Observations and inanities by a second-shift assistant supervisor in the Puppy-Grinding division of the Evil Atheist Conspiracy® (our motto: "Sure it's cruel, but think of the jobs!"), your host, Brent Rasmussen.
Fear Factors
We have all asked ourselves and each other the same questions lately. Why do religious folks hate atheists? Why do they assert that an atheist is a "militant fundamentalist" when that atheist has merely written a book? Or talked about their lack of religious belief, or their skepticism towards all things supernatural?
After all, we generally don't call a religious person a "militant fundamentalist" unless they are strapping bombs to their chests, flying planes into buildings, stabbing their child for being possessed by a demon, or getting all lathered up at the televised pulpit and calling for a theocracy in America and advocating violence towards the heathen sekoolar hewmanist librul college perfesser elitist homasexshul-loving intelleckshuls.
I think it is the fear of death. In other words, I think it is evolution in action - the survival instinct. Except that it is operating without a guiding intelligence and awareness - just instinct. The blind groping for meaning and structure - any structure. Like the structure that a religion provides.
Well, rational thinking provides a structure too - and it is much closer to reality than religion.
I can only speak for myself, but I am not afraid of death at all. I came to grips with my own mortality years ago. My legacy will survive genetically in my five children and grandchild(ren), and hopefully in the memories of my family and friends. For a while at least. I hold no illusions regarding my importance in the human society comprised of the billions of people on our planet.
But that's OK with me. I will not know any different in any case. I will be dead. No big whoop. Happens to everyone, eventually. Oh, I am attempting to extend my life, because believe it or not, the survival instinct is strong in me too. I look both ways before crossing the street, drive defensively, and I have finally quit smoking (thanks modern pharmacological science!)
But the death thing really doesn't bother me all that much. I mean, why get worked up about it? There is really nothing you can do to prevent it in the end. It'll happen, regardless, so why worry about it? Try and live as long as you can, sure, but don't kid yourself about finding an "out" for the final curtain call. It doesn't exist yet. (The transhumanists may think we are going to eliminate death one day scientifically, but I am not holding my breath for that breakthrough either. If it comes, it comes. Fantastic! If not, well, at least I wasn't holding my breath!)
Most atheists I know hold attitudes towards death similar to my own. I wonder if this is the reason why theists seem to hate the fact that we even exist?
They have created these towering fantasy edifices about lives after their physical deaths. These fairy tales are populated by magical god-men, human non-physical ghosts, and winged supernatural angels and cherubs. There are magic cities with streets paved in gold, and an eternal, glowing, happy-land existence that is contingent on on just shutting your rational brain down and believing it all without any evidence whatsoever, on the word of your local shaman.
Yeesh.
I think that in a way they sense that we have stumbled into the cold, hard light of the truth of the matter. And it irks them at a level that demands that we be shunned as "the other". Hated, feared (much like their invisible angry deity) for having the unmitigated gall to doubt their fantasies, and to show them to be absolutely false in some cases.
Well, that's what I think, anyway. :) What is your take on it? Do you fear death?
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Late to the game
But I didn't want to pass up this thread.
Conceptually, I understand that when I am dead, nothing will matter because I won't know that I don't exist anymore. But thinking about it, it isn't fear that I feel, it's remorse. I know I will leave behind those whom I love and who love me. The closeness of family and friends, well, I think of not experiencing that anymore and it does make me sad. I can't brag or boast that I'm not afraid of death because the truth is I don't want to die. Period.
My sons and I had a conversation about the after life not too long ago. Our view was unanimous - the only reason we would want to live forever or exist in Heaven is to be near each other. If that wasn't possible, then what's the point?
Heh.
Can't tell you how many times I've heard things (in chat rooms) like "You'll be burning in Hell and I'll be up in Heaven watching and I'll just laugh and laugh."
So there are a few other reasons to exist in Heaven.
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Interesting matter too with living forever. Two or three times in the past, I've asked around, both personally and in chat rooms, "If you could live 500 years, would you?"
Even aside from the dopey comments about "Well, you'd be really old and decrepit by then" (if they can keep you alive that long, they can also make you or keep you young), the most common answers were "No, I'd be bored!" and "Why would you want to?"
Both of those answers are, to me, so stupid as to be unbelievable. I mean I really can't get my head around why someone would say no. And those answers come INSTANTLY.
I don't THINK I'm all that different from regular people. But ... all I see are possibilities. Endless adventure. New things. The time to do things well. Time to get really good at the things you cared to do. Time to see the ends of the stories: Did we make it into space? Did they find cures for cancer? How does history remember Bush? Did we ever get over racism? What happened with artificial intelligence? Genetic engineering? Petroleum? Cheez Whiz?
Instead ... "No, I'd be bored!" and "Why would you want to?"
Yuck.
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Side Note: I love that portrait of Mark Twain. He's been one of my lifelong heroes (even though Huck Finn truly sucked). He's one of the people who really got to be a human, instead of just another one of the monkeys, like most of the rest of us. Cynicism and all, he seems like someone who would have been a kindred spirit.
Also, Sudo, I'm enjoying reading you. You've made me think. (Though I still think Rush Limbaugh should be in jail. Or maybe stranded naked in the desert with Chyna and only enough sunscreen for one.)
Hate once removed is still hate
I think Steve James has explained very well how the believer perceives the atheist, at least it helped me to get a better mental picture. From my own experience among some very dear Christians I have insight into their interpretation of life and its moments of import the last of which is of course common and final. Death aka The Big Nothing.
From my own experiences when I thought I was about to die (horses, motorcycles, high places) I don't think I'll fear death when it comes since on those occasions there wasn't fear but a focus on not dying. At the same time I was calmly accepting that these were really my last seconds. That is all. Whether by my own actions or not I'm still kicking. But I can make myself very uncomfortable if I dwell on the idea. It is a kind of fear, I guess, kept small by the fact that I know it's going to happen no matter what and the worry is of no use, wasted time and energy.
What Steve had to say jogged something and I started to think about a common trait of all religions, the supernatural world. It's quite densely populated, I've been told. Many of the otherwise functioning people I've known assert that certain of life's irritations, discomforts, worries, failures and certainly death, have supernatural attendants, or demons, that are the carrier of the evil affliction as well as the orchestrator of its progression. For believers a chief and dreaded threat is doubt and the disbelief it harbors and it is attended by clever demons of great resource. Likewise, the nice things in life are attended by demons of another kind altogether, helpful, concerned and possessing a healing magic.
The atheist, being without faith, which is doubt to the nth power, must surely be under the thrall of demons with a more potent magic yet. There is a very real concern among believers that to associate too much with or engage an atheist in debate exposes the believer to the that very demon. They certainly fear it and, I think, hate it deeply. Fortunately for them, this is a kind of hate that they can fully justify as the demon stands for every evil, every wart, every failed crop, every disaster both natural and man-made, every loved one wasting away, ad infinitum. It is, of course, easy to see the principle of guilt by association in action here. Even the most kind and pious can know a deep down, seething abhorrence and shudder with revulsion when dwelling on the evil messengers from the other side. Just as I can scare myself if I try to put a face on my own death.
So there is hatred for atheists among the believers. The funny thing is that it is a misplaced hatred. Their hatred is aimed at an ISS* but, none being readily observable, the hatred is projected at the alleged vessel of that unspeakable evil, the atheist. I mean funny in a way that is both a little amusing and a little sad. Like watching a child learning to run and jump and then she falls and barks up both knees and cuts her hand. You know that she will one day be graceful and strong and the boo boos will heal and she will grow up. But you take her up in your arms with gentle laughter and soothing words remembering similar tragedies of your own. You know she'll live through it and you know she'll grow up. I wish I felt as confident about the believers, including some that are very close to me.
*Invisible Supernatural Spooks, another name for demons of all origins and types.
Hey ...
I missed something first time I read this comment. I want to know how you almost died with horses!
(My own nearest-death was cross-country skiing, but I've been kicked, bitten, stepped on and bucked off by horses.)
Apparently I don't
I had an incident some months ago where I passed out, but atypically it was not a sudden thing. I felt it coming on, and with a family history awash in sudden death by heart attack/circulatory failure I thought to myself "This is it." Happily I did not make any pleas to God or feel any terror in that moment. It was more along the lines of "Well that's that then." Clearly I did not die and had only a jammed finger from my descent to the floor to show for the incident, but the thought that I could well have died and was not afraid was very freeing.
Hate? No.
Lots of generalizations going on here, and none of them really qualify as accurate. For starters:
All believers hate atheists? Really? And you know this from what exactly? Reading a couple of books? Perusing the blogosphere?
I have heard about all of the flaps (such as Monique Davis' recent comments) and the hard right's calls to theocracy in the news, but do you really think that they speak for all believers, any more than Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris speak for all atheists? I am not playing the "No True Scotsman" card; I can't speak to the sincerity of their beliefs. But I can tell you that they don't speak for the majority of us.
The existence of atheists just means that somebody disagrees with believers. Responses to that fact will vary from person to person. The "rube" slur is another generalization. Are you really suggesting that all believers are rubes and all atheists are somehow smarter and more sophisticated?
The third generalization is that people who believe are somehow more fearful of death. I will ask again, how do you know this? Do you really think that you can know why I believe any better than I can know why you don't believe?
Finally, the existence of non-believers doesn't irk me personally. Gross stereotyping irks me. People implying that I am deluded, scared, or what have you because of my belief (and then saying that I hate them) irks me.
And no, I don't fear death either. If I am wrong about my beliefs, i'll never know the difference, will I?
Atheists
"Why do religious folks hate atheists?" does not equal "All believers hate atheists."
The meaning I got from "It's a slap in the face for being such rubes" is just about 180 degrees opposite of the one you got. It meant that Christians are angry at being THOUGHT to be rubes, at being treated in condescending fashion by atheists.
The extremists, the people who do all sorts of wild things in the name of their religion, including actively hating unbelievers, do exist. You can easily find explicit statements of hatred for atheists online.
I think the point is not that every Christian does it, the point is that they do exist, and that it almost never happens that all those other Christians speak out in opposition to them when they do some of their outrageous stuff. As Sam Harris (I think it was) said, the moderates provide social cover for the extremists.
The haters get press coverage as a matter of course. I'd wager the average American knows the name of Fred Phelps better than he knows the name of the Prime Minister of England.
Talking about another target group for a second: Whereas I know of numerous instances of gay people suffering torture and death as a result of a generalized -- and widely accepted -- campaign of hate on the part of nice religious folks, I don't know of any incident in the reverse. Gays don't attack and beat and kill Christians.
And neither do atheists. As an atheist, I can tell you the main motivators for social action on the part of all the ones I know seems to be something on the order of "Please stop trying to squash my right to exist and be my own person. I want to live without fear, and I think I have that right."
I don't know a single aggressive atheist. Heh -- those times when I hear Richard Dawkins, sedate British academic, described as "violent" or "strident" or "hate-filled" are darkly comic revelations of the bald hate that exists on the other end of the accusations. The people saying such things are actively, viciously lying about Dawkins. And as far as majority Christians are concerned, they get away with it every time.
There's a line drawn between us, but it's not a line of Christians and anti-Christians. It's a line between "you must be a Christian or at least obey Christian rules" and "I value true things and personal freedom more." I suppose you have to be on this side of the line to really notice it, but those of us on this side get daily reminders that the line is there, and never cease to be amazed at the hate that rolls across it toward us.
To give you one current example, PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins were lied to in order to interview them for this movie "Expelled." And then a whole movie was made to attempt to destroy their positions, their values and beliefs -- literally comparing them to mass-murdering Nazis. That movie is being released, and reports of its release are being covered as straight news.
As an atheist, and a fan of science and truth, that's pretty darned nasty. This is not just some accidentally, unconsciously underhanded move, it's a full conscious demonizing assault on these two people, and science itself.
Meanwhile, back at Christ Central, where are the voices raised in protest? Where are the nice Christians clamoring for fairness and balance? Where's the shock and outrage? Where's the disgust? Where's the opposition?
Crickets.
I don't have a doubt in my mind that Stein and company will get away with it. Ben Stein will probably walk away with millions. Worse, he'll be invited to speak to CHRISTIAN groups, telling his lies, and get paid well for it, for the rest of his life.
How does that make me feel? Lies and injustice will make money. People like Myers and Dawkins, who care about true things on such a deep and personal level that they've devoted their lives to it, will be painted as founts of evil. I -- all of us, really -- will have to live in the world in which that happens, in which it CAN happen. And it will be nice Christians who support this state of affairs.
Very literally, I think a bank CEO who causes a Savings & Loan to fail and robs ten thousand little old ladies of their life’s savings is ten thousand times more a villain than a guy who knocks one little old lady to the ground at an ATM and takes her money.
In like fashion, I see Ben Stein’s movie robbing our whole society of some of its trust in science. Touching the breasts of one little girl in private is disgusting, but it’s a pale crime in comparison to molesting the minds of millions of young people. Stein is a mind molester off the scale of any child molester now in prison.
He’ll laugh all the way to the bank. With ticket money most likely provided by millions of Christians eager to hear his message.
Love, Hate and Rubes
First, that 'rube' line in my comment was not a generalization or a slur. It was a POV change, meant to suggest that the theist in question might feel that the atheist makes them feel like a rube.
Second, although not in that order, my observation on forums like this is that there is a pattern for theist commenters to disavow as non-representative any persons or traits they consider negative by denying their universal application, as if universal application was the only possible intent.
In other words, the 'that's not what I personally believe' gambit, which is intended to suggest that nobody believes that, even when it is obvious that somebody does.
This is often combined, as above, with 'you don't know my innermost thoughts' as if any given analysis had been intended specifically for them.
Finally, my observation is that Christians in particular have a skewed definition of emotional states, such as love and hate. This is not surprising, as their religious mythology encourages this. Hate, for instance, is generally judged as impossible, since it would be wrong to hate. Even if what they feel has all the hallmarks of hate, they attempt to avoid it by claiming to separate the action from the actor. (Hate the sin, not the sinner--patent nonsense.)
It is possible for an analysis of underlying psychological motivations to be at odds with the perceptions of those analyzed. That's the point, after all.
Steve "It isn't your rationalization I'm analyzing." James
One at a time
One at a time:
Okay, I misunderstood you. I apologize.
I'm not suggesting that no Christians believe the "America is God's country, the end times are near, etc" routine. In fact, it is obvious from the followings of Focus on the Family, the AFA, and the sales of the Left Behind series that plenty of people do. All I said was that they are not a majority of believers. Think about it: the vast majority of Americans identify themselves as some sort of theist, yet none of those hard-right organizations can claim numbers that are in any way indicative of this majority.
When it comes to hating the sin not the sinner, everyone does this regardless of what they do or don't believe. Certainly at some point in your life you have seen somebody that you care about do something that he/she should not have done, to themselves or somebody else. Did you continue to care about them afterwords? If so, then you practiced what you claim to be patent nonsense.
Very true. But that street runs two ways, and this post and the nature of the comments could be analyzed to infer all sorts of things that nobody intends.
"I'm not suggesting that no
"I'm not suggesting that no Christians believe the "America is God's country, the end times are near, etc" routine. In fact, it is obvious from the followings of Focus on the Family, the AFA, and the sales of the Left Behind series that plenty of people do. All I said was that they are not a majority of believers. Think about it: the vast majority of Americans identify themselves as some sort of theist, yet none of those hard-right organizations can claim numbers that are in any way indicative of this majority."And yet, and yet, those organizations are not the KKK, are they? Those beliefs are not Phelpsian-beyond=the-pale-heresies. They are widely promoted, but not widely condemned. They do not follow sectarian lines. Do you, personally condemn this viewpoint? What percentage of American Christians would you say espouse or sympathize with them?
Do Christian churches send out missionaries to attempt to correct these beliefs?
"When it comes to hating the sin not the sinner, everyone does this regardless of what they do or don't believe. Certainly at some point in your life you have seen somebody that you care about do something that he/she should not have done, to themselves or somebody else. Did you continue to care about them afterwords? If so, then you practiced what you claim to be patent nonsense."
Yeah, so? I never made a claim that I didn't hate, ever. I also suggest that it is neither necessary to invoke hate in terms of disapproval (I can disapprove without hatred, though I suggest an inevitable reduction in respect) nor that it is impossible to remove said disapproval over time or with correction.
This might seem like an analog of 'hate the sin' without the hyperbole, but the key difference is that my disapproval does not entail the suggestion that failure to correspond to my views is reason for eternal torture.
Oh, and something I missed earlier: That you don't fear death.
Tell me then--what happens after you die? Because if the answer is anything other than 'Nothing' then you don't really think you're going to die. That, I submit, is the entire point.
Steve "One day I must learn HTML tags" James
And yet, and yet, those
If you are saying that the "God's country" mindset is not as extreme as what Fred Phelps has done, I agree. I also agree that Christians have not done enough to oppose said views. However, there have always been some Christians trying to oppose that type of teaching, and the number is growing. Sojourners is one group that comes to mind, but they are far from the only ones.
As far as percentages go, I have no idea. I do know that the total Christian population in the U.S. is roughly 152,867,865. And neither Dobson, AFA, the Catholic League, or any other of the hard-right groups can claim a membership that is a statistically significant portion of this population.
And since you asked, I do personally oppose that viewpoint. I have done it in numerous conversations with other believers, in classes that I have taught at church, and on my blog. I make no claim to having any influence, but I have not sat silently.
No, it's not necessary to invoke hate in terms of disapproval, and in this light "hate the sin not the sinner" is poor terminology (and it is also not biblical terminology either). But I submit that what most Christians do is disapprove without hatred.
You know I am a Christian so I think you know what I expect to happen to me after I die. I admit that this is a faith position and I may be wrong. But I don't follow the idea of not really thinking I am going to die. I am not sure what you mean. I fully expect my body to be damaged beyond repair in an accident or to give out at some point for one reason or another, leaving me dead. Why wouldn't I?
If you are saying that the
If you are saying that the "God's country" mindset is not as extreme as what Fred Phelps has done, I agree. I also agree that Christians have not done enough to oppose said views. However, there have always been some Christians trying to oppose that type of teaching, and the number is growing. Sojourners is one group that comes to mind, but they are far from the only ones.And since you asked, I do personally oppose that viewpoint. I have done it in numerous conversations with other believers, in classes that I have taught at church, and on my blog. I make no claim to having any influence, but I have not sat silently.
Fair enough. I didn't really mean to suggest that you supported such views, but it's good to hear them disavowed, neverthless. Still, with no monolithic Christian doctrine out there, as well as the plain words of the Bible, it's hard to tell these people (at least the not-as-extreme-as-Phelps folks) that their interpretations are wrong. (I suppose that was one of the positive points of traditional Catholicism--they tended to keep the heresies to a minimum. So much easier to keep track of than thousands of different heresies all making their own rules.)
There is, however, the problem that most Christians will tend to disavow that which is a publicity problem, no matter how doctrinally sound it might be. Atheists hear "They're not really a Christian" all the time, and it gets hard to distinguish it from "They embarrass us." We wonder what Christians are doing to try and disown these things before they reach the public embarrassment stage. But, of course, we can't know. I am gratified to hear that some attempts are being made, at least.
And I fully acknowledge that it's probably worse than herding cats. Or herding atheists, for that matter.
Mind you, that, for atheists, anyway, probably plays some part in damaging Christian credibility. Somewhere in the mix is supposed to be the revealed word of God, which anyone can know the truth of with an open and welcoming heart--or something like that. But nobody seems to agree on what it is. Sometimes not even on the major points. And it's the minor points that a lot of people seem to use to decide if any given bunch is really a Christian.
No, it's not necessary to invoke hate in terms of disapproval, and in this light "hate the sin not the sinner" is poor terminology (and it is also not biblical terminology either). But I submit that what most Christians do is disapprove without hatred.Perhaps you're right. I hope so. It's just that when that phrase is used on us, it usually seems that 'hate' is the right word. The internet is a self-selected sample, and atheist places on it tend to attract...let us say, a certain subset--which may color our impression.
I will revise my initial statement on the phrase from 'Patent nonsense' to 'A fatuous and unhelpful thing to say to the sinner in question.'
You know I am a Christian so I think you know what I expect to happen to me after I die. I admit that this is a faith position and I may be wrong. But I don't follow the idea of not really thinking I am going to die. I am not sure what you mean. I fully expect my body to be damaged beyond repair in an accident or to give out at some point for one reason or another, leaving me dead. Why wouldn't I?Technically, I didn't know, and technically, it woudn't be hard to find someone who claims you aren't a Christian, but I concede my expectations on the matter.
However, what I'm getting at with the question is: If your soul will, after death, exist eternally, in what way is that dying?
Fudging the meaning of death--so that it is not the end of the self--suggests that avoiding death is central to the point of religion.
Steve "Which is odd, of course, given the reward system." James
The postscript
If the 'you' is consciousness then when your brain, for whatever reason, becomes starved of oxygen the neurons which are in the brain and whose activity is essentially 'you' ceases.
If the 'you' is your body then it either gets burned or it decomposes. And here we run into some definition problems. Is the air that you are breathing in part of 'you'? Does it cease to become part of 'you' when you breath it out? Is the water you drink part of 'you'? Does the urine that you excrete cease being part of 'you'? Is the grain growing out in a mid western field, some of which you will consume as a sandwich next month, part of 'you'? The dividing line of where 'you' end and the world begins is a fuzzy one. What happens to my body in the end is that those final parts of me become new parts of something else. It is a process and I am part of it. So are you.
You don't really need to learn html at least not here, you can use those nifty icons above the message box to do a few useful things to text.
If the 'you' is
If the 'you' is consciousness then when your brain, for whatever reason, becomes starved of oxygen the neurons which are in the brain and whose activity is essentially 'you' ceases.Right. Nothing, in other words. 'You' end at death.
If the 'you' is your bodyeh. I am not my finger, toe, skin, pancreas or small intestine. I might be my brain, but when it gets turned off, I am...not. So I submit that "I" am not my body, just as water is not a bucket. A bucket of water may be labelled 'Water' but when it is empty, this label is inaccurate.
Sure, 'I' am just an operating system for a body, but that doesn't bother me. I yam what I yam--a neurological construct.
Steve "May it be long before we bluescreen." James
Body & Mind
I don't think there's any separation between the parts of the body and the whole body. We name them for conceptual convenience, but they're not separate. Ditto for the mind and brain.
If you're talking about chunks of meat in jars, fine. But if you're talking about a living critter and all his living parts, they're not really separable. Your "brain," for instance, isn't just up there in your head; it's an integral part of your nervous system, and it's in every ounce of the rest of your body via nerves, hormones, etc. Your "heart" isn't just in your chest, it's an integral part of your circulatory system and it's all through you via arteries, veins, capillaries, etc. And neither can survive without being integrated into the whole organism.
And even "circulatory system" and "nervous system" are just conceptual and linguistic conveniences. They don't exist alive, can't exist alive, outside the whole. Take a brain out and lay it on the counter and it's not a person anymore.
There isn't any "you and your body," or "your mind and your brain." The partitions we imagine are, like I said, conceptual and linguistic conveniences.
In the truest sense I can imagine, I AM "my" body. I am a body. Like it or not, we all are bodies, and these bodies, in whole, are our selves.
(The same argument applies to us and Earth's ecosystem, but that's a bit bigger discussion I won't get into right now.)
If you're talking about
If you're talking about chunks of meat in jars, fine. But if you're talking about a living critter and all his living parts, they're not really separable. Your "brain," for instance, isn't just up there in your head; it's an integral part of your nervous system, and it's in every ounce of the rest of your body via nerves, hormones, etc. Your "heart" isn't just in your chest, it's an integral part of your circulatory system and it's all through you via arteries, veins, capillaries, etc. And neither can survive without being integrated into the whole organism.Well, to be fair, parts of bodies do get separated into chunks of meat on a fairly regular basis while the rest of the organism goes on. They are empirically separable, depending on the exact meat chunk. And in the case of people, loss of a digit or a spleen or a host of other chunks does not alter their sense of self (as a rule). That only happens when you chop out pieces of brain.
Of course, it's an artifact of perception that we exist 'inside our own heads' (for all the pithy commentary that old saw provides here)and that discounts the support systems for the brain (which is what the rest of the body is*.) We orient visually, mostly, so 'I' am where my eyes are. But a loss of contact with the body does not entail a loss of contact with identity, and so I submit that body is perceptually separate from mind/self. Actually separate? No, but the vital connection is to the brain. The rest of the meat can be dispensed with for lesser or greater periods of time depending on the effect on brain function, just as the body can operate without much of a brain left to a certain extent.
Mind you, that perceptual separateness has caused no end of trouble, what with the souls and all.
Steve "Always good to talk to you, Hank." James
*Another valid way to look at it, of course, is that the brain is also a support system for the genitals. Evolution is all about who gets laid.
Heh.
Woody Allen (I think): My brain is my second favorite organ.
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Okay, I concede that it's possible to jettison parts of us and allow us to continue living. The jettisoned part dies, though.
And certainly there are those "vital" parts which are inseparable, without which we can't live. Well, barring extraordinary medical support, which is possible today, but fudges some definitions.
My larger argument is that I don't think we don't come in "parts," but only in wholes, and all the semantic and conceptual separation of parts is not reflective of what we're really like.
And yes! The body/soul dichotomy has been extremely harmful, in my opinion. I think it's caused massive, incalculable human misery, throughout history.
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"My grandfather's work was doo-doo!" - Dr. Victor "It's Frahnk-en-steen!" Frankenstein
Well
Granted that "parts" may be conceptual, but so is "whole".
Serparation of parts does occur, doesn't tend to affect the sense of self short of death or brain damage, despite physical and emotional trauma. Parts can also be sewn back on or traded among ourselves without alteration of self.
So I guess we get back to the "Who is 'We'?" question. Am I really Joe's kidney? Or does Joe take over title?
Honestly, we exist in a spewing cloud of human parts and by-products. I hope I'm not expected to get a receipt.
Steve "This is what it feels like to BE God!" James
Fear Death?
A thinking person should fear death like an atheist hates god. You can not hate something that does not exist. You cannot fear something that will inevitably happen - maybe be disappointed with the when and how - but surely not fear.
Makes me think of the first time I was on a super high water slide. Some nervous anticipation that maybe someone had stolen the middle part that I couldn't see as I climbed up, but I threw myself over the edge all the same.
All the worries and concerns about what loved ones will do, or the mocking laughter of people that would tap dance on your ashes only bothers you on this side of being dead. On the other side no issues at all.
Dying and death
The process of dying spooks me a bit. It's probably gonna be scary, and hurt a lot. But actually "being" dead? Nope.
It's actually heartening, if you look at it from a certain point of view: The pain isn't infinite. Whatever it is, it ends after a while.
A few days back, I was working out a scene in something I was writing. The character in question has just been involved in a bad car wreck, lots of blood, etc., and knows he's fading. The last thing he says to his friend on the scene is "Oh, good. I don't have to get old."
...
iheartmitochondria, regarding getting old and being alone, I have a sort of upbeat read on that. There are circumstances under which dying alone might not be so bad. One of my 'Wise Old Sayings I Just Made Up':
"I want to outlive all my enemies, so I can piss on their graves. And I want to outlive all my friends, so they're never without my love."
That's a cute platitude, but
That's a cute platitude, but doesn't make me feel any better. First of all, I'm way too self-absorbed to find any satisfaction in vengeance. And second, watching people you love die is awful. I've just had too much of it in the last 10 years. It seems like I attend at least 2 funerals a year, and there are even more that I don't get to attend. (Well, maybe that's my age in relation to current events - I was 22 when the US bombed Baghdad, so its my generation over there fighting the war.)
I've held a lot of hands and spent hours listening to people who knew their demise was imminent. Conversations like that are incredibly bonding, so when they die, the things that keep repeating in my head are the things they said weeks before they died, even though I had a whole lifetime of other memories that I could think about. Being the survivor isn't easy, but there's always been someone around to keep the loneliness away so that my thoughts don't consume me. I'm terrified of the day when I'm the last one left - assuming it will come.
Terrified of the day
My underlying point was that fear is generally an unconscious reaction, but it's not an uncontrollable one. You can DECIDE not to be afraid, or at least not to give in to the fear, and then endeavor to engineering your reactions to fit your decision.
My mom once told me that when I was a baby, I cried whenever she took me out of my playpen. Considering my reaction to life after I became conscious, I can believe it. I was intensely shy and afraid of just about everything.
I have an embarrassing story I won't relate the details of, but one time I got an unexpected award and I was so shy I ran away and hid rather than stand up in front of people and receive it. I was in my mid-20s. I still know the guy who did that (me, I mean, but a non-current me), but these days he doesn't run my life. As evidence, some years back, I actually ran for public office, and I had strangers, people I'd never met, actively hating and attacking me. I can't tell you how free I felt, knowing that these people disliked me intensely, and yet not being wrecked by it. Recently I took a workshop in stand-up comedy, and I got up on stage and told jokes in front of an audience of about 90 people.
I think there must be plenty of people with better stories of personal milestones in courage than I have. Ask around: "How do you deal with fear? How have you handled it when you've been really afraid of something?"
I still have occasional "shy attacks," but I try to keep in the forefront of my thoughts the reminder I made up to deal with them: "I don't want the fear to run my life anymore. It just costs too much."
Life never gets easier, does
Life never gets easier, does it? You conquer one challenge and then there's always something else right behind it. You overcome one fear, but the knowledge you gain from overcoming that brings a new fear. Yes, it would be nice to really and truly not be afraid of anything so as not to let fear run your life, but well...that's a bit easier said than done. I won't give up on it, though. Thanks for the reminder!
Easier Life
I agree that there are a never-ending series of fear horizons -- no matter how strong you get, you always find something new out there.
But you DO expand your area of confidence and control, and that's worth doing.
One of the things I like to do is have adventures. This can be as small as trying a food I haven't tried before (most of these adventures are happy ones; turns out I like just about everything), or as big as jumping out of a plane. Just learning something new -- how to create and upload web pages, for instance -- is an adventure. I'm not nutty enough to do the "Jackass" stunts that will get me hurt, but things like parasailing, parachuting, scuba diving, skiing, etc., are done by people who work very hard to see that you DON'T get hurt, and give a bad name to their sport.
Something I realized years back is that adventure equals discomfort. Camping on the rough ground, hiking along unfamiliar trails, trying something you're not good at. But that's a GOOD thing. It's like you're consuming the discomfort and using it to power an expanded personal horizon.
There's another thing that comes into this too. Something I asked myself a few years back:
"When's the last time you were really afraid?"
And the answer, which I hated, was: "Um ... maybe two years ago?"
I'd been living inside self-imposed velvet ropes and safety barriers. I wasn't experiencing fear, I was living in constant fear OF fear, and engineering my life so that I was never scared, never embarrassed, never threatened, never hurt, never even uncomfortable. I also wasn't having much fun, nor was I growing as a person.
It seemed to me that in all that time, I was only existing, and not LIVING. I wasn't very proud of myself for it.
I went out and signed up for a mule ride down into the Grand Canyon (which scared the holy hell out of me, and which I don't EVER want to do again, but which I look back on fondly). I also made a list of all the things I still wanted to do, the adventures I still wanted to have. Since then, I've flown in a sailplane, petted a live grizzly, made new friends, made new enemies, and had a number of smaller adventures. Just coming out as an atheist -- learning to gently disagree when people pulled their religion out in public -- was a bit of an adventure.
Anyway, best of luck in the Quest. It really can be fun.
That Is Really Cool
I need to go on an adventure, dammit. Velvet ropes indeed. Well said, Hank!
Not death
Not death, really. My kids are still young and my 'fear' is not being there for them. That tears me up inside.
Biological explanation
Its not just us. Theists hate each other as well. Either you believe the exact same made up theological crap as my church does, or you are a hell-bound heretic. But this is a universal human trait. We hate others because they look different or speak different or just because they live in a different place.
The behavior is so universal I have to believe that it has a biological basis. We are altruistic within our kinship group, the people we identify as being part of "us" as opposed to "them". Chimpanzees have been observed engaged in warfare between neighboring groups. But with our big brains and language ability, we have developed elaborate cultures which enable us to easily recognize who isn't part of "us" and therefore to be feared and hated. Even atheists, such as the ones who followed the secular Marxist cults, do this.
As far as death goes, I am trying to get into shape in the hopes that medical technology will allow me to live much longer than previous generations, perhaps even indefinitely. But it is comforting to know that once I have died, there will be no suffering, no lingering regrets. Life will simply be over-there is nothing to fear.
Oh boy
I don't have time to read all the things you wrote. Out of the top of my head, i'd say the Christians know one another, and they're totally ignorant of us. So obviously they have the knowledge necessary to dissociate between a fundamentalist and a "Joe" christian. Atheists on the other hand...
I recommend the writings and
I recommend the writings and speeches of Robert G. Ingersoll, a great man who addressed all of this in the late 19th Century. In 1896 he wrote "Why Am I An Agnostic?" and it's my favorite expression of the sense of freedom from religion and the release from the fear of death.
How dare you tear my safety blanket!
Yes, I'd agree that fear of death is behind it.
Look at the PMD's--premillenial dispensationists--the Left Behind/Rapture crowd. They've twisted their own religion into a pretzel in order to come to a conclusion that he entire Bible and associated structures exists only to provide them an assurance that they themselves, now, will not actually have to die.
The Rapture--essentially a non-biblical, made up concept--is always just about to happen. They often use the phrase 'in our lifetime'to describe its imminence. They consider that everyone who came before them was considered by God to be unimportant--the Bible was written for them, alone. To save them the necessity of death. Anyone who dies, is by definition, not important enough to God.
I suspect that, while most religions can't manage to justify such thick security blankets as PMDs, their thinner blankets ssure them that they won't die in a sense of 'cease to exist.' What makes them who they are will continue forever. Even Hell is a continuance, after all, although nobody seriously expects to wind up there, even if they deserve it. They've got the trial rigged.
Then along comes the atheist, who, by his very existence, implies that the arguments of religion are not perhaps as compelling as they are supposed to be. The atheist is trying to lift the blanket off the religionist's eyes and saying "Look around".
Now, the religionist knows that, like the boogeyman, death can only get you if you can see it. So the atheist, by calling attention to reality is, in the religionist's frame of reference, literally trying to kill him!
What do you think that lady meant when she said that it was dangerous for our children to know atheists exist? That's it.
Atheism, for the religious is an acknowledgement not merely of the inevitability of permanent, personal death, but of the absence of reward, justice, and vindication beyond life. It's admitting that what goes around doesn't necessarily come around. That Grandma hasn't gone to a better place. That there's no gold in them thar hills. That what they may have devoted their lives to is, in fact, a fecal load. That they are not, in fact, blessed. That their prayers are not answered, or even heard. That no one at all will intervene to protect them from oblivion.
That Jesus doesn't love them. Because he's dead.
Implicitly, the very existence of atheists calls them fools. It's a slap in the face for being such rubes.
And since their entire edifice of belief has only one rickety prop--faith--and that prop depends on wilfully avoiding thinking about anything that might make it wobble, most of them must urgently rationalize atheism away before the whole thing comes crashing down on their heads, killing them. So, atheists are purposely evil or stupid or simply don't exist at all.
Only in this way can they tightly grip the blanket over their eyes and escape death.
Evangelizing, in my view, is just an extention of this. Spread the Good News, for the fewer people who disagree with them, the safer they are.
In their eyes, we are like a guy who is trying to open the door on a plane at 30,000 feet because he thinks they are still on the ground. In our eyes, we've bothered to look out the window and see that not only are we on the ground, but we're not even in a plane. And the coffee's run out.
Steve "And the doughnuts are stale." James
Fear of Death
Now that's an interesting post because I often think about this. I came to terms with this all a long time ago--but I keep getting told and reading that I fear death. I am 66 and have begun wondering if I am fooling myself, because all my reading tells me that I DO fear death even if I don't think I do. It is nice to hear from other people that my ideas make sense. Frankly with all that's going on right now--I am glad I'm old and hopefully won't have to live through the mess that the energy crunch, water problems and global warming are going to put the human race and all of our species of animals through in the next century. I am pretty sure there is going to be a major extinction event. This is perfectly natural but I don't want to live through it---I am quite attached to the animals of this world and will miss them if I'm alive when they're gone.
Anyway, all my reading and such seems to just be generalities and I am glad to hear that others see this whole thing in common sense ways as I thought I did, and now realize that I do.
Thanks guys
Death can be comforting
Do you fear death?
Not in the slightest. I do fear a slow and painful death, so I potentially fear the process of dying, but I in no way fear actually being dead. When I'm dead, I won't exist. Thus, I won't even know that I existed in the first place. I won't have any fears because there won't be anything of me left to have any fears in the first place. I actually find comfort in non-existence. Granted, I'm not looking to leave life any time soon, but it is nice to know that when it's over, it's over.
Death? Been there, done that.
Well, in the sense of having written about this some weeks back. I agree with your attitude, Brent, as I said:
And I think that this is *exactly* what feeds most naive religious belief: the idea that the Sky Daddy will wave his magic crucifix and you can live forever. We say "Um, that's silly." And taking away that security blanket just scares the believers out of their wits. So, they feel threatened by us.
Jim Downey
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Like Science Fiction? Read *or listen to* my novel, Communion of Dreams, for free.
I don't fear death. I fear
I don't fear death. I fear being sick and crippled. And I fear everyone else dying and being left alone.
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