[Serious] Comfort in Faith at Death

[zebo-the-fat]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I have no fear of death, you can be either alive or dead, so before I was alive I must have been dead - didn't hurt at all.
However the process of actually dying is a different thing, if I knew that I was going to have a slow painfull death I would arrange a suitable quick accident (would need to be an accident or my next of kin don't get the insurance!)

[no one]

Epicurus:
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.

[Brian37]

Compassion would say to let the dying person cope the way they see fit. I do see it as false hope because of the age of the universe which has no capability of caring and no God created all this. But we are still human beings and in that time you simply comfort the dying person and leave your objections out of it. I did the same for my late mother.

I will say what amazed me about my mom, is that her nurses and the aids all said after that when I was out of the room or went home, she'd constantly talk about me and was worried about me. And when I was there she was strong to the end. I have no problem debating a healthy lucid person, but when someone is on their deathbed they are facing their mortality and that is a situation where you simply leave differences behind and be there for them.

[Shell B]

I can't see that it makes a lot of difference is the comfort is real or imagined - comfort is comfort.  I don't view religious comfort at death or at other times of great stress to be some sort of balance sheet with the rest of theism.  If someone is able to die peacefully due to their faith, all well and good.

Probably the most significant event in my life was the death of my father.  He was an atheist who died peacefully, but I was hammered by friends and relatives offering me religious comfort (it was well know how close I was to Da).  It infuriated me - not because I thought religious comfort was foolish or useless, but because I wasn't able to avail myself of it.

Boru

I find myself jealous and angry at a lot of things right now. I wish I believed all the Heaven bullshit we're tossing around. I hate really old people because my mom's only 61, as of today, and she can't even eat, drink and barely is speaking. I'm annoyed at my cousins, because my mother is the first of eleven children to die, and I think it ought to have been one of the older ones first. I hate some of my aunts and uncles for the same reason. I'm definitely a jealous and angry person. C'est la vie.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I can't see that it makes a lot of difference is the comfort is real or imagined - comfort is comfort.  I don't view religious comfort at death or at other times of great stress to be some sort of balance sheet with the rest of theism.  If someone is able to die peacefully due to their faith, all well and good.

Probably the most significant event in my life was the death of my father.  He was an atheist who died peacefully, but I was hammered by friends and relatives offering me religious comfort (it was well know how close I was to Da).  It infuriated me - not because I thought religious comfort was foolish or useless, but because I wasn't able to avail myself of it.

Boru

I find myself jealous and angry at a lot of things right now. I wish I believed all the Heaven bullshit we're tossing around. I hate really old people because my mom's only 61, as of today, and she can't even eat, drink and barely is speaking. I'm annoyed at my cousins, because my mother is the first of eleven children to die, and I think it ought to have been one of the older ones first. I hate some of my aunts and uncles for the same reason. I'm definitely a jealous and angry person. C'est la vie.

Death is fair (just one to a customer), but it isn't always justice in the eyes of people left behind.  My father wasn't just a good man, he was the best man I've ever known.  I know some utter shits who are older than my father was when we lost him.  To this day, I look at some of these people and think, 'Neddy Shannon's dead and buried, while hateful gobshytes like you keep breathing.'

I can thoroughly empathize with your feelings regarding your mum.

Boru

[prhill]

Seems to me religious people are the ones who always fear death the most so I dont see any comfort in that.

---

Death in my opinion is not frightening. It is inevitable. I am not afraid of dying.
Now the way that I will die, that is what what concerns me.

Same here.  I do not fear death but I sure fear how it might happen as I have seen many people suffer greatly for a long time before they die.

[Shell B]

Seems to me religious people are the ones who always fear death the most so I dont see any comfort in that.

---

Death in my opinion is not frightening. It is inevitable. I am not afraid of dying.
Now the way that I will die, that is what what concerns me.

Same here.  I do not fear death but I sure fear how it might happen as I have seen many people suffer greatly for a long time before they die.

Yes,  but they feared it enough to create a comforting mythology that, I can say for a fact, helps them at the time of their passing.

[Losty]

Seems to me religious people are the ones who always fear death the most so I dont see any comfort in that.

I don’t see how.
Believing you’re passing on to a much
better place to be with people you love
and miss seems a lot more comforting
than believing you’re going to cease to
exist.

[prhill]

Seems to me religious people are the ones who always fear death the most so I dont see any comfort in that.

I don’t see how.
Believing you’re passing on to a much
better place to be with people you love
and miss seems a lot more comforting
than believing you’re going to cease to
exist.

Then how come so many religious people are so sad and scarred when they are dying?

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I don’t see how.
Believing you’re passing on to a much
better place to be with people you love
and miss seems a lot more comforting
than believing you’re going to cease to
exist.

Then how come so many religious people are so sad and scarred when they are dying?

Because most Western religions have inculcated these poor saps with the notion that, no matter how good they were, they were never quite good enough.  Hammering the fear of everlasting damnation into the very core of peoples' beings is bound to make many of them a little antsy when near death.

Boru