death - A Tippling Philosopher

Death: Every year, the probability increases

I was fortunate enough to swan through most of my life only rarely coming into contact with death. My grandparents, eventually (while I was away from home, either abroad or at university), one work colleague...but I think that was about it. Over the last few years, that has changed,

death

Ding Dong the Witch Is Dead!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPIdRJlzERo Rush Limbaugh, the infamous conservative radio show host, has died of lung cancer. As I said elsewhere: So Rush Limbaugh has died. Not sure what to say that is appropriate. During his life, he was a truly horrible and dangerous human being. Or,

death

Being Skeptical of Near-Death Experiences (Pt 2)

The other day, I introduced the topic of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs), and today I will talk about naturalistic, scientific explanations for such phenomena. The problem with scientific explanations and hypotheses for such phenomena is that they aren't as fun and exciting as some funky spiritual world operating in

Coronavirus

Sweden: In Defence of Herd Immunity...

Before I go on, watch this video. Don't read any further without watching this video (with Swedish former state epidemiologist Prof. Johan Giesecke): For those of you who have been following my writing on the virus, you will notice a number of points of complete agreement, though I

Coronavirus

My Coronavirus Lightbulb Moment: It's When, Not if

This is in one sense blindingly obvious and implicitly understood, but in another sense something I only properly consciously clocked today. This piece may seem callous and uncaring: I realise I am talking abstractly about that which refers to real people and real deaths, and my intellectualisation may seem a

death

New Ways to Do Post-Death

Bert posted the last article on funerals and alternatives to cremation. This sparked a memory of a fascinating article I read a few years ago in The New Humanist - well worth subscribing to - "The business of death in a growing world". Things have probably moved on

afterlife

The Discovery of Death

[This is a guest piece from Joseph J. Berger, PhD, for whom I am presently editing a book Science and Spirituality: An Introduction for Students, Secular People & the Generally Curious, which is essentially a short introduction to scientific naturalism/humanism for high school students. He has taken this opportunity

death

Evolution, the Soul and Divisibility

Evolution depends on the notion of divisibility. What this means is that any organism is made up of organelles and parts that are themselves divisible into other parts. The human eye didn't evolve from nothing into human eye form in one step, it was a case of a

death

Religion Leads to Longevity! Well, Not Quite, but...

An interesting piece of research has been done to look into whether social interaction and support can lead to longer lives. Knowing that people who are more religiously active tend to have greater social support networks, researchers looked at obituaries to look into whether the hypothesis that greater social support

death

Passing Away and Setting up Foundations

People die all the time. This is the inevitability of life. They have been doing it for every week of every year since time immemorial. Of course, this is a very sad reality for so many families. Dealing with death is a difficult thing for any loving friend or family

death

'God should decide' when baby dies

Should the baby be made to live or allowed to die? Let me set the context with something from the BBC: A woman fighting to stop doctors ending life support treatment for her sick 11-month-old son has told a judge that God should decide when he dies. Specialists at King&

atheism

When an Atheist Dies: Upon My Death

I was reading Bert's recent post on dying as an atheist, and thought I'd share my eulogy again: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fib2Kg6dSzk

atonement

Jesus' Sacrifice Wasn't All That

There is a ubiquitous notion that Jesus sacrificed an awful lot for our sins. Putting Atonement to the side for the minute (after all, it's a completely nonsensical ideal), let us consider the sacrifice that Jesus made. So what happened to Jesus at the end of his life?

death

Repentance and an Untimely Death

It's not often that I get to think about a theological issue in a different way, or realising a different issue or application of a problem. However, I was having an email conversation the other day with a friend (JH), and one came up. Here is JH'

brain

Death And Birthdays: Guest Post by Dan Hughes

Dan Hughes has kindly allowed me to repost this interesting piece by him, from his own blog (I have changed some images for copyright reasons). Check it out and get the discussion going! Death and Birthdays Despite what you may believe, you don’t actually have a birthday and you

belief

Resurrection did not happen, say quarter of Christians

I meant to write about this the other day, when it came out, but have been so busy that you have probably read this in numerous places elsewhere, and here at Patheos. A BBC survey has looked at Christians' beliefs concerning the Resurrection, and there are some pretty interesting

death

2016, Celebrity Deaths and Statistics

2016 has been a terrible year. Just in the last few days we have had George Michael, Carrie Fisher and Watership Down author Richard Adams die. This adds to a long list, including David Bowie, Kenny Baker, Prince, Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan, Gene Wilder, Leonard Cohen, Caroline Aherne, Muhammad Ali,

death

The Legacy of Life Eulogy

Here is my poem that I would like read out at my funeral put to moving face time. When do my humanist poetry and music nights, it's the one I get most comments about, which is really nice, since I wrote it! Let's see how it

death

The Funeral for my Aunt

A couple of weekends ago, I was up country for the funeral of my aunt. She had died from, predominantly, brain cancer, with other complications thrown in for good measure. Deaths like that are never pleasant, of course. What I mean by that is that they are long and protracted

death

Legacy of Life

As I mentioned the other day, I am compiling a collection of humanist and atheist poems called Filling the Void. I am editing it at the moment, and there are some grea tpieces in there; varied and poignant. [caption id="attachment_6829" align="alignright" width="

death

Extrinsic vs Intrinsic Value of Life

Life has value, we would intuitively claim. But what is it about life which gives it its value? Does life have value in and of itself, or is the value derived by things which life can give us, that we can do with it? The first is intrinsic value, that life is inherently meaningful and valuable in an

death

SIN Series: Death - Physicalist cowboy reincarnation

Yup, you heard it here. This song and lyric seems rather oddly out of place in its rational, skeptical outlook! MICHAEL MARTIN MURPHEY Where Do Cowboys Go When They Die - Reincarnation LyricsWhere do cowboys go when they die?Is there a place in the sweet bye and bye? Where

death

Death and Religion

Religion is a highly psychological affair. In fact, I would argue that the entirety of that which religion really is, to humanity, is psychological. Everything that religion is and does for its adherents is psychological in nature. One of the strongest dimensions of religion is its dealings with dea

atheism

Death: When I die...

The Skeptic Ink Network are running a little series on death, so keep your eyes peeled for some articles across the network from a few contributors (see our previous series on moral panics). To start the ball rolling, here is something that I have to offer on the subject: I'm hopefully not going

death

Wonderful piece of creative art

OK, so I am biased. James are my favourite band, having seen them a whole bunch of times etc. But this is stop motion animation at its best. An extraordinary piece of work to reflect Tim Booth's loss of his mother (who died in his arms in hospital)