Atheists and agnostics, in the end, how would you face the inevitable?

I shall cross that bridge when I arrive at it.

Assuming I die an old man snug in a bed as opposed to violently in some type of complex plot twist, I plan to face death with an almost scientific curiosity, if I’m sure that it is coming. I don’t know what will happen to the little spark that makes me who I am, but I find comfort in the fact that my molecules will break down and be reborn again one day as something new.

I don’t believe there is a “next life,” and my own hope for my final moments is that I’ll be at peace and know that I’ve left something good behind me.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I would like my molecules to coalesce looking like Adonis with tiger blood running in my veins. Lol.

Hoping that, for once, I was wrong.

I comfort myself with the idea that I go back to the state I was in before I was born.

Well in the couple brushes I’ve had that allowed me to consider it I’ve done ok, so I’m hoping to face it much the same way I’ve tried to live, enjoying the journey with a sense of wonder.

But I guess it depends on how I go – thrashing about while being fed feet first into a wood chipper would really put a damper on the whole zen thing.

I think leading a good, honest, hard working life should be good enough whatever happens. I don’t believe in God. I am not a good person for “God” in the hope of eternal happiness or whatever, I am a good person because I think its good to be good.
When I die I will die knowing I have loved, have been loved, have had great fun and touched peoples lives. That’s all I need.

Also, I should note that I am immune to Pascal’s Wager.

@bongo – nicely said!

I’ll worry about it when I get there. It depends on how I’m dying. I imagine it will just be acceptance, though. It happens lol.

I’m more afraid of dying than of being dead. I don’t see how a belief in G-d would change that.

@rebbel Which state or region (?) in the Netherlands was that?

I’ll embrace death. I’d be curious as to what, if anything, will happen after that. But I’d make sure the life I lived would be one where I lived it to the full. I don’t want to leave anything upon chance.

There is no “next life”. I have no qualms about death – not looking forward to it, but it is an inevitable part of being mortal, and we all have to accept that. I don’t need to pretend that there’s someplace nice and comforting on “the other side” of it in order to accept my mortality. I realize that for many Christians, the fear of death is a powerful motivator for believing in a god and an afterlife, but I just don’t feel that.

I expect nothingness and that doesn’t bother me at all. If I’m wrong; I’m wrong. I also walk under ladders if there is no one on them and black cats or any other color are fine with me. However, I do NOT step on cracks. I hopscotch them

Get a hot broad, have some fun, give death the finger and tap out.

Very sorry to hear about your friend.

Well we’re all potentially as close to death as we can get without actually being dead at pretty much any moment. So I guess, sad as I might be to go, I’d just take comfort in the fact that I always knew it was coming, and everyone dies, whether they believe in this or that or the other.

Which makes me now wonder about atheists and agnostics, who do not have a God to rely on for what could be an assurance that they will be taken care of in the next life. Elucidate on the construct of a next life, without an afterlife? Am I to assume people regurgitate in some form of reincarnation? If this is all we are suppose to have, and once dead, you go zip, off to oblivion, the great white zephrum, nothingness, etc, where would this next life be, and how? Then maybe I can speculate someone who had no Living God would, or could lean on, providing they had a sentient mind to know so.

@Hypocrisy_Central, why would you speculate on how atheists or agnostics would face death if we are already answering the question, as requested? Surely the answers are here for you to discover.

@Sunny2 :-) Uteresecht, Wombatistan.

I don’t think atheists ‘face’ death any differently than theists. There is only uncertainty, regardless of whether and to what extent one believes in an afterlife or a god.

@rebbel Very good. I understand the weather there is warm and wet all the time. (I initially misconstrued the first into something like Utrecht and the second as wombat-istan until I caught on.)

Thank you!
Wet and warm, indeed.
Today was cold, but sunny too!

As an Agnostic, I am open to possibilities of what happens after we die. I do not believe, however, that we go to a place called heaven where everyone is happy again. The point of life is to fully live it and appreciate it. When you are faced with death, if you know that you have lived your life to the best and fullest of its potential, what comes next is nothing more than another step in the journey and it is one that we all take.

Agnostic. I just assume, if there is a God, he would be too impressive for me to understand. I would be an ant trying to figure out Einstein talking about space time.

Everybody dies, and I assume, when I know it is coming I will be afraid. If there is a God I will know soon enough, if there is not, I won’t be worried about it.

What is this next life you speak of, and what evidence have you to show for it? If there’s something I should know about, I’d like to study it.

Also, I plan to use whatever means necessary to stave off said death. It sounds rather boring. Won’t be able to get much reading in.

Also, also, in the event I’m unable to stave off said death, I plan to go in a blaze of glory. I suspect this won’t leave much time for introspection regarding deities which probably don’t exist.

Like my co-conspirator, @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard, I also developed a healthy resistance against Pascal’s wager. I want to leave this Earth the most violent and chaotic way possible.
Self-edit: I just want to clarify that this doesn’t mean I want to cause harm to other people.

pascal’s wager is probably the weakest argument for conversion ever conceived

@ragingloli Agreed. So the bet is that the consequences of not believing in god are too great, so we should just do that just in case. How about this? There’s actually a god who only rewards those who were atheists in life, and those who believed in a god will be tortured for all eternity. Do you really want to risk that? You’d better give up your beliefs right away.

Ridiculous.

There is no “next life”, so there is nothing to worry about in regards to being “taken care of”. Does it suck that we’ll one day cease to exist? Of course. Is there anything anyone can do about it? Nope. Does the realization that we’ll eventually cease to exist magically make me think there’s a supernatural being who will prevent that from occurring? Of course not.

@Michael_Huntington how do you plan on dying? I always wanted to go out by detonating C4 on a nuclear-armed Nazi submarine that was on its way to bomb NYC just in the nick of time to save millions of lives.

@ragingloli, pretty much. Especially since it is so easy to poke holes in that a 5 year old could refute it. Even so, it is still in very common useage among believers of many stripes, so it never hurts to be prepared to undermine it.

Hopefully when I reach that point I’ll feel that I’ve led a full and interesting life, and that I’ve been a good person. No need to sell myself a bill of goods about an “after-life”.

I bet if God’s real, he doesn’t like the idea of Pascal’s Wager. People believing just in case, as opposed to having faith because they truly want it. That Pascal guy was a douche. XD

Me, I denno. I’ll find out when I’m on the verge of death, I guess. I’m just hoping my death won’t hurt too much lol. I’m sure I’ll be afraid, but if I was to believe in God, I’m sure there are many things in my life that would have convinced me to do so long ago.

@Symbeline excellent point.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard Well, it’s a bit tamer than that, heh. Mine would probably be death by exhaustion from partying hard to the music of Ministry.

Why would I need reassurance as I neared death? What would I need reassurance about? I live every day as if it were the last, and I always do what I think is the most important thing to do at the time. I have no regrets. If I am dead, I won’t know it, so again, what reassurance do I need?

@Michael_Huntington that’s certainly excusable.

A next life is not inevitable – that’s how I deal with it.

@Symbeline I have had Christians try to sway me with Pascal’s wager, and I find that incredible! How anyone can call that faith, and expect it to pass for faith in the eyes of a judgmental god is beyond me.

@dappled_leaves Ha, yeah. I had one guy tell me he believes because he’s too scared of what might happen after death if he didn’t. That doesn’t seem to sit too right…I don’t think that’s the point of having faith lol. Then again, in The Bible, God just points and gives orders, so maybe He just dun give a fuck. XD

@Simone_De_Beauvoir just out of curiosity, how do you personally conceive of a “next life” if you don’t mind my asking and if you have a definitive answer?

There isn’t any way to spin it. Dying sucks and I would much rather live forever.

Depending on age and circumstances I would want to make sure I got to say my goodbyes and make it as pleasant as possible for those close to me.

Happily. Blissful oblivion sounds wonderful.

@Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard I, nor anyone else, have an answer to that question. There is no way to know but if I was to theorize…it doesn’t look like anything people have created via religion, that’s for sure…it’s possible it might have to do with alternate dimensions.

With my family, friends, and memories at my side. Hoping that when I close my eyes and die, that my family lives on with enjoying every moment of their lives.

If there is a god, and he is in fact as forgiving as people say he is, then he will forgive me when I get there. That’s how I see it.

I agree with @janbb.

Plus, I think I would be very sad to leave the life, that would be one of my overwhelming thoughts, especially if I were fairly young, that I am not ready to go. I don’t think about death much, my family never talked about an afterlife really. My mom mumbles every so often a possibility of it, just in case type scenerio.

I assume I will be sad and afraid. Most people are. But, acceptance also comes to most people, and I don’t think that I will be any different in that respect. I am an atheist, but I haven’t completely ruled out that there is more for me after death. Nothing that I will be consciously aware of, I imagine death to be utter nothingness, but I figure my energy has to go somewhere. Whether that means that I will feed the insects that find their way to my body or nurture the grass above me, or whatever happens to my corpse, my death will create something. I like thinking that.

It’s hard to accurately predict how you will approach something you have never faced before, and that is such a dramatic, shall we say life-changing event. I don’t know, and those who think they are secure in the hands of a possibly fictitous God don’t know either. But having thought I was going to die a couple of times already, and knowing how I felt then, I think I will face it with some level of regret and also some fascination. Anyone who is honest with themselves has to admit in their heart of hearts that they have no frigging idea what happens after death. If there is no God or spiritual plane, then once you’re dead there is no more pain or fear; and that is OK with me. If there is, then I’ll be stepping over the line to find out about it.

@ANef_is_Enuf If one believes that energy cannot be created or destroyed but can only change the kind of energy it is and life is energy, then one must assume that our life energy will change into potential energy of some kind. If I was tempted to believe in a religion, it would have to be Hinduism. My energy might make a mushroom grow. Depends on where my ashes end up. I wanted them to be dug into our blueberry bushes, but we moved and I no longer have that option. Whatever.

@Sunny2 yup, I don’t rule that out as a possibility.

@mazingerz88 I have to wonder, those of you who feel so certain that at the moment of death you will be joined with the Abrahamic God, are you not aware that there are perhaps 4 billion humans on earth who are equally certain that some other deity will be hosting their soul? Christians think they are deluded, right? They think the same of Christians. Since so many of the dieties are mutually exclusive, they can’t all be right. So surely you must see that it is just possible that Christian belief is flawed. Maybe death is the same for Christians and atheists alike.

@ETpro I was raised a Catholic and now agnostic. Early in life, I was conditioned to think that whenever in fear, in this case, of death; all I have to do is stay faithful, acknowledge Jesus as my saviour and I will be fine. My friend’s death led me to wonder as to how I might deal with my own inevitable death…now that I no longer have faith in the religion embedded in my brain since childhood.

@mazingerz88 Thanks for fleshing out the context. I hope what I’ve offered above is of some comfort to you.

With a big dumb gormless grin plastered all over my face & an open mind of course.
Being an agnostic affords me both luxuries, what a hoot!

Similar to the mujahidin warrior of Afganistan or a suicide bomber, I am already dead. I accepted over 10 year ago that I am a dead man walking. Sure, my walk may be a bit longer than someone on the green mile, but the sentence has been passed.

This following will probably make me sound like a maniac, but really, the only part of death that I don’t like is that I can only do it once. If I had my way, I would like to die a few different ways to see what it is like.

I just hope that I don’t die in my sleep, it would be such a waste. Ideally I would like to be decapitated or die some way that lets me experience something unusual, maybe being impaled or crushed could be interesting too.

When the time comes, I will no doubt find it very exciting.

@ucme Same here. I’m agnostic and I really want to know—or not.

Life… we are basically nothing. We are cells and brain… We will disappear as we die. we are nothing. our minds make us think that we have God, heaven hell but that’s cause we’re smart. but in the end, we are nothing but a fragile being that has no eternal future.

@Earthflag I suspect you are right. Here is an interesting video that makes the case for religion being man made.

By knowing the worms are going to have a good feed.

Perhaps I’ll take Dylan Thomas’ advice and “not go quietly into that good night but rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

@dappled_leaves Surely the answers are here for you to discover. The answer that seem to be lacking, is how does an atheist view a next life, when first, there should be nothing after this, from what I am told, or if there is a next life how it would differ from an after life, or reincarnation. Technically anything after this life, is an after life to know. If this is all we are suppose to have, where is the next life lived out at and for how long?

@Hypocrisy_Central Perhaps people are not answering those questions because they were not asked here. Why don’t you ask them?