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Notes -
I am Christian, but I've been an atheist too. Even from an Atheist perspective, I think people are better off making their peace with death than fighting to the bitter end. One of the things that makes life good is people being willing to eat the badness set before them, rather than desperately attempt to avoid it or pass it off to others. Even on the assumption that death is the absolute end, how one reacts to that end is the product of immediate and indirect choices. Abject terror is largely, I think, a choice, and not a very good one given that it seems pretty unlikely to me that such death is going to be avoided for most of the current population. Where such fears grow especially pernicious is when the threat of death might appear to be forestalled by exploiting or victimizing others. In that case, the opportunity for evil is nearly boundless, and the attitude that takes death to be the worst possible thing just weakens one's resolve.
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