Atheists and agnostics, if not a prayer then what would you make your final words?

The one thing we can all be sure of is that we are going to die, even me and you,

I don't look forward to it, but I don't fear it, what is the point. A total waste of emotion and energy, being frightened about something we cannot change.

What matters far more is what I do with the life I have. At the end I just hope for a pain free death and any last words would be for those I love most in the world, to ease their pain.

If I get the chance to say any last words then they will likely be to my wife or children, in which case my last words will be "I love you." OTOH If everyone else important in my life, has died before me? Then my last words will be to my care givers, so I would just say "Thank you."

I hope to reach over to the person sitting next to me, poling them and saying, "Last tag! No tags back!" and then expiring....

Another thing I have thought about saying, "Finally, this is over...".

I've seen and been with people who have died in a wide variety of manners and situations. Some, like yourself, were terrified and begged from mercy. Some were not frightened at all and made jokes about it to lighten the social stress felt by others. Most never spoke at all as their eyes glassed over and they breathed their last breath...

Don't be so ridiculous and self righteous as to assume you have seen it all...

I have personally faced my death on several occasions and I was never frightened by those events.

I think it would greatly depend on how I will die and since I plan to live for at least 50 more years (and I probably wouldn't refuse living more), I can't tell you what my final words will be. I'm not even sure I could tell you if I knew I would die in one hour.

But I don't think I would pray to a god. I was raised in a very irreligious place, I learned the concept of gods along with the stories of godzilla and superman and other fictional characters like that. These characters have the same significance to me so if you do not think your last word will be for godzilla or superman, you will easily understand why I don't think my last word will be for a god.

It may be possible that my last words will be something like "close the window", "how is your cat today?", "It's rainy today, isn't it?" or some random variation of curse words in French (which is my native language), because I'm just as terrible at drama as I am at determining my health state. And also because you often don't have the opportunity to think about some nice last words to say.

And it's not a big deal because unless you have some sort of revelation to make, your last words generally aren't really that much more important than the other words you said that day (or week).

I don't need last words because I have lived a full life

It's been a great ride

and now I guess I'll hand the reins over to

whoever might have been watching the fiasco that I used to call "my life".

Wish me luck.

When faced with overwhelming fear and inevitable death, there are no atheists. Your spirit is all that's left and God is the only one listening.

"I'm sorry"

There was a point where I almost died and, the words were: alright let's see which one of you assholes is up there. Answer to your update. I was scared but, still said it.

"Pancakes for everyone!"