(November 29, 2017 at 10:27 am)Brian37 Wrote:(November 29, 2017 at 10:11 am)Alexmahone Wrote: Suppose you have a religious person with a terminal illness. Would you as an atheist EVER try to convince him/her that there's no heaven or afterlife? I wouldn't! (Although I have a strong suspicion Dawkins would.)
Dawkins stupidly said that he wants his death recorded to prove he went to his death an atheist.
Problem with that is unless you die suddenly, you can suffer mental decline and defect over a period of hours, days weeks and months. If you suffer mental decline and or are doped up on drugs, you'd certainly have the potential to say things you would not say if in a healthy lucid state.
Anthony Flew is a perfect example of his religious friends and family LYING about his condition in his decline to create a false image of a death bed conversion. Some assholes have even tried that with Hitchens.
Having said that, no, I would not do that. I watched my mom decline and die over several weeks and during that time I simply comforted her, she already knew I didn't believe, I already knew she did.
In time of decline at the last minute it is pointless. I think it is far more important to argue with someone when they are lucid and young so they don't waste the one life they have for 80 plus years on a fantasy.
I would hope anyone at my deathbed regardless of belief would simply comfort me and shut the fuck up.
It's a rather pervasive feature of jesusism - and the fucking liars who profit from it - as Ingersoll pointed out over a century ago.
Quote:Orthodox Christians have the habit of claiming all great men, all men who have held important positions, men of reputation, men of wealth. As soon as the funeral is over clergymen begin to relate imaginary conversations with the deceased, and in a very little while the great man is changed to a Christian - possibly to a saint.
Robert Green Ingersoll
