Anyway, atheist since age 13 or so which would be 1958 in common terms. I am hated by professional haters and googling my name, Matt Giwer, will prove to even the most skeptical. One can also google groups for The Iron Webmaster who is also me. I have used many handles. So many in fact that more are attributed to me than I have used and no list of my handles has ever been complete.
My sig has most of the material relevant to this website. The shorter url Welcome to My World has some 3.5 GB more material. I doubt anyone has an interest.
Anyway related to this I had a cardiac event, aka heart attack, in November and then two more within half an hour in December and now have an implanted defibrillator.
PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING SOCIALLY CORRECT! It annoys me. One should not do that until the person is really and truly dead and cannot be annoyed.
I post this for a reason. Believers like to warn us about how we will feel on our deathbeds and such. Been there, done that twice. First off no tunnel, no light, no voice saying I can finish my video game after dinner.
There was also a total ambivalence, no reaction at all, to the fact that I nearly died. After the first the idea that a second was highly likely did not bother me in the least. And the second pair changed only one thing. Projects I had sort of planned or projected on the multi-year level were being replaced by multi-month long projects. At most a sense of realism in planning for the future.
The point of all of this is either deathbed behavior is christian urban legend or only believers feel compelled to believe harder.
I am an old fart. I have had my share of opportunities to die by accident or intent and thinking of those does often invoke an emotional response. The empty elevator shaft 12 stories down is one I wish my mind would stop recalling, call it a form of PTSD but the short form. So I not immune to fear of high risk of imminent mortality.
Deathbed stories are nothing but christian urban legends that at most affect only believers.
If I were to analyze it, I always had something better to think about. For a week I can't say I was conscious but I had dreams/hallucinations sort of mimicking consciousness. But after the breathing tube came out I was thinking of the sore throat and of sleeping not about any immortal soul. And after a few days of mostly sleeping and not caring there came the "this place is driving me crazy" phase and my thoughts were to get home and back to my interests. Any thought of almost being dead was no more than an attending physician might have. Completely detached.
And I noticed the absence of the christian urban legend as soon as I was in the "this place is driving me crazy" phase. I noticed being 100% normal as soon as all the drugs wore off. I noticed I was surprised at not having the urban legend response.
I have said the same thing in as many different ways as I can think of to get the idea across. Dead is dead. Done that three times. I am not impressed. It is a meaningless thing. Dying is easy. Coming back is the hard part.
Leaving your family and/or loved ones? It is going to happen eventually unless they leave you first. When is hardly an important issue. Besides, lets be real here, half of them are probably relieved you are gone.
And yes I am being flippant about it because that is the only style the subject merits. This is not a writing style but the way it is.
My sig has most of the material relevant to this website. The shorter url Welcome to My World has some 3.5 GB more material. I doubt anyone has an interest.
Anyway related to this I had a cardiac event, aka heart attack, in November and then two more within half an hour in December and now have an implanted defibrillator.
PLEASE DO NOT POST ANYTHING SOCIALLY CORRECT! It annoys me. One should not do that until the person is really and truly dead and cannot be annoyed.
I post this for a reason. Believers like to warn us about how we will feel on our deathbeds and such. Been there, done that twice. First off no tunnel, no light, no voice saying I can finish my video game after dinner.
There was also a total ambivalence, no reaction at all, to the fact that I nearly died. After the first the idea that a second was highly likely did not bother me in the least. And the second pair changed only one thing. Projects I had sort of planned or projected on the multi-year level were being replaced by multi-month long projects. At most a sense of realism in planning for the future.
The point of all of this is either deathbed behavior is christian urban legend or only believers feel compelled to believe harder.
I am an old fart. I have had my share of opportunities to die by accident or intent and thinking of those does often invoke an emotional response. The empty elevator shaft 12 stories down is one I wish my mind would stop recalling, call it a form of PTSD but the short form. So I not immune to fear of high risk of imminent mortality.
Deathbed stories are nothing but christian urban legends that at most affect only believers.
If I were to analyze it, I always had something better to think about. For a week I can't say I was conscious but I had dreams/hallucinations sort of mimicking consciousness. But after the breathing tube came out I was thinking of the sore throat and of sleeping not about any immortal soul. And after a few days of mostly sleeping and not caring there came the "this place is driving me crazy" phase and my thoughts were to get home and back to my interests. Any thought of almost being dead was no more than an attending physician might have. Completely detached.
And I noticed the absence of the christian urban legend as soon as I was in the "this place is driving me crazy" phase. I noticed being 100% normal as soon as all the drugs wore off. I noticed I was surprised at not having the urban legend response.
I have said the same thing in as many different ways as I can think of to get the idea across. Dead is dead. Done that three times. I am not impressed. It is a meaningless thing. Dying is easy. Coming back is the hard part.
Leaving your family and/or loved ones? It is going to happen eventually unless they leave you first. When is hardly an important issue. Besides, lets be real here, half of them are probably relieved you are gone.
And yes I am being flippant about it because that is the only style the subject merits. This is not a writing style but the way it is.