I should note that I don’t agree with the premises of this. I don’t think reality is particularly bitter (compared to what?) nor do I think religious beliefs really provide any sort of singularly effective sugar coating.
1.) I don’t have a sense of the degree of control to answer this question. I expect to wake up tommorrow and still be suicidal, but I don’t know that beyond all reasonable doubt… even though I’ve straggled for a decade like this.
2.) Well… with the example I gave… that something is consistent. That memory exists… stuff like that.
3.) I see that and immediately think, “I’m not sure if anyone has to face it, but I am sure that they don’t follow the proper steps to accomplish immortality if it’s possible (and subsequently, pre-death ressurection)” (which I think it is). The only reason I stay here in fact, is because I’m certain that immortality can be accomplished such that it’s placed into a button that people can turn off and on as they choose.
4.) Something didn’t go the way either you or the person that died wanted it, and it’s your responsibility to bring them back and to give yourself the option to not have the same fate befall you.
5.) Bring them back and give them an option.
6.) Religous don’t hold consent violation as an ethical standard of what to eradicate. I consider religion to be a much broader topic than deism however. An atheist can still be extremely religous in my veiw.
I disagree with these statements. There are definitely theists who don’t fear death, and atheists who are affraid of it. I don’t think fear of death is strongly related to religious beliefs. The only difference is that a theist who fear it can appease his fear to some extent with the hope of an eternal life, or reincarnation.
Perhaps some people wil become/stay theists because they want to keep this hope, but generally speaking, if you believe there’s no god, you can’t really convince yourself that there’s one just because it would feel better.
Answering this without reading the other posts…
1. What do you expect of your life.
I expect to enjoy it. This is entirely dependent on me, and the choices I make. Other people’s choices can affect my life negatively, but there’s nothing I can do about that except try to make things better.
2. What does it take for you to consider your life to be what you expect of life.
I don’t know what you mean. This is my life. I don’t have expectations of it: life doesn’t owe me anything. When it’s good, I enjoy it and am grateful, when it’s bad I try to look for the positive. I’ve had hard times, but I’ve been lucky - I’ve always had people around me who loved and cared about me.
3. What does death and the fact that everyone has to face this means to you.
There are no second chances, no opportunity to explain things later. What we do here and now is what counts. I hope when I’m lying on my deathbed I either have no regrets, or that I will be able to come to terms with any regrets that I do have by knowing that I made what I considered to be the best decision at the time.
**4. How would you explain to young children the meaning of life and death when they ask questions after someone they loved died. **
When we die our bodies stop: we physically cease to be. But we live on in the hearts and memories of the people who loved us.
**5. What do you think is the best way to handle such a loss yourself. **
The same.
- What do you consider to be the main differences between the views of atheists and those who follow a religion on these issues.
Atheists don’t live their lives to try to please some higher being. We live it in the knowledge that this is as good as it gets, the rewards are all here on earth.
1. What do you expect of your life. To make a few things of beauty, to do a few things well.
2. What does it take for you to consider your life to be what you expect of life. To hear someone laugh or cry or gasp suddenly now and then with a sense of recognition of their own experience when looking at something I’ve made.
3. What does death and the fact that everyone has to face this means to you. That I have a responsibility to myself and others to make what I can of my meagre talents in the time I have, to adhere as well as I can to the few principles I have, to waste as little time as possible whinging and complaining. To do as much as I can to add a little beauty and understanding to this world.
**4. How would you explain to young children the meaning of life and death when they ask questions after someone they loved died. ** I suppose I’d use some paraphrase of Pound’s translation of Confucius, “The blossoms of the apricot blow from the east to the west / and I have tried to keep them from falling.” Mourn the loss of what you held dear in those who die, but don’t forget to rejoice in having known them.
5. What do you think is the best way to handle such a loss yourself. Same answer as I gave to #4.
6. What do you consider to be the main differences between the views of atheists and those who follow a religion on these issues. Whatever defines a person – call it consciousness, or call it a soul – dies when the body dies. There is no Final Arbiter other than death.
I knew there was a good thread like this a while back
Here’s my take on your questions.
1.What do you expect of your life.
A chance to become what I want to become and learn what I want to learn, while being open to having my plans upended by the universe.
2. What does it take for you to consider your life to be what you expect of life.
We’ll see how close I get to my ideal, though the ideal gets redefined as I live.
3. What does death and the fact that everyone has to face this means to you.
Death is as natural as birth.
4. How would you explain to young children the meaning of life and death when they ask questions after someone they loved died.
That life is short and death is an unknown. Focus on what the dead have done and how they’ve touched others.
5. What do you think is the best way to handle such a loss yourself.
Grief, likely rage and a reassessment of my life and its goals
6. What do you consider to be the main differences between the views of atheists and those who follow a religion on these issues.
Believers have recourse to a sympathetic bedrock of support that atheists lack. The universe may be large, complex and lovely, but her concern for my personal concerns is likely small. 
- What do you expect of your life.
2.What does it take for you to consider your life to be what you expect of life.
Up to now this was by most people answered more or less the same as I would answer it, with the exception of things like “having everything under control” yourself.
I don’t believe you can always control your own life. What happens to or with you can very much depend on the influence of outside factors. These can have a very great impact on your life and also on the possibilities to reach yes or no your goals. It already starts with the impact of the time, place and circumstances of your birth.
You can always try to overcome or correct the impact certain outside influences, but you can’t control them or prevent them from happening.
- What does death and the fact that everyone has to face this means to you.
Obviously I don’t see death as the end of everything, like I see in the answers here. Yet I do see it as the end of life as I know it and in this aspect I agree with the atheist view. (you are born and when you die, you die and that’s it for this life).
Then what do you believe happens when a person dies?
- How would you explain to young children the meaning of life and death when they ask questions after someone they loved died.
There were some answers which opened a few possibilities for me. I did not want to fall back on the easy escape-line “God wants it to be” and that’s it. It was not enough for me when I was a child (it brought up more questions then it could answer).
I have to disagree with people who say that young children for example can not grasp the idea that it is not possible for everyone to stay alive for ever “because then the little babies that are born don’t have a place left”. They do get the idea of that if you add to this whatever you can invent to make this clear enough: Not enough food or place to grow it, not enough place to build a nice house, not enough place even for animals in the wild or their own pets to run around, etc…” (I only hope that they then don’t come to the idea to ask why God then doesn’t make the world bigger, or some other things that come to my mind).
- What do you consider to be the main differences between the views of atheists and those who follow a religion on these issues.
Those who say that religions provide for a sort of “comfort-zone” (because of an after-life) have in a certain sense a point.
Yet it is not because you believe there is such a thing, meaning that death is not the absolute end of everything, that you also can also be absolutely sure about the reunion with those you love. (Maybe Christians who believe in the “Jesus Saves” doctrine have a different view on this).
This certainly doesn’t count for me. “Why” (followed by “how”) is the very reason of my belief in a Creator. This belief is also no obstacle to accept the evolution-theory.
I’m not scared of death at all and if I could speak for myself only, I couldn’t care less if it happened today even if I am wrong and there is no such thing as an after-life.
I don’t see quite what you mean by “retribution against enemies” . This is new to me. I don’t know about a religion where such a thing is mentioned.
Certainly does not count for me.
Here you give your idea about why humanity developed religions. I can see where you get it, yet I disagree. In my opinion being an atheist without any doubt much easier then being religious. You just say “I am” and don’t see any need to question your very own existence - or the existence of anything else - any further then you know about the answers given to you by science and logic.
This is in fact one of the main tools various religions used and still use to keep populations in religious inspired nations under control. “Keep them poor and illiterate, tell them that obedience and hard work pleases God and that the reward comes in heaven ” still has its place at various locations under the influence of various religions. Yet also used by oppressive secular regimes. Maybe they learned from the religions.
Salaam. A
Interestingly, many myths depict sexuality and death as arriving on earth, or being discovered, etc. at the same time. I.e. Adam and Eve only discovered each other’s nakedness, hence sexuality, after they had condemned themselves to death. There are other examples, but I can’t think of them right now.
Agnostic, but here’s mine.
This is interesting. To expect something out of my life would be to infer that someone promised me something out of it, that life comes with some sort of “minimum satisfaction guarantee”. In my experience, it does not come with any such guarantee. There are any number of things I want out of life, but to expect them would be highly presumptious.
See #1 above.
It means that the only chance we get to cherish those we love is while they are here. To wish them entry into some sort of extradimensional paradise, to toss apologies and praise into the void out of guilt and regret is just so much wasted thought. If you did not take the opportunity to cherish them when you had the chance, the most mature thing you can do is face up to your irreparable mistake.
Not having children, I can’t answer this one conslusively. However, I would try to remember that children are often seeking much simpler answers than we often give them. I would explain as gently as possible that they won’t be able to talk to or be around the person they love anymore, and that it’s OK to be really sad about that for awhile.
This is one of the things we did.
I have no idea if it’s the best way, but there it is.
Each religion has so many different ways fo viewing death that it would be unfair of me to presume to know.
I think you misunderstand this anyway. The point isn’t that you can control everything, but just that it makes no sense to have expectations from your life when you and your life are one and the same. You can have expectations for yourself, and then you have to try to live up to them. But “life” doesn’t come with a warranty: you aren’t really promised anything that you can then expect to get from it.
I expect to attempt deriving maximum enjoyment from this life.
Nothing - attempts can and do fail 
Death is a circumstance that arbitrarily halts one’s interaction with the enjoyable things and the steaming horseshit of the world at some point. It is to some extent a good thing - what would life be worth without a contrast?
I hate kids with a passion and don’t talk to them if I can avoid it.
Immersion in distractions - music, books, games, SDMB…
There is no official doctrine for an atheist; I have little dependence on any single outside entity for my beliefs.
Piffle. Science and logic don’t give any answers. They are tools you use to find them. There was not some book handed down from on high that explained the relationship between DNA and genetic inheritance. Or the workings of the internal combustion engine. People had to be curious about those things and then use science and logic to fulfill their curiosity.
To live in relative peace and happiness, and then die.
I don’t think I understand the question.
Not much. It happens. Nothing much to do about it.
I’d explain how life and death works, basically. I wouldn’t use the word “meaning”, because there is none.
You get over it. At least I do. After a little while, you don’t think about it much anymore. A little while later, it doesn’t hurt when you do.
Theists invent explanations and reasons where there are none.
Isn’t that the whole point of Hell and the Final Judgement in Christianity? “Hey, you know all those jerks in your life? Don’t sweat it, because in the end, they’re gonna be judged by God and tossed into a lake of fire to burn forever! Hee hee hee!”
No, I don’t think so. Humans have nothing to do with decisions of God.
Maybe you were doomed recently by a Christian proselytizer? For me the last time I ended up in hell was a few months ago. Nothing to worry about
Salaam. A
I am atheist, but have been influenced by a Buddhist upbringing.
I want to be happy. The problem lies in trying to figure out what makes me happy.
I don’t believe that the universe has any kind of purpose for existing, and neither do we. The idea of “purpose” simply doesn’t interest me. I feel very fortunate in being alive; the molecules in my body just happened to come together to form me. In a sense, I feel I have already won the lottery just by being born; given the vastness of the universe, the probability is pretty low.
On one hand, I feel very happy simply by experiencing this wonderful universe. It is amazing to me that humans have the ability to learn about and understand how it works. To me, it is ego that makes us long for immortality (in the form of an afterlife or being remembered by future generations), to long for some great “achievement,” etc. I think that by eliminating this ego, letting go of the desire to build happiness upon things that are impermanent (social prestige, material possessions, the approval of other people), and living fully in each moment, I can be happy.
On the other hand, I feel the pull of materialism and the desire to impress others, and this causes me a lot of unhappiness.
My answer to this question was partly answered above. It is ego, and the unfortunate habit of building happiness upon things that are forever-changing, that cause unhappiness and regret over things like a career that didn’t turn out the way you hoped, or what have you (Disclaimer: my views on life are not an excuse to be content to do nothing).
I’m not sure I’m explaining my views very well, as I am trying to be as concise as possible. I don’t claim to know how to live life fully, although I have some vague ideas on how I should live it. It’s something I struggle with all the time.
I also really admire the way cazzle’s mom explained death. It’s how I think of it, only I never really put it into words. That’s how I would explain death to a child. I don’t think life has any inherent “meaning,” but I would stress to a child how fortunate we are to be alive.
I have no idea. I have never experienced it myself. I’m sorry to hear that you have suffered a loss recently. If there were children involved, I would try to set a good example for them by remembering and honoring the person who died, but still carrying on and trying to find happiness in life.
I think religious people have a strong desire or need for meaning and purpose. My family is religious, and I think this is what motivates their religious practice.
I don’t. I How did you come to this conclusion?
Salaam. A
A bit of a hijack here, but an article I read several years ago (Rasmussen, C. H., & Johnson, M.E. [1995]. “Spirituality and religiosity: Relative relationships to death anxiety,” Omega: Journal of Death and Dying, 29, 313-318) showed that spirituality appears to alleviate death anxiety, but religiosity does not. Here is the abstract:
“To assess the relative contributions of spirituality and religiosity to levels of death anxiety, the Templer Death Anxiety Scale (TDAS; Templer, 1970) and the Spiritual Well-Being Scale (SWBS; Paloutzian & Ellison, 1982) were administered to 134 female and 74 male undergraduate college students. Results of a stepwise multiple regression analyses revealed that spirituality has a significant negative relationship with death anxiety, i.e., as the degree of certainty with respect to life after death, greater levels of satisfaction with life, and greater feelings of purpose in life increase, levels of death anxiety decrease. No significant relationship was revealed between religiosity and death anxiety. Taken together, these findings suggest that the inconsistency in research findings concerning the relationship between religiosity and death anxiety may be accounted for by the variable of spirituality. An additional finding was that female participants reported higher levels of death anxiety than males.”
You may not, but people are always attracted to the idea that bad things will happen to bad people/people they dislike, and religion can provide one outlet for that.
Yes, I believe the thought of a “final judgment” is to reassure believers that bad people will eventually be punished. On the other hand, it also assures believers that all their hours spent going to church will be awarded.
Much like purgatory. There is no mention of it in the bible. In fact, the concept of purgatory wasn’t invented until the 13th century. People invent things to reassure believers that even if you are “unclean”, you can still eventually enter heaven.