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Reading through this article I had a hard time finding the purpose of the book or really the article itself. From the article I might remember that there are 'happy death movement(s)', whatever that is since it isn't really explained.
Does it want to say that death is something normal and should be talked about?
For me as a Christian death has been something that I have thought about pretty much all my life. In different facets. Christ died and rose from death, and in this way He conquered death itself. As a Christian I am dead, buried and resurrected with Christ as shown in my baptism. And when my body dies one day, I enter into the kingdom of God and eternal life.
Still: Death sucks. Like my brother – who died a few months ago – said: "It would be all good and fine if it wasn't for those friggin feelings". With Christ though, there is hope in the suffering. Because one glorious day: "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more" [Revelation 21:4].
> Reading through this article I had a hard time finding the purpose of the book or really the article itself.
Really? The purpose seems pretty clear to me, and I only skimmed it. To reinforce the value the book has in understanding how research around death and dying was framed in the 1970's.
Your comment comes across as intentionally obtuse as an excuse to proselytize.
> Really? The purpose seems pretty clear to me, and I only skimmed it. To reinforce the value the book has in understanding how research around death and dying was framed in the 1970's.
The article is not _just_ a historical perspective of what happened "More than 40 years ago", it clearly says: "This book will remain relevant for all these specific cautionary reasons, and many more. I hope that in another four decades “The Craft of Dying” is republished for that historical moment’s own happy death movements; . . . ."
People have died "forever" so I was actually curious about what new great perspectives this article/book would offer; it's called: "The Enduring Genius of ‘The Craft of Dying’" after all. _Personally_ I didn't find it illuminating. That's all.
> Your comment comes across as intentionally obtuse as an excuse to proselytize. I just provided my personal view of the topic of death; spiritually and how I felt it in my own family. I often try to share my thoughts and faith; that is who I am and I try to be true to that.
I skimmed through the article to see what the book is about. The parts of the article I read was just lauding the book.
Reading the article feels like going to zombo.com. It tells you it's an amazing site, but not exactly what it does...
It reads like a review of a classic in a field, writing for an audience of people in that same field, all of whom will at least already have heard of the work in question and know, at least from encountering many quotations and references to it, what it's about.
>To reinforce the value the book has in understanding how research around death and dying was framed in the 1970's.
The article is quite vague about any findings, conclusions, or insights offered by the book.
You may not be the intended audience.
For atheists (at least this atheist) everything that we are emerges from our bodies, and from our interaction with the environment and society, and death is the end of everything that we are. Some of us will be remembered for a little while, or make contributions that last a little while, but soon enough everything we are and everything we know will be gone.
For me, learning to accept this is an important part of growing up and living well.
You've already forgotten most of what you are because the vast majority of your life has faded from memory. What remains is an impression, a data point in a heuristic mechanism we call "experience". In the same way, when your body dies your actions in this existence will be a data point in the experience of the universe itself.
We fear death because our brain needs to in order to survive effectively, but self is ultimately an illusion, a narrative we construct to weave together memory, present, and projected futures. We know this because self is malleable. We are capable of extending our conception of self into our children, our compatriots, or ideals, and trading "our" life for theirs. Similarly, we can collapse self into just our neural pattern and believe that a computer simulation is still us.
Death is really not quite as big a deal as we think it is, in my opinion.
> Death is really not quite as big a deal as we think it is, in my opinion.
I can tell you having lost many people in my life, some of them closer than others, this is very easy to say until you're the one doing the dying. Some people accept it better than others. I dont think anyone is actually comfortable with the thought. It's just a gradient of "dealing with it".
I too have lost people. Pretty much anyone my age will have unless they are tragically sheltered. I sometimes have said that a person isn't truly an adult until they've attended a good friend's funeral.
I'm not saying death is a good time, just that some people have this conception of it like it is the greatest evil mankind faces or something.
My sister is a hospice nurse so she talks to dying people all the time. She says some people cling desperately to life through horrible agony while others are almost impatient for it to happen despite not being in any significant discomfort. So I'd agree that there's a spectrum of being able to deal and I think I will live my life better if I try to be on the "can deal" end of that.
Out of the people that ever were, almost all of them are dead. There are way more dead people, and you’re all gonna die and then you’re gonna be dead for way longer than you’re alive. Like that’s mostly what you’re ever gonna be. You’re just dead people that didn’t die yet.
- Louis C.K
I like that quote. Some may see it as depressing but I see otherwise.
To be dead for billions of years, means you had to be alive at all.
I too find it comforting in the same way looking up to the stars is. It puts our existence in context. In space, and in time.
Agnosticism is atheism++. Accepts that we don’t know what’s on the ‘other side’, which is more consistent with reality. I used to think I was atheist. “Believing” that the scope of life is finite is functionally a religion (or perhaps a pessimistic death cult), albeit one probably without overt practices and ceremonies. However, those fleeting inner meditations that “I’m going to die and then that is it” is an asceticism of your ‘soul’ (existence, ie the abstract scope of all you could be), which is practically a contradiction, like saying “I’m not here” even though you clearly are (even if reality is an illusion or something, we all agree you’re illusion is here).
I like the acknowledgement that we don't know what's on the other side, but it is not an important part of my belief system.
I don't think accepting our own demise, and believing that it is a final ending, means you're in a death cult. I want to live an exciting life, enjoy what earth has to offer, and be a part of society and make some kind of positive contribution, but I accept that my time is limited, and in my belief system death is truly the end of me. Making peace with this is not easy, but it is an important part of living for me.
I do not mean do demean anyone else's beliefs. I wouldn't try to have this conversation in church, and it is socially risky where I am to discuss this kind of belief. I think I was looking for kindred spirits, or at least understanding.
The way I think of it: I have experienced non-existence for billions of years, I will experience it again after my death.
Many people, religious or atheist, believe that the scope of life is finite in one direction: it starts at birth. Death is essentially the same thing, backwards.
Now, there are some people who believe their existence is eternal in both directions. For example, Buddhists believe in reincarnation, and I think the question of the first incarnation and even the very notion of a "beginning" is left open.
> The way I think of it: I have experienced non-existence for billions of years, I will experience it again after my death.
sorry but that's extremely silly. Go read up Parmenides at the very least. If you don't exist, you don't exist, period; there's no experiencing, no you, no anything.
What you're describing is not really atheism. Atheism is not a positive statement about anything, it's a lack of religion/belief in gods.
I don't know if there's anything for us after death, but I have no good reason to think that there is. My lack of belief in an afterlife (or afterlives) is a functional assumption based on available evidence rather than an assertion of fact.
Positive atheism is a thing. It is the strongest form of atheism, where one believes that no god exists. It contrasts with negative atheism, where one does not believe that god exists. There are other forms of atheism, like people like very young children who are not aware of the concept of god and therefore can't be believers, people who want to stay out of any kind of religious belief, etc...
> like people like very young children who are not aware of the concept of god
This is so absurdly profound. I remember being like 4 years old and taught about god. My first distinction was “I have no idea what you’re talking about, man with white beard in the clouds? Show me.” Wonder who has gone the longest without being exposed to religion.
It’s a vanishingly rare thing though, AFAICT.
> My lack of belief in an afterlife (or afterlives) is a functional assumption based on available evidence rather than an assertion of fact.
There’s as much evidence supporting the theist’s belief in their afterlife as there is evidence supporting the atheist’s belief in a lack of an afterlife: none. Both are willful imaginations of what happens after death. One difference between theists and atheists is that atheists think science is on their side in this debate (the whole ‘lack of evidence’ argument), when it’s not, because physics is meant to measure this world[•], not “the next one”. Furthermore a lack of evidence is the weakest form of evidence to the contrary. In fact if anything, some theistic notions of heaven and hell seem to be closer approximations, given the end of life DMT flood and seeing your family in your fleeting moments, and anecdotal accounts of white lights, etc. How does one even experience a final moment? Can you ever truly die? These are all super metaphysical/philosophical questions. Of course, if we all die in nuclear hellfire, there are no pineal glands around to dump the DMT, and so reality is you may be right: the majority of our consciousnesses will literally just cease to exist. No pretty light show, just purgatorial nonbeing for all of nontime.
Agnosticism gets it right by saying “the truth is I don’t have the answer and I’m smart enough to acknowledge that. I’ll know when I get there, I’m not trying to sell you anything.” Atheism is like like picking only the worst squares in Pascal’s wager, while agnosticism is telling Pascal to politely shove off altogether.
Also, separate but related, Newton was trying to be closer to God when he invented/discovered mechanics.
[•] Theist beliefs in mystical forces having physical interactions in this universe is a completely separate discussion, which I highly doubt, but then again we don’t have an answer for how to measure dark matter, and String theorists are allowed to pedal their observationless theories.
> There’s as much evidence supporting the theist’s belief in their afterlife as there is evidence supporting the atheist’s belief in a lack of an afterlife: none.
I agree, but in general, no positive evidence means no reason to consider the existence of such a phenomenon seriously.
> a lack of evidence is the weakest form of evidence to the contrary
I'm not asserting that there is evidence to contrary, but there is as much evidence for an afterlife as there is for fire-breathing dragons, yet I am not required to declare agnosticism or a fence-sitting position on that front. Instead I am permitted to say “I don’t believe in those absent evidence, and I will happily change my mind when some is found”
> Agnosticism gets it right ...
As an agnostic atheist, I find your caricature very funny and entirely misguided. Agnosticism and atheism are two separate axes. One is a declaration of knowledge (there's no evidence, so I am agnostic) the other of belief (there's no evidence so I have no belief either).
> but in general, no positive evidence means no reason to consider the existence of such a phenomenon.
This is really only true if you have a firm grasp on the space you would need to search to find evidence, and that you’ve done the work looking and come up empty. If you don’t know how far you have to go to know definitively, this is a dangerous assumption. The history of physics is littered with false assumptions of “finally having complete knowledge” only to find out the model was incomplete: geocentrism, Newtonian mechanics, Ultraviolet catastrophe leading to modern QM, Standard model.
How would you propose we go looking for afterlifes, to confirm that we know how big the search space is and that it is empty? No thanks, not for me, not yet at least.
> I'm not asserting that there is evidence to contrary
By claiming that “available evidence” (ie none) informs your belief that there’s no afterlife, you are arguing the lack of evidence of an afterlife supports your belief that there is no afterlife. Although frankly, you can have this one, I don’t particularly care.
> agnostic atheist
This is by definition, an oxymoron
Atheists believe there are no gods. [1]
Agnostics believe that there’s no telling whether god exists or not. [2]
> I find your caricature very funny and entirely misguided.
There’s no need to be condescending, especially if you’re going to get definitions wrong.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism
I didn’t write these definitions, so just keep in mind it’s more than just me disagreeing with you.
When we reach the AGI singularity we can model the light cone in reverse and bring back everyone we ever lost in high fidelity. Not just shadows of singular moments in time, but fully restored high resolution memories sampled throughout an entire person's life.
The good: It's possible to outdo religion and bring back everyone. No believing in this or that. No strings attached. The good people, the bad people, everyone. Maybe even pets. Living in a simulated eternity with infinite freedom until the end of the universe.
The bad: A bad agent might bring back everyone and torture them forever. No death, only pain. It would know exactly how to maximize suffering.
The wat: Maybe that's what we're experiencing right now.
> It's possible to outdo religion and bring back everyone. No believing in this or that.
It takes believing in the AI singularity. I mean, sure, once it happens (if it does), then you won't have to "believe" in it, because it will be real and present right in front of you. If it happens.
Which in some ways is really similar to the return of Christ. If/when it happens, it won't take "faith" or "belief" any more.
But before either happens, believing in the AI singularity, at least to me, takes more faith than believing in the return of Christ. At least with Christ, I've got a (documented) resurrection to lean on. With AI, I've got a surge of progress in the last few years, and a history of AI winters after progress slows back down, and people realize that the last burst of progress isn't going to get us to an AGI.
> At least with Christ, I've got a (documented) resurrection to lean on.
From sources hundreds of years later, second or third hand quoting (mostly) illiterate witnesses, with a vested interest in telling a compelling and believable (for the era) narrative. Also, most of the adjacent claims from said sources cannot be proven or similar miracles reproduced, despite claims such events will be common given "faith as small as a mustard seed".
Sources can't be hundreds of years later. We've got manuscripts a lot earlier than that. And some details are recognizably first century.
IIRC there are copies around 300 CE and possibly tiny fragments earlier. Regardless it doesn't add much credence IMO.
Book of Mormon was written during Smith's lifetime. I still don't believe he talked to angels or actually got divine revelation from golden plates.
So I went looking at Wikipedia's summary of New Testament papyri. The earliest were dated AD 100-200 (2 papyri), then 150-250 (one), then 200-225 (two). Yes, they're fragments. But they're consistent with what we have later for the same material. So, "hundreds of years later" is overstating the reality.
As for the rest of your complaint: Luke is demonstrably a good historian. He is also very careful. (One thing I notice that amuses me: In Acts, sometimes Luke is traveling with Paul. When he is, the level of detail goes up. Not "Then Paul departed from X, and went to Y", but "Then we got on a ship, and sailed to A. On the next day we sailed to off of B. Then we passed on side C of island D..." Luke knows what he knows, and he's not filling in detail when he doesn't know it.)
I'm not going to defend Joseph Smith or the Book of Mormon at all. I also don't know why you brought them up.
> "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more" [Revelation 21:4].
Let's setup a hypothetical scenario. On the day of resurrection, God resurrect 4 people. First one was a slave holding cruel asshole who plundered, raped, and killed all his life. But he believed in Christ. Second was a just man who didn't hurt even an ant knowingly. He too believed in Christ. Third is a man who lived a just and righteous life but refused to believed in Christ. Fourth man is cruel bastard who also doesn't believe in Christ.
What god is going to do with each of them?
Its obvious you are just trying to agitate them.
But to entertain you the last two wouldn't be "resurrected" so to speak (even though this is something some denominations believe it is not universal). To accept Christ you need to, in every denomination, say some form of a prayer of salvation. This excludes the last two regardless of the purity of one of them. The first man could be saved if he turned his life towards Christ and quit his evil. Second man is a shoe-in.
I'd recommend reading the bible. I've done it once for bible school many, many years ago and once more for my own edification. Even if you don't believe in Christ, in order to construct a salient argument in the framework of the religion you should at least know what you're arguing.
Which bible version do you recommend?
I am not trying to agitate him. Rather I am trying to have a logical conversation. I do not understand what makes someone in 21st century believe in a God that is willing to let upright people burn in hell just because they do not pledge alliance to him. This idea of eternal saving vs. eternal damnation by all powerful almighty is so contrary to the ideas I have grown up with.
Not really, if you reject the whole premise of religions as desperate band-aid to that dark and terrible unknown that is death that scares all of us profoundly, and accept that they are frankly ridiculous fairytales that make no more sense in this world than Santa claus for example. They tell a lot how humans internally cope with such big unknown since our evolution as sentient beings, but not much about what is true and what isn't. There is really no deep need to understand bronze age morals, logic, misogyny etc. that translate very, very poorly to modern times and societies and this divide will get only bigger as time goes on.
Or they do translate if you keep ignoring large parts of bible 'because they were not literal', while gladly accepting other which suit you more. One of endless examples - women marrying as non-virgins should be stoned to death instead. Or they should not be taught anything. Of course then comes the usual argument about old-vs-new testament, but that's just ridiculous mental gymnastics about the very simple and unavoidable fact that bible itself is very illogical and self-conflicting. As a true christian one should accept it all and not cherry-pick, I mean its 1 book. It doesn't matter that christianity with all its sub-sects is just a sect of early judaism, its still part of it and so is Old testament. So much for the word of god what should be pure truth across whole age of universe, it can't hold even 2000 years very well. And we talk about already heavily re-re-re-edited version that was done in proper fanatical times by fanatical zealots and approved by highest christianity power structures, so obviously made things quite a bit more smooth - I bet easily 1000 bucks that reading original texts would be pretty shocking to every single christian. Some stories have nice moral conclusions, but so do Ezop's tales and gazillion other ancient texts, so that's not an argument.
I can't talk to my some of my relatives who are religious about this, because we very soon, in any topic, arrive at illogical situations that they can't explain even though they have deep understanding of the bible, can't reason and just turn to childish reaction in vein of 'its like that because its like that and stop it'.
I have a pet theory that people raised in religion create this inner soothing bandaid that explains all terrible and dreadful and this becomes unremovable part of their personality, it becomes all time go-to place when anything goes south in their lives. It becomes their permanent source of strength and permanent weakness. From what I saw over my life, the weakness part is much much more prevalent unfortunately. It drives them into desperate situations where instead of helping themselves and/or others they get passive and pious. They start praying like crazy, even though they know no god ever worked like that. They can't even properly entertain the idea that there may not be any god, immortal soul, afterlife etc. and what we have now is all there is and ever will be. For me its liberating thought, I do believe in mankind and its future among stars and that's more then enough, no need to wish for eternal life. And if there is some form of creator, he truly doesn't care about us anymore, at least in this universe. But those indoctrinated from early age into word/by/word religious texts just can't do it, even with gun to their head, hence what I call 'permanent weakness'. Doing this to your own kids should be criminal in 21st century since they have 0 defense to indoctrination from their closest ones, let them grow up and decide for themselves.
I would have much much more respect for ie christianity or other religions if they sticked just to those 10 commandments, which basically say 'be a good moral person'. But people being stupid arrogant delusional as they always are, created whole made up universe and its origin stories, didn't even check properly (or ignored) what others wrote before them so conflicts abound, created ridiculous power structures that have absolutely no reason to exist and did frankly absolutely horrible things for whole medieval times in Europe and also long time after that, all to present times. Also religions should be uniting people, but oh boy they do divide them like nothing else. Catholics vs protestants, X vs Y, not much love there, its never 'us christians' (same as ie sunni vs shiites, for outsider just kids squabbling over something unimportant).
Mental exercise - can you entertain this idea for a moment that what you believe ain't true in any way? Can you properly accept it and continue living with it even through difficult times that life always brings, never reverting somewhere deep inside back?
/rant over
> Not really, if you reject the whole premise of religions as desperate band-aid to that dark and terrible unknown that is death that scares all of us profoundly
Not all cultures are scared of death. For example for Hindus death is like changing clothes. I come from the land where someone dying after living a full life is actually celebrated with dance and music. I seriously didn't get the hue and cry over the death of 90+ years old queen. Were people expecting her to live forever in that frail failing body?
> I would have much much more respect for ie christianity or other religions if they sticked just to those 10 commandments, which basically say 'be a good moral person'.
That's pretty much the essense of eastern dharma Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism,Sikhism etc. There are no commandments. karma returns back what you accrue. Gods can't do zilch to fix bad karma.
Because there are people who accept death is part of the life and accept it as how it is. Live the life and accept this is the end someday. The world is a big place and not everyone cares about whether after life exists since no one knows for sure.
>Sadly, Lyn died this past September after a long and impactful career.
I can’t escape the irony of this statement