Memes

I… I want to hug you, I feel like I’ve actually found someone who gets it

Internet hugs Any time, friend. People shouting too loudly about how strongly they disbelieve and mocking others are just covering up their own fears and are still unwilling to give up their own idea of absolute truth, IMO (and I say this as a pretty strong anti-theist, myself). Give them a few years (or decades) to come to grips with their own mortality and they'll be far more open to "live and let live."

I can’t accept a world where death is the final answer for us all… It’s it’s too much…

It's certainly uncomfortable and very...well, final, I guess. But personally, there are two ideas of materialistic afterlife that really comfort me:

• I like the idea of my physical body going on to become other things. There's a growing movement where people more or less have their bodies composted and turned into soil by a service, and the soil is then returned to the family and loved ones. It's comforting to me to think that even when my consciousness is gone, my atoms can return to other living beings. It might seem a bit weird to some, but I love the idea than my great-grandchildren might hang a swing in a tree that grew in the material that was once my body, or that bees might make honey from the pollen of wildflowers that grew in that soil.

• I've also always liked the idea of two deaths: the first being the death of a person's physical body and the second being the last time anyone speaks their name or remembers them as a person. It helps me to avoid hopeless nihilism and hedonism to remember that my actions will have consequences that go far beyond my physical lifetime, whether I am able to see them or not. And in that way, anything that you dedicate time to, and anyone that you impact with your words or actions (positively or negatively) carries a piece of you forward.

But hey, at the end of the day, none of us really have the first clue about what awaits us. Plus, there's the old Mark Twain quote: "I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it." So go out and make the most of the time we've got! I, for one, need to get back to preparing to teach a new batch of students and trying to fix my furnace before fall really sets in. But any time you feel like talking through anything like this, you know where to find me, and clearly, I don't mind the conversation ;)