Death

[Ace Otana]

This brings us back to the question of what is it that makes a person.

If you were to bang your head and loose your memory you would still presumably be the same person. A stroke etc. can cause a change in personality but does that mean a different person suddenly starts inhabiting the previous persons body?

Personally I think that there is something else, some other condition or attribute that makes a person themselves and gives them a unique sense of self awareness. Memory and personality are attributes of that self.

Identical twins can have exactly the same personality but they are still distinctly separate entities.

Twins can be extremely similar but neither can look through the others eye. I tend to think that a person who say had been starved of oxygen and then loses it's personality would end up dead. As in that particular person with the lost memories and personality is gone and has been replaced. If I had suffered that, would I still have the interest in aviation? Would I still be an atheist? If not then I think I could say I am truly dead. It would be like someone else owns my body.

I can see, hear and remember countless things. My upbringing I think has affected my personality. Even the smallest things that take place within my life makes me who I am.

I have wondered if I could come back as something else but would I be able to think as I think now, and would I have the same views and interests as I do now. Would I be able to see with a self aware mind that I do now? If neither of them are possible then I am truly dead. This is me and can I be duplicated after death? If I can, I wouldn't mind.

[leo-rcc]

During a discussion on free will, the person arguing against free will brought up an interesting point:

We do not punish mental patients for what they done as we do criminals, because their brains are wired a specific way they have no control over, and have therefore no accountability. However the criminals as indeed all humans brains are wired in a specific way we have no control over either, yet we are held accountable. What exactly is the difference we hold one individual accountable and not the other, what quantifies it?

[Demonaura]

Most people are considered accountable and able to make the choice, while knowing the action is illigal, to continue with it. Mental patients that are not accountable are so because for whatever reason they are either unable to realise that the action is bad or they are unable to stop themselves doing it.

They are also usually in the process of getting help, it just sucks that we can't do more to help em out.

I guess that would be the main thing, whether or not they are able to understand that the criminal behavior is bad and are able to stop themselves from doing it.

[leo-rcc]

Most people are considered accountable and able to make the choice, while knowing the action is illigal, to continue with it. Mental patients that are not accountable are so because for whatever reason they are either unable to realise that the action is bad or they are unable to stop themselves doing it.

Are they? How does one determine that?

[Demonaura]

Wish I knew, somehow I think that if we had a definative way (to get inside peoples heads to see if they're bonkers), there'd be a lot less theists out there.

[WWLD]

puglover,
When other people die it is sad for me just like anyone else. Its sad that they will never be around anymore and sometimes I wish, for a loved ones sake, that there is a heaven.

But then at the same time I'm glad there is no heaven, or hell

[Eilonnwy]

As an atheist how do you cope with death?
Does death challenge your views as an atheist?

If you're talking about the death of people around me, I manage. I have lost a coworker who was much older than me but still I was very good friends with him. His loss hit me pretty hard. I don't delude myself into thinking he lives on. I just kind of missed him for a long time until the pain dulls and I can think of him without crying or feeling pain. The same applied to a cat I lost a few years ago. I was very close to my cat and losing him depressed me a lot especially since I had him only a year but in that time I had a deep connection to him. But now I can think of him and it doesn't hurt. So for me it's just dealing with the pain, I use my friends as a support person and eventually the pain kind of goes away. I get used to them not being there and move on. I don't know how else you can deal with it.

I know some people find comfort in the idea their loved ones live on but it never made me feel better. It didn't matter, they are gone from this world and for as long as I live they won't be here.

As far as my own death, I fear dying. Who wouldn't? I think we all want to live as long as we can. I know when I began doubting god and religion, the idea of an afterlife was my last religious belief I let go of. But I realized there is no reason to believe there is an afterlife so I finally let go of. It definitely makes me value my life more. As a person who almost committed suicide, it actually deters me from it. I don't want to not exist anymore despite my desire back in those days to stop feeling the way I felt.

It doesn't really challenge my view as an atheist. It just is. Too me it's reality and it's foolish to deny reality.

[bozo]

As an atheist how do you cope with death?
Does death challenge your views as an atheist?

I know I won't live to regret it.

[Matt]

I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it. - Mark Twain

As an Atheist, I have learned to enjoy my life much more than before.
"Atheists will celebrate life, while you’re in church celebrating death."

[Sam]

"We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghost include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massivley exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here" - Richard Dawkins, Unweaving The Rainbow

Personally I regard death as an inescapable truth in life, I do not fear it anymore than I do my next birthday, or the rising of the sun. I know simply one day my existence will cease, some may think that an empty view but on the contrary I believe it has the potential to inspire ... to lead a full life as it where.

The death of others close to me is somewhat different, their passing is regretably not as easy, while I still accept that it is natural and unalterable I still feel sadened without them, perhaps that it is to their credit that they left such an impresion? I think in the end it's something you have to accept and cope with, though I think If i felt nothing at their passing it would be somewhat worse.

Regards

Sam