There is a TNG episode treading on that topic.

Unless the reading process is destructive, in which case you'd have to hope there's no stuff-up, I guess the sanest solution would be to keep the original one around, properly drugged and locked away, and only administer the lethal injection and subsequent disintegration (or whatever, that's the method my sick mind imagines) after the teleporting process has been confirmed.
But then, if the teleportation is just a matter of storing the state of some matter, sending that information somewhere, and then using it as a blueprint to reconstruct that matter, you could just as easily store the information instead of an actual human being. You could even spawn several copies over time, so that the first copy can later meet a younger instance of itself.
It's also possible that one could alter the data before reconstruction, and then reassemble locally - you could mod yourself!

How you'd cope with things is not a question I could answer for you.
But let me turn that question around, because I don't actually understand it. What if you were on your death bed, plagued by regrets. Things you did that you shouldn't have. Things you didn't do that you should have. How does not being an atheist help? It's not like you get to do any of the things you didn't do after death just because you believe in a god, and similarly you don't get to undo things that you're not proud of. So why exactly does being a theist or an atheist make a difference here?

So here's my answer: make sure you don't have only regrets to look back to. Make sure your life has been worthwhile so you can look back on it in the end and decide that it was worth living. How hard or easy that is depends on what standards you set yourself, of course, but that's up to you.

I'm still categorized as an atheist according to the Wikipedia definition, but I don't like that label anymore. I do believe my physical body is a vessel which carries an energy which is not entirely physical. When the vessel dies, it will lose all of it's function. It will lose all knowledge it had, it's identity, and any type of awareness which was provided by it's various systems of interpretation. It wont even know that it died. But, all of that stuff still existed, even though it's not physical matter. I believe the whole point of having a body is for the mind to experience the universe using physical matter as a medium for that activity.

I believe that

• The Universe is one.

• I am part of the Universe.

Therefore, I never really die... but the universe no longer directly experiences being Eric.

... now who wants some Kool-Aid?

Being normal is highly overrated

(..not that I think I was ever "normal")

It makes more sense to question the validity of life before questioning death. Take the teleporter example. Nothing is "destroyed." Matter is converted to energy, transferred to the new location and converted back.

But let's just say it destroys one and makes a new copy. Even then it doesn't "kill" the original because the "new copy" is still you. It's literally everything as much as the you that was there before. When you travel through time, a new you is continually being formed. The you that was before is no longer there. Is it dead? Was it ever really alive?

It's hard to make a case that when you die, you "live on." If so, you would change dramatically in your capacity to exist because you (most certainly) no longer have the sensory functions, and anatomy that you had before. If you were to "live on" then the changes are so drastic that you would essentially have to be a completely new creature. And the creature/life that you were before ceases to be relevant and/or ceases to exist.

I still don't really get what being an atheist has to do with it. According to wikipedia:

Which, I think, sums it up nicely.

But we're talking about two different concepts here: Belief in a deity (or deities), and belief in an afterlife (or reincarnation). Just because Christianity, Islam, and Judaism share both these concepts doesn't mean it has to be both or neither.

I like looking for questions!

nm

Death must be pretty scary, or maybe what you experience in the afterlife...because everyone shits their pants when they die...

I rather be worm food than give, what, like $15000?, to someone who is praying on peoples wish not to die, without any science to back it up. Their "business plan" is pretty much "freeze the suckers and let the future scientists handle the massive tissue damage".

I rather booze up that money than give it to a cryo scam. Go out with a bang FTW!

I'm not sure I like the idea of cryogenic freezing.

Armed Nazi Zombie: "Ok, now that you're all thawed out, you'll be performing slave labour cleaning up nuclear fallout from the War of 2032. Put on these electrified handcuffs, and with this injection you should be able to do it forever."

Death isn't a binary value. However, I think "irreversible loss of data" will probably be a problem.

The $20 dollars a month covers a life insurance policy which is signed over to Alcor. For a healthy 25 year old, a $150,000 USD term life insurance policy should run under $20 a month.