Comfort in death may be the most difficult of the alternatives to faith to fully grasp. Fear of death is the cause of universal existential angst for everyone at least at some point in their lives. As addressed in the Comfort Illusions section, religion simply distracts with wishes. If I made a list of a hundred scenarios that anyone would wish for but none of which would have evidence, only the ones that had been implanted into your brain by indoctrination or societal norms would not ring alarm bells of irrationality and absurdity. 

 

For instance:

I want to wake up to a million dollars’ worth of jewelry under my pillow every morning without doing any work. 

I want to be able to close my eyes and open them in a new country just by thinking of the country. 

I want to be able to fly.

I want to live forever in a golden paradise after I die. 

 

Of all of these, the first three are realistically impossible, no one before has ever experienced any of them, and no one spends their time thinking about them simply because they would like them to be true. The last one is also realistically impossible, no one before has ever experienced it, yet a large percentage of the population spends a great deal of time thinking about it and wanting it to be true. The main differences between these four wishes is that only the last one was implanted into our heads when we were kids. The impossible concept is only taken seriously for the simple reason that it has been implanted into the heads of children for thousands of years. 

 

The single most provable biological fact about life is that it ends. This happens daily all around always: look at every brown leaf, dead insect, animal product in the grocery store—all of these were once alive. No one thinks that a leaf is going to turn green again and find a tree, or a steak is going to join with the rest of the meat in the butcher section of the store and start mooing.  

Recognizing that the very idea of an afterlife is a distraction from having to deal with mortality is Step One—granted, a very big, potentially difficult, first step. 

 

After understanding that the idea of an afterlife is not reflected by reality, there may be one of several fears leftover, but arguably they all involve suffering at some level. Examining whether this fear of suffering is valid becomes very important. It may help to continuously remind oneself that there will be no awareness after death—there is no possibility of suffering once our brains stop functioning. It will be not unlike sleep, albeit without the possibility of nightmares or dreams. 

 

The suffering from pain and loss of dignity while dying is a very real fear, as is the fear of suffering grief after losing loved ones. Modern medicine is moving in the right direction in terms of palliative care and grief care respectively for both. If all of the time that is spent every week talking about heaven were spent talking to children about how to deal with death, society might be far more prepared when the time actually comes. 

 

Given that there is no organized way of teaching about this, it is important to recognize that death is a constant reminder that this life is all we have. This can affect our appreciation of the here and now. Millions of nonbelievers have come to terms with death which means this is a possibility available to anyone willing to work at it. Facing this anxiety can provide a much more meaningful existence than simply imagining that life goes on after we die.