I have accepted it long ago.

Because people don't like the idea that this life is all that there is. They want to believe that they will see loved ones again after death. That provides a lot more comfort in times of loss than the idea that death is the end of existence. Personally, I find the idea that this life is all there is rather depressing. **************** MeInside wrote, "And according to the bible, heaven is so etherial you wont recognise your loved ones. Not to mention, its your soul that parts not the physical being. I never seen my moms soul... how will i tell her apart from a rapist who said, "God forgive me." just as he was exicuted for raping and killing a 9 year old girl." I am not looking for an argument here, but I have to disagree with you on this. After His resurrection, Jesus went to a lot of trouble to show that he had a physical body. Luke records the following" 36 ¶ And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. 37 But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. 38 And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? 39 Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. 40 And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. 41 And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat? 42 And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. 43 And he took it, and did eat before them. Jesus rose with a body of flesh and bone. The apostles handled it. He ate with them. Jesus took up His physical body again when He rose and no where in the scriptures does it say that He laid it down again. So, He still has it. He set the pattern. So, there is no reason to believe that we will not have our physical bodies again after we are resurrected. Since we will have our bodies, there is no reason why we will not recognize each other. Even if you don't agree with this interpretation, I know of no scriptures that specifically say that we will not know each other in the next life nor do I really know of any passages in the Bible that describe what we will be doing in heaven besides praising God. Personally, I don't see why it is that we can't enjoy the relationships with family and friends from this life while we are doing that.

To quote Schultze on Hogan's Heroes (I try to do this every day) "I know nothing (pr: nuhssing), I see nothing". You don't know until you get there. Maybe nothingness is bliss. Who knows?

I beleive that the only concept of an "afterlife" is having impacted people in a positive way so that people will talk about how you helped, did something good, etc after you die. If someone is talking about the good I did 100 years after I die, I'll have an afterlife.

You'd have to be MLKjr for that to happen...

You'd have to be MLKjr for that to happen...

In Buddhism, this is considered a symptom of one of the most basic forms of ignorance: clinging to ideas of personal substantiality. We think of ourselves as being a fixed "thing"... a sort of permanent entity which HAS a body, and HAS a brain, and HAS a history, and HAS consciousness, etc. In other words, we think of ourselves as something separate from the simple aggregation of all the different aspects which make us up. This is actually demonstrably false: no matter how hard you look or study or dissect a human being, you never find the "self" -- this independent entity which is distinct from brain, body, consciousness, memory, etc. Yes, I know all the talk about the "soul" being the true seat of being, but the fact is nobody's ever seen one, smelled one, tasted one, or otherwise witnessed the existence of one. Everything we actually OBSERVE turns out to have a much less metaphysical and magical kind of existence. So it's not a big leap to consider that this is an invention of our imagination. But regardless of the lack of evidence, and regardless of the overwhelming power of the logic which "deconstructs" the notion of a permanent self, we believe. This is ignorance. To IGNORE what is observable, and cling to a belief which is clearly fabricated by thought and imagination, is ignorance. So now what? Even if someone accepts the IDEA that there is no "self" apart from the aforementioned observable phenomena, we still "feel like" we have a self. And since we feel like it's true, and we're very attached to this feeling and the idea that we have a self, the last thing we want to see is that self going out of existence at the end of life. We want to keep on being... we want to persist. The idea of not existing anymore is threatening, and we're wired up by millions of years of evolution to do everything we can to continue to exist and avoid the end of our existence. So this sets up all the necessary conditions for self-deception: an intensely powerful survival drive wired into our very nerve endings and glands, combined with the ILLUSION of a fixed entity called "myself" which fails to understand that it is, in fact, a fabrication of mind and thought. Everything in our system screams for the persistence of that illusion. There's an interesting irony here, which isn't on point to your question, but is relevant to the broader topic of the meaning and purpose of our lives: the more we cling to our own personal permanence, the more we suffer by being unable to engage fully with the impermanence which is wired into LIFE as it is. That is, life is sort of like a river: it's alive only when it flows. But we don't want to flow, we want to be fixed, permanent, enduring. We don't want good things to leave us, or bad things to come along. We don't like impermanence, even though it's an essential characteristic of reality. So we keep trying to STOP the flow of life, which actually makes us less alive. The constant unconscious resistance to the flow of life makes us partly "dead" -- so the irony is that the more we try to hang on to the illusion of a fixed and permanent self, the more we suffer by choking off the true source of our aliveness. It's a Catch-22: you can't really be alive unless you let go of trying to make that identity persist. When you're willing for the old identity to fall away, it does so... and a new one can come into being -- fresh, alive, unconstrained by the past... FREE. This is the truest and deepest meaning of the word "freedom" -- being free from clinging to a false concept of being. In short, you have to be willing to die in order to live.

You believe in Jesus and everlasting life after your time on earth is done, or you don't. If you don't believe it should be easy to accept that you will just die and turn to dust and that is the end of it. If you do truly believe in the teachings of Christ then you will not be afraid of dying. Just my observations but the people I have seen die who were true believers were very peaceful when passing, like it was actually a pleasureable thing. I have only seen one non-believer die and the look on his face was one of agony. I do not know if this stems from some false sense of what it about to happen or not. I only report what I have seen and it is far less than a large enough pool to matter. I think you should decide for yourself and take your chances at the end.

Prayer and flowers tease and mock my terrorised beliefs. The truth is that were born to die untill the sweet release. I care so much but not at all about every living breath. The sadness of this sentence; a sentence to my death.

Honestly, I thought Stableboy made very valad points. What he said was indeed basic buddhism, but it was well enough to the point when it wasnt disrespectful.

Even people who do believe in God, have that part of the ego that wants them to become remembered as historical figures or at the very least heros of some sort.

As an atheist, I don't find it hard to accept at all that there is no heaven, no hell, no afterlife... I just think that we live on in the memories of our children and grand children, but eventually there will be a day that we won't be remembered. If you leave a diary our thoughts may be read and treasured by several generations and the memories may go on a bit longer. However, for anyone who has children, our genes live on. Our actions also live on- if we, for example, care about conserving nature and care for our environment, we will be leaving the world in a better shape for the next generations. Our body, which exist of atoms, will never leave the universe ... I'm happy to think that I will become some kind of stardust long after my death.

I am also stuck in a pickle over this. Part of me wants to believe science, that when you die your dead and thats it. Another part of me wants to believe so bad that the bible is correct and our souls will live on forever. I wasn't brought up religious at all and when you get into your teens and learn about christ and god its kinda hard to believe after you've already learned about science. I think that afterlife is just something to make people feel better about dying and the loved ones who died.

Mortality is hard for people to accept. People always want to believe that there is more, there is not an end, things are not quite finite. All religions play on the fact that people want to have a reason for being and a chance of something beyond life.

I don't fear being forgotten. It's destiny of every human being.

I have no problem accepting it, I have always said when I die I will worm poop. But, as to being forgotten, that woudl depend on your view point. I don't really mind being forgotten, but , if you realise that every thing you do affects another person and then what they do affects another person and so on , then as long as humans exist you or your influence will still be here.

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I dont understand why people still believe in afterlife, heaven and hell. There is no proof for god, heaven or hell. When you die, you rot in the ground. I believe in evolution because scientist have something to work off of such as DNA , fossils of monkeys, and life long before us. Scientist have no proof that god is real. Where is the evidence? " UH UH theres no proof that he is not real"? Well obviously theres no proof hes not real because theres nothing to work off of. I can say the boogie monster is real as people are saying about god. Why do poeple choose to belive in this when there case holds no water.

Succinctly, it's a dearth or fear of creativity. ;-)

It's because everything we see on earth as tiny as it is has a purpose and if someone believes all they do is die then what real purpose do they have? You can invent something, but not even all inventors names are remembered, make a nice piece of art, pick up the eath hoping is won't get dirty again (YEAH RIGHT!), but when it all comes down, if it's all you believe...there is no point. But God is real...and thats your purpose...