For atheists (at least this atheist) everything that we are emerges from our bodies, and from our interaction with the environment and society, and death is the end of everything that we are. Some of us will be remembered for a little while, or make contributions that last a little while, but soon enough everything we are and everything we know will be gone.
For me, learning to accept this is an important part of growing up and living well.
I don't think accepting our own demise, and believing that it is a final ending, means you're in a death cult. I want to live an exciting life, enjoy what earth has to offer, and be a part of society and make some kind of positive contribution, but I accept that my time is limited, and in my belief system death is truly the end of me. Making peace with this is not easy, but it is an important part of living for me.
I do not mean do demean anyone else's beliefs. I wouldn't try to have this conversation in church, and it is socially risky where I am to discuss this kind of belief. I think I was looking for kindred spirits, or at least understanding.
I don't know if there's anything for us after death, but I have no good reason to think that there is. My lack of belief in an afterlife (or afterlives) is a functional assumption based on available evidence rather than an assertion of fact.
This is so absurdly profound. I remember being like 4 years old and taught about god. My first distinction was “I have no idea what you’re talking about, man with white beard in the clouds? Show me”
There’s as much evidence supporting the theist’s belief in their afterlife as there is evidence supporting the atheist’s belief in a lack of an afterlife: none. Both are willful imaginations of what happens after death. One difference between theists and atheists is that atheists think science is on their side in this debate (the whole ‘lack of evidence’ argument), when it’s not, because physics is meant to measure this world[•], not “the next one”. In fact if anything, some theistic notions of heaven and hell seem to be closest approximations, given the end of life DMT flood and seeing your family in your fleeting moments, and anecdotal accounts of white lights, etc. How does one even experience a final moment? Can you ever truly die? These are all super metaphysical/philosophical questions.
Also, separate but related, Newton was trying to be closer to God when he invented/discovered mechanics.
[•] Theist beliefs in mystical forces having physical interactions in this one is a completely separate discussion, which I highly doubt, but then again we don’t have an answer for how to measure dark matter, and String theorists are allowed to pedal their observationless theories.
I agree, but in general, no positive evidence means no reason to consider the existence of such a phenomenon seriously.
> a lack of evidence is the weakest form of evidence to the contrary
I'm not asserting that there is evidence to contrary, but there is as much evidence for an afterlife as there is for fire-breathing dragons, yet I am not required to declare agnosticism or a fence-sitting position on that front. Instead I am permitted to say “I don’t believe in those absent evidence, and I will happily change my mind when some is found”
> Agnosticism gets it right ...
As an agnostic atheist, I find your caricature very funny and entirely misguided. Agnosticism and atheism are two separate axes. One is a declaration of knowledge (there's no evidence, so I am agnostic) the other of belief (there's no evidence so I have no belief either).
This is really only true if you have a firm grasp on the space you would need to search to find evidence, and that you’ve done the work looking and come up empty. If you don’t know how far you have to go to know definitively, this is a dangerous assumption. The history of physics is littered with false assumptions of “finally having complete knowledge” only to find out the model was incomplete: geocentrism, Newtonian mechanics, Ultraviolet catastrophe leading to modern QM, Standard model.
How would you propose we go looking for afterlifes, to confirm that we know how big the search space is and that it is empty? No thanks, not for me, not yet at least.
> I'm not asserting that there is evidence to contrary
By claiming that “available evidence” (ie none) informs your belief that there’s no afterlife, you are arguing the lack of evidence of an afterlife supports your belief that there is no afterlife. Although frankly, you can have this one, I don’t particularly care.
> agnostic atheist
This is by definition, an oxymoron
Atheists believe there are no gods. [1]
Agnostics believe that there’s no telling whether god exists or not. [2]
> I find your caricature very funny and entirely misguided.
There’s no need to be condescending, especially if you’re going to get definitions wrong.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
I didn’t write these definitions, so just keep in mind it’s more than just me disagreeing with you.
Only if you're making definite proclamations, which I'm not. I'm not claiming complete knowledge here, simply that there's been no evidence presented that supports the belief in such a thing, so I don't hold belief in one. There's no assumption there. To dip into physics as you seem so keen on bringing it up - there's no evidence that dark matter is really the corpses of ancient aliens, so that's not a working hypothesis for me either. I don't know what it is, I'm not sure anyone does, until we hold evidence I am a-it's-the-corpses-of-ancient-aliens-ist. I don't hold that positive belief, and I would find it weird if people came along and told me that I was making strong claims in the other direction if I said I didn't believe it.
> How would you propose we go looking for afterlifes
Most appear to be unfalsifiable propositions, and as such it seems a pointless quest. But I don't need to go looking in an exhaustive fashion to hold the position that I don't believe in one, given current evidence, because I'm not making an assertion that there is definitely not an afterlife, or that there cannot be one. It is sufficient that there's no evidence for one, so I don't hold the positive belief that there is one.
Could there be some sort of afterlife? Sure, conceptually, but so far there's no reason to think there is one, any more than there's reason to believe in fire-breathing dragons or invisible unicorns.
> By claiming that “available evidence” (ie none) informs your belief that there’s no afterlife
I don't have "a belief that there's no afterlife". There's the flaw in your thinking.
Thought experiment - I claim that that I can travel to another planet, instantaneously, and live a year of my life there because time works differently, and then travel back, all in the time of a blink of the eye. I just did it now! Anyone can do it, in fact lot's of people do! Do you believe me? No? How do you know I didn't do that? You're making a positive assertion about the nature of the universe there! Your belief that I can't do that is unevidenced!
Or... you can say that since there's no evidence, that seems pretty weird and unlikely, I'm going to go with the working assumption that humans can't do that until such time as some sort of evidence is presented. This is atheism, to me.
> This is by definition, an oxymoron
First line of the wikipedia link on atheism - "Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities"
First line from the one on agnosticism - "Agnosticism is the view or belief that the existence of God, of the divine or the supernatural is unknown or unknowable."
These do not contradict one another. I don't claim concrete knowledge, so in the absence of evidence I hold no positive religious beliefs. If the existence of the divine is either unknown or unknowable then there's no reason to give it much thought. I don't believe in it. Which is distinct from "I believe it is impossible" or "I believe it is definitely not present", positions that you seem to want to force on me.
> There’s no need to be condescending
I'm not convinced - when someone is busy labouring to create a straw man and to tell you what you mean by your own words, I think it's probably an apposite response.
Hadn’t previously considered that positive atheism and general “not-taking-sides” atheism weren’t the same thing.
(edit - I believe it's quite common to think of them as a sort of spectrum from theism, through agnosticism and out to atheism on the other side, and I'm not sure that's wrong for everyone, but there is definitely philosophical space for agnostic atheism, and it may even be the dominant strain. May not of course!)
> Either you don’t have an opinion, or you’re actively of the opinion that other gods don’t exist and you’ll argue with people about it.
I have opinions, as do many agnostic atheists - that there is no evidence for gods, that belief in them is therefore unsupportable and ridiculous, that religions largely are harmful to society and adherents both in conception (because of the requirement for faith and the discarding of reason), and in execution (just look at what organised religion tends to do when enough people follow). Not that I'm a particular fan of his, but Richard Dawkins fits into the definition of agnostic atheist, and last I looked he had quite a lot to say on the matter!
In a perfect world, the only way humans would bother to answer the question “How did my consciousness get here? What will happen to my consciousness when I die?” is by replying “we really don’t know.” That is agnosticism to me.
And so agnosticism seems so perfectly correct in its approach that it seems silly to bother tossing in atheism to make it more specific to contrast an explicitly misguided concept at its core (theism, specifically as it is differentiated from I guess you might say personal fiction). If you’re agnostic, whether it’s gods or flarglethnacks or an endless sea of paperclips waiting for you on the other side, it hardly makes a difference whether you’re “atheist”.
But I get that I’m wishing, and that’s not how things are, agnosticism applied in the context of a world where religions matter, and thus the words have different meaning than I intend.
Many people, religious or atheist, believe that the scope of life is finite in one direction: it starts at birth. Death is essentially the same thing, backwards.
Now, there are some people who believe their existence is eternal in both directions. For example, Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and I think the question of the first incarnation and even the very notion of a "beginning" is left open.
sorry but that's extremely silly. Go read up Parmenides at the very least. If you don't exist, you don't exist, period; there's no experiencing, no you, no anything.
We fear death because our brain needs to in order to survive effectively, but self is ultimately an illusion, a narrative we construct to weave together memory, present, and projected futures. We know this because self is malleable. We are capable of extending our conception of self into our children, our compatriots, or ideals, and trading "our" life for theirs. Similarly, we can collapse self into just our neural pattern and believe that a computer simulation is still us.
Death is really not quite as big a deal as we think it is, in my opinion.
I can tell you having lost many people in my life, some of them closer than others, this is very easy to say until you're the one doing the dying. Some people accept it better than others. I dont think anyone is actually comfortable with the thought. It's just a gradient of "dealing with it".
I'm not saying death is a good time, just that some people have this conception of it like it is the greatest evil mankind faces or something.
My sister is a hospice nurse so she talks to dying people all the time. She says some people cling desperately to life through horrible agony while others are almost impatient for it to happen despite not being in any significant discomfort. So I'd agree that there's a spectrum of being able to deal and I think I will live my life better if I try to be on the "can deal" end of that.
- Louis C.K
To be dead for billions of years, means you had to be alive at all.
Really? The purpose seems pretty clear to me, and I only skimmed it. To reinforce the value the book has in understanding how research around death and dying was framed in the 1970's.
Your comment comes across as intentionally obtuse as an excuse to prosthelytize.
The article is not _just_ a historical perspective of what happened "More than 40 years ago", it clearly says: "This book will remain relevant for all these specific cautionary reasons, and many more. I hope that in another four decades “The Craft of Dying” is republished for that historical moment’s own happy death movements; . . . ."
People have died "forever" so I was actually curious about what new great perspectives this article/book would offer; it's called: "The Enduring Genius of ‘The Craft of Dying’" after all. _Personally_ I didn't find it illuminating. That's all.
> Your comment comes across as intentionally obtuse as an excuse to proselytize. I just provided my personal view of the topic of death; spiritually and how I felt it in my own family. I often try to share my thoughts and faith; that is who I am and I try to be true to that.
The article is quite vague about any findings, conclusions, or insights offered by the book.
Reading the article feels like going to zombo.com. It tells you it's an amazing site, but not exactly what it does...
The good: It's possible to outdo religion and bring back everyone. No believing in this or that. No strings attached. The good people, the bad people, everyone. Maybe even pets. Living in a simulated eternity with infinite freedom until the end of the universe.
The bad: A bad agent might bring back everyone and torture them forever. No death, only pain. It would know exactly how to maximize suffering.
The wat: Maybe that's what we're experiencing right now.
It takes believing in the AI singularity. I mean, sure, once it happens (if it does), then you won't have to "believe" in it, because it will be real and present right in front of you. If it happens.
Which in some ways is really similar to the return of Christ. If/when it happens, it won't take "faith" or "belief" any more.
But before either happens, believing in the AI singularity, at least to me, takes more faith than believing in the return of Christ. At least with Christ, I've got a (documented) resurrection to lean on. With AI, I've got a surge of progress in the last few years, and a history of AI winters after progress slows back down, and people realize that the last burst of progress isn't going to get us to an AGI.
From sources hundreds of years later, second or third hand quoting (mostly) illiterate witnesses, with a vested interest in telling a compelling and believable (for the era) narrative. Also, most of the adjacent claims from said sources cannot be proven or similar miracles reproduced, despite claims such events will be common given "faith as small as a mustard seed".
Book of Mormon was written during Smith's lifetime. I still don't believe he talked to angels or actually got divine revelation from golden plates.
As for the rest of your complaint: Luke is demonstrably a good historian. He is also very careful. (One thing I notice that amuses me: In Acts, sometimes Luke is traveling with Paul. When he is, the level of detail goes up. Not "Then Paul departed from X, and went to Y", but "Then we got on a ship, and sailed to A. On the next day we sailed to off of B. Then we passed on side C of island D..." Luke knows what he knows, and he's not filling in detail when he doesn't know it.)
I'm not going to defend Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon at all. I also don't know why you brought them up.
Just because an account is detailed doesn't mean everything it describes happened.
Jesus supposedly even claims prophets get no respect in their own town. Which is entirely consistent with how conmen are treated.
Which is why they are fantasy. In order to "actually happen" there must be observable change. And despite mighty efforts there is no physical evidence that defies simpler and more reproduceable explanations.
Let's setup a hypothetical scenario. On the day of resurrection, God resurrect 4 people. First one was a slave holding cruel asshole who plundered, raped, and killed all his life. But he believed in Christ. Second was a just man who didn't hurt even an ant knowingly. He too believed in Christ. Third is a man who lived a just and righteous life but refused to believed in Christ. Fourth man is cruel bastard who also doesn't believe in Christ.
What god is going to do with each of them?
But to entertain you the last two wouldn't be "resurrected" so to speak (even though this is something some denominations believe it is not universal). To accept Christ you need to, in every denomination, say some form of a prayer of salvation. This excludes the last two regardless of the purity of one of them. The first man could be saved if he turned his life towards Christ and quit his evil. Second man is a shoe-in.
I'd recommend reading the bible. I've done it once for bible school many, many years ago and once more for my own edification. Even if you don't believe in Christ, in order to construct a salient argument in the framework of the religion you should at least know what you're arguing.
I am not trying to agitate him. Rather I am trying to have a logical conversation. I do not understand what makes someone in 21st century believe in a God that is willing to let upright people burn in hell just because they do not pledge alliance to him. This idea of eternal saving vs. eternal damnation by all powerful almighty is so contrary to the ideas I have grown up with.
Or they do translate if you keep ignoring large parts of bible 'because they were not literal', while gladly accepting other which suit you more. One of endless examples - women marrying as non-virgins should be stoned to death instead. Or they should not be taught anything. Of course then comes the usual argument about old-vs-new testament, but that's just ridiculous mental gymnastics about the very simple and unavoidable fact that bible itself is very illogical and self-conflicting. As a true christian one should accept it all and not cherry-pick, I mean its 1 book. It doesn't matter that christianity with all its sub-sects is just a sect of early judaism, its still part of it and so is Old testament. So much for the word of god what should be pure truth across whole age of universe, it can't hold even 2000 years very well. And we talk about already heavily re-re-re-edited version that was done in proper fanatical times by fanatical zealots and approved by highest christianity power structures, so obviously made things quite a bit more smooth - I bet easily 1000 bucks that reading original texts would be pretty shocking to every single christian. Some stories have nice moral conclusions, but so do Ezop's tales and gazillion other ancient texts, so that's not an argument.
I can't talk to my some of my relatives who are religious about this, because we very soon, in any topic, arrive at illogical situations that they can't explain even though they have deep understanding of the bible, can't reason and just turn to childish reaction in vein of 'its like that because its like that and stop it'.
I have a pet theory that people raised in religion create this inner soothing bandaid that explains all terrible and dreadful and this becomes unremovable part of their personality, it becomes all time go-to place when anything goes south in their lives. It becomes their permanent source of strength and permanent weakness. From what I saw over my life, the weakness part is much much more prevalent unfortunately. It drives them into desperate situations where instead of helping themselves and/or others they get passive and pious. They start praying like crazy, even though they know no god ever worked like that. They can't even properly entertain the idea that there may not be any god, immortal soul, afterlife etc. and what we have now is all there is and ever will be. For me its liberating thought, I do believe in mankind and its future among stars and that's more then enough, no need to wish for eternal life. And if there is some form of creator, he truly doesn't care about us anymore, at least in this universe. But those indoctrinated from early age into word/by/word religious texts just can't do it, even with gun to their head, hence what I call 'permanent weakness'. Doing this to your own kids should be criminal in 21st century since they have 0 defense to indoctrination from their closest ones, let them grow up and decide for themselves.
I would have much much more respect for ie christianity or other religions if they sticked just to those 10 commandments, which basically say 'be a good moral person'. But people being stupid arrogant delusional as they always are, created whole made up universe and its origin stories, didn't even check properly (or ignored) what others wrote before them so conflicts abound, created ridiculous power structures that have absolutely no reason to exist and did frankly absolutely horrible things for whole medieval times in Europe and also long time after that, all to present times. Also religions should be uniting people, but oh boy they do divide them like nothing else. Catholics vs protestants, X vs Y, not much love there, its never 'us christians' (same as ie sunni vs shiites, for outsider just kids squabbling over something unimportant).
Mental exercise - can you entertain this idea for a moment that what you believe ain't true in any way? Can you properly accept it and continue living with it even through difficult times that life always brings, never reverting somewhere deep inside back?
/rant over
Not all cultures are scared of death. For example for Hindus death is like changing clothes. I come from the land where someone dying after living a full life is actually celebrated with dance and music. I seriously didn't get the hue and cry over the death of 90+ years old queen. Were people expecting her to live forever in that frail failing body?
> I would have much much more respect for ie christianity or other religions if they sticked just to those 10 commandments, which basically say 'be a good moral person'.
That's pretty much the essense of eastern dharma Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,Sikhism etc. There are no commandments. karma returns back what you accrue. Gods can't do zilch to fix bad karma.
Does it want to say that death is something normal and should be talked about?
For me as a Christian death has been something that I have thought about pretty much all my life. In different facets. Christ died and rose from death, and in this way He conquered death itself. As a Christian I am dead, buried and resurrected with Christ as shown in my baptism. And when my body dies one day, I enter into the kingdom of God and eternal life.
Still: Death sucks. Like my brother – who died a few months ago – said: "It would be all good and fine if it wasn't for those friggin feelings". With Christ though, there is hope in the suffering. Because one glorious day: "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more" [Revelation 21:4].