All wonderful answers, so all I can add is that once you realize that "what happens on earth, stays on earth" you might think about the joy you have brought to those you leave behind, and take comfort in the fact that they will think of you warmly, perhaps appreciate and carry on your good deeds, philosophy, passions, causes, etc., so that you will live on in their memories. No one is really gone until they are forgotten. Live your life now, best you can and make an impression, rather than wait for some rapture that never comes.

We don't have any warm and cozy promise of a perpetual postmortem party, but on the other hand there's no eternal torture either. There's simply oblivion. There's nothing to fear because it's the end of awareness.

There's too much to experience while you can. Don't squander what brief fling with happiness this life can offer in worrying about what happens next.

Death is a difficult concept. It is strange to think about being gone because being alive is all you've ever consciously known. I try to focus more on how to make the most of the precious time I have here and now.

I don't fear death...but I am pissed off that I won't get to do everything, see everything, learn everything before I go. I feel cheated.

I will have to say that at times I share your thoughts. One thing that provided a little solace was a tv spot that Robin Williams did (ironically shortly before he committed suicide - of course it would have been difficult to be shortly after). The tag line at the end was to the effect that life (for the species) is the equivalent of a never ending story and your life is the opportunity to add a verse or chapter to the story. Personally, when I need something to focus on I think that if there is actually any purpose to our existence it is far bigger than the "mere" concept of god encompasses. Any purpose would have to be the same for the entire universe and thus I choose to think that my life is the universes way of experiencing itself. As Jackson Browne said in a song: "the only thing that survives, is the way we live our lives."

Look at it this way.
Everything that lives will die, there is nothing after that no afterlife.
It is no different for believers, they will still die, they will not have another life after this.

So accept that you have been dying since the day you were born, your now is more important than you past or future because they do not exist. They have existed or will exist, but for now they don't.
Your death is part of your life as much as your birth was, they are like book ends.
Your life is the books and pages of books in between.
To quote Don Maclean,
the book of life is brief,
and once a page is read,
all but love is dead.

Life is a journey,
except you don't finish this journey and look back on it,
you end when the journey ends.
Nothing will or can change that.
Accept what life is,
accept the reality of it because you can't change it.
Accept it and enjoy it,
savour it, relish it,
LIVE it.
I have spent time with a lot of people even older than I am who are quite happy to shuffle off,
as you get older
life is less fun
I am noticing it myself,
I cannot do as much as I could and I still have 35 years and 23 days to go as of today.
When that is gone I think I will be content to shuffle off.
If you are around, the party starts 16th February 2053 and goes for 3 months.
When you fully accept your mortality, it is actually quite easy.

I think that's all up to you my friend..However a fear of death isn't something to be ashamed of and there's probably not much to do about it anyways..I don't think about it often but the prospect is a bit unnerving for me..The trick isn't to not be afraid of death..The trick is now to let it ruin your day.

I think fearing death is a natural thing. It’s evolutionary. We were ‘created’ to survive, at least for a while. But it’s also natural to die. I think Western thought has kind of taken us away from that awareness. In Western thought we’re taught that death is the worst thing that can happen to us, aging is almost death, and ‘living’ is based on material gain.

Fear is part of the human experience, and fear of death as well. And the idea that our existence just stops is a bit disturbing (and comforting at the same time). It’s something that’s going to happen and there’s absolutely no way to avoid it—which may help us make peace with it. But I don’t think we ever stop fearing it.

That feeling varies from person to person, so there is no specified timeframe.

I don't think there are any guarantees that you'll feel better, but these ideas might help:

• think about what it would be like to live forever and how awful eternity would be
• future nonexistence doesn't harm you now, and it's like the you tomorrow is a new person (just with your memories); I consider each moment to be a new person, just very similar, but whose condition can't harm any predecessor
• death is nothing more scary than sleep; when you go to sleep, you lose consciousness for most of the night (except for dreams) and, if during your sleep you were to die, you'd never even know — no harm befalls you, because there's no you to experience harm or to contemplate nonexistence

I figure it will be the same as it was billions of years before I was born, one day I will close my eyes for the last time.
Any fear or worries will be gone. I won't know I'm dead, and I won't miss being alive.

Well for me I fear and dread it just like most people. I just don't take my life for granted. Breathing, being here right now is the miracle. I'm more free from the shackles to live a life that I choose for me.

Oddly enough, for me, I don't dread my death, but I still haven't gotten over a deep sadness that my mind won't continue on afterwards in Paradise. I'm pretty recent, too.

I cannot say I think about it much. I think I fear dying, more of the process of dying. But being dead doesn't scare me personally. Of I imagine myself as dead, I feel disappointed that I didn't get to do more.

I am learning about the roots of the English language right now. It beats learning about mere speculation of the afterlife.

"It depends".

I find that people who dread their mortality as atheists probably dreaded it as theists. They just had comforting lies to paper it over with, and don't now. So the problem isn't caused by deconversion, it's simply exposed by it.

Personaly I never dreaded it when I was a believer and if anything my unbelief made me even more accepting of my mortality.

You might want to read philosopher Ernst Becker, particularly Denial of Death, to get a little perspective on this. It's a particularly powerful book given that it was written while he was dying. The short version: the whole story of human history is the story of people's immortality projects, their attempts to deny, cheat, and circumvent death.

The only general advice I can convey is to consistently deal in reality (always a work in progress; our brain really doesn't like reality). Remind yourself that mortality is not just the fact of death, it is a (for lack of a better term) "scope" for your existence. A lot of existential angst is tangled up in the desire to accomplish something -- to do rather than to be. To perform. To excel. To triumph. To demostrate proficiency and to acheive success.

All of these strivings are rather poorly defined and we're always failing at them, and all of them are designed, not to do good, so much as to make sure we leave an impression. That we will be remembered even after we are gone.

I find it liberating to realize that none of that is necessary, that I can inhabit the present moment, leave as little as possible unsaid to my loved ones, be as kind as possible, and try to ease other's way in life -- and it is sufficient, even if not as acknowledged or appreciated as it "should" be. Just do my bit ... don't worry about being lauded now or later for it, don't worry about how indispensible I imagine myself to be. The dread of death is in large part (for me anyway) an ego inflation -- the notion that I'm more important than I actually am. When I'm less important, my sense of accomplishment and adequacy increases. Things become "doable" if you will.

Just my $0.02 plus inflation for what it's worth. You're on the right track; just keep walking into the light of knowledge -- self knowledge, knowledge of reality -- embrace it in all its beauty and absurdity and fragility and impermanence. In time, you'll find peace,

I'm puzzled how anyone can be that sure about anything. I certainly am not!

Anyway, Shakespeare's Hamlet of course reversed the dread:

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

It depends on the person. With some, it is simply the full realization that it is going to happen, that there is nothing you can do to stop it, and that it is simply the end of existence as a biological entity. With others, it is having lived a full life, or having atained one's major goals. With others, it is simply reaching the stage of being at peace with oneself.

If you think about it, fer of death is mostly fear of the unknown. Beyond that is our basic animal instinct to survive. So, you never coimpletely get over the fear of death completely, but you may experience ti differently, or jus tthink about it differently.

When you except that death is the end of the life cycle. We all die at some point. The best thing to do is to live life tothe fullest. I have accepted that one day I will die andit doesn't scare me, I don't look forward to it and hope it doesn't happen for a long time but I don't fear it.

This makes me laugh on one level and makes sense on the other. Hope it works for you too ?

In the words of Steven Tyler," Life's a journey, not a destination". Enjoy the trip, everything ends one day.

Try living every day the best you can and learn from ypur mistakes and hopefully in time you'll be satisfied with your life and no longer fear death.

Stare into the void and let it stare back at you. That should dehumanize ya

Once you trust the evidence. Are you atheist because the evidence shows that god is not only folklore but not necessary for existence or because of some other reason?

Fear is only a lack of confidence or at least a doubt in your confidence. Read more, learn more, understand more and pretty soon the fear will dissipate.

Update: well I think I misread your question. Haha. Fear of death, I believe is from fear of not accomplishing the life you want. What are you doing to make yourself better than you were the day before? What are you doing to achieve the things that you find are important in your life? Realizing that our existence will end is awesome, because now you know that this is it and procrastination is all you have to over come.

Tell me though, did you not fear death before atheism?