Death and acceptance

[Geoff]

...how do we deal with this and can everybody be expected to accept that when it comes to death.... The end is literally the end.

I've never been indoctrinated otherwise, so for me personally to "accept" that "The end is literally the end" frankly sounds silly (I'm not meaning to sound flip here). I mean... it is! Now that doesn't likely help people who've been brainwashed to think otherwise, but I thought it was worth note.

Basically, there is no other alternative and thus it's not worth even a second thought - or a first serious one. It'd be like saying "can everybody be expected to accept that when it comes to life.... we can't fly." Well, yeah - 'cause we can't! It just ain't worth real thought, and that's even something that appeals, unlike endless boredom!

Spot on, Brett.

I've never been religious either, so yeah, it just seems natural to know that "the end is the end", and act accordingly.

The only thing that worries me is the manner of my death. Quick and painless, please...and not yet.

[laklak]

Our Lord is a Loving Lord! Before he kills you he makes you really wrinkly and sick and smelly and crumbly and makes your butt leak and pee dribble and your teeth fall out.

You're SO glad to go to His Loving Arms!

[Ronja]

I think this video could fit here. The guy is a bit nervous, but his message is solid.

Peter Saul - Dying in 21st century Australia, a new experience for all of us.

[Drewish]

[BrettA]

It had me deep in thought and still does on whether I wanted the lady to believe if a god and an afterlife exist. I don't know what I would do or how to react and cope if I knew I only had a few months to live and that my treatment was only palliative. I always insist that people should believe in the truth and what is likely and can be proven to be real. How do you come to terms with the end of your being at such an early age, whilst not feeling your life has been completely fulfilled, there is so much more that she wants to do...... But know's she can't, how do we deal with this and can everybody be expected to accept that when it comes to death.... The end is literally the end.

Why would you want anything specific about what someone else believes /curious?

Could you expound on what there is to "deal with", please (I didn't read the thread - just the OP - so if you've addressed this type of question, feel free to tell me and I'll look)? I mean, we all know death can come at any time... so the only difference between this and say, a fatal car crash, is that she has time to develop/change things like a will, but I get the feeling that that's not what you're meaning(?)

Edit: I just realised that this thread has been resurrected from the dead and HitManFan may not be around... feel free to ignore this post.

[Clinton Huxley]

Better to have loved,lost, failed, won,blushed, cried,melted,lusted,reflected, cursed, weeped howled, nitpicked, itched, giggled or farted at an hilariously inappropriate time than to have never had the chance.

[apophenia]

Most of life is participation in others' fantasies, anyway, innit?

"If your sexual fantasies were truly of interest to others, they would no longer be fantasies."
— Fran Lebowitz


I can't say I've given this much thought over the years. As a Taoist, my mindset has always been that things in themselves have no emotional content (with the possible exception of feelings of satisfaction and contentment when one is in synch with the Tao). Things just are. That's neither good or bad, hopeful or discouraging, to me anyway. But I was thinking offhand about this the other day and it hit me. I don't really believe that I'm going to die. Most of you know that I'm quite insane, and for those that don't, it will set the context for what follows. I don't believe I will ever die. The rest of you, will die — perhaps after living another limited life like this one, but no more. And it's not a belief in a typical afterlife you'll find in any religion, as it's rooted in my psychosis. And it probably explains the longevity of my chronic suicidality, believing that what awaits me is not an end. It's not a particularly rosie afterlife by any stretch, as my next waystation is as a sex-slave to a sadistic and evil piece of filth for over ten centuries, while he rapes and tortures me in ways that I can't even imagine after having lived a basically mundane life here in the states. But giving that this is what I've always believed, and the juggernaut of psychosis makes alternative scenarios beyond the reach of my imagination, I guess I've never really faced death in the way posed by this thread, though I've made several suicide attempts, and will do so again in the future. I guess in some way it frightens me that people here might think I'm cheating the question, ducking out on a hard reality, but I don't know that I have an option. My Taoism, when I've looked at life through the lenses of normalcy left me with the perspective that dying is neither here nor there, it simply is. But the lenses of normalcy, when used, are only temporarily borrowed, and easily put away if I find the view unappealing. I have no idea what my view would really be if those were the only lenses I had.

[Feck]

One day I won't be here .That is a great relief . I doubt there will much grief about it ,this is also good ,other than that it doesn't matter . I've been to sleep ,lost consciousness many times I don't see how doing it one last time will be much different .
As for what to say to terminal cancer patients about the afterlife etc ,I don't know what to say .If I have that conversation with my mother I will report it here .

[Rum]

Accepting death or otherwise doesn't matter. It happens anyway.

[Seth]

Hi, I'm quite new to the forum (thanks for all the greetings) and I'm enjoying the company of my fellow non believers, anyway; I was in hospital today receiving my weekly dose of chemotherapy, I got speaking to a lady who unfortunately is terminally ill and in her mid 40's early 50's, my situation is completely different, (I have a rare type of none malignant tumour, clinically treated as malignant due to it's invasive, aggressive and re-occuring nature).

It had me deep in thought and still does on whether I wanted the lady to believe if a god and an afterlife exist. I don't know what I would do or how to react and cope if I knew I only had a few months to live and that my treatment was only palliative. I always insist that people should believe in the truth and what is likely and can be proven to be real. How do you come to terms with the end of your being at such an early age, whilst not feeling your life has been completely fulfilled, there is so much more that she wants to do...... But know's she can't, how do we deal with this and can everybody be expected to accept that when it comes to death.... The end is literally the end.

This is precisely why I'm a Tolerist™, because it's not my business to interfere with the solace and comfort that religion may provide for a person, no matter how irrational or delusional it may be, particularly when it comes to end-of-life matters.

The only possible reason to try to convince someone that there is no God or afterlife if they already believe in it, to proselytize Atheism, would be an evil, selfish, narcissistic and bigoted hatred of religion that causes one to uncontrollably interfere with the lives of others.

Dawkins wonders in his book "The God Delusion" why it isn't sufficient to believe in the glory and wonder of the "natural" universe without all the God stuff, but he is never able to answer this question. The answer is that people are not the perfect specimens of reason and logic that Dawkins likes to portray himself (and other Atheists) as. They are frail, vulnerable and frightened individuals who have difficulty accepting the idea that death is the end of everything for them and their loved ones, so they turn to religion and promises, however false or unprovable (or however true) of an afterlife and a loving God who will reward them for their goodness here on earth.

It's comforting to them, and my question to Dawkins and the rest of Atheism is why on earth would you want to be so cruel, mean, evil and uncaring as to interfere with the benefits that theistic religion provide to individuals? Theism and religion exist for a reason, and it's a perfectly rational "naturalistic" reason: Religion and theism provide substantial societal and individual benefits and are an evolved behavior pattern that exists precisely because it provides evolutionary survival benefits. The memes of religion bring communities together, provide stress relief and comfort and support individuals when they are in need. True or not, religion is almost always a good thing for individuals and societies, within that particular society. Where religion goes astray is when differing religions compete for members and clash over ideology, such as the clash between Christianity and Islam. But like any other evolutionary trait, there is competition among the memes, just as there is competition between the genes, for, in this case, theistic superiority. Eventually the superior religious meme will prevail and the others will fail, and new, competing religious memes will emerge in the constant battle of evolution.

Tolerism™ requires that it's adherents accept this truth and tolerate the peaceable expression and practice of religion by others and avoid disparaging those beliefs that give others solace and comfort because to do so is neither useful, ethical, nor moral.

The answer to Dawkin's question is "because the glory and wonder of Nature is insufficient to the spiritual and emotional needs of the vast majority of inhabitants of this planet...so shut the fuck up and mind your own business you arrogant prick."

[Seth]

I wrote this about 2.5 hours ago, over at atheistforums.com

What was the meaning of your life, what did you live for?

I follow the camping rule. When I go camping in a park or somebody's resort or such, I take away more trash than I bring. When I leave I cut firewood for the next person to use that spot, at least as much as I found waiting for me when I got there, more if the pile looks smallish.

I spent twenty years in the Navy, nearly getting killed several times, with years of rehab total. I've taught college students about history, with suggestions on how to avoid repeating it. I have helped put millions of pages of historical documents online, for my sites and as "unofficial" host for a few branches of the US military.

And today I got to spent the morning in company with 35 wolves, who paid me for my work with their voices.

Dum vivimus vivamus!

I think I get what you're saying, in this particular instance, the person only started treatment in March and doesn't have too long left, I at this point might just deceive myself and try worshipping christ so that I may get into the catholic version of heaven... Probably wouldn't work (as i'm too far gone when it comes to believing in a man made god), but I might be able to delude myself due to my fragile mental state.

And what, exactly, is wrong with that?

[apophenia]

"What a wicked thing to do, to make me dream of you."

— Chris Isaak, Wicked Game


Meant in both senses. First, in the tragic sentence of being possessed of a religious vision one can't freely disinherit. But also in the sense of the nature of the question of contemplating our own death. Some go so far as to assert that this, among other things, separates us from the other animals, our ability to conceive of our own end. I'm not sure I'm willing to accept that, or at least not on its seemingly purely ipse dixit grounds, but surely a life contemplating the end is existentially different from one without. In my previous post I alluded to an ability to put on world views like colored glasses through which one can temporarily see things as others see them. I also concluded that this hypothesis is likely empty, as we can never truly leave our own skin. However it brings to mind the question of just how much our specific "lenses" contribute to our attitude toward the end. Another forum member, in explaining their atheism, referred to having "confronted the abyss" or something similar; I don't know if that was hyperbole or not, but even as atheists, there are going to be a range of attitudes and existential awarenesses about death, only some of which align with the abyss gazing perspective. The question that comes to mind is, how much of the particular lenses do we as a particular atheist look through affect the meaning and emotional valence of this question. While it's somewhat unclear how much is metaphor and literal in eastern religions, many have an overlying frame in which perception is at least as much contributing to the nature of reality as anything external to us does, and this echoes my thoughts on philosophy of mind. In communication theory, one can conceptualize a communication consisting of a sender, a receiver, and a channel, through which the message travels. It's obvious that any defect or irregularity in the sender or its performance will affect the resulting message. But so too, the character of the channel can distort, or change the message. What's often overlooked is that the characteristics of the receiver are also deterministic of what the end message will result. If one views perception as a form of communication, with the perceived being the sender, the channel obviously being the medium, then the receiver — the mind — becomes highlighted in a new way. It becomes clear that what we take reality to be is conditioned through and through by what kind of processing mind we are, and the nature of reality ceases being real, but becomes a message which has been formed and changed in ways often unseen. What indeed is the message outside of this closed perceptual circuit, or is it even proper to speak of such. Anyway, a long way around to get back to the question of how do the particular lenses that we have not so much as chosen but had thrust upon us, how much does that condition our apprehension and feelings about death?

[Tero]

My mom got a bit religious, but then she was not the most rational person, when my dad was dying. Whatever communication they had about this thing was summarized by an unreasonable hope to be "cured". It was clinically impossible for him to return to any reasonable state.

But I did not interfere, neither did I pray. But that whole experience was enough for me to think about purposes and afterlives.

My dad's death was painful in that he was not in pain. His body just was not functioning. My mom then had cancer and was able to be doped up and the end was seemingly less painful.

Life did not plan for death. As long as you reproduce, it does not care.