Two questions related to Memento Mori | If you were definitely going to die in exactly one week...

[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Imagine you found out today that you were definitely going to die in exactly one week, and there was no way to stop it from happening.

Two questions:

1. What would you do differently with your next seven days if you knew they were your last seven days?

2. Why don't you do that anyway?

These aren't rhetorical questions. I am genuinely interested in your honest answer to both questions.

[Charlemagne]

Well now, you know this is the question Blaise Pascal posed. As he put it, live as though you had but eight hours left to live. The things of this world would pale to insignificance because we cannot take them into the grave with us. I think there is no question many an atheist would unclench his fist against God, and many a Christian would clench his fist against the devil by way of a deathbed plea for God's forgiveness and mercy. Yes, I think in my last days I would give everything I own to a worthy cause and I would retire to pray constantly, as Saint Paul advised. The immanence of death is a wonderful aphrodisiac for being drawn to God.

[Tegularius]

I think there is no question many an atheist would unclench his fist against God, and many a Christian would clench his fist against the devil by way of a deathbed plea for God's forgiveness and mercy.

I doubt that. There are always a few; considering the numbers that would be a high probability when the end is near but certainly not many.

[Tegularius]

Imagine you found out today that you were definitely going to die in exactly one week, and there was no way to stop it from happening.

Two questions:

1. What would you do differently with your next seven days if you knew they were your last seven days?

2. Why don't you do that anyway?

These aren't rhetorical questions. I am genuinely interested in your honest answer to both questions.

You wouldn't do it because planning for one's future or continuance for whatever period is not the same as planning for one's end.

[Charlemagne]

I think there is no question many an atheist would unclench his fist against God, and many a Christian would clench his fist against the devil by way of a deathbed plea for God's forgiveness and mercy.

I doubt that. There are always a few; considering the numbers that would be a high probability when the end is near but certainly not many.

I can only speak from personal knowledge regarding one of my grandfathers and an uncle, both atheists. Weeks before his death, my grandfather asked me to pray for him. Weeks before his death my uncle started wearing a cross, and just hours before he died was attended by a priest. The famous atheist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre consulted with a Rabbi weeks before he died and one of his friends and followers declared he had died a believer. Antony Flew, famous atheist, about a year before his death wrote a book titled There Is a God.

You may be right. There may be relatively few in this category, but I'm inclined to suspect there are many more than we can prove.

[JackDaydream]

Imagine you found out today that you were definitely going to die in exactly one week, and there was no way to stop it from happening.

Two questions:

1. What would you do differently with your next seven days if you knew they were your last seven days?

2. Why don't you do that anyway?

These aren't rhetorical questions. I am genuinely interested in your honest answer to both questions.

It is an interesting question to think of the immediacy of death and whether it would lead to a different perspective and behaviour. Would it be about healing broken relationships or about trying to reach some kind of oblivion, through drugs or alcohol? These are my own dilemmas if I was about to die in a week's time. In some ways, certain aspects of life, like money and job searching would diminish and it might be about confronting the biggest existential dilemmas. In that way, I can relate to the song by Freddie Mercury in which he speaks about going 'slightly mad'. The idea of impending death may lead so many dilemmas and conflicts to the surface, with no long term contemplation in the face of imminent death.

[LuckyR]

Imagine you found out today that you were definitely going to die in exactly one week, and there was no way to stop it from happening.

Two questions:

1. What would you do differently with your next seven days if you knew they were your last seven days?

2. Why don't you do that anyway?

These aren't rhetorical questions. I am genuinely interested in your honest answer to both questions.

I am going to treat these questions seriously.

First, it is highly likely that I would not believe the information. In other words, there are a very limited ways/scenarios that I would take seriously. This is critical since part of what most people would choose to do would be to use up resources that are being otherwise saved for the "future".

That aside, for me personally, I'm retired so I am kind of doing what I want to do right now. I would request my children to take a week's worth of vacation that they wouldn't otherwise. I'd probably go somewhere that we really enjoy (which we're going to go to anyway). So overall not dramatically different than what I am doing (in response to #2).

[stevie]

Imagine you found out today that you were definitely going to die in exactly one week, and there was no way to stop it from happening.

Two questions:

1. What would you do differently with your next seven days if you knew they were your last seven days?

2. Why don't you do that anyway?

These aren't rhetorical questions. I am genuinely interested in your honest answer to both questions.

Q1: Nothing because mindfulness of death is a continuous practice of mine.
Q2: Since I would do nothing differently I am doing that anyway already.

[Tegularius]

I think there is no question many an atheist would unclench his fist against God, and many a Christian would clench his fist against the devil by way of a deathbed plea for God's forgiveness and mercy.

I doubt that. There are always a few; considering the numbers that would be a high probability when the end is near but certainly not many.

I can only speak from personal knowledge regarding one of my grandfathers and an uncle, both atheists. Weeks before his death, my grandfather asked me to pray for him. Weeks before his death my uncle started wearing a cross, and just hours before he died was attended by a priest. The famous atheist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre consulted with a Rabbi weeks before he died and one of his friends and followers declared he had died a believer. Antony Flew, famous atheist, about a year before his death wrote a book titled There Is a God.

You may be right. There may be relatively few in this category, but I'm inclined to suspect there are many more than we can prove.

I find it truly pathetic and cowardly to boot, that some, especially the Antony Flew type suddenly get invaded by a god complex as the end gets closer. The main problem and question for me is with the "god" idea; that even if one were to exist would that in itself modify the consequences of having died in any normal sense? Why is it so common to assume there's a continuance of some kind just because one has believed in god throughout life or more conveniently unsubscribe oneself from atheism as a "just-in-case" assurance that one's life-long convictions may not be the best policy being near to demise! Do we ever ask ourselves can a god be fooled that way, because if it can, then the god we imagine existing must be an idiot.

[Charlemagne]

I think there is no question many an atheist would unclench his fist against God, and many a Christian would clench his fist against the devil by way of a deathbed plea for God's forgiveness and mercy.

I doubt that. There are always a few; considering the numbers that would be a high probability when the end is near but certainly not many.

I can only speak from personal knowledge regarding one of my grandfathers and an uncle, both atheists. Weeks before his death, my grandfather asked me to pray for him. Weeks before his death my uncle started wearing a cross, and just hours before he died was attended by a priest. The famous atheist philosopher Jean Paul Sartre consulted with a Rabbi weeks before he died and one of his friends and followers declared he had died a believer. Antony Flew, famous atheist, about a year before his death wrote a book titled There Is a God.

You may be right. There may be relatively few in this category, but I'm inclined to suspect there are many more than we can prove.

I find it truly pathetic and cowardly to boot, that some, especially the Antony Flew type suddenly get invaded by a god complex as the end gets closer. The main problem and question for me is with the "god" idea; that even if one were to exist would that in itself modify the consequences of having died in any normal sense? Why is it so common to assume there's a continuance of some kind just because one has believed in god throughout life or more conveniently unsubscribe oneself from atheism as a "just-in-case" assurance that one's life-long convictions may not be the best policy being near to demise! Do we ever ask ourselves can a god be fooled that way, because if it can, then the god we imagine existing must be an idiot.

Possibly as your end comes near you won't find it so cowardly and pathetic.

The reason people change their mind at the end is not a bad one. They realize that they cannot have been infallibly certain of their atheism all their life. To die shaking your fist at God is really a stupid thing to do. What do you gain from that? So if you renege on your atheism God will understand that, yes, you were looking out for yourself, but also yes, you finally admit to the truth of his existence, and yes one more time, with this admission you might stir yourself up enough to really beg for his forgiveness. But, being omniscient, he will know if your begging is sincere or just a con job. God is not an idiot.

[Tegularius]

Possibly as your end comes near you won't find it so cowardly and pathetic.

I have far fewer years ahead of me than I have behind me and with each year's subtraction it becomes evermore obvious what an incomprehensible load of crap all this god stuff really is. It's incredible to conceive that just because one is born human in a population of billions, god is going to psychoanalyze your motives to see if you're worthy of its further attention. Why would it bother such an entity if a petty little human simply goes about thinking his own thoughts on the subject or not thinking about it at all! What could possibly be in it for god either way?

To die shaking your fist at God is really a stupid thing to do

I agree! That would be tantamount to anathematizing the void. If I were to die shaking my fist it would be at the abstraction called fate...but why bother? It is what it is!

So if you renege on your atheism God will understand that, yes, you were looking out for yourself, but also yes, you finally admit to the truth of his existence, and yes one more time, with this admission you might stir yourself up enough to really beg for his forgiveness.

...and how could you possibly know that except in terms of pure wishful thinking! Also, why would I need to beg for his forgiveness if my sins are more in collusion with ignorance than any wicked intent. After all, as a mere mortal, fated to fallibility, I'm not omniscient and errors of judgement will invariably be made. This constant begging for forgiveness from a universal all-powerful entity makes god appear like a human tyrant to whom you must kowtow in the hope of extracting some mercy. Can there be a more demeaning way for a god to make itself pathetic?

God is not an idiot.

True, since god is not anything but a human fiction who seemingly lusts after human attention.

[JackDaydream]

I think that it may be hard to know how one would really be affected by the death in a week's time until it really happens. It would also involve the circumstances of the death, and also the level of social support one has available.

I have known people who knew that they were dying but not necessarily an exact week. From what I observed, the ways of living and coping with it were varied and not necessarily in line with what may have been expected by others who knew them.

As for Scott's second question as to why a person should not act as they may do a week before dying, that is making the assumption that a person may act at their best at the prospect of death. Some may do so, but not necessarily. However, the question itself reminds me of an exercise on a training course which I once attended. It involved 'The Miracle Question'. This involved thinking about some miracle which may occur in one's life which would be transformational. Then, to imagine that the miracle had occurred as a basis for living. So, the issue may be about living more mindfully, or fully, because in a way life is uncertain and the motto of living each day as though it were one's last may bring a different kind of awareness to life.

[Charlemagne]

Possibly as your end comes near you won't find it so cowardly and pathetic.

I have far fewer years ahead of me than I have behind me and with each year's subtraction it becomes evermore obvious what an incomprehensible load of crap all this god stuff really is. It's incredible to conceive that just because one is born human in a population of billions, god is going to psychoanalyze your motives to see if you're worthy of its further attention. Why would it bother such an entity if a petty little human simply goes about thinking his own thoughts on the subject or not thinking about it at all! What could possibly be in it for god either way?

To die shaking your fist at God is really a stupid thing to do

I agree! That would be tantamount to anathematizing the void. If I were to die shaking my fist it would be at the abstraction called fate...but why bother? It is what it is!

So if you renege on your atheism God will understand that, yes, you were looking out for yourself, but also yes, you finally admit to the truth of his existence, and yes one more time, with this admission you might stir yourself up enough to really beg for his forgiveness.

...and how could you possibly know that except in terms of pure wishful thinking! Also, why would I need to beg for his forgiveness if my sins are more in collusion with ignorance than any wicked intent. After all, as a mere mortal, fated to fallibility, I'm not omniscient and errors of judgement will invariably be made. This constant begging for forgiveness from a universal all-powerful entity makes god appear like a human tyrant to whom you must kowtow in the hope of extracting some mercy. Can there be a more demeaning way for a god to make itself pathetic?

God is not an idiot.

True, since god is not anything but a human fiction who seemingly lusts after human attention.

First you talk about God as though he were a fiction. Then you talk about him as if he were an idiot. You cannot know for a certainty that either of these things is certain. What does seem certain is that if you were God, you would run the show altogether another way. There would be no sin, no need to forgive sin. No laws required, and therefore no need to obey laws. Imagine that state of affairs in the real world. I'm fairly certain you would approve of such a world, since you seem to think under these conditions alone would you approve of a God "who lusts after human attention."

By the way, is it pathetic for humans to lust after human attention? Then why would it be pathetic for God to do the same?

[LuckyR]

Possibly as your end comes near you won't find it so cowardly and pathetic.

I have far fewer years ahead of me than I have behind me and with each year's subtraction it becomes evermore obvious what an incomprehensible load of crap all this god stuff really is. It's incredible to conceive that just because one is born human in a population of billions, god is going to psychoanalyze your motives to see if you're worthy of its further attention. Why would it bother such an entity if a petty little human simply goes about thinking his own thoughts on the subject or not thinking about it at all! What could possibly be in it for god either way?

To die shaking your fist at God is really a stupid thing to do

I agree! That would be tantamount to anathematizing the void. If I were to die shaking my fist it would be at the abstraction called fate...but why bother? It is what it is!

So if you renege on your atheism God will understand that, yes, you were looking out for yourself, but also yes, you finally admit to the truth of his existence, and yes one more time, with this admission you might stir yourself up enough to really beg for his forgiveness.

...and how could you possibly know that except in terms of pure wishful thinking! Also, why would I need to beg for his forgiveness if my sins are more in collusion with ignorance than any wicked intent. After all, as a mere mortal, fated to fallibility, I'm not omniscient and errors of judgement will invariably be made. This constant begging for forgiveness from a universal all-powerful entity makes god appear like a human tyrant to whom you must kowtow in the hope of extracting some mercy. Can there be a more demeaning way for a god to make itself pathetic?

God is not an idiot.

True, since god is not anything but a human fiction who seemingly lusts after human attention.

First you talk about God as though he were a fiction. Then you talk about him as if he were an idiot. You cannot know for a certainty that either of these things is certain. What does seem certain is that if you were God, you would run the show altogether another way. There would be no sin, no need to forgive sin. No laws required, and therefore no need to obey laws. Imagine that state of affairs in the real world. I'm fairly certain you would approve of such a world, since you seem to think under these conditions alone would you approve of a God "who lusts after human attention."

By the way, is it pathetic for humans to lust after human attention? Then why would it be pathetic for God to do the same?

Uummm... because most current gods are supposed to be infinitely more knowledgeable and powerful than humans. If it is illogical for you to care what a virus thinks, why wouldn't it be equally illogical for your god to care what you think?

[Tegularius]

What does seem certain is that if you were God, you would run the show altogether another way.

Damn right I would but not in any of the ways you suppose.