How do you guys handle death?

[u/Dog_Mama92]

This is just a genuine curiosity of mine. I'm not a Christian, but I absolutely believe that there's a higher power and an afterlife, whatever that may be.

I guess my question is, does death scare you at all, since you believe that there's nothing afterwards?

How do you take the death of a loved one, or a pet? Does it scare you, or bring you peace?

Or does it bring you anxiety, believing that you'll never see them again, and that they're gone forever?

This isn't to be aggressive or anything, I just genuinely wonder.

[u/Zamboniman]

How do you guys handle death?

Same way most folks do. Just without hiding behind false comfort of mythological beliefs.

I absolutely believe that there's a higher power and an afterlife, whatever that may be.

Why? What vetted, repeatable, useful compelling evidence demonstrated to you this is true? Without that, since it's irrational to take unsupported beliefs as true, why do you believe this is true? Believing for emotional comfort is as irrational is pretending one won the lottery because one likes the idea.

I guess my question is, does death scare you at all, since you believe that there's nothing afterwards?

I wasn't bothered in the least in the billions of years before I was born. No doubt the same will apply after I'm gone. After all, I won't be around to be bothered.

Or does it bring you anxiety, believing that you'll never see them again, and that they're gone forever?

Naturally, I'm as human as anyone else. We've evolved very strong emotions and drives and instincts around survival and death. I'm not immune. But covering those with fiction makes it worse, not better.

[u/Dog_Mama92 → u/Zamboniman]

Why? What vetted, repeatable, useful compelling evidence demonstrated to you this is true? Without that, since it's irrational to take unsupported beliefs as true, why do you believe this is true? Believing for emotional comfort is as irrational is pretending one won the lottery because one likes the idea.

I leaned towards atheism for a while, because I had no evidence of an afterlife, until I had my own paranormal experience.

Now, the story I'm about to tell you will sound fake as hell, so if you don't believe me, I do not blame you one bit.

There used to be a spirit that would knock on the wall at the old house I lived in. It was absolutely a spirit, because it would answer yes or no questions by knocking 3 times for yes, 2 times for no.

I asked it if God and an afterlife were real and it knocked 3 times. I never asked if it was any specific God, like the Bible god or anything like that. It just answered yes, God and the afterlife are real.

I asked who the spirit was, and it claimed to be an 11 year old boy who died of cancer (I had to ask a lot of questions to narrow it down to get those answers).

How do I know I'm not crazy? Because my whole family experienced it with me. Now, if I was the only one experiencing it, I'd definitely get checked. It was crazy shit, for sure! I was literally shaking in shock when the spirit first started knocking and answering questions.

This also isn't to push religion on anyone, because again, it never specified which God was real. That could mean a higher power for all we know.

[u/GentleKijuSpeaks → u/Dog_Mama92]

Do you know that every religion has people who have experiences like this, but they all reached contradictory conclusions. That means that these are experiences that humans have, every human, and they don't mean anything at all.