by stuckinarut2 40 Replies latest jw experiences
How have you all coped with facing the reality of our mortality?
Most of us were raised to firmly believe we would never get old or die... so here we are now having to face the reality that ARE getting older... we ARE going to die.
Sometimes it really pisses me off that we were never helped to comprehend this most basic of facts. We were given a utopian dream as a "fact", and hence never taught how to face our inevitable futures...
Thoughts?
That's the true fatality of having beliefs derived from ancient mythology or spiritualism, they are always subject to fail when confronted with reality sooner or later.
i had a heart attack at 48. i just knew i would pull through. i was right. i'm 69 now--and looking forward to another 21 years. ask me then.
What percentage of JWs do you think really believe they will never die?
In WT teaching, that can only happen if they survive Armageddon.
Because, according to the WT, one's salvation is dependent on works and never certain and because the WT makes JWs feel like they are never doing enough, a lot of JWs I know fear that they won't be considered worthy to survive Armageddon.Many of them actually hope to die before Armageddon so that (again, all according to WT teaching) they will:
(1) Avoid the Armageddon terror and carnage;
(2) Die with at least a hope that they will be resurrected someday; and
(3) Never find out if, in fact, Jehovah doesn't consider them worthy of resurrection.
For 30 years I believed that I would not grow and die. Now I am over 70 years old and I know that I will die. I believed the first lie in the Bible when Satan told Eve that she would not die. The Watchtower Company has been promising their publishers that they will not die for over 100 years. When I realized that I believed in a lie, I was very depressed and I took medicine to help me cope with life. Every man, women, and child that has ever lived on the earth for the past 6,000 years has died. How stupid was I to think that I wouldn't?
At least churches tell their members that they will die, there is no false hope about that.
I was in a cult. I bought their load of crap hook, line, and sinker.
Sour Grapes
It's strange but I think I have better grounds for believing consciousness will continue now, than I did when I was a believing JW.
Like I have said elsewhere (to general derision and lack of engagement) if existence is comprised purely of material substances and forces, then we are immortal in a sense. The sense being that, if such properties comprise who we are in toto, then the extension or recapitulation of who we are is merely a technical question that will be solved one day. If there is a God then he could already solve it if he wishes. If there is no God then intelligent life will progress to the point where it meets the challenge itself. Either way we face immortality. If materialism is incorrect then that opens up yet more possibilities. But all lead back to immortality.
I understand that death may be the permanent end of consciousness. I don't honestly know how that could be the logical outcome. But I must acknowledge that since my understanding and knowledge are limited, it is possible there is a scenario which I cannot understand or do not have enough knowledge to apprehend.
Conversely the alternative to mortality is also a bit frightening, What does the universe or God have in store for us?
Mortality? Yes and I use this life for all the good I can and whatever Yeshuah will speak for me for me on the other side I will take as much learning as I can.
I regard the way of the witnesses to be the very antithesis of the above.
How have you all coped with facing the reality of our mortality?
I remind myself that I was dead once before - before I was conceived. I think of my future demise as simply a return to my non-existent state before conception. I do not grieve the time I did not exist before conception, so why should I be grieved about the time I will not exist when I die?
I will not miss out on anything when I die because I will be unconscious. To miss out on something you have to be conscious of the fact that that thing exists and you're not experiencing it. So I know I will not be missing out on anything when I die because I will not have the consciousness required to experience loss and missing out. We only think we'll be missing out because we look at our death through the eyes of the living. You have to resist that temptation and look at your death through the eyes of the dead.
The worst part about dying could be that it happens painfully. But don't we experience pain when we get sick but do not die? Haven't you been sick before, in pain? So why should the pain of dying be dreaded any more than the pain we have already experienced without dying?
Death does no harm to the dead. Death only grieves the living. Don't grieve over your own death. Grieve over the death of a loved one.
If there is any religion I will get behind, it's a rational, non-theistic religion that focuses on this subject of coping with our own mortality, overcoming the irrational fear of death. I believe that once we sit down and meditate carefully on what our death actually entails and how it actually will not affect us in any way, much of the irrational fear and anxiety surrounding our mortality disappears.
Yes. I went through a really bad phase when i realized i would die and that there was no panda petting paradise.
It also felt like, knowing there was no resurrection, that i had lost every friend and loved one all over again.
It got better. I learned how to deal with it and now appreciate life more than ever
STUCKINARUT:
When I first started my "fade" about seventeen years ago, the first thing I did was purge my mind of the Witness paradise earth teaching.
I felt it was unhealthy for my mind to entertain a fantasy like this. I had no problem and I wondered if it was because I never entirely bought it in the first place. The religion's teaching has a lot of holes in it. I wasn't raised a JW and I made peace with the idea of mortality and death. Seeing relatives and people in my age group and younger dying is very sobering.
Another thing I did when I "faded" was to re establish contact with relatives before it was too late..I'm glad I did.
I learned a serious lesson being involved with the Witnesses. I learned that family are and were the only people who cared about me. This reason is right at the top of the list of why I'm glad I walked away from the religion.
