I honestly don’t fear death at all. Dying, yes (not if it’s peaceful, but I fear a painful or violent or prolonged PROCESS of dying); but being dead holds no fears. I imagine it as an endless, dreamless sleep – I won’t know a thing about it, because I won’t exist any more.
We do know, actually, that nothing happens after death. Those who believe in an afterlife believe in a soul that survives the demise of our physical bodies; a soul that contains the essence of us; that can feel emotions (eg. joy at being reunited with loved ones); that can feel physical pain (eg. the flames of hell); that is essentially our personality plus senses, minus our body.
But we can be quite certain this isn’t true. If our personality resides in our souls, how come damage to our physical brains often alters our personality beyond recognition? If our senses ultimately reside in our soul, again, how come people whose eyes or ears have been damaged lose the ability to see or hear? And how come people with damage to specific parts of their physical brains lose sensation in other parts of their bodies? If our emotions reside in our soul, how come they can be stimulated and manipulated by electronic impulses to specific parts of our physical brains?
We KNOW that these things are the products of physical processes in our physical brains; and we know that, after death, our physical brains either decompose or are cremated, along with the rest of us.
There really will be no way we could possibly have any awareness of anything after death. That may be a disconcerting thought; it may incredibly hard to conceptualise; and we may feel sad at the thought of no longer being with our friends and families; but there really isn’t anything to fear.
Posted: June 3rd 2009
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