I have always said that death is the biggest lie ever perpetrated on the human race.
Once we make a decision to love rather than fear, embrace rather that resist, then we will look back and
wonder why in the HELL we were ever so afraid. Your programming CAN BE overidden.

technology advanced and consumes our life, because we get into rhythms, can you imagine if ancients had the technolgy we posses at their disposal, we are improving our nature, as we used the spear to kill an animal to further our nature then, we use forms of technology now to make life easier and better.

it relates to what i said earlier about how the chain of human species has not stopped since it started, that is the bigger picture, the species, the way to insure you have a stake in whatever future our species has, is to procreate, so that the child you created and their child can directly be thankful for you for their life, now the begging topic of this thread was fear of death, when one cell of the body dies the body does not die, there is a possibility for our species to advance indefinitely, there is a possibility that some day individual consciousness like you and i will be able to experience immortality, weather we will be machine, or some indestructible biological material, they will be able to experience in their form forever... its like man has found himself to be a treasure, the earth itself with the sun working through man, has produced this beautiful creature, created in the image of the universe, with infinite potential, and it wants to see by all means that this creation flows on through time,

one more thing that might be important to ya... how most people get over their fear of death; create a relationship with that that has given you life!! whatever you want to think of it, whatever you want to call it, it is real, you are real, and your experiences and thoughts and lessons are all real, what you discover for yourself and what you make of and for yourself is real.

In history we have been told how death is such as the Black Death in the fourteenth century and Cholera in the nineteenth century,And its been told to us how repellent, ugly, or upsetting death is so i think its been stigmatized into us to fear it .."Death" is a socially constructed idea...

I face death everyday of my life i have a terminal illness since birth but i feel i was put here to get a taste of what this world is about (Its better to have known me then never to have known me) I know it sounds like crazy talk but thats how i feel..I don't fear death never have , because I believe there is nothing on the other side of death to fear.I am grateful for the gifts of love, wonder and laughter.This is just my perspective on things and believe me I've thought allot on this subject..peace,sugarcookie1

In the purest sense, it was almost an economical decision - like calculating where you should invest your money, where should the spare organ be invested for maximum return. The return is usually the return to soceity at large, the return to an individual, is simply the ability for the physical body to remain alive - however, the immeasurable quantity is the value it has to the individuals heart of hearts - confront a young girl with death, and the value of an organ, internally, would be astronomical - confront an elderly person who is "ready to cross to the other side" and the value, internally, of an organ would be minimal.

If we are a truly altruistic soceity, then the internal value comes first, however, we are a materialistic soceity, and it is the external value that is measured.

Much as I believe fully in reincarnation knowing a lot of my past lives and obviously from that the proof that we do come back, I still fear death because I'm leaving behind my loved ones and giving them so much horrific grief when I do die. And, despite believing in reincarnation and knowing my past lives, part of me still sits here and debates against my own beliefs saying "But what if that's just a belief that you hold NOW and it's not really true? What then? What if reincarnation is just in your mind? What's going to happen when you die?"

It's one thing to hold an opinion. It's another to be able to question your own personal beliefs and keep striving for answers.
But we can't really /do/ that.

Because no one knows for sure. No one can sit here and say with certainty they KNOW 100% with no room for doubt what happens when we die. We all have our own opinions. Some say Heaven. Some say reincarnation. Some say a void. Some say we just turn to dust and it's lights out, black nothing for eternity. Some say we're energy and we go on to .... something. Some say what we personally believe is what is going to happen to that individual.

No one knows. As much as I do believe in reincarnation, as much as I do believe in those stories of near death experiences, I still have to question and wonder if my beliefs are based on fact or based on a hope to make the prospect of death easier to handle. I think for the latter, that's the best way to do it, to face it. It's inevitable. I'm not comfortable believing that we fade to dust and are nothing so I choose to hold to the reincarnation theory. It may be right, it may be fallacy, but it tames my fear of dying somewhat. The fear is still there.

And that fear extends to our loved ones. We don't hear them, see them, smell their scent, can't hold them anymore, can't say or hear 'I love you' from them ever again, anything you want to apologize for will never be heard (or will it?) and that's god awful frightening to have to face even though we ALL face it second hand or personally. But we want our loved ones to stay with us as long as possible cuz that kind of goodbye really freaking SUCKS. It isn't like they're going on a holiday to another Country and will be back in 3 weeks. It's a forever, never see you again ever kind of good bye to where you can't even call them or write them or nothing. Ever. And so we do what we can to keep our loved ones breathing and able to function in this plane of existance with us as long as we can. I know people who clung to hope and kept their loved ones on ventilators for YEARS when they were clinically dead, just because of hope to hear their voice again, see them look at them and know who they were, just HOPE to have their loved one back.

Ever have to make that choice to take a loved one off a ventilator and know they're going to die and you can not do any thing about it? I have witnessed it from my friends family and even that was SO hard for me. It's like, so many questions: if we wait another day, they could pull through. If we pull the plug, are we playing God? do we have the right to say when they should die or not? And I hope to GOD i never EVER have to face that decision with any of my loved ones. I'd never pull the plug. I'd have that hope that they'd wake and would be fine. I'd NEVER be able to live with myself if I let them turn off the machines; I'd forever think "maybe a few minutes waiting and they would have woken up."

so maybe this answers your questions. maybe not. There are so many ways to answer your question that no two answers will be the same. They can't be. We all live this and experience it so differently. Death is a dance that has a different song, dance, step and pattern for each person on Earth and as we grow, it changes for each of us as well.

I think the tendency of the living to want to remain living is as simple as inertia. Continuance of that state which we "know", an intellect in motion so to speak. Having considered death seriously for number of years, I neither feel that there's some magical mystical realm "on the other side" nor that some creator diety awaits in judgement.
I do not fear or consider the immortality of the soul or what lies beyond this life because whatever awaits will transcend our experience to such a degree that any preconceived notion formulated in this world/dimension is inherently flawed. I strive to carry no beliefs about such things because I admit the possibility that your experience in the "afterlife" could be affected by what you carry with you (spiritually) through the transition.

Choosing life, or the termination thereof - doesn't occur in nature, it's an intellectual exercise reserved solely for humans. Somehow administratively deciding someone's supposed quality of life seems a total abrogation of their individual freedoms and natural rights. Administratively deciding which scarce resources get allocated to patients based on a risk assessment of success seems absolutely necessary. Extending that administrative authority to perceived Quality of Life issues seems excessive (especially when quite a number of celebrities with well known self-destructive lifestyle issues have received transplants).

I'm not looking forward to the unpleasantry of going through a painful or extended process of dying and hope that I'd still be able to choose an appropriate moment and method to resolve quality of life issues for an orderly transition.

ganjoa

I love to think about this very question. It is a very interesting problem indeed. Life itself seems to be a kind of complexity that arises from simple things, yet those simple things bring it about, and take it away. That is to say, if such things that require no conditions for their existence are responsible for bringing about both existence and conditions, their very properties are not without mystery, as any thought feeling and behavior, or anything we see with our eyes, indirect or not, did not exist prior to us seeing it, and thus are not the objects without condition.

So is death a natural expression of the immortal truths?