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.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

While belief in an afterlife is correlated with religion, it's not a completely religious idea in itself.

I think it can be helpful to see belief in an afterlife as a separate thing to religion, but a belief which many religions include and adopt, if that makes sense? As there is a secular case for an afterlife, and some atheists do believe in life after death, either because they've had an experience of seeing a ghost, or because they're mediums (not all mediums are religious) or because the evidence from parapsychology convinces them.

None of this is to say that anyone should believe in an afterlife if they find the evidence unconvincing. I'm making the point that the idea of an afterlife isn't a 100% intrinsically religious idea, just as non-belief in an afterlife doesn't equate to atheism - I've met atheists who believe in ghosts/afterlife.

I don’t believe in an afterlife as it’s an impossibility. Evidence and facts every time!

@Parker231 You shouldn't believe in the afterlife if the evidence doesn't convince you.

There isn’t an evidence - same as when posters refer to end times

There is evidence, it is just evidence that you view as weak, unreliabe or unconvincing.

There is anecdotal evidence from mediums, who report communication with spirits of the dead.

There is evidence from NDE testimonies.

There is also evidence from academic research - the field of parapsychology has numerous researchers investigating and carrying out experiments, which have yielded evidence of an afterlife as well as other psychic phenomena.

Modern Mental Mediumship Research (Overview) – Psi Encyclopedia

Here is an overview of contemporary mental mediumship research.

Completed Studies – Windbridge Research Center

Here are completed studies into mediums done by the Windbridge Research Centre.

All of this is evidence. It's not proof, but it is evidence.

I am not saying that the afterlife is an undeniable, proven fact. I am not saying that you should believe in the afterlife based upon the above evidence. But there is some evidence for it, and what I have related above is a part of it.

The entire premise of an "afterlife" is really predicated upon the supposed existence of some sort of "spirit" which exists inside human beings and persists after death. So yes, while I wouldn't argue with you that "life beyond death" is not dependent upon religion, it's my atheism which also convinces me there is no such thing as a human "spirit", and that is also just fanciful nonsense dreamt up to assuage fears in much the same way religions are.

It's not as simple as there being insufficient evidence of afterlife itself, there is also no evidence whatsoever of many of the things an afterlife commonly presupposes, the notion of "spirit" being one of them.

It's why I'm not in any way a remotely "spiritual" person. I see it as nothing more than self-indulgent, naval-gazing nonsense, and a typical human folly. Humans are very much a material construct in precisely the same way every other object on the planet is. We're made of atoms in no different a way to anything else. The fact that our biology means that we're sentient and can form thoughts, consider abstract concepts, and we develop personalities of our own does not in any way signify the existence of anything "spiritual" inside us, thinking, feeling emotions etc are all just another aspect of human physiology in much the same way speaking, walking, or urinating is.

This idea that we have a "spirit" inside of us is veering toward insisting on the existence of things like "magic". There's no evidence of it, nothing to suggest it exists, and human physiology and sentience is perfectly explicable without needing to introduce bizarre notions like "spirit".

The reason I don't believe in an afterlife is much the same as why I don't believe in deities and therefore do not believe in religions. There is no evidence for any of it, it's entirely consistent with and shows all the signs typical of human flights of fancy where everything problematic is ignored in order to provide a favourable or desirable outcome for human beings (the pomposity, and self-importance of humanity, yet again), it's irreconcilable with much of what we do know about the universe, it requires suspension of logic and common sense, but more than that, the universe functions perfectly adequately without introducing it as an added, complicating factor, therefore I can not give it any credence whatsoever.

I don't dismiss the possibility of an afterlife just because I don't have a religion, but the reasons for the absence of belief in both are much the same.

@XDownwiththissortofthingX

So yes, while I wouldn't argue with you that "life beyond death" is not dependent upon religion, it's my atheism which also convinces me there is no such thing as a human "spirit"

Totally understand that that's how it is for you - I just think that often people tend to link atheism as fundamentally being about the rejection of all things spiritual, when it's literally only the non-belief in deities. It doesn't refer to non-belief in anything else. Certainly, people such as yourself can decide, based at least partly on their atheism, that they don't believe in other spiritual or magical phenomena either, but atheism doesn't cover non-belief in those things, which is why there are atheist psychics, atheist witches, atheist occultists, etc.

This idea that we have a "spirit" inside of us is veering toward insisting on the existence of things like "magic". There's no evidence of it, nothing to suggest it exists

I'm an occultist, so I sometimes practice magic myself. Regards to evidence - if you were solely talking about evidence from scientific inquiry and investigation, then I would agree that there is currently none of that for magic (though it's not as though there are any scientific investigators seriously looking into the matter.)

However, "evidence" encompasses much more than just laboratory/scientific investigation. Anecdotal evidence is still evidence, and there's anecdotal evidence for the reality and efficacy of magic from occultists and witches who practice it and report that they experience it.

I'm not saying that you should find this evidence convincing or reliable and change your beliefs, I'm just saying that certain forms of evidence (anecdotal/experiential) do exist for magic. Go to a pagan gathering, or a gathering of witches and occultists and you'll hear all kinds of anecdotal evidence for magic.

It's a similar thing with the afterlife. When people say there's no evidence at all, they are simply excluding certain kinds of evidence. The whole reason the term 'anecdotal evidence' exists is because anecdata is widely considered a form of evidence. It's considered a weaker form of evidence, but it still counts as evidence.

Which is why I maintain that there is evidence - of certain forms - for such things, it's just evidence that non-believers think is weak or flawed or unreliable or unconvincing. Which is fine - people can come to their own conclusions about the nature of that evidence and whether it convinces them. But it's really not accurate to say that no evidence exists at all, when personal experiences and testimonies are culturally accepted as forms of evidence.

In the case of the afterlife specifically, there is some scientific evidence from the field of parapsychology. Although I find it convincing, I wouldn't say it's conclusive, so again, if others find it unconvincing, then fair enough.

See, I have a problem with anything anecdotal even being described as "evidence", because anecdotes are no such thing.

Human beings are prone to just making things up for the sake of it, we lie, we lie a lot in fact, and even ones who 100% believe in the truth of what they are saying, so some of the aforementioned mediums, atheists who have seen "ghosts", people who swear they've experienced NDE and suchlike, can be entirely mistaken and guilty of insisting upon the truth of something, when the reality is they experienced something completely different and are just interpreting it incorrectly. We're also incredibly poor witnesses after the fact, which can be easily demonstrated with simple set-pieces like prewarning someone they are going to be quizzed about what they will witness, and then showing all the glaringly obvious things they completely missed or entirely misinterpreted.

This is why, despite being a atheist who does not believe in the afterlife or the existence of anything "spiritual", I do not scoff at people who swear blind they have seen "ghosts". Many people have been quick down the years to ridicule UFO sightings, but that is often from the erroneous starting point that people who claim to have witnessed UFO's are always claiming to have witnessed interplanetary or interdimensional vehicles being piloted by little grey men. All a UFO is, is an unidentified flying object, they are very real, there is no reason whatsoever to doubt their existence, and there is plenty of hard, indisputable evidence proving the reality of this phenomenon. There are UFO sightings corroborated by dozens of witnesses simultaneously, both with the naked eye and using electronic equipment. These have been detected at the same time by means other than visual, so radar, sound detection etc, and this has all been filmed, pored over by intelligence and AV experts again and again who verify the legitimacy of it, and now we've arrived at a point whereby security services in some of the world's most security-conscious nations on the planet have finally thrown their arms up in frustration, made their archives public, and admitted that they simply have no idea or explanation for much of what this very real phenomenon is. So if the much derided "UFO" thing can meet and pass these tests, why can't we do similar for "ghosts", "magic", "mediumship", "deities" and the like? For me, the answer is simple and obvious.

Why I don't believe in "ghosts" despite claims by credible people that they have seen them, is because there are a multitude of far more credible explanations for a person witnessing something they can not explain than concluding it's "a ghost". Even "I do not know" is a far more credible conclusion to reach that "its a ghost". I do not doubt or question the honesty of people who claim to have seen something, where I draw the line is when the conclusion is "a ghost" because that is palpably nonsensical due to the fact ghosts do not exist.

So no, "anecdotal" evidence is nothing of the sort, and it carries no weight whatsoever unless it can be scrutinised and verified in other ways. Short of that, it should be viewed with precisely the same cynicism naked liars are met with.

In the Catholic traditions some miracles have been attributed to Saints after life. The Guardian should be a good source to read this. I know some people may have different views about the Catholic faith, but this post is not about this. The below about a 15 year old boy called Carlos Acutis.

" In May 2024, the medical board of the dicastery announced that it had verified a second miracle attributed to Acutis. The healing occurred two years earlier, after a woman named Liliana, from Costa Rica, visited Acutis’s tomb in Assisi. Liliana’s daughter, Valeria, had fallen off her bike while she was studying at a university in Florence, and had been hospitalised with severe head trauma. According to the Vatican, Valeria “required craniotomy surgery and the removal of the right occipital bone to reduce pressure on her brain”. Doctors gave her a low chance of survival. At Acutis’s tomb, Liliana asked him to heal her daughter. That same day, Valeria’s doctors reported that she had begun breathing on her own again; a few days later, all signs of the haemorrhage had gone. Upon reviewing the incident, the medical board of the dicastery could find no scientific explanation for what had occurred. Pope Francis declared it a miracle and said that he would convene a meeting called a consistory of cardinals to formally approve Acutis’s canonisation".
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2024/dec/03/miracle-vatican-dicastery-secret-saint-carlo-acutis-pope

Btw, owing to discussion between myself and another forum member I thought that I would summarise what the Christian faith says about afterlife.

If Christians are not judged as doing the will of God in their lives to a level that is necessary in their lives they may be witnessed as being unbelievers.

What Jesus says about eternal life for believers.

(John 11:25-26) “ Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?”

(John 6:47) “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.

(Matthew 7:21-23)
" Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity"

(Revelation 2)
" I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars:
And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent."

(Matthew 7:13-14)
"Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

(Luke 23:39-43)
“And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
And we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

(2 Corinthians 5:8) “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.”

(Hebrew 4)

Let us therefore fear, lest, a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it... For we which have believed do enter into rest.

(Romans 8:13-16)

“For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put
to death the deeds of the body, you will live. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”

What happens after the 2nd Judgement for believers at the judgement Seat of Christ.

(John 5:22) “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement unto the Son.”

(2 Corinthians 5:10) “For we must all appear before the judgement seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad”.

These events are suggested in (Revelation 19:7-8) and (Revelation 22:12) "And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be".

Christ will determine if we go to heaven or the New Earth after the 2nd Judgement.

Catholics believe in purgatory before entering God's kingdom for some believers.

How does jesus command someone's destiny when jesus himself was created by God and not the other way round
...

Can you help me understand that, kindly ,.please

Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph - he got in with the wrong crowd and was punished by death - not an uncommon punishment for those times. No virgin birth or other impossible circumstances. Fact always wins over fiction.

God gave authority to determine to his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus has a form of delegated authority to judge.

"(John 5:22) “For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement unto the Son.”

If Christians are not judged as doing the will of God in their lives to a level that is necessary in their lives they may be witnessed as being unbelievers.

and as believers nothing negative will happen to them. Your comments could cause worry to some people - why post inaccurate information. No one is judging unbelievers

What I wrote is accurate to the faith, but you don't believe in it which is your right.

And you post a lot of inaccurate and impossible information without any actual evidence or proof.

I think that you may write that about all faiths and not just the Christian faith or? You don't believe in quite a substantial amount of the faith and that is your right.

I used scripture which I posted and it is clear from that Jesus said that he will not know all those who profess to know him. Those who he will not know will not be considered as believers.

@justmerach So.....jesus will judge on judgment day, not the father? Even though the bible does state that jesus does not know the hour ?

Anecdotal isn’t evidence. It’s like me saying my new herbal tea cures colds without there having been a clinical trials or your friend telling a new restaurant is really bad, based on a single visit.

I agree with what you have written. The Bible does say that only God knows the hour in Matthew 24.
An ordained minister at my church said that the Gospel coalition can be a useful resource and they have some ideas why only God knows the hour for the end of time.
ca.thegospelcoalition.org/columns/detrinitate/why-doesnt-jesus-know-the-day-and-the-hour-in-matthew-2436/

I don’t believe the stuff about Christian or other faiths as there are huge inaccuracies, untruths, impossibilities and no facts or evidence.

Desth is because of the fall that happened in the garden of Eden. Adam and Eve did what they were told not to because they listened to the Serpent.

I always wonder why when there is death in families why people direct their anger at God not the Devil. I also wonder why people are shocked when people die. What is the alternative? People live forever and ever on earth? That would be a disaster for so many reasons

Death is very straightforward - comes to us all at the end of our lives. Nothing to do with any religion. It’s the permanent cessation of all vital biological functions that sustain a living organism. It’s the permanent loss of brain activity, including the brain stem.

Some may argue that the God's consciousness/breath/spirit does not die on physical death. This basic diagram which is attached may be useful for a general idea.

I like (Psalm 104) "Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust..

Everything dies on death otherwise we would still be alive. It’s the end for everyone which is probably why some people are scared of it.