How do atheist deal with the idea of death?

[Memory Master]

Okay this is a question that has been on my mind the past couple of days, and i'd like a serious answers, all joking aside.

When I look on the internet I find people asking atheist if they are afraid of death because an atheist would not believe in an afterlife and thus to them death is the end of existence for a person.

Now i've mostly read responses that atheist say the act of dying may be scary but death itself is not because death is nothing.

But there is what I don't understand. Nothing, no existence, to me that is the scariest thing possible. The idea of not existing at all. To an atheist death is the end, nothing after. Sure if one does not exist they cannot experience fear, but isn't the idea of not existing itself so scary that it would eat away at you?

What good is life if it is not eternal? A temporary existence is just an existence without hope. To me not existing is the worst possible fate that anyone could ever endure, and I wouldn't wish that on even the most vile of people.

If I wasn't a Christian and I wasn't absolutely convinced in life after death, and lets say that it was confirmed that death was indeed the end of existence then I would go absolutely mad with fear and I wouldn't have hope, and nothing would bring me happiness because I know it is all temporary and temporary things are useless in the end. The only hope one could cling to is devoting their life to becoming a scientist or something and trying to figure the key to immortality.

So I have to ask, Atheist and please be serious on this, I don't want any joking or bashing or anything, just be serious: Isn't the idea of losing your existence scary to you? Is not the worst fate that can befall any creature?

 

[Forever Atlas]

While I hold Christian beliefs and am not an atheist, I guess I can relate up to a point to many of their personal views. I do not believe in an immortal spirit, or that all good people go to Heaven, I do not believe in a fiery Hell, and I believe that at death there is no consciousness.

The Bible itself says that death is a state of nonexistence, no consciousness, no activity, no working, etc. However, I do not fear it. The only thing I fear in death is not knowing how those I love will be after my death. I just worry for them - I care about them and do not want them to have to suffer in any way. I want to make sure they are cared for and that their lives continue as smoothly as possible thereafter. I don't really fear death itself.

Anyway, think of it like this: What do you remember from before you were born or even conceived? Nothing, right? You were in a state of nonexistence. When you die, it will be the same way. I guess I could see how that might be scary for some and ultimately it comes down to each individual. At the same time, I don't think you have to believe in an afterlife of some sort to have hope for yourself or others. In addition many can feel that their life is complete and was lived in full without a hope of an afterlife and die in peace.

However, on the other side of the coin, there may be those who make a last ditch effort on their death bed to try and find God because they do fear death and the unknown. It really comes down to each person I guess.

Just my input.

 

[Wehrmacht]

What good is life if it is not eternal?

If life was eternal and could not be taken away, what value would it really have? It´s only because of how fragile and finite it is that it has any value to us.

realistically speaking, death is necessary because anywhere there is a finite amount of space for lifeforms to occupy.

personally i would like to live for a really long time (centuries/millenia) but if i couldn´t die at all even if i wanted to i wouldn´t take it. there are many things worse than death.

if temporal things are worthless to you, you may as well not do anything at all and just die because everything ends at some point, except for energy.

 

[Deleted member 36435]

Neil deGrasse Tyson stops a religious troll (w/captions) - YouTube

i don't think death is scary, i perceive it as the way it was before i was born. i don't worry myself with death either, but i certainly don't rush to an early grave. what matters is what i do with my single life on earth, the difference i can make so that future generations can enjoy life as i hopefully will.

 

[Luap]

Since for most of my life I considered myself an atheist, I will answer what I used to think.

It's just nonexistence. It does sound scary. The idea, anyways. We have so many thoughts while we're living- then poof, no thoughts. You won't be scared after it has happened, because you won't exist to be scared. But the fear as it creeps up on you, as you lose the ability to have more and more thoughts, and then have one last sliver of thought that is only of fear, then nothing, everything's gone, you're dead.

Even if a person isn't scared of death while they're living, they will be scared when it's happening.

 

[Taochan]

You didn't exist before your birth and you won't exist after your death. It may be scary to think of at times but trying to follow a faith I don't believe in won't make me feel any better about it. And frankly, life is much more precious if it has an absolute end.

 

[Chuman]

How do I, an atheist, deal with death? Simple: The same way I deal with life. I'll take care of it when I get there. I would be a liar if I said the idea of nonexistence didn't drive a little fear into me, but we know nothing about death. I'm curious. Of course, I don't want to die soon. I want to live as long as possible, but not forever. But living hundreds or thousands of years would have it's drawbacks, like dementia, arthritis, things like that only worse. There's only so much a body can take. When it comes to life and death, I take everything with a grain of salt and take one step at a time. And I may be an atheist, I may not believe in God or an afterlife, but I like to think there may still be one or another. I take a scientific approach; if you have evidence, it exists. If not, it is purely fictional and/or mythological until I have reason to believe otherwise.

 

[_EX]

When I look on the internet I find people asking atheist if they are afraid of death because an atheist would not believe in an afterlife and thus to them death is the end of existence for a person.

Do you fear the time before you were born?

But there is what I don't understand. Nothing, no existence, to me that is the scariest thing possible.

That is an irrational fear. Why fear the end of everything?

The idea of not existing at all. To an atheist death is the end, nothing after. Sure if one does not exist they cannot experience fear, but isn't the idea of not existing itself so scary that it would eat away at you?

No. I dont really think you understand what non-existance is.
If you dont exist, at least to your own perception (others will still remember you after you die), is the end of everything. You have no time to think about it, you have no mind at all.
It is an uncomprehendable feeling but one that can be imagined.
If everything you know is life and that ends, there is nothing left. You dont just wait around looking over your life's choices and think about your regrets.

What good is life if it is not eternal?

No offence but this is a pathetic question. It is drenched in ignorance and arrogance.

What good is something if it isnt eternal?
Your life hasnt existed forever, right? Would you consider your life right now to be meaningful?
Does life only become meaningful after you have experienced eternity (an impossibility)?
Or, does life become meaningful while it is being experienced? If that is the case then it wouldnt matter if life were eternal. My atheist life is still meaningful without an eternity.

You may not like to think about it but we experience 'the last time' for a lot of things in our lives.
Like it or not but there will be a last time a woman breastfeeds her child. There will be a last time Tite Kubo makes a new Bleach volume.
A mother doesnt perpetually breastfeed her child yet the experience is undeniably special. Some might say it is special because it ends.

Even if life was eternal and atheists are wrong. The fact that we can find meaning in life without knowing it is eternal still proves the point that 70 odd years can be meaninful.

A temporary existence is just an existence without hope.

Lol. And who told you that? Your priest?
As far as I know, this is the only life I have. A life that will end. I have hope for the future.
What does that say? Even if I were to live forever, the 19 years that I have been alive (something undeniably less than eternity) I have experienced meaning and hope.

To me not existing is the worst possible fate that anyone could ever endure, and I wouldn't wish that on even the most vile of people.

Worse than hell? haha.
Pretty sure I will take nothing over god's violent (yet, of course, loving) torture for eternity.

If I wasn't a Christian and I wasn't absolutely convinced in life after death, and lets say that it was confirmed that death was indeed the end of existence then I would go absolutely mad with fear and I wouldn't have hope, and nothing would bring me happiness because I know it is all temporary and temporary things are useless in the end.

Fearing what, exactly?
You fear having no fear? You fear having no sadness? You fear having no pain?
You fear 'eternal' sleep?

Like I said before, you dont fear the time before you were born so why should you fear the time after you die? It seems completely irrational.

The only hope one could cling to is devoting their life to becoming a scientist or something and trying to figure the key to immortality.

Im going to tell you something that I saw in a movie I really like. It had a deep meaning to me when I thought about this kind thing.

No man nor any living thing in this world preserves their life forever. But only to men is it given to know that we must die, and that is a precious gift. This life that is both our torment and our treasure was never meant to endure for eternity. Life is a wave on the sea. Would you force the sea to grow still to save one wave? To save yourself?

So I have to ask, Atheist and please be serious on this, I don't want any joking or bashing or anything, just be serious: Isn't the idea of losing your existence scary to you? Is not the worst fate that can befall any creature?

You chose the word "losing" yet I get the fealing you mean "having lost".

You talk about it as if after losing your existance, something happens. Nothing happens. How can you fear nothing?

 

[Orion]

We were dead for billions of years before we lived, and no one seems to have had any issue with that. It's the exact same thing. Death itself is not scary, because it involves literally nothing - there is no state of being, no perception. Only the facing of it is scary.

Infinite life would be a bad thing in the material universe, and in a spiritual one I do not think it would be much better. Death gives us a scarcity of time in our life to prioritise what we want to do and achieve in our lives.

Atheists and 'non-afterlifers' face death without fear because to be fearful of it achieves nothing and will have no affect on the death itself. Worrying about death when you get ever closer to it could stress you out so much that it causes you to die even sooner than yu otherwise would have.

 

[Professor Ven]

You're going to die - why worry?

 

[Bukkake Sensei]

Atheists and 'non-afterlifers' face death without fear because to be fearful of it achieves nothing and will have no affect on the death itself.

Speak for yourself, brother. I am terrified of death, and I sincerely hope that medical technology discovers a means of eliminating it in my lifetime. No offense, but I don't buy that "well-you-didn't-exist-for-billions-of-years-before-you-were-born-so-why-is-it-an-issue-now" line of reasoning for a second. It's irrelevant. I do exist now, and I have no desire to stop existing.

So how do atheists deal with the thought of dying? Well, apparently most of them deal with it by convincing themselves that it isn't frightening. I deal with it by actively trying to prevent it from happening to me. I'm studying to become a doctor, mainly for this purpose -- I want to cheat death, or at least prolong my own lifespan by as long as possible.

 

[Taylor]

#YOLO


XD

 

[Johnny Stooge]

Speak for yourself, brother. I am terrified of death, and I sincerely hope that medical technology discovers a means of eliminating it in my lifetime. No offense, but I don't buy that "well-you-didn't-exist-for-billions-of-years-before-you-were-born-so-why-is-it-an-issue-now" line of reasoning for a second. It's irrelevant. I do exist now, and I have no desire to stop existing.

So how do atheists deal with the thought of dying? Well, apparently most of them deal with it by convincing themselves that it isn't frightening. I deal with it by actively trying to prevent it from happening to me. I'm studying to become a doctor, mainly for this purpose -- I want to cheat death, or at least prolong my own lifespan by as long as possible.

You don't think after a couple hundred years you'd just get tired?

 

[Orion]

Speak for yourself, brother. I am terrified of death, and I sincerely hope that medical technology discovers a means of eliminating it in my lifetime. No offense, but I don't buy that "well-you-didn't-exist-for-billions-of-years-before-you-were-born-so-why-is-it-an-issue-now" line of reasoning for a second. It's irrelevant. I do exist now, and I have no desire to stop existing.

Well, you might be in luck, because a good deal of doctors working in life-extension fields (as well as futurists) believe that our generation will be the one to see life-extension procedures become effective enough that people could effectively become immortal. Not that I think immortality is a good idea, but at the same time we have to acknowledge that its exceedingly rare that anyone would be able to do all they want to in their lifetime. Me, if I were to be granted an extended lifetime, I'd like to live it with the other advances that would come out of medicine, such as genetic modification or subtle technological augmentation so I don't have to be stuck in a boring normal human body for ages.

 

[Finland]

Death scares me shitless, but it comforts me to think that I have been nonexistent for a long time before I was born and it didn't feel like anything, just like Jezza said.

I guess it's mostly fear towards losing everything I have in life. In the end I won't care, because how can a dead person care about anything? But it's that lack of everything that will scare me as long as I have emotions left.

Kind of contradicting that I'm afraid of living eternally too, with everything basically unchanged. So idk.

 

[Turn]

I deal with it by avoiding the thought.

Also, I completely disagree that life would somehow be more valuable if it were eternal. The opposite is true, IMO, for reasons including those already shared.

 

[Orion]

Just gonna go back and address MM's actual post, since I rushed my first one.

What good is life if it is not eternal? A temporary existence is just an existence without hope.

Not really, and may I ask the reverse question - what hope exists in an eternal life? Where every action can become meaningless by virtue of the fact we can endlessly repeat or, or endlessly delay it? The life of something finite is more 'worth it' than an eternal person because we can still do things that last even if we don't.

To me not existing is the worst possible fate that anyone could ever endure, and I wouldn't wish that on even the most vile of people.

But, as I said previously, every single living thing was in that state before it was born, and is no worse off because of it. We fear the idea of not existing, but we can never come to actually fear non-existence itself, because there's nothing to feel or perceive there. If anything, it's the ultimate peace for some, free of obligation and responsibility, stress and limitations, and more.

If I wasn't a Christian and I wasn't absolutely convinced in life after death, and lets say that it was confirmed that death was indeed the end of existence then I would go absolutely mad with fear and I wouldn't have hope, and nothing would bring me happiness because I know it is all temporary and temporary things are useless in the end.

Why does something have to lose all its value just because it doesn't last an eternity?

The only hope one could cling to is devoting their life to becoming a scientist or something and trying to figure the key to immortality.

Not really, you could simply do something that's going to stick with civilasation for eons - discover the laws of motion, quantum mechanics, relativity. Create art and stories that will last through thousands of generations, like the Renaissance artists and Shakespeare.

 

[▽]

Am i terrified of dying? Yes, very terrified, both of dying itself as well as the concept of not existing. It seems to me that everyone is afraid, regardless of what they say, basic human nature. As for dealing with it, you can't. There is nothing you can do about it (even if they find methods to extend life), it is inevitable. As for the value of life in either scenario, you can't really say much about it. How would this value be expressed. Besides, why would life need value anyway?

 

[_EX]

Speak for yourself, brother. I am terrified of death, and I sincerely hope that medical technology discovers a means of eliminating it in my lifetime. No offense, but I don't buy that "well-you-didn't-exist-for-billions-of-years-before-you-were-born-so-why-is-it-an-issue-now" line of reasoning for a second. It's irrelevant. I do exist now, and I have no desire to stop existing.

You wouldnt even know it if it happened.

So how do atheists deal with the thought of dying? Well, apparently most of them deal with it by convincing themselves that it isn't frightening.

It isnt even really something to fear. It is the lack of everything.
If you mean death, I agree I am a little scared about dying. I might get beaten to death and that wouldnt be very pleasant.
But, if I were suddenly zapped from existance, I wouldnt care and I dont care. There is nothing to care about.

 

[Alaude Drenxta]

I do not believe myself to have such a weak mind as to really care whether or not I exist once my body is dead.

It's life that is precious, these moments we mold as we choose. I need no comforts in death, for death is eternal peace.