I have always found cessation of existence to be vastly more terrifying than hell. At least I can understand hell, the true reality of the situation just makes my whole mind flinch away in terror. Until I found out about transhumanism and began to see that death might just be possible to defeat, I was only able to cope by watching my thoughts closely and making sure they didn’t stray anywhere near the concept (which is itself worrying, since it suggests a very strong reason why I might be biased).
I suspect this is also why I tend to meet lots of people who say they no longer believe in God but still believe in the afterlife, but I have never met anybody who is the other way round.
Your comment surprised me. I didn’t think anyone would prefer hell to cessation of existence. Does your preference also extend to other people, e.g. your loved ones? When someone dies, are you willing to press a button to resurrect them and send them to hell?
The God’s universe is even scarier. The infinite amount of suffering in Hell is probably way higher than that inside the naturalistic universe.
Can this help somehow?
I have always found cessation of existence to be vastly more terrifying than hell. At least I can understand hell, the true reality of the situation just makes my whole mind flinch away in terror. Until I found out about transhumanism and began to see that death might just be possible to defeat, I was only able to cope by watching my thoughts closely and making sure they didn’t stray anywhere near the concept (which is itself worrying, since it suggests a very strong reason why I might be biased).
I suspect this is also why I tend to meet lots of people who say they no longer believe in God but still believe in the afterlife, but I have never met anybody who is the other way round.
Your comment surprised me. I didn’t think anyone would prefer hell to cessation of existence. Does your preference also extend to other people, e.g. your loved ones? When someone dies, are you willing to press a button to resurrect them and send them to hell?
I’m not sure, probably not.
What scares me isn’t always quite the same as what I would prefer not to happen, probably a system 1 vs system 2 thing.