NationStates Jolt Archive

We get a lot of Atheist/Christian flamewars here at Nationstates. It seems that everyone is willing to tell all and sundry what they believe and why they believe it, even when no-one asks. I thought I'd do you all a favour by asking a question that has piqued my interest for some time:

Is god belief relevant to the comprehension of one's impending death? I'm interested to see if people who have god-belief have experienced moments where they believed they were about to die (serious illness, accident, etc) and whether their god-belief became more or less important in the face of death. Alternatively, and probably even more significantly, I'm curious to know if atheists have experienced similar moments where they believed they were going to die, and whether those moments of mortality comprehension made them consider momentarily a belief in god, at least as a source of comfort?

PS: in light of potential confusion, I feel it necessary to specify that god-belief does not refer exclusively to Christianity. There are a whole lotta religions out there which subscribe to a god belief. Likewise, there are a whole lotta people who define themselves as god-believers, and yet do not subscribe to any specific religion. I'm interested in all god belief, not just the kind that comes free with a church membership.

http://wadejq.blogspot.com/2005/02/skepticsatheists-attitude-towards.html


When Death Comes Knockin’, Who Ya Gonna Call?
By David Voron

A Review of Facing Death: Epicurus and His Critics
by James Warren, 2004, New York: Oxford University Press, 240 pp.

We skeptics must face death without the consolation of a religious person’s belief in an afterlife. When our heart stops beating and our neurons stop firing, there will be no pearly gates waiting for us. We have no image of a transcendent suprahuman being to provide us with solace as the end approaches. So, when Death comes knockin’, who ya gonna call? Epicurus, the death-buster, that’s who! says James Warren, author of Facing Death: Epicurus and His Critics.

Epicurus (341-270 B.C.) is the founder of Epicureanism, one of the schools of thought, along with Stoicism and Skepticism, that dominated philosophy during the Hellenistic Period—the three centuries beginning with the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. and ending, by convention, with the victory of Octavian over Mark Antony in 31 B.C. Today, “epicurean” means enjoying sensual pleasures and possessing sensitive and discriminating tastes. However, Epicurus himself, and Hellenistic Epicureanism in general, advocated the pursuit of simple pleasures such as friendship and aesthetic contemplation. In his Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus writes:

For it is not continuous drinking and revels, nor the enjoyment of women and young boys, nor of fish and other viands, that a luxurious table holds, which make for a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, which examines the motives for every choice and avoidance, and which drives away those opinions resulting in the greatest disturbance to the soul.

Among “those opinions resulting in the greatest disturbance to the soul,” according to Epicurus, were religious beliefs and the fear of death. Epicurus disputed the foundations of popular Greek religion, which he recognized as the source of the fear of divine judgment and eternal punishment. Warren quotes Epicurus’ Tetrapharmakos, his fourfold remedy for these disturbances of the soul:

God should not concern us.
Death is not to be feared.
What is good is easy to obtain.
What is bad is easily avoided.

That “death is not to be feared” asserts Epicurus, can be demonstrated by rational argument. The simple summation of Epicurus’ thesis is his well-known statement that “death is nothing to us” because at the moment we die—the instant we cease to exist—we experience nothing. As Warren says, “for something to be good or bad for some person, that something . . . must be perceived by that person.” Death is not perceived by the individual because the cessation of life marks the cessation of all sensation, including that of physical and mental pain. Death is merely the termination of a stream of consciousness. It is unreasonable, says Epicurus, for us to be fearful of a future event that will not harm us when it occurs. “What is no trouble when it arrives is an idle worry in anticipation,” Epicurus explains in his Letter to Menoeceus. Warren notes that Epicurus limits his thesis to the attitude he believes it is reasonable for the individual to hold regarding his or her own death, not to pain before death, or to the death of others.

Epicurus grants that it is not irrational to fear the possibility of pain prior to death, or to the experience of losing a loved one. However, if we have a dying friend or family member who approaches death with an Epicurean perspective, some of the pain of our own grief may be lifted. Additionally, says Epicurus, the fact that “death is nothing to us,” does not prevent us from recollecting with fondness pleasant memories of our loved ones. In fact, looking back allows us to edit out past painful experiences by simply choosing not to recall them.

Of course, our anxieties about death reflect not just the fear of ceasing to exist, but also the awareness of having something precious taken away from us, of being eternally deprived of an existence that would have continued to yield pleasure. Epicurus’ response to this challenge is that ataraxia (the Hellenistic term for tranquility or imperturbability), not duration, is the criterion of a life well lived. Once ataraxia has been achieved, happiness cannot be augmented, either by more accomplishments or by a longer life. This notion may be difficult to accept for those who see life as a coherent narrative with a beginning, middle, and end. According to this view, our lives have a “plot,” which must be played out in order to be complete. The fear of death significantly relies on this disposition to see one’s life as an unfolding story.

For Epicurus, this narrative structure—the way many people experience their being in time—is just an arbitrary conceptual construction. The important questions are not “What have I made of my life?” or “What will I make of my life?” but “How am I right now?” It is the present-shaping consequences of the past and our attitude to the future that matter, not the past and future as such. If I am experiencing ataraxia, I am a perfected Epicurean, and logging in more months or years, or attaining more goods or honors, is beside the point. From this perspective, death deprives me of nothing and is nothing to be feared. In the words of the Epicurean philosopher Philodemus:

The one who understands, having grasped that he is capable of achieving everything sufficient for the good life, immediately and for the rest of his life walks about already ready for burial, and enjoys the single day as if it were eternity.

Warren notes that Philodemus’ observation is reminiscent of Wittgenstein’s affirmation that “he lives eternally who lives in the present.” They also bring to mind Alan Watts’ conclusion that “life requires no future to complete itself, nor explanation to justify itself. In this moment it is finished.”

As the subtitle suggests, Warren also engages Epicurus’ critics. Perhaps the most effective argument potentially undermining the Epicurean perspective is that it is at odds with our visceral emotions. Warren concedes that logic may simply not be powerful enough to overcome the fear of death. Reason must compete with other intuitive, possibly innate, and unconscious sources of motivation. Warren grants that, “it is possible to claim that the fear of death is a crucial evolutionary product, ‘hard-wired,’ as it were, into our minds in order to allow us to survive.” Of course, if death is in fact bound up in the structure of our brains, we are stuck, and the Epicurean project is dead in the water. However, as Warren puts it, “if it is possible to live a human life without fearing death then fearing death is not essential to being human.” Only our own subjective and attentive response to Epicurus’ philosophy can answer the question of whether the fear of death can be overcome. Those of us who respond to Epicurus’ reasoning can say to him, along with Diogenes of Oinoanda: “I agree with what you say about death, and you have persuaded me to laugh in its face.”

Doubters of Diogenes will say he is whistling in the dark, and that attempting to reason oneself out of the fear of death is folly. They will say that our adult attitudes toward death are too deeply embedded to be modified. But are they? If we recognize that our view of death is molded during childhood and reinforced over many years by the cultures into which we are born, we will see that it is a constructed concept subject to rebuilding. As Warren says, “For the Epicurean, learning to think about death correctly is an integral part of living a good life.” Expecting Epicurus to convert us overnight to his “death is nothing to us” perspective may be asking too much, but his project is a worthy one. His reasoning, well explicated by Warren, is sound, and his philosophy, if understood and applied, is literally life changing. Epicureanism does have the potential to emancipate us from the fear of death. Thus freed, we see life in a new light.



Author David A. Voron, M.D., has been in the private practice of dermatology in Arcadia, California, since 1974. He is past president of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Dermatology Society and currently a media spokesperson for the American Academy of Dermatology. Dr. Voron is board certified in dermatology and dermatopathology, and is a Clinical Professor Emeritus at the Keck USC School of Medicine. He has been a reviewer for the Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology and has authored fourteen medical publications.

Permission to print, distribute, and post with proper citation and acknowledgment. Copyright 2004 Michael Shermer, Skeptics Society, Skeptic magazine, e-Skeptic magazine. Contact at www.skeptic.com and skepticmag@aol.com.

Well, I've never had a brush with death, but as an atheist, I imagine that were I to reach that point, I would not 'turn to' God for comfort or whatever. My belief is that when we die, we die. Nothing more. My rationale is therefore, "what is there to fear?" but of course it's very difficult to conceive of not conceiving at all.

I know there's this philosophical argument that we should believe in God 'on the off chance' - there's nothing to lose (I'm sorry, but I forget the philosopher in question), but of course if there is a God, he's going to know that the belief was only based on this premise, rather than true love and worship of him.

Similarly, if there is a God, surely he will know should I become terminally ill or whatever that I am only turning to him for that reason? I know a counter-argument to that is "well, you'll come to love him in time" (assuming I have time!), but it still strikes me as a fundamentally poor reason to become a Christian. Each to their own, however.

I used to be terribly afraid of death and of the possibility that there may be no afterlife until I had an experience. I was knifed by a skinhead (this is why I now spend so much time indoors) and had to go to hospital. Although it hurt like hell, I was very conscious of the fact that I was dying and was pretty interested in what I was experiencing. I didn't encounter any of the cliches... no life flashing... I did black out a bit... similar to when you jump out of bed too fast and you black out without losing consciousness... kind of like that. There was nothing and it was very like... 'O. Okay then. So I die and that's it. Okay' and it didn't seem that important suddenly. So I survived (obviously) and ever since then I've turned nihilist, acknowledge that there is no afterlife, been a LOT happier and wondered why I spend so much time on nationstates. :)

Christina

when i was falling to the ground head first and assumed i was going to die a couple things happened. my thoughts became very clear and i had time to think several different things in the second or two before i hit. the first was "oh great, i'm going to die." the second was "hah, so much for school's safe after-prom party making sure nobody dies." no fear, no life flashing before the eyes, no nothing. the fall did seem to slow down a bit, and then speed back up again when i hit - like a movie.

luckily for me, instead of my head hitting and my neck snapping, my head hit and skidded forward, allowing my shoulders to hit relatively smoothly. all i got out of the deal was a painful hyperextended back and a couple minutes of being unable to walk.