[m0zg]

An atheist myself, but I imagine this has to do with the lack of eternal life after death in that case. Religious people find the idea of life after death comforting, and it's easy to understand why: most people fear death and can't comprehend their consciousness ending at some point, for the same reasons why we can't comprehend things like the big bang or infinity. There is, by definition, no example that we could perceive to comprehend it.

[yters]

No, I mean something more practical, not based in religious reasoning. If you think about it, if God does not exist, then death has no threat, since once you are dead you cease to exist and no longer care about anything. I believe this was pointed out by Epicurus.

[dragonwriter]

> If you think about it, if God does not exist, then death has no threat, since once you are dead you cease to exist and no longer care about anything.

That is exactly the threat of death, if, while alive, you value your ability to continue existing and caring about things.

Threats inherently operate by reference to your preferences before they are realized, not your preferences after they are realized. Once you have the post-realization preferences, it can't be a threat any more, because there is no longer a possibility of not realizing the consequences.

If death is non-existence, you can't be threatened after death, but death can still be a threat. You can't use the complete indifference that comes with non-existence to say that death is not a threat: it is only not a threat if you are indifferent to death while alive, which is possible (as is it's opposite) whether or not death is non-existence.

[coldtea]

It was pointed out, but it was always a cheap parlor trick.

"You cease to exist after death, so what's to fear?"

"Well, my fear is that I will cease to exist, Einstein!"

Fear doesn't have to be with something in the future being painful. We also fear something not being how we want it to be (in this case, we want to continue existing, and death prevents that).

>since once you are dead you cease to exist and no longer care about anything

That's an argument about we wont feel fear after death.

It's not an argument about we can't fear death itself...

[Shorel]

Yes, but this reasoning seems to put too much value on the last moments of your life and the actual act of dying.

I would say it's all the other moments that make life valuable, not its end.

[sharkmerry]

why is death a "threat"? im not sure what you are intending to say.

Epicurus said death is the end of body & soul, therefore not to be feared. Im not sure I agree with that nor the inverse, if god exists, death is to be feared? Why?

[yters]

The notion of God and and eternal reward or punishment are quite often tied together. It is hard to see one without the other.

Hence, if God exists and there is eternal punishment, that is a little bit scary.

[RaceWon]

> The notion of God and and eternal reward or punishment are quite often tied together. It is hard to see one without the other.

The most brilliant marketing plan ever devised. It just awes the salesman in me... Brilliant!

[yters]

It is strange that a creator would understand the motivations of his creation.

[sharkmerry]

>Hence, if God exists and there is eternal punishment, that is a little bit scary

Eternal punishment only exists if you arent a good person right? Heaven isnt eternal punishment?

[yters]

According to Christianity (and a number of other religions), no one is good enough for heaven. We have to be perfect, and no one is perfect. So, if Christianity is true, one cannot be a 'good atheist' and hope to get an eternal reward, i.e. being a 'good atheist' is not a loophole that works in both worldviews.

[outworlder]

> Heaven isnt eternal punishment?

It could be. Think of all the boring people that would supposedly be in there. Now think that you get to spend infinity time with them.

[NateEag]

Newton and Pascal are boring, I suppose.

Certainly one wouldn't want to live in a place where J. S. Bach got to write music for eternity. Imagine the torture.

[m0zg]

You can't think "rationally" about death. It's literally incomprehensible to a human mind, when the object of death is that mind itself.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

What do you mean when you say you can't think about it rationally? There are enough survivable experiences physiologically similar to death that we can make some pretty good guesses as to what the experience leading up to it is like. And it would be incoherent to talk about the experience of being dead, because it is no experience at all (as before we were born). We know quite a bit about what happens when we die, and we have literally billions of exemplars of the event. I would say in almost every meaningful way we can think about it fairly rationally. (Whether we choose to is another question.)

[m0zg]

But they aren't "death" death, like Whoopi Goldberg would say. You can't comprehend something that requires your consciousness to cease to exist in order to fully comprehend it.

In other words, "we" have some abstract ideas about what happens when "we" die, but it's fundamentally impossible for you, the individual, to imagine what happens when _you_ die.

[coldtea]

>What do you mean when you say you can't think about it rationally? There are enough survivable experiences physiologically similar to death

That makes no sense. There are some experiences of coming close to death, or what doctors consider death -- which is the mind/organs shutting down, etc.

There is (and can't be) no experience of actual permanent death though, nor has a dead person recounted their experience while a dead person.

The ones retelling the experience are always alive when they do it.

[asdfasgasdgasdg]

Of course. But I would think the experience of falling into a coma after a hypoxic event would convey all the same conscious experiences of death. That would be what it would feel like, until you were unconscious. Then, by definition, you would feel no more.

[coldtea]

>But I would think the experience of falling into a coma after a hypoxic event would convey all the same conscious experiences of death.

I'd say so.