What happens when you die?

guyver · Post by **guyver** » 2002-12-10 09:25am

Here is a question for you all. What do you think happens to you when you die.

1. Go to Heaven or Hell

2. Come back to as something else

3. Just die and that is it

4. Something else

C.S.Strowbridge · Post by **C.S.Strowbridge** » 2002-12-10 09:59am

You just die. Sure that sucks for you, but it's party time for all the little worms.

Laughing Mechanicus · Post by **Laughing Mechanicus** » 2002-12-10 10:00am

Same thing happens as when you go to sleep except you don't wake up, unless of course you die in a more... disconcerting manner, like being blown apart by artillery in which case - FOOOOM!!<extremely brief pain>*black*.

Solid Snake · Post by **Solid Snake** » 2002-12-10 10:12am

I believe your conciousness lives on in a sort of dream-like state...

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2002-12-10 10:59am

If, as I believe, there is no God, no heaven, no hell, etc. and we are just another form of animal life, with a more highly evolved intelligence, then consciousness is entirely bound up with the physical body, and does not survive its death. If that is so, then when you die, you will sink into oblivion, and so from your personal point of view, you, the universe, and everything in it might as well never have existed.

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2002-12-10 11:21am

Perinquus wrote: If that is so, then when you die, you will sink into oblivion, and so from your personal point of view, you, the universe, and everything in it might as well never have existed.

Well, if you want something a little less negative (ie. satisfy your self preservation instinct)...

If the passage of time is an illusion (which is increasingly believed to be a strong possibility) then the time you spend alive will always exist within the spacetime continuum. Although the limits of your existance (birth and death) limits the amount of information you receive (ie. a finite amount of experiences). I don't know if this translates into reliving the same experiences over and over, or whether we are experiencing everything at once and this "instant" is simply an illusion.... I don't know.

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2002-12-10 12:08pm

Death - ie the clearing away of a generation to make room for the next - is the price of biological progress and being a sexual organism. What always amused me was the fact that many primitive asexual organisms are, in a sense, immortal. The only memories they have are what are in 'science slang' known as genetic memories, and thus each offspring 'knows' everything its parent did.

When I was younger I used to fantasize about perfecting a technique for creating genetic memories for humans - a way of instructing our genes to build our brains with certain memories already chemically planted there, like the lives, memories, thoughts and feelings of each parent. Thus each new generation could, in my fevered imaginings, 'think' it was each parent before it.

I'm sure there are a horde of people who can point out why this wouldn't work (you might start by pointing out that the child would skewer the memories in order to keep itself sane - so that it didn't percieve itself in two places at the same time, or else it would go nuts), but it's still fun to dream. And to realize that your kids' memories of past generations would all end with them having sex.

Wicked Pilot · Post by **Wicked Pilot** » 2002-12-10 12:28pm

I wish very much wish there was an afterlife. Unfortunately, wishing does not make something so.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2002-12-10 12:34pm

It's a depressing subject. Either accept reality and move on, or decide to adopt one of the many comforting superstitions.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-10 12:35pm

Ever been knocked unconscious? It's a lot like that. You won't even know you're dead.

aerius · Post by **aerius** » 2002-12-10 02:01pm

When I die I'll be fertilizer or fishfood, and that'll be the end of me. Not the happiest thing to think about, but you can either face reality or live some fantasy life hoping it'll change things and make you feel better.

Post by **Coyote** » 2002-12-10 02:06pm

I assume the afterlife exists and that there's something to it, but again I have no hard proof-- just anecdotal evidence at best. If indeed I just die and that's it, I'll never know so.....?

Rest assured, if there is a heaven I'll get backstage passes for all you guys (& girls) and we can have a massive drunken party and go brawl with the Mormons, or maybe go to the Fundie Zoo and poke them with sticks through the bars.

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-12-10 02:07pm

You forgot the "Come back as another person" option. Reincarnation as "something else" implies another species.

Larz · Post by **Larz** » 2002-12-10 02:12pm

What happens when you die?... you rot or get turned to ash.. duh

Though I suppose that all these comforter theorys help the mind, because all the hope and belief in something doesn't amount to anything when you take the dirt nap. My personal comforter is just plain death and a hope my consciousness lives just enough to discover what death is before I blink from existance.

Durandal · Post by **Durandal** » 2002-12-10 02:26pm

I want to play one, last prank on the world. On my tombstone, where they list the year you were born and the year you died, I want:

"1983 - Present"

I figure that people will get a good laugh if they just happen to walk by while on their way back from visiting grandpa's grave. Why let death stop you from serving society in some valuable way?

Oh, and another thing. I refuse to let myself be buried in a coffin. It's ludicrously expensive, and my family members have better things to do with $5000. I want to be cremated and have my ashes kept in an urn. Then, the urn will be kept with my family, and a picture of my will be on the front of it with the caption, "I'm watching you." All I ask is a small, modest tombstone in a graveyard, but I won't let my body sit there, on principle. I refuse to let my corpse take up valuable space that could be used for farming and feeding hungry people.

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-12-10 02:27pm

Durandal: Believe it or not, they still make you buy a casket for cremation a lot of times. o.O

Larz · Post by **Larz** » 2002-12-10 02:29pm

Thats why you build your own and get cremated in the forest

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2002-12-10 02:49pm

They don't make you buy a casket for cremation, per se, just a pine box that they can transport/carry/burn you in. As far as I know. My best friend's father passed away earlier this year and that's what I heard from him.

Me, when I die I want all my assets liquidated and the cash used to erect a giant bronze statue of me, set up in a park somewhere, with the only strangeness being that my statue would have a giant and noticable hard-on under its trousers. And let future generations make of that what they will.

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-12-10 02:51pm

that pine box, they call it a casket.

Post by **Lagmonster** » 2002-12-10 03:07pm

Well...yeah. You're right. But a simple one.

As long as no one confuses it for the $10,000 Omnideath3000 uber-coffin with all-leather interior and fog lights that Aunt Muffy bought for her cat, Scrotums.

Post by **haas mark** » 2002-12-10 03:13pm

Lagmonster wrote:Well...yeah. You're right. But a simple one.

As long as no one confuses it for the $10,000 Omnideath3000 uber-coffin with all-leather interior and fog lights that Aunt Muffy bought for her cat, Scrotums.

I was laughing my ass off when I read that....

Zoink · Post by **Zoink** » 2002-12-10 03:32pm

Lagmonster wrote: Me, when I die I want all my assets liquidated and the cash used to erect a giant bronze statue of me, set up in a park somewhere, with the only strangeness being that my statue would have a giant and noticable hard-on under its trousers. And let future generations make of that what they will.

[Dr.Evil]
My statue will be installed on a giant pyramid made from solid plutonium. Millenia from now, when humans are back living like primitives (via nuclear war, or disease, etc), they will recognize me as the evil god of famine, plague, and destruction; All will fear me!!! Muhahaha....
[/Dr.Evil]

SAMAS · Post by **SAMAS** » 2002-12-10 03:40pm

I want as inexpensive a funeral as possible. and thereafter, I hope to stick around as a ghost.

After all, my one and only fear throught my entire life about Death has been all the stuff I'll miss.

HemlockGrey · Post by **HemlockGrey** » 2002-12-10 04:29pm

Anyone who said 'We just die': You have to sing me to sleep tonight.

Perinquus · Post by **Perinquus** » 2002-12-10 04:34pm

Actually, as depressing as oblvion may seem at first, it's probably a good thing. Think about it a moment: is there any afterlife involving the concept of eternity (which is the only way to avoid oblivion eventually), with the possible exception of reincarnation, that would not eventually become totally and completely unbearable? No matter how wonderful heaven might be, could you stand to be there after 100 million years? The only way humans could be made to endure an eternity of anything is if their perception or consciousness were distorted out of all recognition from what they originally were - which means it wouldn't really be you anymore would it? I'll take oblivion and count myself lucky. If it still seems depressing, just make the most of the time you've got. Carpe that old diem!