Would you as an atheist EVER do this?

[DLJ]

Suppose you have a religious person with a terminal illness.
...

Just curious...

Is this person Cardinal Pell?

[ƵenKlassen]

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. )

  No, because I wouldn't want someone to try to convert me if I had a terminal illness. I hate it when people tell me what
  to believe in, so I wouldn't do to the religious person.

[Anomalocaris]

The only beliefs I didn't (and still don't) respect during my hospice work was the goddamn Baptist minister that did Brian's funeral service.

Yeah, bastard, citing the deceased as a negative example for the rest of us to learn from?  Fuck you and your fucking pig God.

Compassion for one’s fellow man has very little to do with being a Christian minister.   Sinister desire to either to curry favor with a nonexistent sky daddy at the expense of one’s fellow men, or simply to fleece one’s fellow men, covers 99% of the motivations.

[Astreja]

I'd have to really, reeeeally hate someone to do that to them -- and if I hated someone that much, the odds of me hanging out at their deathbed would be as close to zero as makes no odds and the issue would never come up.

[Brian37]

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. )

  No, because I wouldn't want someone to try to convert me if I had a terminal illness. I hate it when people  tell me what
  to believe in, so I wouldn't do to the religious person.

Huge difference between telling someone they got it wrong in a lucid health state and even in a lucid healthy state demanding they believe what you do. Nobody is suggesting that.

But when someone is mentally declining sure, leave that shit at the door.

[Anomalocaris]

With a healthy Individual, depriving him of idiot serenity that is based on a falsehood may encourage him to re-examine his assumptions, put his world view upon a firmer Foundation, and act to lessen his own contribution towards perpetuating the stupidification of mankind in his remaining days.

But with dying individual, what does depriving him of his remaining serenity achieve?

[Brian37]

With a healthy Individual, depriving him of idiot serenity that is based on a falsehood may encourage him to re-examine his assumptions, put his world view upon a firmer Foundation, and act to lessen his own contribution towards perpetuating the stupidification of mankind in his remaining days.

But with  dying individual, what does depriving him of his remaining serenity achieve?

Nothing. 

I have an older fundy brother whom I would NOT want in my room if I was in slow decline, because I now he would not refrain from keeping his mouth shut. I wouldn't care if outside the room he'd "pray for me". But like I said earlier with my own mom. Once she got that final diagnosis and decided not to do anything more, I simply kept telling her I loved her, left it at that. 

What I don't like outside this though, is after the fact when people lie about what goes on during that time and I have seen selfish opportunists lie about the dying after the fact. My own brother at our Grandfather's funeral LIED to everyone and looked at me without using my name, and said, "Granddad would want you to find God". My Granddad never said shit to me about wanting me to believe. After not seeing me since I was adopted as a baby, when I met him as an adult was merely happy to see me. 

Face to face, in the moment, you leave that shit at the door.

[shadow]

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. )

Ever? Only if they wanted to talk about it or something. I wouldn't lie to someone about my views if they were to ask me, but that it literally the last thing I would think to bring up when someone's on their deathbed: hey, you wanna talk about DEATH a bit more?

[Minimalist]

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.

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

[drfuzzy]

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. )

I have a good friend who is a Catholic.  Her father is terminally ill.  He has very little time left.  I refuse to say anything that would challenge her belief in an afterlife in any way.  And I will wait quite some time after his passing to have any religious discussions with her.  Her belief that she will see him again is pretty much the only thing keeping her going at this point.