death and dying

[che_phoenix]

what does death mean to you?


to me, death is the way of having victory over life. but it all depends on how you die...

suside: is dishonorable, and means you have failed at this great game called life

natural causes: you have defeated the game and survived

Murder: you have been trying to cheat, so you are eliminated

accidents: you skrewed up big time, so you paid for your mistakes


seeing that there is nothing after death, which we will never be able to find out until we die, we are stuck guessing.

different 'religions' and different political sides believe in life after death, like heaven, hell, rebirth, the great abyss, i want to know some other views on death, like what you think happens when you die, what differnet religions believe in, etc...

thanks in advance

-phoenix

[Latifa]

Suicide is not dishonourable. It's saying the means do not justify the end.

Natural Causes: Just because you die of old age doesn't mean you lead a good life. You could live to 90 and still be a dreary shithead who ultimately 'lost' because they didn't get any 'points'. Death by natural causes is, in a videogaming frame of mind, a time out.

Murder: What a ridiculous theory. If a burgler breaks into your house, takes your gun and shoots you, are you in the wrong?

Accidents: Shit happens. Accidents are accidental =P

EDIT: Welcome to the boards mate =)

[Hawker]

To me life is,but a dream,and as if in a dream when we have a nightmare,we can just wake up and say it was all a dream.In order to be fearless of death,one must not see life in any other way.

Death is being awake,but eventually we'll sleep again,in the dream called life.

To me suicide isn't dishonorable,it's wrong if you are suffering in life and want to end the pain,but not dishonorable in order to prevent capture in battle.

To die without reaching one's aim or goal is a dogs death and is fanaticism,but there is no shame in this,you killing your enemy and you're enemy killing you,is all a matter of faith.

I'm sorry if I'm not on topic,but this is the samurai philosophy on death.

[Kobbot 401]

Suiside is honerable under certin grounds, mainly depending on your society. Take the Samuri and Ninja, they believe that you could gain retribution for your failure through cutting their stomachs with a knife/sword for as far as they could, then having an appointed person decapitate them.

Murder can in many differnt forms. Enviromentalist want you to see that pollution is murdering the enviroment (I have a teacher like this), and vegitariens believe eating meat of a killed cow is wrong.

Then there is if you kill a human, or if your killed. The leagel system have everything from Manslauter, Homicide, Murder, exc. It all means the same thing, that another body is going in the ground. Even more you hear about it all on the news so you are becoming desencitized by it.

Death is also used by religion constantly, be it where you will go and what you have to do to get there, or the displaying and usual talk about Jesus Christ crusifiction. Each religion seems to fall towards their being somthing there after death, justifying your existance.

Your views on death should be made up on your own opinions of and what you have seen, hurd, read about, exc. Dont allow any one person to pursuade you to belive in one thing just because they are able to explain it really well, or make it seem obviouse. Death should be rememberd that one day it will get us, and that there is no proven way to avoide it forever.

[Pawn Power]

Murder: you have been trying to cheat, so you are eliminated

accidents: you skrewed up big time, so you paid for your mistakes

Those are two of the sickest things I have heard in a while on this forume.

What about the billions of civilians murdered in war over the year?

Your view on accidents sounds exactly like the "divine intervention" misconception, like god is punishing certain people. There are no gods and it is sick to say people who die in accidents "screwed up" some how.

Disgusting

[bunk]

"accidents: you skrewed up big time, so you paid for your mistakes"

How can you influence whether you are caught in an accident? That's just it an accident is an accident. You can't help whether it happens to you. Your a bit like people who think disabled people did something bad in their past life.

[Discarded Wobbly Pop]

Well I believe it won't be any different than it was before you were born. Do you remember that?

Exactly.

[I've Defected]

"Oh no tsunami! Musta screwed up big time (along with 200,000 people)" :(

I dont think that dying is a mistake, nor that you should try to 'win' in life.

I believe life to be a learning experience and you should always try to make the world a better place.

My take on god, is that IT is an entity, an all encompassing energy to which, you/me/we all belong to. We separate it when we are born as a drop of water leaves the ocean. We choose to be born to learn. in death we return to it.

Just something i came up with while intoxicated. Maybe its true, maybe it isnt.

[Trissy]

what does death mean to you?
To me it means very little. It is simply the end of life. What lies beyond may be something, or it may be nothing. Either way I shall not let death play to big an influence on my life. Like Nietzsche wrote in 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra', I simply wish to die at the right time...


to me, death is the way of having victory over life.
Mmm...oddly close to the view that Camus came to hold except that he believed that life was a revolt against death and the Absurdity of life. There is no 'victory'...


but it all depends on how you die...

suside: is dishonorable, and means you have failed at this great game called life

natural causes: you have defeated the game and survived

Murder: you have been trying to cheat, so you are eliminated

accidents: you skrewed up big time, so you paid for your mistakes

This all seems fine subjectively, but in an objective sense then it is very hard to assert. The first question that will be asked is 'who started the game?'. You don't appear to believe in a God (going by the fact that you deny the existence of an afterlife ) which leads us to the next question. 'Why should we play this game?'. If we did not decide the rules of the game and we did not ask to play then it makes little sense for us to play the game of life unless there is some objective reason behind it all (eternal paradise, divine providence, etc). If there is no reason to life then why should I play? Who says that failing in this game is bad? Who says cheating is undesirable? How can we cheat unless there is someone or something that establishes the rules to this game anyway? You seem to be pointing towards a kind of system of karma but without any ultimate enlightenment at the end and this seems absurd.


seeing that there is nothing after death, which we will never be able to find out until we die, we are stuck guessing
This also seems a tad absurd. If we cannot know whether there is life after death until we are dead then how do you know there is no life after death? Are you trying to tell us you had some kind of previous life??? :blink:


Those are two of the sickest things I have heard in a while on this forume.

What about the billions of civilians murdered in war over the year?
To be fair I don't think what this person has written is that sick, it's just a brief explanation of how they feel at this moment in time. I believe that the points raised are problematic but most people's views can be seen to be problematic in some sense or another because there are always questions that can be raised against them.

For example why do you believe that killing civilians in war is wrong? Is this your own personal belief or do you think it is an absolute moral law? What are you basing your moral beliefs on here? It seems that believing that killing civilians during wartime is Universally and absolutely wrong requires some sort of belief in a system ofobjective morality. Otherwise it is simply death with subjective feelings attached to it. Some may equally claim that 'all is fair in love and war'.

Don't get me wrong here. I personally believe that the civilians who died in the bombing of Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were as much victims as those who died in the Blitz of London but I won't pretend that this is any more then my subjective belief. There are those who would argue that civilian deaths can be justified as a means to an end (i.e. in bombing Dresden the Allies destroyed the factories and killed the workers who would produce weapons that would be used against them thus making an end to war more likely). I think you have a lot to prove if you are to get on your moral high horse here.


Your view on accidents sounds exactly like the "divine intervention" misconception, like god is punishing certain people. There are no gods and it is sick to say people who die in accidents "screwed up" some how.

Disgusting
As I have said, despite it being problematic it does not necessarily require a belief in God. Buddhism has no deity and yet it would agree with the basic principle behind what was being said.

The tone of your argument does not seem that helpful to me because contentious issues such as this one are rarely settled with the dogmatic attitude you appear to be displaying. Take 'There are no gods' for example. I myself don't believe in the Gods of any kind of organised religion and yet I recognised that it is perfectly plausible that there are no conclusive arguments against the existence of a God just like it is perfectly plausible there are no conclusive arguments for the existence of a God. As much as I'd like to confidently say that there is no God or Gods I cannot do so that easily. Sometimes cautious questioning is more useful then merely asserting something as if it were undeniabley true.

[seraphim]

In some cultures suicide is considered the only way to regain honour that has been lost.

Death for me is not an end. I have my own complex belief system based upon the principle that everything is created from the same pure energy. You learn in Science class bettween the ages of 13 and 16 that energy can never be destroyed but can only change state. Stored, Kinetic Heat etc. therefore it is my belief that when you die you reach a point of transedance. What people call your concious "realises" that you no longer have a need for what you believe to be a physical body and therefore returns to the source. all things are a part of this energy like ripples in a pond which is how i explain e.s.p, past life recollection, etc. everyone has access to this information, but it is too much for most to comprehend. When you reach this realization you "die".

[trex]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 05:11 PM
Murder: you have been trying to cheat, so you are eliminated


That is gross. You mean the 9-month old child killed by a drunk driver was 'cheating'? Stealing from that placenta too much?

When you die, you enter a doorway into a new being. Like others have said, energy is not destroyed, and you ascend upon death. imo, you go somewhere else, mabye called 'heaven'?

[Arnau]

Well Marxist belief is that all that happens is you rot away, if its not material its nonexistant. but the brain has so many "non material" phenonmenons that it becomes conceivable that something beyond the material world exists. Only that we know nothing about it...We don't know everything about the world yet.

So im going to stick to doing most and best i can with my life now and whatever comes after comes, I'm not going to wait for it, speculate about it and certainly not jump to it. It will come in one form or another. And in the meanwhile...
CARPE DIEM

[I've Defected]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2005, 01:00 AM
Like Nietzsche wrote in 'Thus Spoke Zarathustra', I simply wish to die at the right time...

a little off topic, but how is thus spake zarathustra? its sitting on my nightstand, waiting to be read after i finish the communist manifesto

[Trissy]

Well as an extreme Nietzsche fan then you'll not be surprised to hear me praise the book, but I do sincerely believe it to a very important book for anybody who wishes to try and understand his philosophy. Most of his key philosophical ideas from the Superman to eternal reoccurence, and from noble ethics to the will-to-power can be found in this book in some form or another. I think it is best read with some kind of commentary so that you can throw around your ideas and the ideas raised by the interpretations. I advise this because otherwise it may seem very daunting to the first time reader due to the style Nietzsche uses in this book.

I mentioned him in this thread because this thread remineded me of the thoughts I had after reading the chapter 'Of voluntary death' in Book 1.


Many die too late and some die too early. Still the doctrine sounds strange: 'Die at the right time.'
Die at the right time: thus Zarathustra teaches.
To be sure, he who never lived at the right time could hardly die at the right time! Better if he were never to be born! - Thus I advise the superfluous.
But even the superfluous make a great thing of their dying; yes, even the hollowest nut wants to be cracked.
Everything treats death as an important matter: but as yet death is not a festival. As yet, men have not learned to consecrate the fairest festivals.
I shall show you the consummating death, which shall be a spur and a promise to the living.
The man consummating his life dies death triumphantly, surrounded by men filled with hope and making solemn vows.
Thus one should learn to die; and there should be no festivals at which such a dying man does not consecrate the oaths of the living!
To die thus is the best death; but the second best death is: to die in battle and to squander a great soul.
But equally hateful to the fighter as to the victor is your grinning death, which comes creeping up like a thief - and yet comes as master.
I commend you my sort of death, voluntary death that comes to me because I wish it

[che_phoenix]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2005, 10:27 AM
In some cultures suicide is considered the only way to regain honour that has been lost.

Death for me is not an end. I have my own complex belief system based upon the principle that everything is created from the same pure energy. You learn in Science class bettween the ages of 13 and 16 that energy can never be destroyed but can only change state. Stored, Kinetic Heat etc. therefore it is my belief that when you die you reach a point of transedance. What people call your concious "realises" that you no longer have a need for what you believe to be a physical body and therefore returns to the source. all things are a part of this energy like ripples in a pond which is how i explain e.s.p, past life recollection, etc. everyone has access to this information, but it is too much for most to comprehend. When you reach this realization you "die".
im going to use that idea in my book...

yes, i know that they were a bit stupid when i posted them, but i was in a rush, becasue my class was over, so i didnt get into much detail

and when im done, ill post it here so you can all tell me your oppionions

[DayGloSunshine]

I believe that death in itself is a wonder. You live until you die. It seems that eveyone is on a path to something and this life is just on part of that. I dont believe in god, but I do think that there is something more to the universe and exsistance than this, at least I hope there is. As for myself I think suicide is a viable option if the situation calls for it. I know that I do not want to be 70 years old, when it gets to that point you are just sitting around. I figure I will live my dream of backpacking the world and writing my books. I enjoy smoking and am aware that it causes cancer but a shorter happier life is better than a long one in which you accomplished nothing.

[Free Spirit]

what does death mean to you?
A thought would be: a part of the circle of existence, an end of life, which is at the same time a beginning, and because everything seems to go in circles in this world, life would seem the only thing not apart of it, which I believe it is. Everything is at some way in a need of each other. In this way I believe I in reincarnation (rebirth), that we are one. But jet we can't for sure find the truth in our beliefs. Even an end has a beginning that has an end and a beginning of itself.

[stefan]

Suicide can be te ultimate wapon agains an opressor. Sinds there is a change a change in military tactis called RMA (revolution in militairy affairs war has changed. Now the opressor has the negative site of war wich is death and destruction. And a postive side of war wich is life itself.
If an oppressor wants to oppress a country it is going to use the "Nation Building" tactics. Examples are Afganistan and Iraq. If the locals want to fight there oppressor they wil use the wapons of the enemy against him.
So if life is a tool of war suicide bombers will become the ultimate wapon against them. It is a simple example of action reaction.

[Kobbot 401]

Suiside bombers are in essence simmilar to the Kamakazi Piolets of Jappan in WWII, they are dieing for a cause that they believe in and are dieing with honor in that right.

Suicide by the people trying to rid themselfs of opprestion is pointless. All that doing that is is killing your self weakening your side. If you wish to out do your impressors have them kill you, have your death act as a marter and a symble for your people to revolt aginst your oppressers.

[stefan]

Suicide bomber how tragic and abbominal it may be they are in the new Biopolitical warfare the haevy hitters. They can terrorise whole comunities with out getting cought.

AI I do not aprove of these prackises by the way.

[Kobbot 401]

Terrorizing the communities of your enemies only causes those people to attack you back. look at the 911 attack, how did america respond to that? because of the lack of diplomacy and the action of a radicalist group we have gotten into a war that now has spread into another contrie that was supposily hiding the leader of the origanal attack. The saying violence only begets violance implies to suiside bombers that are dieing for their nations.

[stefan]

Yes lets look at the 911 attack. Why did it happen in America can you tell me that?

[encephalon]

all soldiers are, in essence, suicide bombers.

[Kobbot 401]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2005, 12:32 PM
Yes lets look at the 911 attack. Why did it happen in America can you tell me that?
It happened in america because the attackers were lashing out aginst Americas capitalist goverment. Why do you think they hit the World Trade Centers Twin Towers, an emblem for capitalism? Is there a better target then that?

[encephalon]

It happened in america because the attackers were lashing out aginst Americas capitalist goverment. Why do you think they hit the World Trade Centers Twin Towers, an emblem for capitalism? Is there a better target then that?

I don't think it should be looked at as lashing out against capitalism, because it most definitely wasn't, even if it was aimed at a highly capitalistic country. The doctrine Al Quaeda follows has no problem with capitalism itself, and Osama is a capitalist. The reason the trade towers were attacked was that they knew capital was indeed part of what made america so powerful, along with the military (thus the attack on the pentagon) and political symbolism (thus the white house, provided that is indeed what they were targetting).

Although it was definitely an act of anti-americanism, it wasn't because America is capitalist. I wouldn't suggest confusing our cause with that of fundamentalist islamic groups on the basis that both hate american imperialism. A shared enemy is not a shared cause.

[choekiewoekie]

Originally posted by [email protected] 3 2005, 05:11 PM
what does death mean to you?


to me, death is the way of having victory over life. but it all depends on how you die...

suside: is dishonorable, and means you have failed at this great game called life

natural causes: you have defeated the game and survived

Murder: you have been trying to cheat, so you are eliminated

accidents: you skrewed up big time, so you paid for your mistakes


seeing that there is nothing after death, which we will never be able to find out until we die, we are stuck guessing.

different 'religions' and different political sides believe in life after death, like heaven, hell, rebirth, the great abyss, i want to know some other views on death, like what you think happens when you die, what differnet religions believe in, etc...

thanks in advance

-phoenix
Suicide: You have some responsibilitys in life, and there is more to it than your own situation. But i wont say it is dishonorable. Who am i to judge your situation? I can imagine there's no other way out, than taking the door to death...

Natural cause: some grow old and some die young. Yes i do believe death has a meaning. But that doesn't mean i cant be sad.

Murder: It will all come back to you in the end... you can not kill anyone without paying the bill for it

Accidents: Seem meaningless, but i don't think they are. Thats doesnt make it any better somehow. :huh:


I think it is more easy to kill yourself for the good cause, than killing the ones you love for the good cause. Like, i can imagine i will sacrifice myself for the greater good, but i cannot imagine i will sacrifice my family, the people i love... And because we are all loved in one way or another, even your enemy, you have to think twice before you murder them.
Enemy's are mostly talked about as if they are nothing, dirty animals, monsters. But your enemy is not a monster only.

But to be honest, i sometimes do see people as monsters.... :ph34r: it is not that easy....

[amusing foibles]

Death only has meaning insomuch as your relationships with others; that is, if you live alone in the woods and never talk to anyone, your death has no meaning because there is no one to give it meaning by noticing your absence.

[encephalon]

Death only has meaning insomuch as your relationships with others; that is, if you live alone in the woods and never talk to anyone, your death has no meaning because there is no one to give it meaning by noticing your absence.

True. The mourning of a death is really a mourning over the permanent loss of a connection. It's the same thing, though perhaps not to the same extent, as losing a friend or lover without their actual death. We mourn over our loss of the connection to them, not their loss of life.

[Taiga]

Death: Your organism stops working (no brain activity, no blood circulation)and begins to rot.
Nothing more. It's just matter of biology.

[trex]

Originally posted by [email protected] 21 2005, 01:37 PM
Death: Your organism stops working (no brain activity, no blood circulation)and begins to rot.
Nothing more. It's just matter of biology.
What's the meaning of living? :ph34r:

[Kobbot 401]

In this ones opinion the meaning of life is what you make of it.

This one lives just because the amount of effort it would take to kill the one known as Kobbot 401 is to much for him at this time. In other words this one is lazy

[TrenzTheLeader]

Death to me is the encore to life...i mean.. life itself is only the interlude to death.
what lies beyond the curtains only the dead can know, but life is just the beggining

[Anarchist Freedom]

Death does not exist its only another stage in human existance.