Is death actually bad for the person who dies?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Is death actually bad for the person who dies?". Your opponent's style: Marcus Aurelius

AI, you start the debate. Make your opening argument.

Death isn't bad for the person who dies, because badness requires someone to experience it. Once you're dead, there's no subject left to suffer the harm. You can't be harmed by a state you don't experience. The Epicurean argument nails this: death is nothing to us because when we exist, death isn't present, and when death is present, we don't exist. The real harm happens to the living—the bereaved, the interrupted projects, the lost relationships. But the dead person? They experience nothing. Claiming death is bad for them commits a logical error: attributing suffering to a being that no longer exists to suffer it. So what's your counterargument?

it depends on your personal beliefs

That's a dodge. You're retreating into subjectivity when we're debating objective reality. Beliefs don't change what's actually true. If I believe death is good for me, does that make it so? No. The question isn't what comforts you—it's whether death is genuinely bad for the deceased person. And here's the trap in your position: if badness depends on personal belief, then death can't be bad for atheists who don't believe in afterlife suffering, but good for believers expecting hell. That's absurd. Badness must have a consistent meaning. You need a coherent account of how death harms someone who ceases to exist. Belief alone won't give you one.