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What's death all about?
By NEELY TUCKER, Washington Post
2009-05-23 23:51:00
Sunday News

If death can be a funny sort of philosophical thing when you think about it — and it can, just ask author Simon Critchley — would that mean it gets funnier the more you think about it? And if you were a philosopher who spent most of your life thinking about its meaning, would that make your death funny?


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lanzate
I think I might like this guy. I'll have to check this book out.


So lets hear it talkbackers, --

Is this the only life you got?


reese
This sounds like my kind of book. I love gallows humor. I laughed out loud at some of those examples!
justplainjoe
the opposite of death isn't life. the opposite of death is birth. fear of death belies any faith professed. no one wants to die, well okay that guy in korea, but we are taught from an early age to fear death as a way of controlling us.
if we look at life as the intelligent, responsive principle that animates this suit of clothes we call a body, and life is indestructable and everlasting, then it becomes obvious that death is a transition to higher realms of living.
ceejay
QUOTE (justplainjoe @ May 24 2009, 08:09 AM) *
the opposite of death isn't life. the opposite of death is birth. fear of death belies any faith professed. no one wants to die, well okay that guy in korea, but we are taught from an early age to fear death as a way of controlling us.
if we look at life as the intelligent, responsive principle that animates this suit of clothes we call a body, and life is indestructable and everlasting, then it becomes obvious that death is a transition to higher realms of living.

Do you think perhaps it isn't death that is feared so much as it is suffering and pain? Just a thought.
spaylady
QUOTE (lanzate @ May 24 2009, 12:09 AM) *
I think I might like this guy. I'll have to check this book out.


So lets hear it talkbackers, --

Is this the only life you got?

I've heard atheists ask "why do people think they HAVE to have 'another life' after death? Why do we always have to have some aspect of 'infinity' promised us? Can't we be joyful of the life we had, that we existed at all? Why must we 'go on'?

Can we have meaning/direction in our lives without some promise of tomorrow in some 'ever~after'?

I do agree that I certainly see the act of suffering more worrisome than actual death itself. The only aspect of death I fear is not necessarily my own death (cept the 'struggle' beforehand to breath and/or pain) ...but that of someone I love and am close to...say, my children, my kin.
justplainjoe
QUOTE (ceejay @ May 24 2009, 10:37 AM) *
Do you think perhaps it isn't death that is feared so much as it is suffering and pain? Just a thought.


lot's of people pass on with no pain or suffering. many who do suffer a lot welcome the final curtain to end their misery. death is the most natural thing in the world, yet the fear of the unknown causes panic in many.
no one needs to be scared of "dying". there is no eternal damnation just cause and effect.
lanzate
QUOTE (justplainjoe @ May 24 2009, 04:55 PM) *
.... just cause and effect.



which could be pretty scary for some people to think about.
salty
No bill to pay at the end. More like a period of reflection. I believe some part of what we are exists before birth on this plane, and after death. "All the worlds a stage, and all the people on it merely players."
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