They don’t believe in that bullshit any more than you do.

If they really believed that Big Brother is always watching them and will pass judgment when the time comes their behavior would be completely different, they might even be tempted to actually read that book they claim is his word. Alas…

When I was in primary school with mandatory religious education this is how I saw it

If the pain aversion wasn’t enough for most folks to not consider it, suicide in many faiths is considered a pretty big nono.

I had to sleep on this before coming up with a reply. As an individual who is not what you would call religiously devout, you can take it with a grain of salt. But whatever the case, here goes…

I grew up without religion for the most part but married a Catholic, and as musicians, we wound up playing at the local church.

As it stands, I would not say that I have bought into the whole religious faith thing at the deepest levels. That does not come easily for me. But I think it is fair to say that certain aspects of the religious experience have rubbed off?

In particular, I am more invested in the welfare of others ranging from my immediate family and friends (many of whom I met indirectly through church connections) to the community at large. As such, I am in no hurry to shuffle off at this point, as I feel there are people who depend on me and so I guess I still have unfinished business?

I don’t know what happens in any afterlife. Does anyone, really? Frankly, if we all just fade away into oblivion, I’d be satisfied to simply have a peaceful release from worldy concerns, but I don’t have any expectations beyond that.

deleted by creator

Some of them are

I’ve been bedside at more deaths than I can accurately recall. Most of them followed some religion or another, and there were a dozen or so that expressed peace and/or joy at the thought of the afterlife promised to them. Some of the others hoped it would be there, but expressed it with some degree of fear or doubt. The rest were honestly either not in their mind at all, or were otherwise unable to communicate towards the very end.

Christians, most of them, for what that matters. Three Muslims that I recall because you don’t find many here in the rural south. All of them were awake and alert towards the end, and expresses still having faith, though they seemed to focus more on making their last days be about saying goodbye. No clue if that was them as individuals, or a facet of Islam in their lives.

The ones that were the most outright joyous were what you might call a bit obsessed with their religion, but it didn’t seem to stay along denomination lines with the caveat that Catholics aren’t much better represented here than Muslims, so protestants made up the majority of my religious patients, period.

Only ever had one Hindu patient that was dying, and he never mentioned it at all. He just wanted to cuddle with his wife and enjoy good food.

But shit, one the happiest people I ever sat with as they were dying was a secular humanist. Dude was all about going out with a smile. Kept himself just high enough to feel no pain, and was otherwise essentially partying until the cancer made that impossible. Then it was just enough medication to keep pain minimized while allowing him to be aware and able to talk. But he said he was happy with his life, and expected death to be a welcome cessation of the bullshit that comes with a body.

I think the most “impressive” Christian I sat with was an retired evangelical preacher. Despite his religion, the guy was very zen about it. “The Lord will reach down for me when it is time. I’m just going to enjoy what I have until then, and praise his name with my last breath.” But it wasn’t some kind of crazy thing, it was said very calmly, very matter-of-fact. He shrugged a little when he said it, like it was no big deal when he went.

That guy was of one of my favorite patients tbh. We’d go walking, and just chat about whatever our minds brought up. Wasn’t always deep stuff, sometimes it would just be swapping stories about ourselves. Never preached at me, not once, and I had let him know I was essentially atheist, but also Buddhist despite that. You’d think a retired preacher from the kind of church he was in would be all up my ass, but he never even hinted at that kind of thinking.

I came late to when he was passing. It was late at night, and he was a morning patient for me. He was pretty much non verbal the last two days, but he would reach out to people you hold their hands, and smile.

Some people really, truly believe. They can believe so deeply that death is either a momentary inconvenience between them and their afterlife, or is a very welcome gift from god. There’s no doubt in them, no fear, but also no desire to accelerate it.

Anyway, it’s obvious that nobody can speak for the billions of religious people in the world totally. Even as many deaths as I saw are a drop in an ocean of death. But it’s certain that religion can bring about what you’re asking.

They still have the survival instinct and inborn fear of death. But yeah, one of the advantages of religion is that it helps to elevate this inborn fear a bit.

Correct. That’s how you know it isn’t a genuine belief, rather than coping.

For me outside of the natural scariness of it if your not into reincarnation then this is yout only chance on earth and hevon may be good but I’m not done yet getting my own personal kind of high score

The religions where this was a strong desire are gone, because the people that brlieved in them kept dying

Roughly the rules are interpreted as if you spend your life in the service of somebody else or society you go to heaven. Of course, those in power see themselves as serving society because they give guidance. If you do things going against that, so disobey the leaders, you go to hell. It’s how they tried to keep the populace in line. The rest is window dressing.

They don’t want to die before they make everyone else’s life a living hell

They are often, consciously, but the biology of us works so that most decisions are made unconsciously. The nature of all biological life is that there’s a survival instinct, which is in full effect for religious people as well. So they try to live as long as possible anyway, inventing all sorts of reasons for doing so.

Religious belief is inherently not made to make sense, it’s to alleviate fears. Trying to make sense of it rationally like you do is futile.

“If I knew there was an after life I’d kill myself right now”

• Bender

I thought this was how you summarize current inaction against climate change.