I'm writing this because of a thread in the Atheists group over at Nerdfighters.
How does an atheist deal with the subject of death? I can, of course, only tell it from my own perspective, and not for atheists in general. But in my opinion, the best way to deal with death is to accept it for what it is; The end of a life. It is all we can know it is, and if you ask me, thinking about it as anything else is nothing but a waste of time.
No one will gain anything from pondering what might be after someone dies; If they are in some kind of heaven or hell, if they live on as spirits, if they have been reincarnated as someone or something else... And particularly not from thinking about the possibilities of contacting the dead and stuff like that. If you really care about someone that have died, focus on what they were in life instead. Don't throw away their memory, and your life, desperately seeking what is impossible.
I, personally, find more comfort in the thought that there is nothing after death, than anything else. I don't see any upsides to any of the after-death theories. I don't want to think of this life as anything less than what it is, just because of some peoples unconfirmable claims of some kind of life after death. I mean, what is the point of this life if it's just some kind "test" for what comes after? And if it is just a test, why don't we know, without a doubt, the conditions of the test, and what it is that comes after? How can there be so many different variants of this test recorded throughout human history? It doesn't make sense.
It makes more sense to me that when you die there's nothing, that everything that defines me as a person simply ceases to exist. I don't believe there's anything even remotely related to a "soul", but that our personality is stored within our brain, as a result of genetics, social interaction and experience, and that when our brains shut down our personalities go with it.
This is also the reason why I feel no real relationship to whats left after someone has died, why I don't see the point of treating a persons body in any particular way, and why I don't fell any reason to visit someones grave. I don't even visit my fathers grave, which annoys my grandmother. But I just don't feel there is anything there for me to visit. Whatever is left there is not my father. It's just a shell. And not even that, as he was cremated.
So yeah, that's my opinions on, and sort of how I deal with, death.
No one will gain anything from pondering what might be after someone dies; If they are in some kind of heaven or hell, if they live on as spirits, if they have been reincarnated as someone or something else... And particularly not from thinking about the possibilities of contacting the dead and stuff like that. If you really care about someone that have died, focus on what they were in life instead. Don't throw away their memory, and your life, desperately seeking what is impossible.
I, personally, find more comfort in the thought that there is nothing after death, than anything else. I don't see any upsides to any of the after-death theories. I don't want to think of this life as anything less than what it is, just because of some peoples unconfirmable claims of some kind of life after death. I mean, what is the point of this life if it's just some kind "test" for what comes after? And if it is just a test, why don't we know, without a doubt, the conditions of the test, and what it is that comes after? How can there be so many different variants of this test recorded throughout human history? It doesn't make sense.
It makes more sense to me that when you die there's nothing, that everything that defines me as a person simply ceases to exist. I don't believe there's anything even remotely related to a "soul", but that our personality is stored within our brain, as a result of genetics, social interaction and experience, and that when our brains shut down our personalities go with it.
This is also the reason why I feel no real relationship to whats left after someone has died, why I don't see the point of treating a persons body in any particular way, and why I don't fell any reason to visit someones grave. I don't even visit my fathers grave, which annoys my grandmother. But I just don't feel there is anything there for me to visit. Whatever is left there is not my father. It's just a shell. And not even that, as he was cremated.
So yeah, that's my opinions on, and sort of how I deal with, death.
I would have to agree with you. There exists no data to indicate that our cognitive abilities survive the death of the body and the brain. The only way a person "lives on" is in the minds of other people.
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