Atheists what do you think of this Mark Twain quote ?

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I do not fear death, in view of the fact that I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.

Mark Twain - Permalink

http://richarddawkins.net/quotes?page=2

Not a bad quip.

Samuel Clemens said it better.

I don't fear what happens after death, for the same reason Mark Twain described, as I'm quite certain based on what we know about how the brain works that there won't be an "after" that I'll in any way experience. The event of death, however, and the fact that there's a time limit to my life, isn't entirely unfrightening. But I accept it, and I let it motivate me to make sure to enjoy my life and be a good person, because there's no do-over and no eternity of happiness afterward to waste my life waiting for. My life is here and now, so I'm determined to not let it go to waste doing things I don't want to do and treating people badly (because they also only get one life, and it would be unfair of me to get in their way in any capacity).

On the contrary, I feel it is a great tragedy that I have not been alive since the universe began.

It's a good quote, really.

On the "dealing with death" concept, allow me to make myself utterly clear: I avoid it on a regular basis, and I intend to avoid it as long as I can tenably arrange for as long as possible. I do this for two reasons, and I have control over one of them. The primary reason is simple instinct. Secondarily, my motive for the pursuit of longevity is to demonstrate good form and sound principles.

Insofar as the inevitability of eventual incident, no matter how far our technology may progress, I will treat it like any other part of my life that I do not have immediate control over: I will simply appoint trustworthy individuals or institutions to fulfill whatever I am incapable of fulfilling myself, and I intend to bring this about by whatever means I might have. This is ample motivation for me to become a respected member of my community and to cultivate a tight-knit circle of dependable acquaintances.

As such, I am as mentally prepared as it is possible for me to be at this point in my life for an extremely unpleasant event, followed exclusively by a status that has never bothered me in the past. I am well accustomed to dealing with unpleasant times in general, having suffered from troublesome bouts of fairly severe depression, therefore I am not lacking in background for dealing with one more unpleasant time in my life. However, it inconveniences me great deal that my capability of completing errands that are of interest to me are likely to be eventually curtailed, therefore I suffer from increasing antipathy and, to be more blunt, passionate and murderous hatred toward those who stand in the way of stem cell research, cloning, etc.

Ultimately, mortality is not as difficult to cope with as many have made it out to be, and I am fairly certain that we can do away with the ridiculous artifice that we have employed over much of our history, to the end of easing our minds over it, without any trouble. Besides, said artifice has always struck me as...pretentious? Tacky?

Anyhow, that's my view.

I don't like the quote so much. It's only when you take something that important away that you actually value it.

Mark Twain never wrote a bad quip.

ruveyn

I don't like the quip much.

Fear the way you die not death itself!

well, one thing is that it's obvious that we were death before being born, the experience is different, besides that, going backwards to birth and beyond birth is not the same as an abrupt interruption of life.

I think there's a bit of a distinction to be made between fear of death and difficulty accepting that death is the end. I have no difficulty accepting that death will be the end of all my experience and all that is me, and what Twain describes does kind of play a part in that. That doesn't stop me from wanting it not to happen any time soon though.

I like it. I have always thought it a reasonable way of thinking about it. I also like the idea that everything that has ever lived has died, I will not be the first, or last. Dying is not a rare thing, to say the least.

Meh, it still doesn't make death any less scary. It doesn't matter how noble or bold any quote sounds, it's still not gonna get rid of my survival instincts lol.

While I do fear death immensely. I comfort myself that when Im dead It wont matter to me either way. Which is why im ok with religion. If it helps people to find purpose in life it doesnt matter much if its true or not. We are all dead anyway. Hmmm

Yeah, but religion makes people do stupid things, like human sacrifice, witch hunts, fatwas etc.

I don't think we can justly blame religion for people doing stupid things, the human race finds increasingly imaginative ways to step on a rake and smack itself in the face.