"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." - Mark Twain

Something I posted before... I prefer to explain what I find inspiring in my beliefs to be better understood. That it's my character that makes me a good person, my conscience. Like the four cardinal virtues, prudence, temperance, fortitude, and justice or those of positive psychology, wisdom and knowledge, courage, humanity, justice, temperance, and transcendence. That I also respect the empathy and logic of morality and recognize from many religions the logic of the Golden Rule, similar to a maxim of reciprocity but through empathy. That I feel a spirituality with the universe as a product of star dust, and a rapport with all life on Earth, sharing the same origins. I am awe inspired by the intricacies of the laws of nature and life. I fear dying but I don't fear being dead, I accept my mortality with the rest of life and the humility of being a wave crashing on the surf and not having to be the endless sea. That for me the meaning or purpose in life is to ask 'what is the meaning of MY life' and to pursue my passions and virtues.

Hi Garlon, I was raised baptist and did not become atheist until about 10 years ago. I'm 46 now. When I realized that I did not truly believe in god it felt like a weight was lifted from me. But I also came to understand that upon death, my mind will cease to exist. All of my thoughts, my memories, my personality... which is distinctly unique in the universe... will disappear. That saddens me. It saddens me that this will happen to all of my family and friends as well. And death isn't even really a dark nothingness. I will not be aware of any darkness or nothingness. I won't realize anything since my mind will not exist.

This doesn't make me happy at all, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about it. The comfort of a magical eternal afterlife is gone for me. There's no way to get that back. I suppose the only comfort is that there will be no pain or grief or sadness after you die.

I doubt anything I said will help you but I wanted to share my thoughts. I hope you can come to terms with what you are thinking/feeling. Good luck.

Try this thought.
If there is an afterlife after we die then we'll go there. If there isn't and all there is, is only a "dark nothingness" as you described it, then you won't know you're dead, you won't feel dead, and you won't miss anything about being alive

The way I see it you're going to die eventually so why worry about it or the afterlife. Personally I believe in reincarnation, however I don't dwell on that or death.

This is something I have thought a lot about. What happens to me after I die, what happened to my parents after they died. I don't know, but, what I do know, to find solace, is that parts of our existence live on, in other people, by our inter actions and experiences with them. Parts of my parents existence lives on in me, parts of my existence will live on in my friends, family and everyone I meet. Hope that helps.

I find peace and comfort in knowing that my atoms, my energy, will continue on allowing other life to exist--without death there can be no life. I do not desire an afterlife. What would it even mean? An eternity of what? We would not, could not, be ourselves; and time would mean nothing. And, the thought that we exist because some deity needed adulation is just a horrible thought--especially if this deity will send people to a place of eternal punishment because they don't believe in it or the right things about it.

I understand what you're saying, but I think it's sort of like mapping consciousness onto death and you can't imagine nonexistence. I've heard a lot of people make this claim. I see no reason for anxiety, though. Consciousness ceases every night while you sleep (not counting the dream states). During those hours of unconsciousness, have you suffered any grave ill? Do you feel now that during those hours last night you were deprived of something essential? Do you dread sleep tonight? Imagine that during one of those unconscious moments tonight you have an aneurysm and die, painlessly and unaware: you wouldn't be conscious of anything, so you'd experience no sense of loss. You're imagining a harm to yourself that cannot exist because there will be no self. In fact, you're inflicting harm on yourself now by anticipating a future harm or loss that can't exist if you cease to be. A dreamless sleep to me sounds like a perfect way to "live out" eternity.

I still like my thinking that Odin was my favorite "god" during my junior high school learning days. That makes me much happier than many of the biblical things.

Hi there, don't know if this will help, but here's my experience on the matter. I used to be afraid of nothingness after death as well. I didn't like the idea of just not existing anymore, of not being to remember all the things I did in life. However, I suspected that since nothingness after death was a real possibility, I figured I had to find some way to deal with it.

So here's what I found- I look at other things that die all the time in Nature- plants, animals, even other people. Is death the end of their existence, the role that they play? Certainly not! Their matter is recycled by Nature and is used to make other things. The actions of living things also have effects that tend to resonate even after their death. And the state of nothingness itself can be thought of as a state of pure being. We may not sense or think, but we are the things that get sensed and thought about. We are no longer bound by worries and fears and racing thoughts- we simply are.

Hope that at least some of that was helpful

You won't know you're dead. Your brain stops working, so there's nothing to know with. I fear death less since I stopped believing in life after death. I know that isn't the case with some people, but I'm also confused as to why anyone who doesn't believe would want to. I was indoctrinated into the Bible religion, and if you think back on the god in the Bible, he's the scariest, most evil being a person could imagine. I don't why I couldn't see that when I was growing up. Anyone who would declare human beings naughty, and drown every mother, father and child. Every baby on Earth, except one old drunk and his family. Wow

There is something after you die to look forward too. The advancement of the species in our universe. If you pass on your genes, your knowledge, or just flipped a burger for someone who has, then you've done your part. That is the meaning of life.

Just remember that unlike the religous, an atheist has everything to live for and nothing to die for.