i have no comforting beliefs regarding this, no stored energy, no soul, no reincarnation, no heaven, no hell. life is temporary. deal with it? what choice have i got? it is what it is.

g

I really don't "deal with it" anymore, it is really just a matter of letting go of expectations and stopping the constant denial of my own mortality. Life is what it is, not what I wish it was. We are what we are, not what we wish we were. And the reality is that when we don't try to be something we're not (immortal) and instead deal in reality, reality isn't so bad actually. People have been told from the cradle that they can't handle bare-metal reality. But if you are willing to admit you're a mortal being with limited intellectual and sensory equipment, you can then realize you have correspondingly modest needs.

Sometimes I joke that at my age, just taking a good dump is all the accomplishment I really care about in a given day. Today I finally got around to exchanging a phone at the store, and investigating a TV we're considering buying, I had a meeting with my subcontractor that went well, and got some milestones accomplished at work. This is such a cornucopia of goodness if you're willing to see it as such, that you can become so easily amused that you don't need to understand the meaning of life, and save a damsel in distress every day to feel adequate.

Most of us will be quickly forgotten and after few generations completely erased from existance. No one remembers the grand grand grand whatever anyway. Few exceptions I can think of...the likes of Galileo, Newton, Einstein and the freaking awesome Beatles. Those will live forever after death

I'm fine with it. We all get our alloted time, and then ... "poof" !

Flora and fauna get to eat my remains.

UPDATE: I've made changes to the following text:

'Realizing this and thinking about it just for a moment quickly brings about a feeling of indescribable sadness, imagining that we will never again see our loved ones, and makes the reason for the desire for more life, the afterlife, quite obvious. Hence, God.

What are your thoughts on this? How do you cope with the realization that this life is all there is, and all that there will ever be, for all eternity and beyond?'

Since I never been Dead... How the Fuck will I know?

I think of it like this, if a four-dimensional sphere entered our three dimensional space it would appear to be a tiny marble that came out of nowhere expanding until it reached its largest size then receding again into nothingness. Yet it always exists in 4 dimensions but only perceived by us while in our three dimensions. Life maybe like this linked to a higher dimension so when our three-dimensional body fails are 4th dimensional consciousness takes over. Thus an afterlife. This is unlikely but not out of the realm of possibility. I can deal with unlikely. It is remote but I enjoy every day I get here and maybe there is more. If not, no harm, no foul. I am not building a religion on this idea.

I think the sense of self as a body is an illusion. When we die we lose nothing. You can’t lose what you never had. The entire physical realm of our perception is an illusion, but beneath the constantly changing material world there is a higher reality. In that reality time does not exist and there are no “things”.

In Homer Hickam’s true book, “The Rocket Boys”, he tells of asking his small town preacher what happens when we die. The answer amazed and delighted me. “Can you handle the truth? As long as anyone is alive we are all alive.”

Your conciousness dies with your body and you end up rotting in the ground unless you're creamated.

I personally find my belief that there's no afterlife comforting. I have this life to do with what I want (at least to some extent) then I flicker out like a candle. I agree that the idea of not seeing others in an afterlife is sad. OR IS IT??? Now I'm going to get a little weird. Maybe one reason I'm not bothered by not having an afterlife is that I have never seen any depiction of an afterlife that I saw as any more appealing as life here. My parents didn't particularly like me and I didn't like one of my grandmothers at all. I have two ex-husbands that I'd just as soon never see again. Even if I liked either of them, each had previous wives and subsequent wives. So how does that get sorted out?? Whoever dislikes him the least? (Please don't jump down my throat -- I'm kidding.) And I'm someone who needs to be doing something almost constantly. I can't imagine floating around in a white robe with wings and a halo doing nothing. The afterlives I've seen in science fiction aren't much more appealing.

I sort of look at dying as like wandering into a really great bar about fifteen minutes before closing time. You wish you had more time to stay, but you don't. They're going to throw you out so they can go home. Of course I'd rather not leave my daughter, but she'll do well without me when the time comes. Besides, I used to tell my students that I thought my generation (Baby Boomers) were holding back a lot of the advancement on social issues and things would get better when we died and got out of the way.

I just make this point that one appalling delusion of modern Christianity is that they convince believers that when they die they rise to heaven to God and Jesus and to meet all their past friends and family, including their favourite grandma and pet dog Boo Boo from when they were a kid. Serious bible scholars like Bart Urhmann and atheists like Sam Harris point out that the bible says no such thing. Some vague statements are peddled to suggest this myth, but mostly the bible says that when you die you are dead, and maybe if God and Jesus get around to it, in godly not human time, you might be reaped up as a believer to the kingdom of God. It's hardly clear or very encouraging. So, Christian afterlife isn't that much of a promise, at best. But most of them don't know that. Believer or non believer, when you die you are dead.

That is also easy to answer...I cope by enjoying life as much as I can and trying to be mindful of it. Carpe Diem.

We are all made of star dust. And so one day we shall return.

We are million year old carbon & will become a different sort of energy as energy cannot be destroyed. It can only change into another form.

I enjoy my my life but most importantly I have my daughter who can hopefully contribute in the future. We are animals and our one driving goal is to propagate the species....well that is how I see it. Just make sure you enjoy the time you have

The way I see it, we'll all be together again one day. In the earth. That's comforting enough for me to know.

The sadness that you refer to is exactly why religions were invented. I was always taught that you would see your loved ones again in heaven, we would all be around 30 years old in appearance, and yet we would all know each other, etc. Oh, come on! Where did this crap come from?? It's not even in the Buybull.

I take great relief from seeing death as final. For one, it mean the evil that lives in people is snuffed out, instead of merely transported elsewhere.

As for myself, I feel I was not meant to live for ever.
All is entropy. Even if we had immortal souls, we would degrade after death. Lose what makes us who we are and become something very different. An endless cycle of the destruction of self.
I would rather not exist than experiencing that infinity.
It's been painful enough to have lost all that I used to be over the course of not-quite-a-life span.

The fact is, none of us really knows what happens to us after death. What is most likely is that nothing happens. We're dead, consciousness and awareness ends and the body decays. Without any evidence to the contrary, that is my assumption.

Simply choose to live with "purpose" in doing our best to leave a decent, stable, and hopefully enjoyable planet to future generations going forward far in time, and resist falling for the honesty- and insight-lacking notion that, despite that complete lack of clear evidence, we are somehow completely unlike all other forms of life on earth and will somehow Not return to dust. Yolo can be done with joy, energy, And responsibility and honesty.

From JC Superstar. To conquer death, you only have to die.

Short answer their elements return to their basic composition.

So we are like the animals. They don't get anything better according to the religionists.

I use the “where were you before you were born” question also. However I believe that I was an involved part of the universe in unsentient form. Scientifically we know that energy cannot be destroyed, only changed from one form to another. When “I” die, the essence,spirit, soul, energy (whatever you choose to call it) will leave this body and return to the beauty of the universe to be used for whatever the universe needs at the moment of my “death”. I will have had a short time of existence as human, but I believe there are multiple billions of energy existences. I sometimes think it would be nice to move on to be a bit of energy enervating a new born star, joining the energy of a nova or comet. I believe that my “energy” will continue on in a form that I won’t “know” as I currently know I am human. But that is ok as the universe is incredible and “I” will always be some part of it. I don’t need the absurd religious belief of a heavenly abode where I will dwell forever worshiping the monstrosity that passes as the god of humans. The power of the universe is enough.