Do you fear death?

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Although it's natural for humans to fear the unknown which death certainly is, I've always considered it to be illogical. Why would you fear that which you do not know, an x-factor, a shot in the dark? What is it that haunts humans about their own mortality? I've been asking myself this for a long time. Memento Mori. Remember that you are mortal and remember that you will die.

Facing your own mortality seems to invoke such an irrational sense of dread. I can understand it from a evolutionary standpoint seeming as it's in every beings nature to try and survive but having your flame extinguished is inevitable. Like plants we blossom and decompose to return to whence we came. No exceptions. It delivers us all to the same end.

Although I fear the process of dying, I can't say that I fear what I believe to be waiting for me on the other side. Absolutely nothing. There are times in my life when I would rather exist, or not exist, in such a manner so it has me more interested than anything.

Now, this isn't a suicide proclamation/contemplation or something of the like, just so that no one misunderstands me. I'm just speaking in a theoretical manner. Besides, I will wander that valley some day anyway, so there's no reason to rush ahead, haha.

So let me simply ask the rest of you; do you fear death?

Yes, I do fear death even though I recognize that I shouldn't.

Honestly though, I disagree with the paradigm you put forward. You claim that fearing death is irrational, but then my counterpoint would have to be what emotion truly is rational? All emotions are based upon the deeper irrationality of human purpose, and death impacts one of our implicit purposes, which is to live. Just as we fear the interview on the job we desire deeply to take us from that job, we fear death which will take us from this world which we desire to cling to. Thus, I see a fear of death as no more rational or irrational than a pleasure at getting pizza.

yes

That may be, but what makes you think I experience pleasure from getting a pizza? Just kidding. Any way, I fear that I chose a bad word to describe what I meant, and I chose irrational more for a sake of rhythm than actual deeper meaning so I agree with that point.

When looking back at it(I'm a bit tired so my mind is a bit foggy, it's close to 2:30 am here) I believe what I meant is that the actual sense of dread is irrational from a logical point of view. In the same way that, let's try an example. Say that I have preference for a said type of women, whom I can get along with in a good way. Then say I find myself attracted to someone entirely opposite in the way that I believed that I was attracted to but do not get along with, in a sort of a love-hate fashion. As such, that feeling is irrational due to logic/knowledge pertaining to said preference.

I think I lost myself somewhere here. But I think that you get the gist of it.

I think I fear living more.

I would say that the sense of dread is only irrational if dread is irrational in most positions, as on some level all emotions are arbitrary.

The attraction to the woman you can't get along with? I would not call an attraction irrational, I would say that if your purpose was to have a successful marriage and you picked the less good woman over the better one then you would be acting irrationally. I still don't see how a strong dislike of death though is like a strong like or dislike of pizza, even though a dieter may know that they should not have pizza they still crave it.

Nope, been there, done that.

Awesomelyglorious, what is it with you and a liking of a fear of death to pizza? I'm a missing something? In any case, the point of the question wasn't really arguing if emotions are irrational or not but rather if you have a fear of death. In going about that, I may have phrased it in a bad way, and I apologize for that but I don't want to let it overshadow the question so let's just leave it at that.

No I don't fear death. I do believe in a happy/peaceful afterlife, but if it turns out that I'm just mulch for a garden, that's good too.

I do not fear death, it is gonna happen eventually to everyone so why waste time worrying about it? Obviously, I do whatever I can to prevent it, but I am not afraid of it. I also do not believe in an afterlife, I believe that we simply.........stop existing, I guess, when we die.

I do not fear death, but I fear certain methods of death, such as burning, drowning, anything slow and painful. Death itself doesn't bother me, as long as I go quick and painless.

I really like pizza. Also, sometimes I compare religion to chocolate. Sorry, I got caught on that element because it is odd to me. I guess I have a slight peeve against traditional conceptualizations of things.

i am afraid of dying. i like being alive to much, plus i dont know what death is gonna be like. it could be awful and suck

i'll probably have a panic attack about this sometime before i go to bed. thanks

As a little kid I used to get myself all upset lying in bed at night trying to figure out what 'after-death' was like.

Since then, I've seen death many many times, and been close to it several times myself.
I'm not bragging about it... it's just that all those experiences have helped me to view death differently than I used to.
When we finish running a code on a person in the emergency room now, and no one else is in the room with the patient... if I'm there alone I'll take a minute to carefully look at the body lying before me.
I think about how this body was alive just 'X'-minutes ago but is now this mass of flesh and bone.

I'm probably not going to make much sense here, so suffice to say that I do not fear death.. but not knowing what takes place... if anything.. afterwards is still a bit disconcerting.

No.

Yes - if I don't accomplish much in life, my mind is all I have left. Take my body, but not my mind!