Dealing with Death as an Atheist

[robvalue]

Wallym: I didn't mean to be dictating a standard for theists behaviour, only to analyse behaviour. I agree, I'm not trying to say theists are the only ones who act strangely. As with the rollercoaster, it seems like our instincts, reflexes and warning signals are reading from a different hymn sheet to the rest of us. Does that mean our body as a whole still doesn't believe what we think it believes? It has to be acting on some level of beliefs (as a basic example, gravity). I guess it goes into a different state, perhaps an overly paranoid one to try and assure our survival. I don't claim to be a behaviour expert or that my judgements are absolute, I just like discussing these things.

I made a whole thread before about how I think theist behaviour is on the whole the same as atheist behaviour though, even outside of extreme situations. I'm not trying to criticise theists for this, I'm observing and commenting on the apparent dissidence. It's more extreme here, but I'm not trying to pretend atheists are immune either. The human brain's ability for dissidence, with regard to any subject, is astonishing. The sunscreen scenario is a good example of that.

https://atheistforums.org/thread-32744.h...+behaviour

[Brometheus]

Procreate hard FTW.

[henryp]

Wallym: I didn't mean to be dictating a standard for theists behaviour, only to analyse behaviour. I agree, I'm not trying to say theists are the only ones who act strangely. As with the rollercoaster, it seems like our instincts, reflexes and warning signals are reading from a different hymn sheet to the rest of us. Does that mean our body as a whole still doesn't believe what we think it believes? It has to be acting on some level of beliefs (as a basic example, gravity). I guess it goes into a different state, perhaps an overly paranoid one to try and assure our survival. I don't claim to be a behaviour expert or that my judgements are absolute, I just like discussing these things.

I made a whole thread before about how I think theist behaviour is on the whole the same as atheist behaviour though, even outside of extreme situations. I'm not trying to criticise theists for this, I'm observing and commenting on the apparent dissidence. It's more extreme here, but I'm not trying to pretend atheists are immune either. The human brain's ability for dissidence, with regard to any subject, is astonishing. The sunscreen scenario is a good example of that.

https://atheistforums.org/thread-32744.h...+behaviour

I think you've got the right intentions, but your impression of Theists, and this boards impression in general, is a caricature.  And everybody here spends all their time talking about how stupid this caricature they've created is, and patting themselves on the back for being so much smarter than this non-existent idiot who they've decided represents all Theists. 

[Whateverist]

I think you've got the right intentions, but your impression of Theists, and this boards impression in general, is a caricature.  And everybody here spends all their time talking about how stupid this caricature they've created is, and patting themselves on the back for being so much smarter than this non-existent idiot who they've decided represents all Theists. 

Not true in my experience over the last few years. It applies in some but far from all cases. Sounds like you yourself are prone to dismissing large groups with a broad stroke. (Pot to kettle.)

[abaris]

As atheists, I am interested to know how you are affected by and deal with the prospect of a definitive end to your existence. Any thoughts?

If I don't exist, I don't know I don't exist and therefore I don't worry too much about not existing. Do you contemplate the fact that you didn't exist 300 years ago?

[Whateverist]

Yeah, in regard to the OP, death is something I've thought enough about. I'm good. Happy to have been born, willing to pay up at the end. No illusions required.

[AFTT47]

I guess I'm a minority among atheists in that death bothers me - a lot. I don't remotely buy into the platitude that death gives life meaning. I believe involuntary death sucks - big time. I acknowledge that forced-immortality might suck as much as any concept of Hell but I think I'd rather face that than an involuntary termination of my existence. My opinion is irrelevant though. I don't get to make that call and I am rational enough to recognize that. What is, is.

As to dealing with it, that's a personal thing. I personally ponder the possibility that advanced aliens may scan our brains and record us before we die. They could in effect, preserve us. It's easy to imagine aliens with such abilities although quite a stretch to imagine why they would be motivated to use them on our behalf. It's not something that will likely give me much comfort on my death bed because I know it's wild speculation. It's a glimmer of hope, though. It's a naturalistic possibility that is theoretically possible without relying on super-natural beliefs.

[Pyrrho]

... I don't remotely buy into the platitude that death gives life meaning. ...

I very much agree with you on that.  I think that that platitude is nonsensical.  I think that life has no inherent meaning, and would not regardless of whether a being were mortal or immortal.  I recommend trying to live a life as pleasantly as reasonably possible, while causing as little unpleasantness for others as reasonably possible.  But I would not call that a "meaning" for life.  Life has no purpose.  So one might as well make the best of it that one can.


But I differ from you in that I have no fear of death, and am not at all upset that I will die.  Just like I am not upset that I was not alive 200 years ago.  I very much agree with Epicurus:


Accustom yourself to believing that death is nothing to us, for good and evil imply the capacity for sensation, and death is the privation of all sentience; therefore a correct understanding that death is nothing to us makes the mortality of life enjoyable, not by adding to life a limitless time, but by taking away the yearning after immortality. For life has no terrors for him who has thoroughly understood that there are no terrors for him in ceasing to live. Foolish, therefore, is the man who says that he fears death, not because it will pain when it comes, but because it pains in the prospect. Whatever causes no annoyance when it is present, causes only a groundless pain in the expectation. Death, therefore, the most awful of evils, is nothing to us, seeing that, when we are, death is not come, and, when death is come, we are not. It is nothing, then, either to the living or to the dead, for with the living it is not and the dead exist no longer.

http://www.epicurus.net/en/menoeceus.html


Once you are dead, you will no longer care about this, or about anything else.  You will never experience anything bad, ever again.  Suffering only happens during your life.

[AFTT47]

Once you are dead, you will no longer care about this, or about anything else.  You will never experience anything bad, ever again.  Suffering only happens during your life.

No arguing with that. I'm not the least bit worried about suffering after life. I guess you could call me jealous of those who will exist after I am gone.

There have been amazing advances in the last few centuries - even within the nearly 56 years of my lifetime. The internet is just fucking wonderful. There wasn't even a glimmer of practical thought about it when I was born but I don't even want to imagine life now without it. And I can imagine SO much more. I'm a big Star Trek fan but I think that particular vision is unrealistic. I see us as an interplanetary species with orbital space colonies all over the solar system. Easy and cheap access to space via space elevators. Mining of virtually limitless resources of the asteroid belt. Gaining understanding of consciousness so that we may scan our brain and preserve it in artificial bodies. Massive expansion of our intelligence.

I want to be a part of all that but I can't - and it pisses me off. It's beyond my power to do anything about it but I'm not going to pretend I'm cool with the situation. I think it fucking sucks but like anything else beyond my control, I'll just deal with it as best I can. What else can I do?

[Whateverist]

I guess I'm a minority among atheists in that death bothers me - a lot. I don't remotely buy into the platitude that death gives life meaning. I believe involuntary death sucks - big time.

But didn't you de-convert later in life? Not hard to see how immortality would be hard to give up if you've been banking on it half your life.


When I was sure I was an atheist I also was immensely disappointed to lose, not only immortality, but the perspective that comes with that. But then I was only about 10 and there has been a lot of water under the bridge since then.

I too will dispense with any platitudes about the benefits of death. I will say that life with death is still infinitely better than never to have been born at all. It is the loss of something important to us and something we've been avoiding with a passion all our lives. But having thought plenty about it I accept it and intend to do so gracefully only if it comes late enough. Won't be going gladly into any dark night just yet.