Posted by alexandra_k on October 15, 2014, at 23:43:49
In reply to Re: eternal damnation, posted by Dr. Bob on October 15, 2014, at 0:04:08
I went through a religious phase when I was a teenager. It started out with my really wanting to believe - but having trouble believing. There were a bunch of people and it seemed to me that some of them were decent, really genuine people. But that others of them were hypocrits. And I wanted to believe and be like the former... Not like the latter... But I didn't trust myself really not to be like the latter... And I really didn't believe.
And then I came around to believing. And then later, when I came around to believing that God didn't exist at all... I remember that there was a lag on my emotions. I remember quite some time of feeling awful guilty about things that I didn't believe were wrong anymore. Like smoking. I didn't see what was wrong with it anymore. Or drinking. Or whatever.
Now...
I'm not sure whether I believe death is the end of my consciousness or not... Sometimes I'm something of the pan-psychist. I wonder if as my body... Breaks up... I wonder if my consciousness will disperse in some way. I wonder what that feels like. Sometimes I wonder if being dead might feel like that statiky black and white with that awful noise that the TV used to do after hours. Or how it would feel (I'd imagine) to be weightless in an isotank or something like that. Like I'd imagine floating in space. But the temperature being perfect. That perfect you get at 3am sometimes in Canberra where the external perfectly matches internal or something and you feel that the temperature is distinctly just perfect.
The absence of pain. I used to long for death as being like a dreamless sleep. I don't... QUite long for it, anymore. And I feel less convinced that it will be like that after all. I guess that probably is what I think, though. What it means to be at peace. No... Irritations. No longings. No strivings. Being totally in the moment. The moment being all there is. SOmething becomes everything becomes nothing.
I don't really believe in damnation. Sometimes I feel afraid. I think that mostly that is about my being afraid that on my death bed... Looking back over my life... What have I done? What have I acomplished? Anything of value? I guess kids... Are a way of extending yourself into the future. The thought that some good may come of that at some point... Had come of that already.
I don't know.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1072273
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20141012/msgs/1072336.html