Recall that scene from Interview with a Vampire where the vampire (I think Lestat) was fooling around with women. Then he suddenly killed one. The other jumped up and panicked, saying "we have to call a priest!" It made me wonder how many people have been doing things like this throughout the ages, at least since Pascal's Wager. What do you think about deathbed repentance? Because I hear there are atheists who are afraid to go to hell or that a lot of them reconvert and even send their kids to Sunday School. It's brings comfort and solves the problem of religion interfering with someone's whole life. But it might be hypocritical or poser-like.
Hypocritical or poser like? It's a natural human reaction to impending death. Isn't death interesting though. Everyone knows from the start that they are headed there and it can take place in so many different ways, but so many are shocked when it finally touches their lives.
There are probably varied reasons for deathbed repentance. I'll discuss a separate but I think relevant issue before addressing the op. In Oliver Sacks Hallucinations, there are a few case studies mentioned where people who were atheists developed I believe parietal lobe diseases or syndromes, which were non-life threatening and during that time they developed a sense of the presence of the "other", which most of them found interesting and/or odd. IIRC the "other" generally felt like a benevolent presence to most of the patients, but for one or two cases it was kind of more sinister in nature or would fluctuate between the spectrums. Similarly while dying, there is likely a lot of neurochemical fluctuation in the vast majority of circumstances, I think this means that it is natural that people's outlooks may be kind of aberrant from what they were when healthy as secret_thinker alluded to. Many people who are around someone who is dying, often suggest that the person seems kind of "different" in their personality, while succumbing to disease or illness. I'd say that it is a fairly common response from my experience. So I don't think there is one uniformed response to this phenomena, it likely depends on the circumstance. Some individuals may be barely be aware of it, some may have for lack of a better term a "psychedelic" experience, where they have mind-altering acute sensations of something divine and "other" and don't have the time to really integrate or analyze such an experience in their normal consciousness. Some might just have a mental 'weakness', where their ego is threatened and their principles of after life abruptly change. Throw in some powerful pain killers or analgesics and you may even raise the likelihood of such responses.
Definitely a combination of the liver not doing its job to eliminate toxins from the body can produce behavioural changes and hallucinations. Hallucinations are common in the opioid naive. People seem to over look these things when it comes to death. A person can have major surgery, hallucinate from the opioids and make the connection but when it's close to death patients and their families can rationalize it as a higher being and feel repentance and regret. If it gives them some peace, it's no harm.
I've been hoping that a death-bed confession would come out concerning JFK and RFK. The same types, if not the same people pulled these off, IMO.
i don't know about anyone else, but i've suddenly killed very few of the women that i fooled around with.
I suspect there may be an error of understanding when patients voice the presence of God.. the patient is the experience, voicing what is ineffable for the mind, the tool used by everyone around to attempt to rationalise what they think the dying are going through. It's like trying to understand the biology of a flower by taking notes of it's fragrance. Yes, there are chemical differences in the brain that can be labelled "disorders" or "hallucinations", but Fuck off. Who gives a shit if your burger's slightly off the centre of the plate, there's something much richer if we were to silence our beloved minds and commune with what can only be accurately described by all the wishy washy words that have been retarded by moronic theists, and then taking literally by moronic atheists. http://www.ted.com/talks/bj_miller_what_really_matters_at_the_end_of_life?utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=************&utm_content=talk&utm_term=social-science#t-225168
No offense by the way, this just irks me at the moment. I'm pissed off at myself for being a **** to people savouring the little things, cos I "knew better" because I could come up with a more elaborate story. It's all fucking gibberish in the face of it.
i wonder if people repent of the assumptions they've made and been lead to believe about a god, which may be unlike anything they've ever imagined.
