Problem dealing with death as an atheist

[SleepingDemon]

Ah Pascal's Wager. It becomes abhorrently banal to dismantle these apologists regurgitated arguments only to have them pop back up like a weeble wobble. We are adults, well most of us anyway, grow up and make a decision. Either you believe, or you don't. It really makes no difference. I would personally prefer some sort of decision on the matter, as your dancing in between reminds me of a small child who can't decide between the red bike or blue one. If god does exist, do you think he/she will respect this indecisive, fingers behind your back, cover all bases because it's better safe than sorry nonposition? I would rather spend an eternity in hell as an unwavering atheist than bow to a megalomaniacal tyrant that behaves like a child and creates a cruel game that damns the majority of its creations for using their intellect instead of just believing.

[Girlysprite]

I would also remind you that Pascal's wager falls apart when you remember that there is not one religion to choose from. I mean, it basically means 'I'd better cover all my bases and believe!' --> so, believe in what?

As for the soul: The problem is that many concepts of the soul consider the soul to be something unchangable, but at the same time personality is a basic part of the soul. It is already proven that damage in certain parts of the brain can change someone completely. Nice and easygoing persons can become vile toxic monsters, or the other way around. And not just brain damage changes how we act and what we are: hormones and certain types of drugs can change persons significantly. Personality is something that is embedded in the brain.

I don't consider the idea of "soul" as something unchangeable. We, after all, change as time passes. The "soul" should preserve our personality (in other words, if you consider the afterlife, you can't claim to live another life if your spirit got into a new body but you are tabula rasa - without personality, memory, anything: It would simply not be you!).

Which personality would you mean? The personality you had as a child? As an adult? You mean that a personality developed due to brain trauma is 'less real'? But what if a person becomes mucxh nicer after a brain trauma? It happens. That's just temporary and lost in some way? And what if a baby would get brain damage at birth? What is his 'true personality?'
What is 'personality' anyways. Some traits may seem inherent for a person, and they may be, but people develop a lot of traits due to the way they have been raised.

[Gawdzilla]

It is interesting that he remembered the time he was "dead". Perhaps that was a feeling of rest or something, which must be nice. Or perhaps comas are not "death".

I had no NEDs nor did I remember anything about the time in coma.

When I said about remembrance I meant this: "Each time you have a deep, dreamless sleep you are effectively dead". It wasn't just as if you blinked your eyes - close now, and when you open them you find out how much time has passed (for you it appeared to be just a second).

Ach, alles klar. This is why I find a good way to scare the shit out of little kid is to make him/her say "If I should DIE before I wake".

[diffidus]

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I've been dealing with an issue that I believe only atheists could really help me with, and so I came across these forums. I just joined, and after a quick browse didn't see my issue anywhere, so I apologize if this is a repeat topic.

Anyway. I'll do my best to explain my issue:
I'm an atheist and I also have a few problems with depression and anxiety. My problem, however, is that I've recently developed a MAJOR "fear" of death.

Specifically, I am convinced, beyond a doubt, that there is no existence after death. I am 100% convinced that when I die, there will be nothingness... no afterlife, no me, no thoughts, no blackness, no sleep, nor any ability to think. I won't even know I died, and I won't even be able to acknowledge that I don't know I died. At this moment, I feel like I really understand what that means, and I am deeply deeply disturbed by it. I'm not sure how to cope with it. I can keep it out of my mind for short periods of time, but ultimately I'll read an article about someone dying, see a news report, and so on and start thinking about it again.

If anyone has any advice or thoughts or hopefully some sort of solution to my problem, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

You can use one of two strategies to give you comfort:

i) If you remain Atheist, then use this wisdom from Epicurus "When death is here, I am not and when I am here, he is not!!!"

ii) The proposition that God does not exist cannot be held with absolute certainty, since humankind's knowlege is not complete. The Atheist proposition may well be highly probable, but it is definitely not 100% safe. Atheists, therefore, require belief to ascert that God doe not exist. The definition of Atheism is someone who believes that God does not exist.

So here is the second strategy due to the philosopher Pascal.

Since our knowlege is incomplete, there must be a miniscule probability that a God may exist. Therefore, since this life is so short and eternity so vast, it is rational to choose a God to believe in. The rationale is, that if God exists, then you spend the rest of eternity in Heaven, if God does not, then it is a minor inconvenience in an otherwise fleeting existence.

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Which do you choose?

diffidus, I ask you again, because you dodged answering on the other thread about atheism being intellectual cowardice, do you WANT/NEED to believe in God?

I appologise - I thought I had replied. In anycase, I do not want to believe or even need to believe. But I should like to be able to ascert that God does not exist. The problem is that I cannot, and I don't think anyone else can either due to an incomplete knowledege base. Even worse, I sometimes find myself thinking that the probability of God's existence must be incredibly small due to a lack of direct evidence. However, this is based upon a belief that Humankind has an almost complete understanding of the universe. Unfortunately, we are not really in that position - our knowledge could be just a drop in the ocean. Its not just that we do not know, but we do not know how much we don't know.

Anyhow, this is all very perplexing for someone who just seeks truth and is not prepared to simply jump either side of the fence on the basis of belief only.

[SleepingDemon]

The problem with the "We don't know what we don't know" claim is that it is really irrelevant. We do not know much for certain, and is doubtful that we will ever know much with an absolute certainty. However we can deduce probability based upon current knowledge. We have not found evidence for the existence of leprechauns, we cannot say that leprechauns do not exist, but it is a safe assumption based on what we know. Every case of magical beings or otherwise supernatural phenomenon has been debunked, so anything that falls within that category doesn't exist until it is thoroughly demonstrated otherwise.

[diffidus]

The problem with the "We don't know what we don't know" claim is that it is really irrelevant. We do not know much for certain, and is doubtful that we will ever know much with an absolute certainty. However we can deduce probability based upon current knowledge. We have not found evidence for the existence of leprechauns, we cannot say that leprechauns do not exist, but it is a safe assumption based on what we know. Every case of magical beings or otherwise supernatural phenomenon has been debunked, so anything that falls within that category doesn't exist until it is thoroughly demonstrated otherwise.

I don't think your claim that ("We don't know what we don't know" claim is that it is really irrelevant.) can be true. Consider only a couple hundred years ago the respected scientific view was that blooding an a person with fever or perhaps using leeches was considered orthodox. On your account, if I were alive in those times I should not question such practice since it was based upon leading scientific advances of the day.

If I were alive when the flat earth theory was paramount you would argue that I should accept the theory on the basis that it was, at the time, self evident. Image how silly a person would look, claiming that the earth was spherical, to an ancient society who knew the earth was flat.

No - Ithink careful consideration as to the current state of knowledge is incredibly important if one is to say anything about truth.

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Now about the pascal's wager argument I read on earlier in the thread (a gambling man's choice) - it is argued that when you die and there is a god after all, you're better off believing. As such, it would make sense to believe, because it gives you better odds. Aside from the fact that there are many religions, which all excluse each other, there is another point I'd like to make.

This gamble somewhat assumes that believing does not come at a cost, it's a sort of insurance for free. That is not true. To become a 'good' believer (and what constitutes as good is already impossible to find out) you need to invest a lot of time and energy. I think about 5-10% of your waking time is not even a bad estimate for how much time ritual activities take. If the religion is not true, and there is nothing after all, that time is wasted. You had only one life, a limited amount of time, and you wasted it for nothing.
I find that price to be steep!

As for 'scientific proof' in archeology; many religions claim to have proof for their history. Not just Christians and Jews. And such proof is often shaky at best. Even if we leave out dead religions (and some of them aren't as dead as you think, old norse and celtic gods still have followers these days) there are still dozens of religions to choose from, and thousands of denominations. Let's be honest here, most people are 'religion x' because they were raised either as a member, or in an environment where many people were a member.

As for the soul: The problem is that many concepts of the soul consider the soul to be something unchangable, but at the same time personality is a basic part of the soul. It is already proven that damage in certain parts of the brain can change someone completely. Nice and easygoing persons can become vile toxic monsters, or the other way around. And not just brain damage changes how we act and what we are: hormones and certain types of drugs can change persons significantly. Personality is something that is embedded in the brain.

Not really (remember the context of this argument i.e. you not happy with Epicurus)- The number of religions does not change the concept of the wager. It is still rational to take a punt on the premise that 'if your not in it you cannot win it' argument. However, you are right to question the amount of time that each religion may take up. The Church of England seems to require no time while to become a Monk requires huge sacrifice. Again, a rational choice could be made if you are so inclined.

[tackattack]

Actually your version of pascal falls apart at the definition. Atheism is not belief that there is no God. Atheism is a lack of belief in a God. There is no target with which to argue against when using the true definition of atheism. It is a null position. Your definition gives the apologetic the false target of a belief... in nothing... ridiculous. I have lots different nothings to not believe in.

You might start better with clear definitions and some logical conclusions why death is a problem for atheists, or some logical assumptions about an afterlife.

[Zenith]

Which personality would you mean? The personality you had as a child? As an adult? You mean that a personality developed due to brain trauma is 'less real'? But what if a person becomes mucxh nicer after a brain trauma? It happens. That's just temporary and lost in some way? And what if a baby would get brain damage at birth? What is his 'true personality?'
What is 'personality' anyways. Some traits may seem inherent for a person, and they may be, but people develop a lot of traits due to the way they have been raised.

I define the "personality" (perhaps, wrongly) as "how you are like".
If the "brain damage" means that the brain is incapable to work as it should (perhaps making the boy a retard or something), then I won't consider that a part of "personality".

[Arcturus]

I've been dealing with an issue that I believe only atheists could really help me with, and so I came across these forums. I just joined, and after a quick browse didn't see my issue anywhere, so I apologize if this is a repeat topic.

Anyway. I'll do my best to explain my issue:
I'm an atheist and I also have a few problems with depression and anxiety. My problem, however, is that I've recently developed a MAJOR "fear" of death.

Specifically, I am convinced, beyond a doubt, that there is no existence after death. I am 100% convinced that when I die, there will be nothingness... no afterlife, no me, no thoughts, no blackness, no sleep, nor any ability to think. I won't even know I died, and I won't even be able to acknowledge that I don't know I died. At this moment, I feel like I really understand what that means, and I am deeply deeply disturbed by it. I'm not sure how to cope with it. I can keep it out of my mind for short periods of time, but ultimately I'll read an article about someone dying, see a news report, and so on and start thinking about it again.

If anyone has any advice or thoughts or hopefully some sort of solution to my problem, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks.

Think about it this way: every second, you are dying many times, and being reborn again. The same electrons/chemicals that create your consciousness a split second ago have already reacted. When you die, these biochemical reactions simply stop. Every x number of years, all the atoms in your body have been replaced. Yet, you still think that you are alive, because of the illusion that consciousness is continuous. However, the fact is that you are experiencing death right now, but are not aware of it because your memories interact with the 'new' consciousness that is created every second as metabolic processes power your brain. When you die, metabolic processes simply do not replace the chemicals that have reacted to produce consciousness, a process that you will not even fear.

[Girlysprite]

Which personality would you mean? The personality you had as a child? As an adult? You mean that a personality developed due to brain trauma is 'less real'? But what if a person becomes mucxh nicer after a brain trauma? It happens. That's just temporary and lost in some way? And what if a baby would get brain damage at birth? What is his 'true personality?'
What is 'personality' anyways. Some traits may seem inherent for a person, and they may be, but people develop a lot of traits due to the way they have been raised.

That definition is too vague. That means that if our personality changes halfway, and souls would be real, a part of us would be lost forever when we die. That would be sad.

I define the "personality" (perhaps, wrongly) as "how you are like".
If the "brain damage" means that the brain is incapable to work as it should (perhaps making the boy a retard or something), then I won't consider that a part of "personality".