What do atheists think of death?

Naturalist (as opposed to supernaturalist), materialist or physicalist are possible alternatives that might be of use to you. An interesting thought experiment to highlight your point would be teleportation. If teleportation worked by essentially destroying the body so that any observer would conclude that the person was very much dead, but if it also creating an exact duplicate in an alternative location, did the person actually die? I would say no, they haven't; but it is an interesting philosophical question and I wouldn't dream of concluding that my intuition on the subject was conclusive.An interesting variation of this theme can be found in the afterlife proposed by Philip Jose Farmer in his Riverworld saga. In this scenario aliens have used supertechnology to record all the relevant variables that go into making a person a person up to just before the moment of death. At a certain point in time they then recreate all these persons at once on the banks of a designed river that runs the length of the planet. So there are 12th Century people from Languedoc interacting with 20th Century Americans all with the subjective impression that they had just died and woken in a strange afterlife.Does this count as far as afterlifes go? Sure. Can a materialist believe it is philosophically possible to therefore have an afterlife? Absolutely. They might think it is highly unlikely or technically impossible - but they could easily concede that it would be, for all intents and purposes, an afterlife.Though there would still be the question of 'am I who I think I was?'. Which sounds nonsensical, but it is compelling to some people and it isn't inherently trivial as far as I can see.

Self interest. I like to live in a society where humans don't get killed because I am a human. Therefore I will endevour to reduce the number of needless human deaths as it is in my power to do to minimize the chances that I will needlessly be killed.Likewise, I kind of like dogs - so I will try and avoid having them killed needlessly. It makes me feel good when a dog's life is allowed to be happy and bouncy and it makes me feel bad when a dog suffers.Ants, on the hand don't do that for me. The principle reason is probably primal - they don't trigger in any paternal instincts in me because they are so unlike me, they don't posess 'cute' characteristics (round eyes, quizical look, rakish ears etc). Intellectually, I know they have minimal brains so I know that apart from simple appearances 'suffering' for an ant is surely more limited and abstract than in the case of another mammal.I am imbued with empathy. I am blessed with the ability to anthropomorphize animals which means I am inclined to understand or feel their needs. An excellent trait for an tracker/hunter as well as an agricultural primate. I am cursed with the ability to dehumanize other humans making it easier to justify killing them. In short - I have a fluid in group/out group boundary that can include animals and exclude some other humans all dependant on what I feel is part of belonging to my people. These boundaries don't always pattern themselves around logical consistency, and fortunately the atheist is free from having to resolve tensions between their actual feelings and beliefs and an absolutist objective framework. There are some hunter/gatherer societies where there is a strong correlation between the men killing rival tribesmen and their fecundity. There are some interesting topics on the subject of male-bonded coalitionary violence, some of it is quite in depth. In short - yes killing others for reasons above and beyond self-defence is almost certainly a significant part of the human psyche.Edited by Modulous, : No reason given.