Death

[Chikara]

I've been thinking about it a lot lately. I'd just like to know, do you fear it? What do you think will happen when it comes? Do you believe that Death really is a supernatural being that only you see when your "time" has come? Opinions?

Personally, I think you die. Your brain shuts down. The end.

[The Editor]

Whenever anyone starts going on at me about hell or something, there's one thing I can always fall back on: I'll be too dead to care. What does that mean? I think it's fairly obvious.

[Chikara]

[The Editor]

Exactly. Come hell or high water, it doesn't matter.

[Nidogod]

I have an aversion to death, though I wouldn't say I'm afraid. Maybe I'm afraid of a painful death or having lived as pointlessly for the rest of my life as I have until now. But for what it's worth, matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed.

[The Editor]

But one can become the other.

[Pikatwo]

If I die and there is no afterlife, no biggie, as I'll cease to care, and if I'm sent to Hell for not believing in a supposedly perfect and all-powerful deity who demands the respect and worship of us imperfect, insignificant human beings, then I still won't care. Burning in the fires of hell sounds like a vacation, kind of lacking a tan at the moment, and I've always wanted Lucifer's autograph. Also want to commend him for having the balls to stand up to the man. That takes guts!

[Nidogod]

Pika2, your views on Satan and God are sickeningly anthropomorphic. Aside from that, I can't find flaw in your logic.

[Midnight the dark Espeon]

You make me sick Nidogod...violently ill...

[Noelle the Bubbly]

Pika2, your views on Satan and God are sickeningly anthropomorphic. Aside from that, I can't find flaw in your logic.

One of the many reasons why I'm an atheist.

[The Editor]

You can't argue that Satan wasn't brave. He risked a lot to say "Screw you God, I'm gonna think for myself!" And he won, too (i.e. he didn't get smited).

[Nidogod]

I can argue that Satan was a snotnosed brat who gets romanticized by popular fiction but I'd rather not. The idea that God is an anthropomorphic megalomaniac sickens me enough. I can resPect atheists and agnotics for following their sense of logic. But I laugh at Satanists because they continue believing something they rebel against so strongly by allying themselves with a perverted asPect of the same religion.

(sorry, mex v_v)

[The Editor]

Satanists go too far.

[Kittsuera]

Death, I would rather that dying didn't happen… anyways to answer some questions I wouldn’t say fear as in worrying about it all the time but I still do have some worry about it. Not necessarily for my live but for others. I don’t think death is a being that’s going to come after someone ‘when it’s their time’ but that doesn’t mean ‘death’ as a being cannot exist. When a person dies they either enter Heaven or are sent to Hell.
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If I die and there is no afterlife, no biggie, as I'll cease to care, and if I'm sent to Hell for not believing in a supposedly perfect and all-powerful deity who demands the respect and worship of us imperfect, insignificant human beings, then I still won't care. Burning in the fires of hell sounds like a vacation, kind of lacking a tan at the moment, and I've always wanted Lucifer's autograph. Also want to commend him for having the balls to stand up to the man. That takes guts!

How do you even know if you would get such a chance? Everyone’s Hell interpretation is greatly dulled down. You could be suffering the torment of never seeing another person, never seeing light, always feeling pain many times greater than what you can fell now. You would spend eternity regretting your decision and when you realized the errors of your it’ll be to late not to mention increasing pain upon wanting to change when it was to late. Hell was not created for humans, but if they follow the devil then that’s where they’ll end up.

Do you really want to thank the devil for wanting to become God him self, for leading you down the path of destruction, for all the pain and misery that you’ve had; you would thank him for that? The devil doesn’t care about you in fact its quite the opposite.

Personally I would rather that you didn’t suffer all of eternity in Hell regretting that decision.

You can't argue that Satan wasn't brave. He risked a lot to say "Screw you God, I'm gonna think for myself!" And he won, too (i.e. he didn't get smited).

Satan was selfish, he wanted to do everything his way, and proclaim himself as God because he was the Highest of all the angles.

It wasn’t because he wanted to think for him self that he was sent to Hell, it was because He rebelled, taking a third of the Angles with him.

I don’t see that as a victory. If you were in a war and became a traitor in the middle of it and then lost, but was not killed and was left in a hole to rot with no wrights. Would you call that a victory if you were previously living in a mansion with all the provisions you would ever need or could want?

[The Editor]

Are we really going to trust a biased source?

Maybe Lucifer decided that having to worship and praise God, day in, day out, was a pointless action set by some insecure fool with too much power. So, he decides to try and free himself and his fellow angels from this maniacal tyrant's rule... At which point God goes mental and banishes Lucifer to Hell. Then, in His book, He justifies it by saying Lucifer was "arrogant" - which isn't a reason to condemn someone to eternal torment, by the way.

[Nidogod]

Then, pray tell, what other source do we go with? I'm not one to promote the bible, I'm a lousy Catholic I guess, but I like my God as the collective sentient of all existence and my devil as the manifestation of all mankind's negativity. If you'd rather see the devil as a tragic hero who stood up to an oppressive egomaniac, be my guest. Either way, you're paying homage to an intangeable diety, in some cases just to sPite the other one and/or its followers.

[The Editor]

I don't worship any mystical entity. All I'm saying is that maybe the story of Lucifer isn't what it's made out to be. Lucifer wasn't an idiot - He knew God would crush him. However, he still fought. Why do people fight against impossible odds? Certainly not in the name of evil. You fight a losing battle because you believe in something, something far more important than yourself.

[Torchikorita]

i do fear it yeah, now people are just dropping dead around me, becomes quite a scarey prospect to over come!
but im not gonna dawdle on it, i need to ejoy the life i have and the pokemon i have with me!!

[Nidogod]

I don't worship any mystical entity. All I'm saying is that maybe the story of Lucifer isn't what it's made out to be. Lucifer wasn't an idiot - He knew God would crush him. However, he still fought. Why do people fight against impossible odds? Certainly not in the name of evil. You fight a losing battle because you believe in something, something far more important than yourself.

Key word in your second sentence being "maybe". And "maybe"--startling as it sound--Lucifer WAS a bad guy who hungered for power. I know, it sounds insane but it happens sometimes.

Or "maybe", we're both half right. God didn't banish Satan. Maybe he understood his plea and granted him his own little universe--hell--for him and his minions to rule. And it's not like they're really trapped there. They influence us here on Earth all the time.

[The Editor]

Or maybe God just crushed Satan's little bid for freedom. The only source we have is the Bible, which is clearly biased.

[Nidogod]

My favorite quote regarding the Devil...

No, she could be no worse off in company with the devil himself than with Nikolas Rokoff, for the devil at least bore the reputation of being a gentleman.

...a throwaway line from The Beasts Of Tarzan. But it denotes a charm to the character which outshines that of certain members of our own sPecies.

[The Editor]

'I always thought that about the Garden of Eden story,' said Ford.
'Eh?'
'Garden of Eden. Tree. Apple. That bit, remember?'
'Yes of course I do.'
'Your God person puts an apple tree in the middle of a garden and says "do what you like guys, oh, but don't eat the apple." Surprise surprise, they eat it and he leaps out from behind a bush shouting "Gotcha". It wouldn't have made any difference if they hadn't eaten it.'
'Why not?'
'Because if you're dealing with somebody who has the sort of mentality which likes leaving hats on the pavement with bricks under them you know perfectly well they won't give up. They'll get you in the end.'

- Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe.

[Pikatwo]

How do you even know if you would get such a chance? Everyone’s Hell interpretation is greatly dulled down. You could be suffering the torment of never seeing another person, never seeing light, always feeling pain many times greater than what you can fell now. You would spend eternity regretting your decision and when you realized the errors of your it’ll be to late not to mention increasing pain upon wanting to change when it was to late. Hell was not created for humans, but if they follow the devil then that’s where they’ll end up.

Do you really want to thank the devil for wanting to become God him self, for leading you down the path of destruction, for all the pain and misery that you’ve had; you would thank him for that? The devil doesn’t care about you in fact its quite the opposite.

Personally I would rather that you didn’t suffer all of eternity in Hell regretting that decision.

Incase you didn't notice, I wasn't being completely serious in that post. Stop reading into it so much.

[Mex]

I can argue that Satan was a snotnosed brat who gets romanticized by popular fiction but I'd rather not. The idea that God is an anthropomorphic megalomaniac sickens me enough. I can resPect atheists and agnotics for following their sense of logic. But I laugh at Satanists because they continue believing something they rebel against so strongly by allying themselves with a perverted asPect of the same religion.

(sorry, mex v_v)

No need to apologize. There is a lot to satanism and not everyone in the faith believes the same thing. Not all satanists believe in an actual deity, in fact, most of us don't. Satan is just used in a symbolic sense to represent indulgence and fighting for what we want to believe in. "Do what thou will"

If you have any questions I'll gladly answer them. I just hope you realize that we don't all worship a "god." Because in that sense I am utterly agnostic.

[The Editor]

Hmm... So what you're saying is it's a philosophy rather than a religion, and Satan's just a metaphor?