My mum who has terminal cancer, had mapped her funeral arrangements out long ago and it required a religious ceremony. Prayers, Hymns etc. But after been allowed to attend the cremation of my brother in law...as one of the 10 people allowed at the start of lockdown...she has since changed her mind. My BIL had a humanist funeral and my mother found it beautiful, simple and to the point. She has since changed her request from a religious ceremony to a humanist one.
No religious claptrap spouted by a priest/vicar etc about living again in some etheral realm.
Just a simple accaptance that all things must die.
She seems more at peace with that, than this idea that we will live again after death.
Its unavoidable that we all must die, faith or no faith!
Ironically, as a young christian, I was terrified of dying.
As an atheist, Im not.
It seems to me that its the terminal religious that are most afraid.
To me death is nothing more than a return to the state of being before conception...nothingness!
Still try to make the most out of existance, but nothingness is not to be afraid of.
Like been in Non-REM sleep. Nothingness.
I've just recently been to a humanist funeral and I have to say it was much lighter with takes of the person who'd passed away bring a smile to the 15 people in the Crematorium , I never think of dying , I think of living again when this is all over, am I scared? I suppose I am a bit
Nailit, Mark Twain seems to have quoted me from another thread lol. I'm glad your mum is happy with her arrangements. I can't say I particularly want to die yet usually, but the idea of an afterlife, is more scary in a way.
I feel similar to Ummm. It’s not the dying, it’s what’s left behind that fills me with dread. The thought of not being with my daughter when she gets married, watching my son with his first child. The thought of missing that sort of emotional stuff is what really scares me. I know I’d be dead and wouldn’t know......... who knows
Nailit//To me death is nothing more than a return to the state of being before conception...nothingness!
Still try to make the most out of existance, but nothingness is not to be afraid of.
Like been in Non-REM sleep. Nothingness.//
I agree.
I’m not scared of being dead. I just don’t want to be there when it happens. Who was it that said that? No really, I’d rather not languish in a care home in Weston Super Mare for years.
I fear a long, lingering, painful death rather than death itself. Occasionally i do think of how my children will cope with my death when it comes. Then i think of how i have coped with the deaths of both my parents and pragmatism takes over and i know they will be just fine, given time.
I think of death as something that i can't avoid - hopefully I will be old enough and tired enough that it will be a relief.
I discuss it sometimes with my youngest daughter, she and I are very close, and I worry how much it will hurt her, even though she fully accepts that it will happen, and she will deal with it.
I just feel sad for the people i will leave behind - I have had a fabulous life, and I plan to enjoy some more of it first!!