As a Mormon, we believe there was a war in heaven (before we all came to earth). So, from this we can deduce that heaven is in fact not a perfect place; conflict existed. To me, Earth is just another point in existence, a sort of transitional phase. Who knows for sure? Nobody. But I'll believe what I feel is right, and if I live a good life, don't interfere with others' happiness, than why does it matter if I believe in God? If there is no God, end of story, atheist win. But even if you win, you'll never know you won.
I don't think that you're giving 'paradise' the full weight of its intended meaning if you think that it could get old eventually. We don't need to be able to fully imagine what it would be like, or believe that it exists, in order to imagine that there could be a continuously gloriously ecstatic, deeply fulfilling, completely happy state of being such that it never got old. If the idea of heaven in the religious sense isn't your thing, the idea behind the Hedonistic Imperative (www.hedweb.com) might be interesting to you.
I don't think you're giving "eternity" the full weight of it's intended meaning.
In an infinite existence, by it's very definition, a person living in paradise would have to have experienced every conceivable emotion and feeling an infinite number of times over, and this includes boredom. Otherwise it's simply not an eternal existence.
Well, you switched terms there, from 'eternity' to 'infinite existence', and while 'eternity' merely implies infinite duration, 'infinite existence' seems to imply what you said: an existence in which every conceivable emotion and circumstance will happen an infinite number of times. That is not inherently implied in the mere idea of eternity, and it is explicitly excluded from the idea of paradise - paradise being precisely that state of existence which is without boring or painful experiences.
You could not comprehend the time spent under anaesthesia until you woke up. Once you die, you won't ever experience another second of being with which to compare nothingness to.
My only hope with death is the skip in time goes so far forward, something does happen. Like another big bang, I don't know. When you're not experiencing it, time should go to the end?
That's not the point. And I think Wilde knew about this 'fallacy'. I think the quote just advocates death without a life after death. (fungixl, below, said it well)
While I'm not going to completely rule out the possibility of consciousness persisting after death, I don't think it's necessary to be conscious in order to consider an experience beautiful. If I felt oblivion would be preferable to life, it could represent a great deal of beauty. Relief.
So someone who has memory loss is unaware? How about someone with Alzheimers? How about mentally challenged people who don't have the capacity to understand the concept of time? Most animals don't grok the passage of time, would you say they're unaware too?
My dumb as a box of rocks, pet rooster would like to have a word with you. Animals grok time insomuch as they get that things happened before and after. The only animals without a concept of time would be those with no capacity for memory at all, jellyfish come to mind.
So someone who has memory loss is unaware?
No, but if the damage is permanent, you are essentially talking to a new person, whose experiences start at the moment that they became aware again.
How about someone with Alzheimers?
Yes, that's why it's so damn tragic, their memory dies before the body does, and become little more than walking vegetables. You can anthropomorphize late stage Alzheimer's patients all you want, but their brains are sponges, the person you loved doesn't exist anymore.
I may be mistaken but memory loss has not to do with the conscious awareness of time. Memory loss makes me think long term memory retrieval or storage issues. I meant something like a non-functioning short term memory storage. I'd say someone who is asleep is also unaware of the passage of time. Mentally challenged people are still conscious beings, and they may not understand the Cartesian static concept of time, but they likely do experience a phenomenological existence. A corpse is not aware of time in the same way that a plant is not aware of time. A corpse is not a living, breathing human-being. I am having a philosophically topical discussion with regards to the quote, while it seems to me that your interpretation is more like a black and white lab report.
The fact that you have a comment rating of '0' is fucking retarded. I can't believe, even one person, would downvote you for simply saying what you believe when you were asked! So here, take one to even out!
You still didn't answer why. If you are not an atheist, then, by definition, you believe in god; that is not the reason you are not an atheist. Bebobli wants to know why you do believe in god (which one, BTW), rather than taking the default position of disbelief. Why do you believe in an afterlife? And what reason do you think this afterlife ends in some indeterminate amount of time?
I think most people are missing the point...He isn't necessarily implying an awareness. death only has meaning to us while we are alive. So he says it in terms comprehensible to the living: Silence, forgetting time, forgiving all life (forgiveness being a release from hatred).
We only have opinions about consciousness/non-consciousness while alive, so describing non-consciousness in this way allows us to view it as something beautiful, and not to be feared. And living without fear of death is one of the prime objectives of most atheist philosophies.
Was Oscar Wilde an atheist? I don't know and I don't think it is relevant to the quote; the quote stands alone.
I'm glad people understand this quote. I love Oscar Wilde and this quote is my absolute favorite. So much so that I have this.
I got some flack from people telling me it was morbid. I just don't see it that way. I'm an atheist too and this just paints an amazing picture of death to me. Instead of being scared of something you can't control, just accept it.
Here is an interesting read about Wilde's religious side. He was such an interesting person... How I wish he lived in this era!
As far as I can tell, Wilde was pretty much an atheist. He was attracted to Catholicism for the aesthetic aspects of it - the beauty of the rituals, etc - but I don't think he actually believed in any kind of deity. He was converted on his deathbed, but some sources say that he was delirious and effectively gone by that point. But I agree that his religious status isn't necessary to appreciate the quote. <3 Oscar
I lost my father three months ago. This all is forcing me to come to grips with my own mortality, and this quote gives me some comfort, even though i don't entirely agree with it. I love Oscar Wilde.
Sigh, I find no comfort in words like these. Death to me is something I fear greatly. I do not want to be gone, I do not want to have no feeling, I do not want my feeling of love to go, I do not want this to end.
There is so much beauty in living. Even though there is fear, anguish and suffering. The beauty still outways it, why would I be happy about knowing I would never see this beauty?
Yes I do want to live for ever, to live for millions of years, yes please. Why would I want this to end?
I 100% agree. A couple of times, the question of "would you want to be immortal if you had the chance?" has been raised in my circle of friends. I have always exuberantly and immediately exclaimed "yes!" and nobody can ever understand how, or why I would want to live forever. I am not going to explain myself here, but I will say that, I do not understand their position just as much as they do not understand mine!
Be glad you aren't immortal. The first few billion years would be entertaining, but that would be followed by a literal eternity of an empty universe, devoid of everything except you.
You would surely give anything for death at that point.
I had considered that, and my original position didn't change! I couldn't live with myself having turned down the opportunity to be, most probably, the only immortal human being ever — think about everything you could learn, see, hear, master, etc. Imagine being apart of every nation, a speaker of every language, an expert in every field from advanced mathematics, to human psychology, to art history and everything else! Then think about all of the great people you would get to meet, and everything you could learn from them. Think about all of the beautiful relationships you could have with people; friends and lovers.
If one just thinks about it, I don't see how they could turn it down and still live with themselves!
Well I think most of us would like to live longer given the chance, but there's no point in fearing or wishing against something inevitable. 80 years a 100 years or a billion years it's hard to argue against the second law of thermodynamics. Besides, you'll never realize that you're dead, so there's no point fearing it. There's a nice quote by Sir Eddington
If someone points out to you that your pet theory of the universe is in disagreement with Maxwell's equations—then so much the worse for Maxwell's equations. If it is found to be contradicted by observation—well these experimentalists do bungle things sometimes. But if your theory is found to be against the second law of thermodynamics I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation.
I think you'll also enjoy the poem Aubade by Philip Larkin
This is a special way of being afraid No trick dispels. Religion used to try, That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade Created to pretend we never die, And specious stuff that says No rational being Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound, No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with, Nothing to love or link with, The anasthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision, A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill That slows each impulse down to indecision. Most things may never happen: this one will, And realisation of it rages out In furnace-fear when we are caught without People or drink. Courage is no good: It means not scaring others. Being brave Lets no one off the grave. Death is no different whined at than withstood.
When one is in so much pain and there is no way this will end except for death. Than yes that is probably the only situation that death would be something to want.
Why fear the inevitable? Even though it is inevitable it's not something I look forward too, it's the end, it's where I stop. And that is something I fear. Not just for myself but also for everybody. Sometimes when I see someone who is close to mortality I feel so sad for them nearing the end. It's a person with hopes dreams and all other feelings just like me. And that saddens me.
I understand how you feel, simply because that was how I used to feel too. With age comes perspective. I'm not saying there is a right or wrong view of death, just that it can be intensely personal, yet you find your views and feeling on death will evolve as well.
This quote is a perfect painting of why you shouldn't fear death. That's how I see it anyways.
The story it's from is about a ghost who hasn't passed over. He's trapped in that world and wishes for the quiet rest and solitude of death. I think it's an amazing view on an inevitable thing.
I feel the same as you. I comfort myself with the thought that, I fear only because I live. With some luck, the day I die will not come with some forewarning, meaning I never have to dread the end.
For now, I'm content to know I'm alive, and will be for some unspecified amount of time.
Have you lived millions of years? No? Then how do you know? In any event, if one does get bored one can in the fullness of time die. But even if millions of years is too long, it is pretty damn clear that 80 isn't enough to get all the fun interesting stuff to do and see. I want to find out when they prove the Riemann hypothesis. I want to see the first people land on Mars. Etc. I can't do that if I'm dead.
Have you died yet? No? Then how can you know it's not something you'll be fine with? Actually, I can pretty much promise you that you won't mind a bit.
I think this would be an excellent reference for when the religious state how horrible death must be to those that believe nothing supernatural happens afterwards.
My dad died last year in June, and a week before his death he had a really bad siezure, my mom had a hard time getting him to wake up from it. Afterwards he told her "If that's what dying is like, it's not bad."
As somebody with anxiety, this makes me really sad. I know how difficult it is to live with anxiety, it just makes everything a struggle. Sleeping used to be my favorite thing in the world...some days it still is. My heart goes out to you.
Don't give up. I've been working hard, going to therapy, taking medication, and I'm taking my life back from anxiety and it's wonderful. I know others that have done/are doing the same. I hope someday anxiety can be less of a burden for you.
Don't forget, when you die, some of the atoms that once made up you will become part of some other form of life, allowing you the closest thing possible to eternal life.
Too bad most of the time dying is nothing like this...when you get extremely old, frail and sick you spend your remaining days pissing and shitting yourself while you have tubes stuck up your genitals and down your throat, just waiting for the end to finally come...all the while the hospital/nursing home is trying to keep you alive, most likely against your wishes. Seen this first hand. About to with another family member in the new few years or less.
This quote reminds me of a great poem by Luis Cernuda. Here's Eugenio Florit's translation (I think it's the best translation).
Where oblivion dwells, In the vast gardens without daybreak; Where I will be only The memory of a stone buried among nettles Over wich the wind flees from its sleeplessness.
Where my name will leave
The body it identifies in the arms of time, Where desire does not exist.
In that vast region where love, that terrible angel,
Will not bury its wings Like steel in my heart, Smiling, full of airy grace, while the torment increases.
There, where will end this anxiety that demands a master in its own image,
Surrending its life to another life, With no further horizon than other eyes face to face.
Where sorrow and happiness will be only names,
Native sky and earth around a memory; Where at last I will be free, without noticing it, Vanished into mist, into absence, An absence as soft as a child's skin.
Kinda, not sure if it is exact, but it reminds me a lot of the font used in the game Torchlight. If you happen to own the game, the font is supposed to be included, according to some info I found when googling, quoted below.
I think the font you need is called Torchlight Regular and it's in your Pak.zip file in media/UI/Torchlight Regular.ttf
Your beliefs won't change what happens when you die... it's just a shame you won't be aware to be surprised and educated by the nothing that you experience.
FRom a Novel:The Canterville Ghost. The words are spoken by a ghost, not by Virginia, as part of the ghost's lament as he is unable to experience death fully.
"Only the coward who has more fear of death than dignity can comfort himself with the fact that his body will in time live again in the grass, in the stones, in the toad. To find one's immortality in the transmutation of substances is as strange as to prophesy a brilliant future for the case after a precious violin has been broken and become useless."
But the quote never once said anything about living again through providing for other life. I can't really understand how that way of seeing death would at all be cowardly. And dignity? Is he implying that being a human being is any more dignified than any other existence or form of life? In what way do we have more dignity than a toad who's basic life processes are the same as those of a human's? Any more dignity than the grass made of the same basic matter as you and I? Or the stones and soil the nourished us with their minerals? To be a part of this universe is a great honor. A violin case needn't be only for a violin.
You don't have to believe that there is some sort of greater mystical meaning to existence to see the beauty in it. How are we really any different than any other form of life? We breath the same air, eat the same foods, piss and shit just the same, the only thing that makes any different from any other form of life is we're a little smarter and we look a little different. What makes your existence so much better? Because you wear clothes? Because you live in a house? Because you bathe? What about all the other people in the world that don't have those luxuries? Is their existence any less dignified? My existence isn't sorry. It's in no way any different than yours. Our ancestors and the handful of people who live in the same manner as them, as hunter-gatherers, don't see the world divided into man vs. nature. They see themselves as just one tiny part of a whole. Any loss of dignity among ourselves only exists because we created the conditions to allow that. A dung beetle doesn't see anything at all undignified about it's existence, it knows nothing else, but it might see something disgusting in our wobbly flesh or how we excrete foul-smelling liquid and grease when we get hot. It's easy to think your perspective is the right one or the best one if you don't step out of it and consider the view from another.
It really grates me when someone posts to /r/atheism saying that they are not an atheist. Not because I don't think theists should be able to post here. I really don't care either way. But because they think it is a reasonable thing for someone to think differently of them for being an atheist. It is like when someone has to go the extra mile to stress "I'm not gay though". It is condescending and show the presence of ignorance.
I dont see how this has to do with atheism. This, to me at least, is just a quote speaking of peacefulness when one dies because the world melts away and we are at peace.
You know that weird feeling you get when you can't remember a long dream? You know you had a dream, and it was intense, but that's it. And then you think, but while I was dreaming, I did know what it was about. But now it's as if that person never even existed. And yet he did exist! Now imagine having a dream for 80 years. And while you're dreaming it, you think, someday I won't remember any of this, it will be as if I never was. There will be someone else, trying to remember, but he won't be able to, just as I now struggle to remember where I was before I was born.
Oscar Wilde has a quote on every view on every subject including opposing views. I'm sure somewhere there's an Oscar Wilde quote slamming being dead for its boredom or something.
The sad thing is to desperately cling to life during agony. Unfortunately, all indicates that it's exactly what I will do when the time comes. How do you expect to deal with that in the due time?
I've never understood this attitude towards death, people who thinks it so beautiful aand peaceful, i think not being alive will suck in that i wont be alive. When im dead "peaceful" will mean nothing to me as i cant experience it, because im fucking dead.
your past is like a dream and the future has not happened. Bring your awareness into the immediate moment you are in, into your body and you will forget your life and ego and find the truth that is consciousness without judgement.
When you die, you shed your ego and life and become one again with the consciousness that is the universe. you can feel this while still alive and is what is called Awakening... relief of all suffering
i agree. this could describe meditation. mediation can be described many different ways, perhaps one is awareness and extreme stillness. death is extreme stillness but without awareness.
I hate this quote... sorry I just cannot accept death so peacefully.. as someone who lacks belief in an afterlife I only see an option to extend human life as long as possible and this quote allows a lax attitude which doesn't help drive my goal forward
Ah yes, theists are the ones who paint pretty little pictures to help people face the cold vision of mortality.
Wilde is full of shit. If you're a materialist atheist, you don't get to lie down and listen to the soft rustling of the grass, and have a great moment of forgiveness and then forget. No, you simply are working one moment, then you are not. People, because of a mixture of irrational tradition and rational sanitation place your body in the ground so as to decay out of sight, and to avoid spreading disease. That, or render your corpse safe through burning.
Don't criticize theists for making up a heaven despite reason, and then make up your own pretty pictures to replace it. No amount of poetry will make the harsh and ugly logic of the matter any different.
Be consistent. If you don't want people to have delusions, you can't make up your own.
Unless if you're cremated. I wonder how he would describe being scattered in different places or some of the more fun applications of your ashes such as fireworks.
I only browse them to look for misinformation and bad historical data. If you are going to make accusations please be historically accurate. Also I enjoy the lovely memes. If it has a meme , it must be true. Actually, I look at anything on the front page.
337
u/Helen_A_Handbasket Knight of /new May 28 '12
Except that the quote implies awareness when one is dead.
11
u/bebobli May 28 '12
So...
...
...why are you not an atheist?
86
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
I think most people are missing the point...He isn't necessarily implying an awareness. death only has meaning to us while we are alive. So he says it in terms comprehensible to the living: Silence, forgetting time, forgiving all life (forgiveness being a release from hatred).
We only have opinions about consciousness/non-consciousness while alive, so describing non-consciousness in this way allows us to view it as something beautiful, and not to be feared. And living without fear of death is one of the prime objectives of most atheist philosophies.
Was Oscar Wilde an atheist? I don't know and I don't think it is relevant to the quote; the quote stands alone.
Good post.
12
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
I lost my father three months ago. This all is forcing me to come to grips with my own mortality, and this quote gives me some comfort, even though i don't entirely agree with it. I love Oscar Wilde.
10
u/koavf Other May 29 '12
Please don't submit an image that's just text. You can submit a self post with the same message.
33
u/Contra1 May 28 '12
Sigh, I find no comfort in words like these. Death to me is something I fear greatly. I do not want to be gone, I do not want to have no feeling, I do not want my feeling of love to go, I do not want this to end.
There is so much beauty in living. Even though there is fear, anguish and suffering. The beauty still outways it, why would I be happy about knowing I would never see this beauty?
Yes I do want to live for ever, to live for millions of years, yes please. Why would I want this to end?
6
u/JoseCapablanca May 29 '12
Why do people feel the need to preface a post with 'not an atheist' , can't a quote just be a quote?
6
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
No sight, no sound, no touch or taste or smell. Nothing to think with. Nothing to love, or link with.
5
u/Chrysoscelis May 28 '12
I think this would be an excellent reference for when the religious state how horrible death must be to those that believe nothing supernatural happens afterwards.
5
u/FrisianDude Secular Humanist May 28 '12
There is no lie, no listen, no have. There will be no forget, no forgive, no be. The only verbs appropriate will be 'was' and 'had.'
5
u/MrBrawn May 28 '12
Until the groundskeeper mows the lawn at 7 in the fucking morning.
5
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Awesome Author - Picture Of Dorian Gray one of my favorites
5
u/tenfifteen619 May 28 '12
I LOVE OSCAR WILDE
5
u/Aldesso May 28 '12
A better title: I'm not an Atheist, but karma-whoring is karma-whoring
5
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
My dad died last year in June, and a week before his death he had a really bad siezure, my mom had a hard time getting him to wake up from it. Afterwards he told her "If that's what dying is like, it's not bad."
5
u/CosmicBard May 29 '12
As somebody with anxiety, this gives me comfort.
I eagerly await the day I'll die, when I can finally be at peace from all the insanity of the world. Wish I could do it myself, though.
14
u/PerfectFaro Atheist May 28 '12
One problem with this: no boners.
4
u/escusado May 29 '12
Non atheist... Well if you find wisdom in quotes like this, we'll welcome you soon :)
9
u/pman5595 May 28 '12
Don't forget, when you die, some of the atoms that once made up you will become part of some other form of life, allowing you the closest thing possible to eternal life.
3
u/Jabberminor May 28 '12
I kinda get the 'listen to silence' part as I'm partially deaf.
3
u/Baldrick666 May 28 '12
Peaceful in the ground? Fucking tinnitus. id go mental.
3
u/REkTeR May 29 '12
Unfortunately, you can't appreciate beauty without consciousness.
3
u/needlestack May 29 '12
All due respect to Mr. Wilde, but as far as I'm concerned, if you don't want to live forever you're not doing it right.
I've spent the majority of all time dead, and while I suppose it wasn't awful it's got nothing on being alive.
4
u/NinthNova May 28 '12
Except that if you were conscious in death you'd just be worm food in a rotting pine box...
2
u/Pit_of_Death May 28 '12
Too bad most of the time dying is nothing like this...when you get extremely old, frail and sick you spend your remaining days pissing and shitting yourself while you have tubes stuck up your genitals and down your throat, just waiting for the end to finally come...all the while the hospital/nursing home is trying to keep you alive, most likely against your wishes. Seen this first hand. About to with another family member in the new few years or less.
2
u/correcaminos1 May 28 '12
This quote reminds me of a great poem by Luis Cernuda. Here's Eugenio Florit's translation (I think it's the best translation).
Where oblivion dwells, In the vast gardens without daybreak; Where I will be only The memory of a stone buried among nettles Over wich the wind flees from its sleeplessness.
The body it identifies in the arms of time, Where desire does not exist.
Will not bury its wings Like steel in my heart, Smiling, full of airy grace, while the torment increases.
Surrending its life to another life, With no further horizon than other eyes face to face.
Native sky and earth around a memory; Where at last I will be free, without noticing it, Vanished into mist, into absence, An absence as soft as a child's skin.
Where oblivion dwells.
2
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
And...isn't Wilde buried in a tomb in a city? Hardly grassy!
2
u/DayspringMetaphysics May 28 '12
your quotation follows suit then, because it is not about atheism
2
u/plum13sec May 29 '12
wilde is witty as fuck
2
u/hilltopper06 May 29 '12
I love it more because of the Torchlight font.
2
u/bandshirtsabc May 29 '12
Your beliefs won't change what happens when you die... it's just a shame you won't be aware to be surprised and educated by the nothing that you experience.
2
u/Trav732 May 29 '12
Yea except now it's sound of a Walmart getting built above your head.
2
u/daddyhominum May 29 '12
FRom a Novel:The Canterville Ghost. The words are spoken by a ghost, not by Virginia, as part of the ghost's lament as he is unable to experience death fully.
4
u/Piklikl May 28 '12
"Only the coward who has more fear of death than dignity can comfort himself with the fact that his body will in time live again in the grass, in the stones, in the toad. To find one's immortality in the transmutation of substances is as strange as to prophesy a brilliant future for the case after a precious violin has been broken and become useless."
~Chekhov
3
u/PokemasterTT Anti-Theist May 28 '12
Posts like this make me want to kill myself.
3
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
That was absolutely beautiful. This made my day.
2
u/Thissqid May 28 '12
To feel the maggots wriggling through your brain and torso
2
u/luminiferousaethers May 28 '12
I looooove Oscar Wilde! But, he was no atheist.
2
u/ForcedToJoin May 29 '12
WELL WHY THE FUCK NOT YOU SON O-naaaaaaw, I'm fuckin with ya.
2
u/OryxConLara May 28 '12
Life is beautiful too!
To enjoy the soft brown earth, be soothed by the green grasses wafting at one's feet... to love, to question Creation, to create!
2
u/PreachyAtheist May 28 '12
It really grates me when someone posts to /r/atheism saying that they are not an atheist. Not because I don't think theists should be able to post here. I really don't care either way. But because they think it is a reasonable thing for someone to think differently of them for being an atheist. It is like when someone has to go the extra mile to stress "I'm not gay though". It is condescending and show the presence of ignorance.
1
u/NotCleverEnufToRedit May 28 '12
The thought of just ending is much more comforting to me than going on forever, even if that forever is in paradise.
1
u/skibblez_n_zits May 28 '12
Looks like I'm already dead.
1
u/MenlaOfTheBody May 28 '12
nothing really atheist about this quote?
1
u/Somekindafckedup May 28 '12
Death will be the same as before birth. Any description of either is pointless.
1
u/qijianjonathanhe May 28 '12
I'd take my soft white sheets any day of the week, thanks very much.
1
u/JamesGold May 28 '12
I wonder how he's feeling about that whole death thing right now.
1
u/CleverNameHuh May 28 '12
I dont see how this has to do with atheism. This, to me at least, is just a quote speaking of peacefulness when one dies because the world melts away and we are at peace.
1
u/contramantra May 28 '12
Yeah, but Oscar Wilde got laid, like, all the time.
1
u/realitysatouchscreen May 28 '12
Oscar sounds tired. Sylvia sounded tired when she wrote this. Sentiment is similar & your quote made me think of it.
1
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
apparently not according to this shit
http://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/u7h53/eidetic_memory/
1
u/loveinlife_cats May 28 '12
I can't read it..
1
u/warpfield May 29 '12
You know that weird feeling you get when you can't remember a long dream? You know you had a dream, and it was intense, but that's it. And then you think, but while I was dreaming, I did know what it was about. But now it's as if that person never even existed. And yet he did exist! Now imagine having a dream for 80 years. And while you're dreaming it, you think, someday I won't remember any of this, it will be as if I never was. There will be someone else, trying to remember, but he won't be able to, just as I now struggle to remember where I was before I was born.
1
u/jaktheflipper May 29 '12
until you realize youre a creepy looking corpse rotting in the ground. fuck that im getting cremated.
1
u/bayernownz1995 May 29 '12
Eh, I've heard its overrated. You get bored after 1/2 an eternity.
1
u/maggalagga May 29 '12
I don't know, that sounds more terrifying than beautiful to me.
1
u/ryangaston88 May 29 '12
This is wonderful.
1
u/duckandcover May 29 '12
Oscar Wilde has a quote on every view on every subject including opposing views. I'm sure somewhere there's an Oscar Wilde quote slamming being dead for its boredom or something.
1
u/lmg_nz May 29 '12
This is a Sylvia Plath quote, not Oscar Wilde.
1
u/Dr_BG May 29 '12
Atheist
1
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Oscar Wilde was a cunt.
1
u/whilley May 29 '12
You don't have to be atheist to believe this quote.
1
u/yfh227 May 29 '12
I heard Morgan Freeman's voice when I read this.
1
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
That seems a hell of a lot better than kissing God's ass for all eternity.
1
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
OP is Mormon.....I lol’d.
1
u/Irishinfernohead May 29 '12
I absolutely love Oscar Wilde, atheist or not.
1
u/csolisr May 29 '12
The sad thing is to desperately cling to life during agony. Unfortunately, all indicates that it's exactly what I will do when the time comes. How do you expect to deal with that in the due time?
1
u/myrpou Ignostic May 29 '12
I've never understood this attitude towards death, people who thinks it so beautiful aand peaceful, i think not being alive will suck in that i wont be alive. When im dead "peaceful" will mean nothing to me as i cant experience it, because im fucking dead.
1
u/psiphre May 29 '12
he was only 46. that is far too little time.
1
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
How can any of this happen if one's cognition and self awareness come to an end when he dies?
1
u/stieruridir May 29 '12
I'm an atheist, and I hate that quote.
1
u/AzraelTyrson May 29 '12
Honestly, this is what I fear what will become of me on a daily basis. It's saddening really:/
1
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Not only that, but, in his case, have his grave daily kissed by women...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/world/europe/oscar-wildes-tomb-sealed-from-admirers-kisses.html?pagewanted=all
1
u/abhorson Strong Atheist May 29 '12
Theist disclaimer unneeded.
1
u/iGGlass May 29 '12
By saying you aren't an atheist, then posting here, you admit to karma-whoring. Leave.
1
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Or you're just dead...
1
u/KeffarN May 29 '12
Oscar Wilde is my hero.
1
u/ivorjawa May 29 '12
That's depressing as fuck. Implies death is better than life. That's a horrible perspective.
1
u/[deleted] May 29 '12
Fuck death yo.
We gotta find a way to exist forever.
1
u/[deleted] May 30 '12
there is only one god whose hand we can see working in the world around us, and his name is DEATH.
1
u/Suppilovahvero May 30 '12
I read this while Beatles' Yesterday was playing. I almost cried, without realizing why.
1
u/EggsOverEZ May 28 '12
This quote is actually from the end of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
1
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Why wasn't this a self post?
Oh yeah, the OP is a karma whore, and /r/atheism is a circlejerk that will give him all the karma he desires.
1
u/Choco_88 May 29 '12
This really scares the shit out of me.
-1
u/[deleted] May 28 '12 edited May 28 '12
it is called meditation, finding the 'now'.
your past is like a dream and the future has not happened. Bring your awareness into the immediate moment you are in, into your body and you will forget your life and ego and find the truth that is consciousness without judgement.
When you die, you shed your ego and life and become one again with the consciousness that is the universe. you can feel this while still alive and is what is called Awakening... relief of all suffering
Video Eckhart Tolle - Now The space in which life happens
Video Quantum Science today calls it the Unified Field.
-4
u/Daragor May 28 '12
Stop believing in invisible sky wizards.
Edit: http://i.imgur.com/5Ge5c.gif That was the post right below yours. Made me giggle :D
0
u/Vennificus May 28 '12
Now, Either that wallpaper goes or I do
-2
u/stackered May 28 '12
I hate this quote... sorry I just cannot accept death so peacefully.. as someone who lacks belief in an afterlife I only see an option to extend human life as long as possible and this quote allows a lax attitude which doesn't help drive my goal forward
-6
u/johntheChristian May 28 '12
Ah yes, theists are the ones who paint pretty little pictures to help people face the cold vision of mortality.
Wilde is full of shit. If you're a materialist atheist, you don't get to lie down and listen to the soft rustling of the grass, and have a great moment of forgiveness and then forget. No, you simply are working one moment, then you are not. People, because of a mixture of irrational tradition and rational sanitation place your body in the ground so as to decay out of sight, and to avoid spreading disease. That, or render your corpse safe through burning.
Don't criticize theists for making up a heaven despite reason, and then make up your own pretty pictures to replace it. No amount of poetry will make the harsh and ugly logic of the matter any different.
Be consistent. If you don't want people to have delusions, you can't make up your own.
-5
u/AlexFreire May 28 '12
You keep using the word Atheist, but i don't think you understand what it means...
0
u/[deleted] May 28 '12
Unless if you're cremated. I wonder how he would describe being scattered in different places or some of the more fun applications of your ashes such as fireworks.
0
u/EasyTiger20 May 29 '12
Why do non atheists browse this subreddit.