Why is life better than death?

Question

I'm not suicidal by any means but like all people, I go through brief periods of melancholy where I just wonder why life is considered so much better than death.

Next time I go through one of those periods I'd like to tell myself, "Life is better than death because _____."

I think if we got enough answers we could make a good list that could really help people out.

Answer 1

Because when we are alive, there is so many things that are possible, yet when we die, there can only be one single truth and that may/may not take all the thought away, so at least while we are alive we are free to think away as we please. :)

Answer 2

That is a great question and one that I can comment on considering my own reasons. I am struggling and what seems like a war with an incurable and rapidly progressing disease. It will take my life. But in the meantime I amthanking God for every nano second that I'm still breathing. But...and there's always a but...I most certainly have those days that I wake up and ask God why he didn't just take me and I just want to give it up. Then I'll think about my family, my son, my best friend and it becomes NOT about me. Sometimes we may not think it's true but it's those who are left behind that suffer so much. They have to bear the burden of grief, and closure. At least to me there really is no such thing. Oh sure, things get easier but never real closure. So, I would just say one last thing. Please try to live your best life and enjoy every minute because you could be taken away at any minute by something other than your own hand. If you thought enough to ask the question then I believe that you can get through those melacholy moments and/or hard times in your life that may make you feel like "checking out." Thanks.

Answer 3

We, the living people can make a lot of guesses without knowing what exactly awaits us after death, but whether life is better or not can only be decided by those who are already dead and hence know what it really is to be dead.

All we can say is that a known devil can be handled better than the unknown.... the worst of life can still have a ray of hope and the best of death is just a dark hole.

Answer 4

Well, I don't know if life is better than death. I haven't experienced death. And that is usually why people usually think that life is better than death. Because we are afraid of the unknown. We know what life is all about, but we haven't got the faintest clue to what death is all about. So, life is believed to be better than death because it is understandable by us, while death represents the other and it is thus seen as far away and not understandable.

Answer 5

Life is better than death because ________?
1. Death does not exist.
Death is a relative word that means CHANGE. We always go from one dimension of existence into a HIGHER form of existence. Or in a symbolic language from one world to a higher world. At each transition we have to change - die, in the ordinary language.
People who cease to have a physical existence continue to live but in a higher dimension, unknown to us for a very good reason.
This may sound too esoteric but it is simple and an example will clarify it.
When we were in the womb of our mother we were in another world. We were living in a physiological world. It was completely different from this physical world.
When we abandoned the womb world (died to the womb world) and were born into the physical world, we didn't "go" to any other place. We stayed in the same place. We came into a new and higher dimension, the physical world.
Similarly when we abandon the physical world we continue our existence in a more evolved or higher dimension that is not physical but spiritual.
So the next world is not a "place" where we will be going to. It is here. But in another dimension unknown to us, just as the physical world was unknown to the fetus.
Death does not exist even in the physical sense because all the atoms of our body continue to exist in some other form.
2. The purpose of life
The purpose of the physiological world -the womb world- was to develop eyes, ears, lungs, feet, hands and brains that were of no use in that environment. Their necessity became apparent in the following world, this physical world.
The purpose of the physical world in which we live now, is to develop moral virtues and to put them to the service of mankind. The usefulness of the effort of polishing our character and acquiring moral virtues will become apparent in the other dimensions of life which are not material but spiritual.
Progress continues in all the worlds and is not limited to this physical world.

Answer 6

I think life is better than death because it is a challenge, and it's actually kind of fun because of that. =) Our purpose here is to try to do good and try to do the best we can with what we've got. Life isn't perfect, that's for sure, but once you've lived your life, you will have all the time in the world to rest in peace, so live it while you can. =)

Answer 7

Life is better than death, because if you are death you will be death forever, but if you are alive and you do prefer death you have the opportunity to be death.
In short.
live=live or death.
death=death.
Anyway what I´m trying to say to me life is great why, there are plenty of reasons, wisdom, pleasure...
But even if you don´t like it you can say goodbye, but once you are dead you can´t come back man
I love live man, so I don´t have to even think to say goodbye.

Answer 8

Who can honestly say life is better than death? No one alive has ever experienced death so how could they know? They can only imagine life is better. I've never been suicidal, only realistic.

Answer 9

Conrad, I love your reasoning. You would make a world class scientist as you dont just make assumptions. Let me play odds , with you, OK. Let us start with the very realistic probability that regardless if there is a God or not, life after death definitely is not worse than life here on earth where 80% of us are either starving or in some kind of illness or misery.
Also, happiness has limits when you are on earth...when you are in a body. I have spent years trying to coax/use visualization/affirmations to get my brain to emit more serotonin and other happiness chemicals that contribute to a person being happy. Cocaine and Heroine do that real fast! Yet what if there is a happiness out there that blows away any drug you could do, better than sex and better than anything any human experienced on earth. Wouldnt you definitely want to go there immediately if you were guaranteed to get that much happiness? Of course. But we dont know for sure or what the odds are at all. So I say, lets take a very, very low number, and say that this crumb of happiness we call the human life on earth, is 90% chance to be the best it gets anywhere, dead or alive. That means you have a 10% chance to feel possibly hundreds, maybe thousands, maybe millions percent more happiness than you have now. That means, no matter who you are, dying is the logical thing to want because the payoff is so large.

I can make it clearer. Lets say you go to Las Vegas and pick up the dice at the dice table. The odds are actually 17-1 against you doing it on the first roll. But lets say that as an experiment, the casino will for your life savings of $10,000, give you 17 million dollars if you win. If you lose, they only take your 10 grand. It is soooooo much in your favor to make that bet,correct? Yet some people who worked for many years to save that money could not get themselves to do it. Because the odds are still that they will lose. But if you put 17 people in a line and had each one put up 10k, odds are one will win and his/her life will be a dream after that. (We hope so anyway)

So if you had to die, why even get upset about it, even if you would not make the bet on your own to bet your $10,000 against immediately going to heaven and a blissful existance beyond your imagination or any sci-fi movie you ever saw x1000, how could you not be exhilerated to see if the "dice roll your way" just one time. I also suspect from my readings on what many famous men From Thomas Jefferson till present day believe, we never actually die is a very big consensus among scholars in the past centuries. So maybe it is only 3-1 or 4-1 or even 5-1 against you ending up in Nirvana. What is here on earth after you had great sex with an entourage of exotic, beautiful women for a few years, if that long that wouldnt eventually become just "really nice", or on bad days..."not bad." that you would give up a peek at heaven for. And we all know as rational people, heaven is not going to be a bunch of white clad fairies and Angels playing harps in a circle around you for all eternity..... I think it would be more like the start would be a combination of Leaving Las Vegas with Johnnie Depp and The Matrix with Keanu Reeves, and you get to be better looking than both of them put together. Thats the warm-up. Why should you get all this? Because you can imagine it. And doesnt man sooner or later get what he imagines? If only through technology.(At this point in our evolution anyway.) I say go for it. Enjoy the heck out of this life, and when you start to get old, and more so, start to feel old, just check into a nice hotel by the moutains, a beeach or the woods...and drink that magic elixir that causes no pain and your soul goes off to it's next adventure.Look at it this way, even the man who thought he envisioned the ultimate when he envisioned Las Vegas with 3 or 4 casinos and beautiful shops being all in the same place to make an oasis in the desert, even Mr Benjamin Seagal could never in his wildest dreams, imagine what his dream wound up becoming. It is the most popular tourist vacation spot in the world. And its not even been 80 years yet!!! Imagine how heaven would blow even that away 500 million fold...at least. Hey, beam me up right now, Scotty. I am 54 now, and I have to tell you folks something. The earth and especially our body, even if we take good care of it and dont smoke or drink, it all gets to be a bit too dense after years and years of it. Too many limitations , too many "walls" you hit much too quick. Even a champion boxer like Mike Tyson, in less than 10 years, he has peaked. he's done. And that is the best of the best. I want more than that. How about you?

Answer 10

Because no one knows what death is like, thus we have a biased opinion towards the experiences of life.

Answer 11

Just because naturally we are meant to live to the very old and mature age unless natural forces overwhelm you. Remember, man is social and is socially placed to survive and not give up - ultimately death. So we need to live and not die unless defeated either through aging or other natural forces, if not physical.
For the Christians, God says ,"I have come to give you life and more abundantly ..." and not death.