Gillipig wrote:Dukasaur wrote:Gillipig wrote:"Rest in peace" is a pretty empty saying if you don't believe in a diety. So atheists have to find some other cliche sentence to use in these circumstances.
Incorrect. Rest does not require a diety, only a struggle to rest from.
Explain this to me. How are you supposed to "rest" if there is no afterlife? If you don't believe in an afterlife, then expressing your wish for a person to "rest" in it is obviously an empty expression. Because you don't think he can rest, be anxious, be in pain etc, and if you do you're not really an atheist. An atheist could say "may his memory rest in peace" or something like that, expressing the wish that people won't start viewing this person in bad light, but wishing he himself should rest in peace is quite silly if you don't believe in god.
2dimes wrote:Afterlife will not be rest. A person's memory will not be at rest until it is no longer used, that might be the memories death. We know who my great grandfather was but not his father.
Rest offered in death may be more significant for an atheist, especially if it follows a period of pain.
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That's the basic answer. If all of life is suffering and anguish, then death is a release, not a punishment...
Schopenhauer wrote:“If the immediate and direct purpose of our life is not suffering then our existence is the most Ill-adapted to its purpose in the world: for it is absurd to suppose that the endless affliction of which the world is everywhere full, and which arises out of the need and distress pertaining essentially to life, should be purposeless and purely accidental. Each individual misfortune, to be sure, seems an exceptional occurrence; but misfortune in general is the rule.”
Other non-deist answers are possible as well. There are numerous variations of spiritualist beliefs which allow for a soul and reincarnation without requiring a deity.
Beyond that, there are Platonic speculations, where
life and death are equally illusory. If our existence is just the dream of a madman, then our death is just another phase in the dream.
So, there's at least 3 answers. I could go on, but I think three examples is enough to crush your dreams of building a successful hypothesis.