I think the most difficult thing about atheism for theists to understand or accept is the lack of an afterlife. I'd like to share a few thoughts about death and the afterlife from my perspective as a sixty-something atheist.
1. An afterlife in some kind of paradise would be nice, but wishing and fantasizing won't make it so.
2. The prospect of timeless nothingness with no pain, no deadlines, no obligations is actually quite comforting.
3. Given the rate of progress in medicine and computer science, my generation may be the last that has to die anyway.
4. Hell is a fantasy dreamed up by sadists to frighten children and impose their will on others.
5. A religious heaven filled with horrors like Catholic priests, ayatollahs, televangelists, etc., actually sounds worse than hell.
6. My mind and my soul are different aspects of a very complex set of physical, chemical and electrical processes inside my brain. When my brain dies, so do I.
7. Because there is no afterlife, I place a very high value on every moment that I have in this life. The devaluation of this life is the greatest sin of religion. This is not a rehearsal. It's the main event.
8. I worry about leaving my family behind when I die, but that's part of the human condition whether there's an afterlife or not.
What thoughts do others have on life, death and the perceived need for an afterlife?
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