Because I like Morgan Freeman. And I figure death is exactly what he says, it’s nothing. Theists believe there must be something, they feel you can’t have nothing after death, and there’s many religions who believe that.
I believe he’s probably right. There’s really no evidence of an afterlife. And Larry King’s idea sounds nice to me somehow.
Get frozen then come back sometime in the future.
But in the end if there’s nothing after death there’s also nothing to fear about death either. One ceases to to be. A memory in anyone’s hearts who knew me.
Well if it all worked out well it would be one way to live on later. I doubt if I could be placed in the body of an eight-year-old-boy that I would go insane. As long as I can at least have my Fievel. LOL.
But there’s just no evidence that one’s life can go on longer any other way. I doubt it’ll matter much, there’s no afterlife so I wouldn’t have any memory of anything between that either.
algebeAtheist
I’ve seen the same in many people. Hence my support of euthanasia. Rather than dying in bits and pieces like that, I want to have a choice.
It’s a hard thing to watch even when it is not your parents.
As I worked in the medical system at the time and watched what was going on from the business end, I learned to loath nursing homes, insurance companies, doctors who make their living treating the elderly, and the entire geriatric industry. The bullshit that goes on to bill insurance companies, scam patients and families out of money, and prolong the pain and suffering of human beings in the name of health care is insane.
I have a hundred personal stories and each and every one of them would make a normal human being cry. They are that horrific.
My grandmother (born in 1899) suffered at the end. The doctors had operated before, but she relapsed. The doctors wanted to operate again, we had a family meeting, and decided that her quality of life was being ruined by those people. Instead, she was allowed to pass away quietly and with dignity.
My parents each went into care, where they died***… The facilities were of a high standard and the staff were lovely. (but mum still developed a pressure sore)
The aged care facilities can’t hide their reality; they are institutions. Mum and dad’s worlds were reduced to spaces which looked suspiciously like hospital rooms, no matter how big or how clean, bright and airy .
***Not for nothing are nursing homes called “God’s waiting grooms”
Hand on heart, I would really, truly prefer to die than to go into one of those places.
My mum was lucid until the end. She developed a diverticular bleed, usually resolved with a transfusion until the bleeding stopped. Mum was fed up, so she would only accept palliative care. That took the form of a morphine pump. Mum slipped into deep sleep. She woke only once. She asked fore ice cream, which she devoured. She then went into a coma and died12 hours later . I can think of worse deaths.
Dad was killed by ‘the old man’s friend’; pneumonia, probably helped by a little too much morphia. Dad had been severely demented and miserable for several years .We watched him die by inches and it was horrible…
Dad went into care when Mum could no longer care for him.
Mum lived with my sister for 17 years. Mum went into care at her own request when sis could no longer care for her. Eg could not lift her up when she fell down, which was frequent .Mum could no longer meet her own hygiene needs.
Mum was in care for just under a year. Although mentally excellent, her physical health began to fail almost immediately in care.
I have no one to look after me. So I guess my sibs will put me into one of those places within the next few years.
My plan is to leave when I feel myself going. I take some meds which are lethal in certain doses.
Rottnest: Yeah, I thought the place was a dump. It once held indigenous prisoners.
The Joy of Western Australia began for me when we reached Norseman and turned south.----Albany and Esperance as well as around Margaret River , wineries (ok, but over priced ,imo) and various art colonies. A great trip.
IMO - People are put in these homes to rot. Just like bananas turning black, that is what they do. The staff and the doctors do all they can to keep them breathing and their hearts beating for as long as the insurance lasts and the children are willing to pay. The day it runs out, they are shipped to a county facility.
Watch YouTube videos. Sometimes they are just dropped off outside. It’s insane. No one cares about them. The only care these facilities have is in keeping a warm paying body in a bed. Nothing else. Business is business.
Some theists in their most vulnerable moments will be honest and tell me that occasionally they have doubts about an afterlife and whether they are living a religious life in vain. They will admit that at those moments they are not sure if god exists and that there may be no afterlife after all.
Here you are, an atheist, wondering the opposite in your most vulnerable moments.
So now I ask myself how much of this is about beliefs or non beliefs and how much of this is merely about the brain and thought mechanisms and is there anything else to explain this like life experiences for example.
They should question their faith as there’s little to no actual evidence that an afterlife exists.
No one can survive death, so it amounts to an empty hope.
I guess that just amounts to wanting to enjoy what is there, even if there’s nothing after death. There’s really no evidence of an afterlife, ghosts or angels. If an afterlife existed then I figure someone would have visited me by now. But nothing, so there’s probably nothing after death.
Isaac Asimov apparently said, “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.” and maybe he’s right but yeah, me too… I simply can’t get my head around the idea of not existing anymore.
What do you know about death? Who have you watched die? How many people have you held in your arms as they passed away? We often fear the unknown. It may be the “How you die more than actual death itself?” It may not be. I don’t know because I don’t know what you know about death and dying. (EDIT - As for myself - I’ve never counted. More than most people can imagine. From infants to the elderly. From trauma to natural causes.)
One of the worst things our culture does is separate us from death. We don’t even see the animals we kill and eat. They all come neatly wrapped in plastic and nearly blood-free. If you don’t hunt or work in the field of medicine, you have likely never met death.
As for myself, I dabbled in spiritual shit for a long time as a youth. One of the analogies I held onto was that life is not a thing. “I am not a thing.” I too, am not a thing in the same way fire is not a thing. It looks like a thing. You can touch it. You can see it. It is not a thing. Fire is an event or occurrence, not a thing. It’s a process. I too, am an event, an event, a process. And, not a thing.
As it is a process, it is always moving. It is always burning. Like a candle. It burns no matter what you do. It burns because it has been lit. It is lit because you are here. It burns whether you want it to end or whether you don’t want it to end. It does not care what you think. It burns if you are enjoying your life, it burns if you are suffering. It does not care. Your fear means nothing to the process of life.
If you spend your time worrying about death, then that is how you spend your time. If you spend your time loving your wife and children, then that is how you spend your time.
Find a big black cockroach. One that can run really fast. Take it out to the sidewalk and step on it. Lookl at it, you now know everything about death that everyone else in the world knows. To die is to stop. Anything else you tell yourself about death and dying is a story. And I’m betting there is no evidence for it.
What are you afraid of? The only possible thing you can know is “I don’t know.”
I thought I put a quote in her from Mark Twain (Samuel Clemensns) but do not see it now. It’s worth repeating. " I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
… or IS it? 
… (Vincent Price “Thriller” laugh)…