idea that many elderly are often very sick and in pain; I am not sure if I want to be sick and in pain when I get old (if I ever do). While saying that not everyone turns out sick and feel extreme pain everyday many do and obviously it would be harder to appreciate your life if you need to see a doctor every few days a week.

By: LeaT

LeaT — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:17:08 +0000

But this is also what I peronally experienced as well when my mother died at the age of 6. I knew a little of Christianity of course, but I even to this day refuse to attend any form of funeral, they make me sad and pissed. I also remembered how angered I was when I thought of my mother being in heaven, without me?! That was the point I decided that religion is really a lot of bullshit just pissing you off and I have never looked back at Christianity ever since

I must go back to the topic of funerals though because I still clearly remember the feeling… I hate funerals, I find them to be an awful practice. Lolwut you go to the church to mourn? When I die I want to be cremented and and I want a huge party celebrating that they got to know me and that they should be happy over the time I was alive instead of mourning me over the time I am not. Yes, it might sound ideological I know, but as I said, I truly despise funerals.

By: Waldheri

Waldheri — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:31:27 +0000

Death often comes to those who are not finished living. Death is the absence of life, of mind, which is (generally) better than no life or mind. That is why death is bad. What is so hard about that to understand? Death does not give life value, life gives life value, because how can the absence of one thing give value to that one thing? Death only functions as a motivator to do the things you want to do while you can. In immortality, you can do it whenever.

By: EvilLord666

EvilLord666 — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 12:14:55 +0000

You are totaly missing out my point. I never said anyone should wish to die becouse death is not bad. On the contrary, i stated that death gives life value. Otherwise, why should anyone value his life, a day in his life, or a moment in it, if it were to live forever? I can see why some may wish for immortality, but i strongly belive that they wish for it becouse they know life is not endless, and want more time. But in the end if anyone, for the sake of argument, could get to be immortal he will get bored over time, probably not imediatly, but what about a hundred years later, or a thousand, or a million, and still for the rest of the eons to pass by? At that point i don't think he will still value his time of existence in the same way before he was immortal. Why would you consider death to be bad anyway?

By: Waldheri

Waldheri — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 11:43:20 +0000

If death is not a bad thing, then why not kill yourself?

By: EvilLord666

EvilLord666 — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 08:14:23 +0000

I want to contradict Waldheri. Death is not actually a bad thing. Death is nature's way of maintaing balance. The fact that every life will some day die, makes every moment of that life time precious. And from this perspective, death is indeed part of life.

By: EvilLord666

EvilLord666 — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 03:01:56 +0000

Immortality opens a door to long discussions. I must admit i fantasized a lot about it, and tryied to visualize varoius scenarios. To point just a couple of reasons why immortality is futile:

1. In an eviroment with limited resources(limited energy, call it earth, a solar system, a galaxy, the universe if it is finite), immortality would lead to a maximum of sustainable persons, wich implies at some point no more children. At some point with a limited number of persons, all diferent types of social interactions will had been played in all possible contexts, with all the possible combinations of persons. So no more new things, no more value. Ok, some can argue that there is allways some new thing to come. But for that new thing to come, generally requires new generations, because they can see things differently, but that was rulled out by the limited resources.

2. A person can generally retain only a percentages of his memories in the long term (i'm not really sure, but i think 20% was the value). Then suposse, that somehow we could optimize that to be a 100%, and there is no more Alzheimer, and no other mental degenerative dissease. Even then, memories are stored in our brains in the structure of the neurons connections. The number of neurons is very big, yet it is finite, and then so are the posible connections between them. Following this rationalization, there will be a moment when there is no more room for new memories and from that moment on immortality has absolutely no more value, but will be a burden.

As i promissed, i pointed out just a couple. Now back to the death dilema. I only wanted to point out it is not bad, it just is. Not good, not bad, it is just natural for life to end, and in the light that i presume immortality to be futile, yes, i belive death makes life so more valuable. About being presumtuous, no, as i said i was just wandering. And by the way, i'm not a native english speaker, so thanks for the tip.

By: Waldheri

Waldheri — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 02:12:51 +0000

I do not disagree that death is the end of life, nor that life can be defined as a state of existence between birth and death. I understand why living things die. I am in no way denying it can happen at any moment and I am well aware that one day I too will die. However, I do not subscribe to the notion that if people were immortal, their lives would have no value, since that would be the logical conclusion if you accept that death is what gives value to life.

Be not as presumptuous as to know the way I see things as it doesn't even follow that I live in fear of death every day because the fact that I think death is something to be avoided. And please, write "because" properly.

By: EvilLord666

EvilLord666 — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 01:38:15 +0000

Well.. and here i'll disagree again. Becouse death is not the absence of life, it is by definition the end of it. So it is not the absence of life what gives value to life. The value of life lies in its finiteness, and are the two moments in the life of a person wich define this finiteness: birth and death. And i'm not saying here that is more valuable a longer, or a shorter life, only that it is valuable becouse of its finiteness.

And i will say once more, you still didn't understand my first post.

Oh… and let me remark, with the same politeness you responded to my fisrt post: If you think death is so bad, then i wander, do you live your every day in fear? Becouse the way you see things it doesn't matter how do you play out your life.. is going to end bad….

By: TheEdgecrusher

TheEdgecrusher — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 09:35:34 +0000

I don't see how a lie can EVER solve anything. it will only make things worse. By telling the lie of heaven you will be condemning the child to mental enslavement by a false and harmful doctrine. People need to get on their own in life, fighting for their desires, not sitting on their knees their whole life and waiting to die to go to heaven.
Also, do you realize the hypocrisy behind it all ? "It was god's will", they say ! "He's with god now" they also say. "he went to a better place", they add. I'm sure that even the most die-hard christian would rather have that loved one with them, on earth, instead of "with god, in a better place".
As for answering the question of this topic: well, what I would tell a child is that I don't know what happens after death, as no evidence has ever been found to support any idea. Later on, when a child grows and develops some mature thinking, he can be challenged with the idea that death is probably the end.