I've been thinking about death a lot lately. Death has always been far off and distant to me but as I get older it is creeping closer and closer towards me. I never believed in any religious philosophy, but I agreed with Confucian philosophy in that if we cannot understand the here and now, what chance did we have of ever contemplating an afterlife. This I feel, kind of left me open to believing one day if the time called for it.
I was open to believing - in fact, I wish I could have believed, but my analytical thought process would not let me. If I believed in an afterlife, the world would be a lot simpler place to contemplate. So many of the shades of grey would automatically become a lot closer to black and white, and I too would be one of the people I long criticised who believed in an afterlife to make my insignificant existance on this planet seem worthwhile.
One of the things that scares me about death is the thought that I might panic in the face of it with the thought that I haven't done all that I'd wanted to do with my life. I know a lot of people when they get told that they are going to die, try to cram as much as possible into that short space of time and live life to the fullest. I try and do that already. I don't live every day like it's my last, but I try and grab opportunities by the horns.
I meet and get to know (albeit only to the extent that I am trying to understand who that person is) as many people as I can. I do not have very many close friends, but I know a lot of people, and I believe I know a bit about the different shoes that these people walk in. I can't say I have walked in their shoes, but I have scraped the surface of their life and at least tried them on.
I don't stay in one job for too long. Even the jobs that I spent years at university training myself for I have given up. A lot of people I know seem to think that they should go to uni then work until the day they die whether they like their job or not. I do not believe this. I am searching for a job that I will enjoy. If I end up selling newspapers on the side of the road or serving drinks over a bar, then so be it.
I lead a good life. All throughout the times when I did not believe, I was a good person, and did what I could to help other people. I used to tell people that I did not need religion to be a good person, and honestly thought that I was a better person than the majority of religious people I knew. Then I read the bible. All the things that I had subconciously been doing were all outlined in the new testemant. My moral code was religous in nature whether I liked it or not. In fact, the morals and laws of our society are based on the bible, whether we can accept that fact or not.
Death is an interesting concept. Are we to see it as the end of the adventure or the beginning? Living life with a closed mind I believe makes death a depressing concept. I too used to believe that when we died we rotted in the ground and apart from being part of the carbon and nitrogen cycle of matter, that was it for us. Lately, however, I have been opening my mind to the possibilities. So what if the concept of religion and an afterlife seems far fetched? If somebody chooses to believe, it makes death seem exciting. I am only in my 20s, but many of my family members and school friends dying for varying reasons has forced me to rethink my beliefs.
Although there are some who seek to share their beliefs, sometimes through violence, most people in Australia keep their beliefs to themselves. I have read all of the Marxist theories on religion as the opiate of the masses and I too believe that organised religion is the root of all evil, but if I believe I'm going to a better place when I die and try to live my life in a good way, what harm is there in that?
To answer the question in the title of this thread, death used to scare me, but now I have come to accept it as the start of the biggest journey in my life. Should I be wrong though, or rather, if I was right beforehand and we do just rot in the ground, then o well. At least I would have died happy, full of hope and with no regrets.
I was open to believing - in fact, I wish I could have believed, but my analytical thought process would not let me. If I believed in an afterlife, the world would be a lot simpler place to contemplate. So many of the shades of grey would automatically become a lot closer to black and white, and I too would be one of the people I long criticised who believed in an afterlife to make my insignificant existance on this planet seem worthwhile.
One of the things that scares me about death is the thought that I might panic in the face of it with the thought that I haven't done all that I'd wanted to do with my life. I know a lot of people when they get told that they are going to die, try to cram as much as possible into that short space of time and live life to the fullest. I try and do that already. I don't live every day like it's my last, but I try and grab opportunities by the horns.
I meet and get to know (albeit only to the extent that I am trying to understand who that person is) as many people as I can. I do not have very many close friends, but I know a lot of people, and I believe I know a bit about the different shoes that these people walk in. I can't say I have walked in their shoes, but I have scraped the surface of their life and at least tried them on.
I don't stay in one job for too long. Even the jobs that I spent years at university training myself for I have given up. A lot of people I know seem to think that they should go to uni then work until the day they die whether they like their job or not. I do not believe this. I am searching for a job that I will enjoy. If I end up selling newspapers on the side of the road or serving drinks over a bar, then so be it.
I lead a good life. All throughout the times when I did not believe, I was a good person, and did what I could to help other people. I used to tell people that I did not need religion to be a good person, and honestly thought that I was a better person than the majority of religious people I knew. Then I read the bible. All the things that I had subconciously been doing were all outlined in the new testemant. My moral code was religous in nature whether I liked it or not. In fact, the morals and laws of our society are based on the bible, whether we can accept that fact or not.
Death is an interesting concept. Are we to see it as the end of the adventure or the beginning? Living life with a closed mind I believe makes death a depressing concept. I too used to believe that when we died we rotted in the ground and apart from being part of the carbon and nitrogen cycle of matter, that was it for us. Lately, however, I have been opening my mind to the possibilities. So what if the concept of religion and an afterlife seems far fetched? If somebody chooses to believe, it makes death seem exciting. I am only in my 20s, but many of my family members and school friends dying for varying reasons has forced me to rethink my beliefs.
Although there are some who seek to share their beliefs, sometimes through violence, most people in Australia keep their beliefs to themselves. I have read all of the Marxist theories on religion as the opiate of the masses and I too believe that organised religion is the root of all evil, but if I believe I'm going to a better place when I die and try to live my life in a good way, what harm is there in that?
To answer the question in the title of this thread, death used to scare me, but now I have come to accept it as the start of the biggest journey in my life. Should I be wrong though, or rather, if I was right beforehand and we do just rot in the ground, then o well. At least I would have died happy, full of hope and with no regrets.
