Comments on: Being atheist and dealing with death

By: katansi

katansi — Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:03:47 +0000

I find it incredibly comforting that I will wink out of existence. You won’t see them ever again but it’s not like you’ll be in eternity knowing that either.

By: Ella

Ella — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 12:22:41 +0000

Exactly! Knowing I only have this life to look forward to keeps me motivated to get up in the morning. I suffer from severe chronic pain that makes doing so difficult sometimes, but since I don’t ge any do-overs, I have to live my life to the fullest extent possible NOW. It’s also why I stopped faking belief and left the church, much to my parents’ dismay. I don’t want to be one of those people who don’t start to really live until their 40s. Life is too short.

By: sleepingkirby

sleepingkirby — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 17:22:15 +0000

I think this sums up quite well the approach on life and death by religion.

http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/153791/intergalactic-bdiu-committee

By: Ryan Sawyer

Ryan Sawyer — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 15:04:21 +0000

Like many of the other commenters have touched on, I think that going through life believing that there is no afterlife gives my life MORE purpose than someone who does believe in one. How can you truly appreciate your life if you believe it will never actually end? Knowing (believing) that this is the only life I have makes my relationships with people more meaningful to me. I savor the beauties of nature and people, and try to make a lasting impression that is positive… because I’ve only got one shot at this.

By: Agape Lenore

Agape Lenore — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 10:41:58 +0000

“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them and that is eternity.”

~ Edvard Munch ~

By: alicearnette

alicearnette — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 19:29:24 +0000

Mondegreen: that is possibly the best explanation I have seen! It really speaks to me since I often wonder how real my existence is without others there to perceive it. Thank you for commenting

By: Hypersapien

Hypersapien — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 18:08:28 +0000

Two things.

#1, you might want to read Douglas Hofstadter’s “I am a Strange Loop”. He talks about some of those same ideas there.

#2, the Earth hit 7 billion people a few months back.

By: Mondegreen

Mondegreen — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 17:57:38 +0000

This may not make much sense but I find comfort in the following thought stream:

To everyone else in the world, I exist as a bundle of memories and thoughts and sights and sounds and actions and interactions that get updated everyday. The only person who experiences my existence from the inside is me, which puts me at a 6.5 billion to one minority. Therefore, for all intents and purposes, I exist only in other people’s perceptions, as they outnumber me vastly. When I die, they will still remember me and my actions, and may even have modified their own lives because of them. So, after I die, I am in a sense living on in their minds in exactly the same way as I existed before, only no new memories are being formed.

Additionally, I change each and every person’s life who I interact with, maybe a little, maybe a lot, and almost certainly more than I realise for most people (I can be quite pessimistic). So my influence has changed the course of their existence, which causes an “influence wave,” if you will, to travel forwards in time, beyond my physical existence. I may for example cause two friends to get together and eventually marry and have children, meaning those other lives exist because I have, which perpetuates the influence of my existence, even if I have no children of my own, and may die before they are born.

And then there is always the immortality of your genes if you end up having children or nieces/nephews.

I don’t think there is, nor do I really want there to be, any kind of afterlife. I think it would cheapen the experience of existence if I had an infinite amount of it. The thing that makes life special, is that it’s limited

TL;DR Athiestic ramblings about existence, probably don’t bother to read it, I’m not sure how on topic it is.

By: moongrimm

moongrimm — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:17:32 +0000

Though I do have this fantasy of haunting college coed showers….

By: moongrimm

moongrimm — Wed, 29 Aug 2012 13:15:59 +0000

How do I deal with the inevitability of death?

The same way everyone else ever did- I die.

What motivates me? The desire to make the most of what I have, during what I have.

Yes it would be nice (kind of) to have some sort of existence, post life. But not what religions teach.

The truth of the matter- I won’t know until it occurs. And when it does- I will deal with it as it happens. Assuming.