"They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time."

~ Banksy

My grandfather once told me that he wasn't sure about an afterlife, but if you lived a good life while you were alive you would live on in other's memories ..

A classic Sagan quote.

The full quote is as follows -

“I would love to believe that when I die I will live again, that some thinking, feeling, remembering part of me will continue. But as much as I want to believe that, and despite the ancient and worldwide cultural traditions that assert an afterlife, I know of nothing to suggest that it is more than wishful thinking. I want to grow really old with my wife, Annie, whom I dearly love. I want to see my younger children grow up and to play a role in their character and intellectual development. I want to meet still unconceived grandchildren. There are scientific problems whose outcomes I long to witness—such as the exploration of many of the worlds in our Solar System and the search for life elsewhere. I want to learn how major trends in human history, both hopeful and worrisome, work themselves out: the dangers and promise of our technology, say; the emancipation of women; the growing political, economic, and technological ascendancy of China; interstellar flight. If there were life after death, I might, no matter when I die, satisfy most of these deep curiosities and longings. But if death is nothing more than an endless dreamless sleep, this is a forlorn hope. Maybe this perspective has given me a little extra motivation to stay alive. The world is so exquisite, with so much love and moral depth, that there is no reason to deceive ourselves with pretty stories for which there's little good evidence. Far better, it seems to me, in our vulnerability, is to look Death in the eye and to be grateful every day for the brief but magnificent opportunity that life provides.”

― Carl Sagan, Billions & Billions: Thoughts on Life and Death at the Brink of the Millennium

An eternal afterlife has no appeal for me..."forever" is a long, long time. I was talking with a hospital volunteer (she was pushing my wheel chair when being discharged), she gave me the Christian spiel about "...where I was going to spend eternity...". I told her I was an atheist and the concept of living eternally in a "heaven" had no appeal to me whatsoever. She continued, saying that she was sure that I could find something in heaven that would appeal to me. To which I said, "I want a pony." She did not seem to be aware that "...you can have anything you want in heaven...even a pony." was an archetype dangled before children in my era to entice children to believe in God.

Your ideas and passions can live on in those you share them with in the here and now.

You can build a legacy of thoughts and dreams to be passed along to those who continue them, but that means sharing all that now, to make the word better, or just your own corner of the world, or even just your own small circle of family and friends.

Dying is hard! I'm sure many of us have seen it up close and personal several times.

I agree. Then the religious hate you for this because they do not want to believe that all of their own relatives lived a lie. They have to take the truth as an insult.

Someone a bit smarter than me said that we should make the best of our lives in the short time we have. So, those who live only for their final reward is wasting the gift of life. Everyone dies - but not everyone lives.

We're not the only species that mourns death, but death there is. Against all probability you were born & now you face your inevitable death. Consider yourself lucky.

I'm good with finality.

Would you really want to live forever?

Someone posted a picture of a dessert made solely of orange circus peanuts on facebook recently, and I'm like nope, that's enough. 80 years or so and let's call it.

[southernliving.com]

I guess you've been chastised enough; so I'll just say; I think maybe that desire and the accompanying fear of death were the reasons mankind created religion in the first place.

Despite the absence of attribution your ability to quarry quotability and eschew editorial is exemplary if not nonpareil.

It's normal to quote references when you use someone else's material. In this case, Carl Sagan

When my dad died I was driving with my 3 year old son and was crying. I was pregnant with my daughter so cried often. He asked me what was wrong and I told him that my dad died.. My in laws watched him while I worked, so he only knew god as papa dios. He s as I'd wouldnt he be with papa dios, and I said that he believed he would. He then said, mommy being XEAD isnt sad, so don't cry. He paused like in deep thought awhile while looking at me and then said, "Now DYING, THAT IS sad!"

Become a Hindu, or Buddhist: live, die, repeat.
Of course becoming doesn't make it so.
Look at it this way, we are all stardust, and return to the cosmos to be reused in some manner.

It may not be wishful thinking. We may literally invent the afterlife!

Read up on Ray Kurzweil. He was among the first to talk about mapping our neural connections amd simulating it on computer. It may be physically feasable to live on as a sort of "neural net" in a computer and a program can be run to interface with our sensory neurons and created our perfect ideal world with in which we have god like control.

So...even though the expected version of afterlife likely doesn't exist, we may be able to create one in reality, albeit many centuriea from now.

Perhaps we can invest in getting a detailed 3D MRI scans of our brain to map the physical locations of our neurons right down to the synapses. A hundred years from now they may be able to use the MRI to create your brain virtually.

Meh, i just want to go to sleep when it's time.

to realise that life is finite, should motivate you to 'seize the day'. We should always live each day as if it is our last. This chance at life, to be born at all, is like a miracle. Be grateful and don't squander it.

But you WILL live again after you die, you, like everyone else, won't know it but nature will re-cycle you, worms, bacteria, etc, etc, will devour your flesh slowly but surely, their excrement, etc, will then fertilize the ground allowing Fungi, plants, trees, etc, to grow and thrive which will then feed herbivores, etc, then along will come carnivores to kill and eat the herbivores and so the cycle will continue on.
Unless your remains are cremated, then you go straight to being nutrient rich fertilizer (ashes), IF you have your ashes spread that is, thus you cut out the 'middle man' (decaying, rotting away and feeding worms, etc, etc,).

I have no proof that I will come back to a new life. I once believed that I was born to live, live to die, and be reborn again.

Objectively, it makes sense to be cremated and have your ashes put into the trash. I’m a tiny bit less objective.

I am the opposite. Although I don't relish in the idea of not existing, the thought of existing forever seems like torment to me. What would eternal "life" even mean? Without our physical human bodies, how could we feel/experience anything--either physically or emotionally? And, if we somehow could, how could it in any way be the same person/being we were? I find comfort in knowing that the energy and atoms that came together to form me will continue on allowing all kinds of other life to exist.

When was the last time anyone heard from anyone who was dead? It's the same reason no one ever tried to train a dead dog to fetch a ball -- dead is dead.

Bad joke, I'm going to convince all you atheists and agnostics of life after death especially if you're really as focused on science as you claim. Just one simple word.