A comment on "Owning Your Dark Side".
The concept of being an atheist is misused in this podcast. An atheist can be a buddhist since the term "atheism" only refers to the lack of belief in a supernatural being. An atheist can therefore believe in reincarnation. I do assume that the term "atheist" is used do describe someone who, in the absence of any proof otherwise, thinks that the mind dies with the body.
To think that the mind dies with the body does not automatically bring fear to the individual. For me it is the exact opposite. I know I will be gone and non-experiencing in less than 40 years, give or take, so this makes me want to do more with these few years I have left. If I believed that I will get another chance, I would relax and watch more TV. If I believed that there were hidden cameras or all-seeing eyes watching my every step to be able sort me out on judgement day, I would be paranoid.
By not believing in the afterlife or reincarnation I know that nothing can hurt me when I'm gone. No hell, no raging fires, no eternal boredom in a heaven full of harp-playing angels, no karma to make me live through five hundred lives as a fox. So if my life ends tomorrow or fifty years from now, after that moment it is all the same.
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