One of the greatest fears in life is death. People are afraid to lose loved ones, and the thought of dying one day is in the back of most people's mind. The one thing that is certain about death is that it will come one day. It is natural to fear death, thus far the main consolation of death is through religion. While religion does make people feel comforted; imagining loved ones as being in the clouds, waiting to reunite with them. It is not all that likely to be real. For rational people, we would rather be sober in truth, then deluding ourselves superstition. I do however think religion provides a good service here (unless it motivates people to commit suicide bombings etc). It offers people good consolation, this is perhaps the only service religion plays in a society. Have less anxiety about death will lower stress levels, which in-turn would make a person healthier. Understanding what happens after death is irrelevant to this life, and being right or wrong really plays no important part in this life.
Being fearful of death is a good survival aid, but being comfortable with death will provide an enjoyable life, free of the constant fear of what will eventually happen. I feel if people want to believe they go to paradise after death, more power to them. But the purpose of this post is to provide some consolidating ideas for nonbelievers.
When it comes to death, there are two possible outcomes which come to mind. The first being that there is no consciousness beyond the physical brain — after death there is nothing. We as humans are fearful of this idea, and this is the worst possible outcome next to Hell. Actually picture with your mind's-eye an infinite amount of time, of nothing, a universe without you. It is scary.
I prefer to think about death in a different way. I view myself as being part of a vast universe. Most think we live within this universe — and are separate from it. In reality we are just as much of a part of this universe as any star (just not as big). The matter that makes up our bodies will continue to exist long after we die. Existence continues after death, the question is, does consciousness? To answer that, first we would need to know what consciousness is — there is no answer to this at the present moment.
People like to think that we all have a spirit, separate from our physical body. While this is not impossible, there is no scientific evidence to support such a claim (doesn't mean it is not a real thing). When a person brings up the idea of a soul, they are not really bringing up an idea, but a mere word. When asked: "what is a soul?", they are unable to answer (they can dance around, and play with words, but cannot directly answer it). Masking ignorance with imaginary knowledge is something which I do not like — it is a waste of time.
We are not here to be comfortable, this universe was not built with us in mind, we were built for this universe (not literally 'built', but evolved). We like to look for patterns in our surroundings, and use those patterns to envision possible future events, or events that occurred in the past. Consciousness is something which we take for granted, it has always been with us (we cannot imagine what it would be like to not have it). But like memory, consciousness is more then likely something which disappears when the brain is destroyed. And yes, memory is gone after death, in the same way it can be lost from a head injury. People have forgotten how to speak, entire life memories, how to walk, and so on — just from head injury. Imagine what it would be like to lose everything, imagine what it would be like for your brain to be not only slightly damaged, but completely gone?
As I said before: we do not know what consciousness is, and there is nothing that appears in our reality which we can compare it with — so even if we had information about it, our minds wouldn't be-able to digest it. Being that there is no survival benefit to understand what happens after death — evolution did not push animals into doing so (would be a waste of energy), the only thing we needed to adapt was a strong fear of it. However this is what I think death would be like. Try to imagine this series of events (not in any particular order). This is what death could be like (this is not a description of the process of dying, but actual death itself). If you are reading this, it is assumed you are alive. Imagine now, losing your vision, you are now blind. There is no color, nothing. Now imagine you are deaf, no noise, complete quite. To get a good sense of what this would be like, close your eyes, and put your hands over your ears (not perfect quite, or blindness, but good enough). Do this for a few moments, try to fully grasp what it would be like.
Now that you have imagined what it is like to be blind and deaf, now imagine losing the ability to control limbs, you cannot do anything. Many people have experienced this sort of thing when sleeping, waking up early, not being able to move at all — if you have experienced that — try to recall what it was like. Imagine with your mind's-eye what it would be like to be blind, deaf, and paralyzed.
Now imagine the rest of your sensory nervous system gives out. Starting off with losing the ability feel, your arms and legs are as unfeeling as any inanimate object — along with being blind, deaf, and unable to move. To you, your body is of no more meaning to you, then a pile of meat. Now you lose the ability to smell, along with taste. Now you cannot gain any information from the outside environment.
Restricted to your own mind, you can only recall past memories, or dream. You can't determine what is going on, you don't know if you are dead or alive at this point. But you are not not quite dead yet, in-fact you are still very alive, this is the point where most people are unable to imagine what it would be like. Most people can imagine not having a body (to an extent), but have difficulty imagining not having a mind.
To strip away the mind (which is destroyed when you die). We start off with language, this is now gone. This eliminates the ability to have complex thoughts, you now can only think in imagery and emotion. Just imagine not having a language. We take our inner-monologue for granted, not having one would make our thoughts become much more basic. After losing language, imagine losing memory. No memory is when the moment of real death comes, if you cannot recall your life, then your life never happen — as far as you are concerned. Without a nervous system, language, or memory, you really have no ability to imagine anything, you would have no idea what a thing even was. But just to pile it on, you now lose the ability to imagine things with your mind, to dream — to think in general. You are a void, nothing. What made you, you, is now gone.
Some people would still claim to believe in a soul, but even if there was one. What makes us human is not that, it is our memory, are intellect, personality, and emotions, it is our experiences — which are all gone after death. It is life which makes us human, in death we are nothing but a void. A void is the only way in which a human could comprehend such a thing, because everything we take for granted would be gone, and essentially nothing is left. If you think the soul is just a form of energy, may I point out that that form of energy might be matter itself — combining all which is lost in death — all working together like a finely tuned clock.
This may sound awfully depressing — but it doesn't need to be. For your life will someday be over, but it was stuff that made you up, and that stuff will exist forever, energy is eternal — which in-turn makes us eternal as well. We are energy, and energy is us. Whatever it is that makes us up, will exist forever, regardless of the form it takes. Life has made us think we are separate from this universe, it has made us individuals, in death we will become one with the universe again — even though we never really left in the first place.
