Death is the end

Err... no we don't... by default you can't be irreversibly dead if you are revived....

There is no difference in the mental state of a person who is dead or a person who is irreversibly dead. "Irreversible" is simply an unfalsifiable proposition, an ever changing opinion, unless the patient's condition is beyond repair, of course. I see it as a set of goalposts which keep getting moved backwards by people with an agenda. 

However, dead is dead..and if they weren't dead there would not be any need to try to revive them.

My suspicious nerves begin to tingle when I see a devout atheist asking this question. Indeed, it tingles even more when the question is posed as a definitive statement: "Death is the end". Looks more like a challenge to the believers to me.

So I'd like to share what I feel and also comment on some of the reactions I've had from atheists and sceptics.

I have a fear of death. It is sometimes very debilitating, causing panic attacks if I dwell on the thought for too long. Yet I'm a proponent who, on balance, thinks the evidence for an afterlife is pretty good despite the concerted efforts of debunkers who seem to be increasingly grasping at straws to discredit that evidence. The responses I have had from atheists in my social arena have generally followed a similar theme: most (though not all) will deny any similar fear of death and I will usually get some kind of condescending remark suggesting that my fear of death is what makes me believe in all this afterlife nonsense. These remarks are often backed up by those they consider to be the most wise and intelligent people on the planet:

I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail.There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.

So - there are two assumptions being made here: one that I'm looking for comfort and two, that the evidence for the afterlife can be so easily dismissed as a fairy tale. My answer is that, yes, I do look for comfort but no, I don't blindly accept the evidence. In fact I am at pains to be sceptical without being dismissive. Shoddy evidence, bogus mediums or blind religious faith are of no comfort to me at all. I join forums like this to be exposed to the best of evidence with appropriate critical discussion of that evidence. By appropriate, I don't include RationalWiki style blanket denial.


Lastly, I'm yet to be convinced that atheists who present that kind of hard-line nihilistic worldview actually believe what they are preaching. It seems to me so cold and pointless yet I have people who are close to me and espouse those views and yet live their lives as though their lives have ultimate meaning; that love is more than mere brain chemicals and that altruism is "better for the soul" than personal gain and selfish goals. Some of the kindest people I know are atheists.

Me and Max need to start a new thread. The post above has aptly returned the thread to the subject.

@Kamarling - irrespective of his level of intelligence, unless Hawking has properly studied the subject of survival and the evidence to support it, his opinion is worth precisely squat as far as I can see.

Short of direct personal experience the best way to form a view as to survival is to study the body of evidence. Whilst the ideas of people who have done that are worth listening to even then one should try to form one's own opinion based on the facts recorded, not on someone else's opinion of them.

@Kamarling - irrespective of his level of intelligence, unless Hawking has properly studied the subject of survival and the evidence to support it, his opinion is worth precisely squat as far as I can see.

I agree but then I wasn't quoting Hawking in support of my own views but to illustrate how someone with his celebrity scientist persona can assume the status of an oracle to the faithful.

My suspicious nerves begin to tingle when I see a devout atheist asking this question. Indeed, it tingles even more when the question is posed as a definitive statement: "Death is the end". Looks more like a challenge to the believers to me.

So I'd like to share what I feel and also comment on some of the reactions I've had from atheists and sceptics.

I have a fear of death. It is sometimes very debilitating, causing panic attacks if I dwell on the thought for too long. Yet I'm a proponent who, on balance, thinks the evidence for an afterlife is pretty good despite the concerted efforts of debunkers who seem to be increasingly grasping at straws to discredit that evidence. The responses I have had from atheists in my social arena have generally followed a similar theme: most (though not all) will deny any similar fear of death and I will usually get some kind of condescending remark suggesting that my fear of death is what makes me believe in all this afterlife nonsense. These remarks are often backed up by those they consider to be the most wise and intelligent people on the planet:


So - there are two assumptions being made here: one that I'm looking for comfort and two, that the evidence for the afterlife can be so easily dismissed as a fairy tale. My answer is that, yes, I do look for comfort but no, I don't blindly accept the evidence. In fact I am at pains to be sceptical without being dismissive. Shoddy evidence, bogus mediums or blind religious faith are of no comfort to me at all. I join forums like this to be exposed to the best of evidence with appropriate critical discussion of that evidence. By appropriate, I don't include RationalWiki style blanket denial.


Lastly, I'm yet to be convinced that atheists who present that kind of hard-line nihilistic worldview actually believe what they are preaching. It seems to me so cold and pointless yet I have people who are close to me and espouse those views and yet live their lives as though their lives have ultimate meaning; that love is more than mere brain chemicals and that altruism is "better for the soul" than personal gain and selfish goals. Some of the kindest people I know are atheists.

Kamarling- Just curious. Have you read any books on the subject of evidence of the continuation of consciousness? There are many out there, and several are packed with evidence that is hard to refute. For me personally, I found the most compelling evidence to start with, was that associated with reincarnation.

I agree but then I wasn't quoting Hawking in support of my own views but to illustrate how someone with his celebrity scientist persona can assume the status of an oracle to the faithful.

True. Apologies I hadn't read the comment properly.

You wrote: "Certain New Atheists (and their acolytes in pop culture) have used the "born from nothing, return to nothing" concept as a source of comfort: nothing gained, nothing lost, as it were. I big to differ; after a lifetime of experiences, if death is it, then everything is lost."

I'm not saying that at all. I am saying individuals of extinct human species full of experiences have lived and died. All of their experiences have been lost. Their existence means nothing. So too will our experiences be lost and our existence mean nothing if we dont leave this planet. There is no existential meaning. In a nutshel it's all for naught to fret over.  You've got to take a non parochial perspective. Personally it would be nice to know, not hope, death is not the end. I'm inclined to death is final.  I've had a during my lifetime a lot of personal experience with death. I accept that likelyhood without angst. It's a position I have never wavered from.

The notion that existence means nothing isn't any source of comfort either, and I have no idea how or why anyone should take it as such. Dawkins has sneered at such concerns, calling them arrogant, but I don't see the arrogance in wondering/hoping that life has a point (not necessarily the point) beyond random arrangements of matter. Lawrence Krauss once claimed that a life with no existential meaning absolves us of responsibility, but that doesn't strike me as a healthy attitude; one could carry that to extremes that undermine any notion of morality.

Cutting off any possibility for life beyond its mechanics strikes me as the parochial view, not a curiosity that there might be more to it, IMO.

My own take on this is that if people realise death is the end and embrace it then life will be seen as more precious to them, for example they will realise that it only comes once to each person therefore they will appreciate it more, it is more special. You will try and achieve more in your life and appreciate the one life that you have.

A lot of crimes have been linked to peoples belief in an afterlife. Look at those suicidal bombers and terrorists, they do not appreciate life because they think they live forever.

I can, to a certain extent, understand the attitude that life is more precious if it is finite. For other people, the idea of life being nothing but a brief material existence that vanishes without a trace upon death can lead them to regard it as meaningless and to idle away their days at unproductive mediocrity, a slow suicide of crude vices, or other unhappy lives. It's not an issue where you're ever likely to get a vast majority of humanity to agree one way or the other.

But I think your attempt to blame a belief in an afterlife on certain crimes is overly simplistic. A suicide bomber committed to an extreme sect of a certain religion is one man; there are millions of adherents to that religion who may believe in a hereafter but commit no crimes. As I just said, a certain attitude in the face of annihilation upon death, carried to extremes, can result in amorality and nihilism, but that wouldn't mean the majority of skeptics and atheists had been sold on that idea.

Sorry, Ipso

I'm lost that's okay though

you're not missing anything by it. however... never explain a joke

It always bugged me when many of the well known atheist types say things like this more or less, "i am not afraid that death is the end of my existence. the world is so rich in scientific wonder, that my brief time alive is totally enriched by it all".... sounds to me like they be whistling past the graveyard, lol