{"id":4320,"date":"2011-10-31T11:05:42","date_gmt":"2011-10-31T17:05:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/the-atheists-pulpit\/do-the-dead-miss-living\/"},"modified":"2011-10-31T11:05:42","modified_gmt":"2011-10-31T17:05:42","slug":"do-the-dead-miss-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/the-atheists-pulpit\/do-the-dead-miss-living\/","title":{"rendered":"Do the dead miss living?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m as confident as I can be that death is the absolute and final end of the individual. Yes, our atoms continue to exist as part of the world. Yes, our energy dissipates. But our personalities, identities, minds wink out forever and completely.<\/p>\n<p>It <em>is<\/em> a depressing thought, which explains why so many people refuse to think it. For those who imagine an afterlife, how can it be that the dead aren\u2019t miserable? If you were ripped from your family and friends, what would it take to make you not care at all about that? Seventy virgins? (All one needs to know about the misogyny of Islam. But don\u2019t be smug: all religions distort women, even Wicca.) In Christian Heaven, you are reunited with everyone you used to love (is Grandpa still 99 \u2013 forever \u2013 would that be <em>his<\/em> idea of heaven?). Is that reunion enough to make you wait for the not-yet-dead to follow? Is Heaven like pausing in the shade on a trail, waiting for a straggler to catch up?<\/p>\n<p>I know I\u2019m verging on mockery: nonsense lends itself to that. If my beliefs hurt or anger you, believe what you will. If we meet on the other side, I owe you a Coke.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m as confident as I can be that death is the absolute and final end of the individual. Yes, our atoms continue to exist as part of the world. Yes, our energy dissipates. But our personalities, identities, minds wink out forever and completely. It is a depressing thought, which explains why so many people refuse &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/the-atheists-pulpit\/do-the-dead-miss-living\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Do the dead miss living?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4320","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-atheists-pulpit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4320\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.edgewiseblog.com\/mjh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}