>Atheists have no reason to fear death, because then there is nothing.

Well, I'm not afraid of being dead. I sure do like being alive though, and would prefer that to continue!

Once you are dead you won't be aware life is no longer continuing. The only sticking point is the time leading up to death when one's fear of death makes them miserable. If the person can do away with the fear then they'll maximize their happy moments in the short time we have in this world.

Since death is inevitable due to the eventual heat death of the universe, then from an operations research perspective it makes much more sense to focus effort on getting rid of the fear of death than trying to end death itself.

> Since death is inevitable due to the eventual heat death of the universe, then from an operations research perspective it makes much more sense to focus effort on getting rid of the fear of death than trying to end death itself.

I don’t think that’s true from a global optimization perspective. If you’re trying to maximize contented moments, it makes sense to spend time thinking about how to extend life (assuming you’re talking about the number of happy moments for people who are currently alive), even if those moments still must eventually cease. Because trillions of years of happy moments is a lot more than 80-100 years of happy moments. Only if you’re trying to minimize unhappy moments does removing fear of death become a better goal.

However, from a local optimization perspective, since there is little anyone can individually do about their medium term probability of death, I agree that figuring out how to cope with and minimize that fear is probably the best strategy.

Right, I mean from the individual's perspective, since why should the individual care about optimizing an aggregate the individual will never experience?

There's probably a middle ground between 80 years of life and the several billion any potential heat death will take to manifest.

This is effectively a restatement of Pascal's Wager and therefore suffers from the same problems as the original formulation. The promise of a blissful afterlife is an insufficient basis for a morally authentic life, and the individual adopting theistic morals on that premise is acting in bad faith.

That only matters if the deity in question cares for the cause of your morals. Which surely a class of theoretical deities would, but not all imaginable ones.

> Atheists have no reason to fear death, because then there is nothing.

To me - as an atheist - not believing in an afterlife makes death a lot scarier. Once you're dead it's over.

If you believed that a omniscient omnipresent being is judging your every move inoder to determine whether to put you in a state of heavenly bliss or eternal damnation after death, you might be a little scared.

> Atheists have no reason to fear death, because then there is nothing.

This is somewhat trite, IMHO.

I don't fear the state of being dead, I fear getting there (death is unlikely to be fun) and I deeply fear not existing any more, and my time coming to an end. I like being.

I'm not afraid of death. I'm afraid of senescence. Being old really sucks. Everything hurts, your brain rots, eventually you're nothing but a burden on other people.

That also seems a matter of perspective. It is unfortunate in our culture that the elderly are looked down upon, instead of as an excellent source of wisdom about how not to die early and live a happy life.

It seems effort is more efficiently spent in changing perspective in ourselves and those around us, rather than trying to fight off inevitable old age and death.

Having taken care of someone who succumbed to dementia, I can say with some authority that it's not a matter of perspective. The last years of life are an absolute horror show for a depressingly large fraction of the population.

Dementia is a terrible thing, I've seen it first-hand more than once - and I'm currently in the middle of two cases. But then again I've also seen the opposite several times, people living to a very old age (95+, and, in a couple of cases, 100+) with all their faculties fully functioning and no health issues to complain about until it was suddenly and quietly over. It's not a given that we all (and our caretakers) will suffer in the end.

It still is a matter of perspective. Should a person who is unhappy and a burden for others be discarded by society, or should society do their best to make the person feel welcome? If society can do the latter then everyone is in a better place.

You can make people with dementia as welcome as you like, you still have to change their diapers, wake up to their screaming at night and keep a constant eye on them so that they don't hurt themselves or wander off. It's like having to take care of a 80kg baby that doesn't grow up and only gets worse. Add to this the psychological burden of having known this person before their illness.

Do you think that if we develop the psychological strength to help people with dementia it will also make us better and happier people?

By happy I do not mean the transitory kind of happiness we get from eating ice cream or watching a good movie, though that sort of happiness is important. What I mean is the stronger and longer lasting happiness we get from the confidence of being able to work through difficult circumstances instead of casting off the difficult circumstances.

This is because difficulty is inevitable in life, and we will feel happier looking toward the future if we know we can deal with difficulty instead of needing to avoid difficulty. So, knowing we can help people dealing with a difficult affliction like dementia means we can form relationships with less concern whether it will all turn out badly. Otherwise, we will instead tend to insulate ourselves from the perceived hardship, which will cut down our ability to form strong relationships, and strong relationships appear to be essential for human happiness.

I think if you can mostly get over your fear of death that’s greAt, but I’m not sure it is feasible. Fear of death is evolutionarily adaptive like almost nothing else is, so it’s wired in at a pretty deep level.

(You wouldn’t want to entirely escape it —- a little fear is good to keep you from doing stupid thing.)

I'm an atheist. I fear death because that means I stop discovering. You can't discover nothing.

It's a singularity - there's no 'you' to do anything, so its not quite right to say what 'you' will be doing after death? 0/0

Don't be fooled by this sophistry. As a smart guy said once, "It's not that I fear death; I just don't want to be there when it happens".

Another lady of my acquaintance said "Old age is not for the timid". There's plenty to fear about getting old.