--- In [email protected], "authfriend" <jst...@...> wrote: > > --- In [email protected], "Hugo" <fintlewoodlewix@> wrote: > <snip> > > And yet, and yet ... of course I understand why so many > > people want to believe in heaven, even now, even in the > > face of all the evidence, and all reason. It is a way > > however futilely of trying to escape the awful > > emptiness of death. As Philip Larkin put it: "Not to be > > here/Not to be anywhere/And soon; nothing more terrible, > > nothing more true". To die. To rot. To be nothing. We > > wouldn't be sane if we didn't seek a way to leap off > > this conveyor-belt heading towards a cliff. > > I guess I must not be sane, then, because I see the horror > at the "awful emptiness of death" as a cognitive problem, a > peculiar inability to recognize that if Nothing Comes Next, > *you won't know it*. Or anything else. People seem to think > they're going to *be* there, looking around at the > emptiness and thinking how awful it is, being nothing and > finding it excruciating, even experiencing their bodies > rotting. *That* seems insane to me.
The nothingness is easily understood too. Dying is most probably like going under anaesthetic, nothing you can do except disappear. Along with awareness goes the part of you that thinks there must be something else that survives.
