The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
This is a key reason why people flock to religion..because it dangles hope in front of a human..and human nature is to survive..even after death... blind faith, hope and terror of this great unknown overides reason, evidence, and that terrible abyss of truth..that we must all face our mortality.

From the great Jim Jeffries. I don't want to live in existance for ever, It's eternal, you'll get used to it, then you'll be fucking bored.

I think it gives comfort to the dying and those left behind. Raised in an atheist family, I struggled with where my dad was because it was just too hard to imagine that he disappeared altogether. I went to a church to talk to the reverend for an opinion and to explain my dilemma. She immediately started talking about Jesus and there she lost me right away. I told her I don’t do Jesus and thanked her and left.

All of these statements are for the living, the dead cannot hear. In talking to someone who is alive, I would think telling them to go see dog would be useful for them, but what are you doing? Are you doing this for you or for them? The fear of death? Personally I do not fear death, actually I look forward to it as experiencing the process will answer many questions? What I fear is dying? It seems to be painful, expensive, be the source for much dread, be costly for many in ways that have nothing to do with money, and be a total pain in the ass for anyone close to you. When I go I would like to have my body dumped into the local bay, out of site as it will be gross, and let the wildlife use me to feed and replenish nutrients that I no longer need. I would hope for there to be some money in an account that is used for a party where everyone, whether they knew me or not, could have a good time.

Why not? I imagine a very scary time for some. Why not make their last moments pleasurable instead of trying to score atheist brownie points!

It is one of two main factors of most religions. The fear of death and the use of that fear to control the masses in a society.

Yep, I agree and it annoys the heck out of me as well. My uncle recently passed. I hadn't known that his mother died in childbirth. People kept saying at the funeral that they know he will be so happy to finally meet his mother. The flipping priest even said it during the sermon!

Things get a lot weirder when people around believe in reincarnation, just saying.

I think it's a pretty big factor for a lot of people.

The vast majority of humans cannot accept finality of life. It is one of the primary drivers of religion, I believe. They find it hard to accept that they are insignificant and only have a limited time to exist. Even my father, who never stated it was I believe an agnostic, was hedging his bets near the end of his life, and trying to believe in god. As my religious friends like to say, if my non belief is wrong it will be too late when I’m dead to change. If they are wrong in believing, when they die, they won’t know the difference. Doesn’t change my outlook, still don’t believe.

I'm with you. Those statements drive me nuts.