I think death is beautiful.

[Violet]

"Toys are most beautiful right before they break!"

[The Reality Salesman01]

I've always enjoyed this little gem on the matter.

---

But if death is the journey to another place, and there, as men say,
all the dead are, what good, O my friends and judges, can be
greater than this? If indeed when the pilgrim arrives in the world
below, he is delivered from the professors of justice in this world,
and finds the true judges who are said to give judgment there,
Minos and Rhadamanthus and AEacus and Triptolemus, and other
sons of God who were righteous in their own life, that pilgrimage
will be worth making. What would not a man give if he might
converse with Orpheus and Musaeus and Hesiod and Homer?
Nay, if this be true, let me die again and again. I, too, shall have a
wonderful interest in a place where I can converse with Palamedes,
and Ajax the son of Telamon, and other heroes of old, who have
suffered death through an unjust judgment; and there will be no
small pleasure, as I think, in comparing my own sufferings with
theirs. Above all, I shall be able to continue my search into true and
false knowledge; as in this world, so also in that; I shall find out
who is wise, and who pretends to be wise, and is not. What would
not a man give, O judges, to be able to examine the leader of the
great Trojan expedition; or Odysseus or Sisyphus, or numberless
others, men and women too! What infinite delight would there be
in conversing with them and asking them questions! For in that
world they do not put a man to death for this; certainly not. For
besides being happier in that world than in this, they will be
immortal, if what is said is true.
Wherefore, O judges, be of good cheer about death, and know this
of a truththat no evil can happen to a good man, either in life or
after death. He and his are not neglected by the gods; nor has my
own approaching end happened by mere chance. But I see clearly
that to die and be released was better for me; and therefore the
oracle gave no sign. For which reason also, I am not angry with my
accusers, or my condemners; they have done me no harm, although
neither of them meant to do me any good; and for this I may gently
blame them.
Still I have a favor to ask of them. When my sons are grown up, I
would ask you, O my friends, to punish them; and I would have
you trouble them, as I have troubled you, if they seem to care about
riches, or anything, more than about virtue; or if they pretend to be
something when they are really nothing- then reprove them, as I
have reproved you, for not caring about that for which they ought
to care, and thinking that they are something when they are really
nothing. And if you do this, I and my sons will have received
justice at your hands.
The hour of departure has arrived, and we go our ways- I to die,
and you to live. Which is better, God only knows.

---

---

[edit] Should say "Plato wrote"...but eh...you get the idea.

[Polaris]

Neither. I don't fear death for me, but do fear the deaths of others.

[Bipolar Bob]

I neither fear death all that much having come to terms with my mortality nor do I in anyway find death beautiful. I find death like many things we have to do in this life a boring and mundane pain in the ass. It's sort of like visiting the dentist if you ask me. I know there are weirdos out there like Jack Nicholson in Little Shop of Horrors who think that visiting the dentist is beautiful but I am not that type of weirdo. I am a different type of weirdo.

Face it, for most of us death isn't going to be a Hollywood spectacular where we go out on a bang and high note, most of us are going to have boring deaths...meaning there will be no synchronized swimming, no big Bollywood musical number and no fat Viking women coming to take us to Odin while they sing opera happening when we die. Most of us are just going to pass away for the most trivial of reasons like we got way too old for this shit or we caught some godforsaken disease from a public restroom or we accidentally stuck a fork into an electrical outlet.

See? You just can't win in living and you can't win in dying.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

If I am dead, then I can't play Pokemon. That is truly terrifying.

But you won't know that you can't play pokémon...so ...

Like most other have said, I won't care one iota when I'm dead because I'll be dead.

The actual process however is something I do not wish to contemplate at this moment in time.

[Sedna]

I don't see why death should be beautiful. I've seen a couple people die: both my grandfathers, my grandmother and my father. None of them were beautiful. Especially not my fathers. His death was very unpleasant to watch, he was only about 55 and he died with blood pouring out his mouth and tubes everywhere with all his organs failing (don't abuse alcohol, kids). My grandfathers both died leaving a depressed wife behind, and my grandmother died in fear of her own death.

In the grand scheme of things, I could see how someone could find it beautiful. All that circle-of-life, romantic stuff... I do find it "beautiful"(not the word I'd use, but now I feel too primed to not use it) that it happens to lowest and highest of people and all creatures. And the eternal nothingness does seem to be the best outcome compared to many of the afterlife myths.

But to hear someone say "death is beautiful" automatically makes me feel like they are one of those wannabe more logical, wiser-than-thou-art, atheist martyrs who want to seem like they have some unique insight to offer the world.
But that's not fair of me.

[Ryantology]

But to hear someone say "death is beautiful" automatically makes me feel like they are one of those wannabe more logical, wiser-than-thou-art, atheist martyrs who want to seem like they have some unique insight to offer the world.
But that's not fair of me.

I don't really think it's that so much as it is how a lot of people choose to deal with death rather than fear it. It's certainly a more rational coping method than inventing nonsense about the afterlife.

The reason I disagree is because I do not think it is unhealthy to fear death, as long as that fear doesn't grow into obsession or paranoia. I think of death as a problem that we have continually been trying to conquer since the advent of useful medical science. I really like being alive, and appreciating its necessity won't make me any less dead.

Would indefinite life lead to new problems, such as hunger and overpopulation? Perhaps so, but outside of a few scattered nutcase circles, I've never heard these cited as reasons to cease attempting to fight disease and improve our quality of life. Hunger and overpopulation are not insoluble problems. I accept that indefinite life would have major ramifications for humanity's future, but I am okay with that.

[Optimistic Mysanthrope]

But to hear someone say "death is beautiful" automatically makes me feel like they are one of those wannabe more logical, wiser-than-thou-art, atheist martyrs who want to seem like they have some unique insight to offer the world.
But that's not fair of me.

Really? It just makes me think they're probably a goth...

[Sedna]

I don't really think it's that so much as it is how a lot of people choose to deal with death rather than fear it. It's certainly a more rational coping method than inventing nonsense about the afterlife.

I think it can be good to accept that death will happen to everyone, and even have a positive outlook on it, but it is just my experience that a lot of atheists say similar things to this with some sort of attention-seeking motives. But that's only my experience and, like I said, it's not really a fair judgement on my part.

The reason I disagree is because I do not think it is unhealthy to fear death, as long as that fear doesn't grow into obsession or paranoia. I think of death as a problem that we have continually been trying to conquer since the advent of useful medical science. I really like being alive, and appreciating its necessity won't make me any less dead.

Would indefinite life lead to new problems, such as hunger and overpopulation? Perhaps so, but outside of a few scattered nutcase circles, I've never heard these cited as reasons to cease attempting to fight disease and improve our quality of life. Hunger and overpopulation are not insoluble problems. I accept that indefinite life would have major ramifications for humanity's future, but I am okay with that.

I'd like to live in some utopian society where we can essentially live as long as we want and then die whenever we so choose. We'd be so advanced that population growth and lack of resources would be simple, already be solved problems! Everyone could get a "beautiful" death, after their beautiful life!
Though I imagine most of us would want something of the sort.

Really? It just makes me think they're probably a goth...

This doesn't really have to do with your post, but I feel like I could say that I have never seen a goth in my life. Where are they?

[snowtracks]

I don't see why death should be beautiful. I've seen a couple people die: both my grandfathers, my grandmother and my father. None of them were beautiful. Especially not my fathers. His death was very unpleasant to watch, he was only about 55 and he died with blood pouring out his mouth and tubes everywhere with all his organs failing (don't abuse alcohol, kids). My grandfathers both died leaving a depressed wife behind, and my grandmother died in fear of her own death.

In the grand scheme of things, I could see how someone could find it beautiful. All that circle-of-life, romantic stuff... I do find it "beautiful"(not the word I'd use, but now I feel too primed to not use it) that it happens to lowest and highest of people and all creatures. And the eternal nothingness does seem to be the best outcome compared to many of the afterlife myths.

But to hear someone say "death is beautiful" automatically makes me feel like they are one of those wannabe more logical, wiser-than-thou-art, atheist martyrs who want to seem like they have some unique insight to offer the world.
But that's not fair of me.

Gallows humor, but not so funny; and probably disturbed.