Does religion help with fear of life, dying and death?

[Followtheinstructions]

I'm in my 50's and for as long as I can recall I have feared life, living, dying and death.

I'm talking from young childhood, I would lay in bed a night thinking and thinking, without any answers and would cry from my fear of the enormity of life. No idea why. I've had no childhood traumas and had a lovely childhood.

I was diagnosed ND last year, not sure if this makes me more prone to these thought processes but I simply can not compartmentalize life in the way others do. I over think everything.

I went to a CofE school with the church nearby and all events and celebrations were held in our village church. The village I still live in. I probably saw myself as (non-practicing) Christian most of my life until my 4 year old niece died from a brain tumour 15 years ago. I gave up on praying and believing, it felt wrong somehow.

Although I have a lovely life with a great dh, beautiful DC, family and friends I have always felt something is missing which may contribute to my fear of life? I don't know but could that be religion?

I am always drawn to more spiritual religions and beliefs and have wondered if Buddhism or something similar may be a better fit for me. I often ponder if it would help guide me to peace of mind and a more relaxed feeling towards life, living and death?

Does anyone find having a religion, whatever that means to you offers you some kind of peace, a feeling of being free from fears from the enormity of simply living?

Just something that I ponder now I'm past middle age and head towards my later years.

I'm an atheist and I don't fear death itself. I think it is rational to fear dying a horrible painful death. But actually being dead seems ok. I'd be sad for those I left behind and a bit sad about not knowing what comes next in their lives, like stopping watching a soap opera.

Maybe you would find being religious and comfort, but I never really understand how people pick the "right" religion of all of the ones out there, without constantly wondering if they'd picked the right one.

I am not religious but a deep, inner looking, reflective person.

I am very engaged in all levels of life. Nothing is out of bounds for me. The more engaged in life, philosophy, psychology, politics, critical theory, the arts, culture and the classics I am, the more I can grapple with all of the questions about life and it often feeling of quite futile, existence and death.

I do meditate and do yoga, the older I get the more both practices mean to me.

We have all lost beautiful, loved ones and will continue to do so.

Quality of life, is so important to me while I have it and I do all I can to maintain it. Good diet and exercise. I aim to live with peace and harmony, I do say daily mantras and connect with nature.

I am not afraid of death, my beautiful DGM passed at 94, she had dementia, my beautiful older sister died of cancer and we have lost other beautiful ones. I light a candle to my ancestors daily.

I am 59, I was once 13. Time moves on.
I have made a recent intention to be aware and conscious of every moment I live of the rest of my life.

I understand that Roman Catholicism teaches differently and I know that can mess with people’s heads and leave them fearful or uncertain of their eternity. This is not the thread. 🙂 However the scriptures you have quoted simply confirm to me what I have already said. Perfect love casts out all fear.

I know our beliefs are poles apart, but I fully agree with Life is for living - enjoy it. Life is good. Death comes to us all at some point

There is a lot of different views concerning the after life in Christianity that go beyond just Roman Catholicism. Orthodoxy has different views to. So does evangelical Christianity and these are called "mainstream Christianity." People are free to have different views on that. I have seen before people with different views and it can be read and understood differently. For me I have left others entitled to have their own opinion on this.

What do you think about this situation below-.
Christ says that if you love him you will do his commandments. If you sin and repent you should not do it again. You can believe in the Christian faith fundamentals but unfortunately some people do not repent properly and sin again etc... This is not doing the will of the father. Of course they will decide such cases....Such a case though is at odds with what Jesus asked people to do..

Respectfully, I have already said that this is not the thread, so I am not going to engage in hermeneutics on this thread 🙂 In response to the OP I have answered it by stating that Christ is my all in all; now and when I am with Him in heaven: no fear, no doubts. You are, of course, free to believe otherwise for yourself. Again, just for clarity, the scriptures you have quoted merely confirm what I already know. 🙏

I didn't mention in this thread but I am a non denominational today although I had a Catholic school upbringing and I attend an Anglican church today which the views seems to align with mine. They have a scope for people with differing views concerning after life

I went through the scripture that thegreatestoftheseislove directed towards me in their reply. I did know this scripture, but just had time to go through it all recently to check what they posted now.
The only scripture that I will comment on is (Luke 23:39-43) that they posted. I will not comment to them directly. This story is about the two criminal men on the cross with Jesus and Jesus gave one of them who was repentant the promise of eternal life in heaven.

The thief was in great pain when he acknowledged Jesus. He was also sincerely repentant and Jesus being God the Son knew this to and was capable of saying so. Today this may look like somewhat deathbed conversions.
I think salvation is possible with these type of conversions. However, they too will need to be judged to determine to see if they were truly repentant and also if they had a change of heart and acknowledged their wrong doing. It is the judge who knows their hearts in the end and if sincere repentance was made.

The church of England view on this seems to be that this can happen death bed conversions, but you shouldn’t count on this as an insurance to get through at the last minute. The Orthodox church views are similar as well.

I think it does help. I’m envious of people with faith. I do have trauma (sudden death of my DM when I was 8 and she was 28). I have been terrified of death since then.

I think faith does help. I wish I still had faith.

I cope by trying to live the best life I can and to find some joy in every day.

I’d think that knowing there’s a possibility I might burn in hell forever would make it a bit worse than just knowing I won’t be around anymore.

I have GAD and worried about everything! I’ve had a lot of loss in my life and lots of big life events that have been very difficult to deal with. I’ve always been spiritual and also an interest in other religions.
In recent years, I was drawn to Eastern Orthodoxy and later Chrismated (I was christened C of E as a baby) and I have found it a huge comfort in my life and it has brought a sense of inner peace. I don’t know how to explain it, it just has.
When I feel a sense of anxiety creeping in, there are 2 verses I like; Joshua 1:9 and Isaiah 41:10
in fact, only today, I’ve been gifted something with Joshua 1:9 engraved on it.

In the Christian faith-
The Holy spirit we are taught in the faith will bear witness to at the end that we are children of God and they will have a witness of the spirit. Now some may see this as a form of judgement in itself. May be this is the missing link in the debate that took part on this subject.
(Romans 8:16)-
"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:"

It is a form of judgment - you believe that someone is determining whether you go to heaven or hell? Such a nice person you worship.

It helps me enormously. (I’m Roman Catholic)

It is intended to be somewhat fair and over a course of someone's faith that they will be guided by the Holy Spirit to have assurance that they are children of God . If you are working with them and not on path they should guide you on this and help you if you are ready to work with them. They will have a witness to at the end to.

So you may still be ending up in hell whereas I won’t

Well, I do think at times what the final witness will be. They have witnessed to me in my life that I am a child of God and tried to help me be on the right path. Still, things continue to the end and it is not over until it is over. Despite the nice helpful things they have shared with me, I still carry on and put my head down and trust what is in the Bible to the end.

I know that they will be fair to me and I will face the reality of what that is at the end. Some Christians do not believe that they will have the chance of hell and some think the chance is there for them to.

I need to be witnessed at the end and they will determine, but there is no chance of me walking away from my faith now which would increase my ability to be saved.

Only Christians can go to either heaven or hell as you are the only ones believing in it. Surely a percentage will go to hell?

Other Christians are reading to I presume so will have thoughts to. Jesus said that he will not know everybody who calls him Lord. So may be some people who see themselves as Christians may be seen not as his true followers/unbelievers so the option of after life with him may not be for all of them and to make hell a possibility for them to. Also, whether you was not a Christian -hell would still be possible for you in the faith as an unbeliever.

I can’t be sent to hell - it doesn’t exist and in any event I haven’t done anything wrong or sinned as you would call it. My conscience is clear but that that doesn’t seem to be the case for some who call themselves Christians? Why are they so worried about where they will end up?

Commandments of God are to in the New Testament. The first one is to love God which is the 1st commandment. You have a right to not believe this as you well know, but that would make anyone a sinner in the faith if they didn’t do this. You don’t have the faith so don’t need to judge yourself by it. For Christians people’s spirit will know if they are doing the 1st two commandments and when it comes to being witnessed and for others it could be important. These are the most two important commandments Jesus said.

I think though and had this conversation recently that there may be some exceptional groups that God freely gives them a place in heaven. Those that are too profoundly impacted to read scripture or who were murdered as a child or taken as a child and not had a chance to develop their faith to.

Myself, I have been through it before as I wrote. I am reassured as I have mentioned by having a fair judgement. I know some people are worried and the pit of hell at least doesn’t sound a very nice place. I hope that there will be something more lenient to outside of the pit of hell.

This is my view as an atheist. I'm tranquil about it because I'm certain there is literally nothing after death, so there is no reason whatsoever to give it any more thought or expend any energy worrying about it.

I entirely agree with Mark Twain-

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it

Interesting thread and replies.

I relate to you OP. I am ND and also do not have a faith and feel similarly to you. I am scared of being dead which I know is irrational because I’ll know nothing about it. I suppose what I’m actually scared of is running out of life to live, so I should make each moment count. But I spend so much of my time worrying and overthinking that I forget to actually be in the moment and enjoy life.

Sometimes I see people together having a lovely time and I think ‘What’s the point? We’ll all be dead soon.’ Which I know is a terribly negative way to think but my mind just does what it wants. Sometimes I’m enjoying a snuggle with my dog who I adore and then I suddenly pull away from him because I’ve remembered that he’ll die within the next few years, and I can’t bear it, and then I’m cross with myself for loving him so much because it’ll be too hard when he dies.

Ironically I teach some Mind and Body fitness classes (yoga/pilates style) and we always finish with meditation/relaxation. So many of my participants say that I have such a calming presence and really help them relax and ‘be in the moment’, and I think ‘If only you could see what’s going on in my mind!’ 😫

I’ve always been a very negative, fearful thinker but it’s definitely at a peak now in perimenopause. I’m hopeful I’ll be able to feel a bit more accepting once I get past this phase.

Love the Mark Twain quote - down to earth, true and totally rational.

Yes, things could go wrong at any time. But the VAST majority of the time, they don't. Most people are healthy most of the time. Most people get to and from work safely every day and go about their lives day to day with nothing happening to them. There are 'risks' to everything, but if we spent our lives worrying about 'what might be', we'd forget to live life and never leave the house.

I do think that some of the fear of death that people have is actually either a fear of a painful death, or thinking 'I don't want to die'. Most people don't want to die - I'd like to get into my 90s and die peacefully in my sleep - but once you're dead, you're not going to know you're dead, so you won't be able to not want to die. I also wonder if some of the fear is around the world going on without us in it, and what sort of mark on the world we will have left once we die. Who will remember us... what have we done with our lives... that sort of thing.

Personally I find the fact that God is with me in all the mundane, and when life gets crappy (and it has been spectacularly crappy for me the last two years) to be a help. It's not about the 'thing' not happening, it's about feeling like there's someone with you while you're going through the 'thing'. I feel God is with me in life - it's like being anchored, somehow - and so I feel God will be with me in death too.