Death becomes her??
2003-09-12 ~ 8:38 a.m.

Perhaps this is unhealthy, but I have a great fear of death. This stems from a lack of a belief system - I'm not a big believer in religion. I was raised as a Catholic, but I only went to church with my grandmother, and I stopped going once I no longer lived near her.

I would like to believe that there is a God and an afterlife, but I think that I'm too much of a scientist in this case. I believe that the Big Bang happened, I believe in science. Science is tangible, all about cold hard facts. Proof, in other words. I find it hard to blindly believe in something which has almost zero basis in fact. To have faith in something that I can't substantiate, that makes little sense to me. What does that mean? What kind of person does that make me, that I need some sort of proof that God exists? Is that bad? I never thought so. I'm a person that is ultra-cool with anything that people believe. I respect that. But it just doesn't make sense to me.

So, in believing that there is no afterlife, that brings me to the big question: What happens when we die? I don't really subscribe to the white light and long tunnel theory. I think that it'll be more like going to sleep and not waking up again - a complete absence of consciousness. And that scares the bejeezus out of me.

I can't imagine no longer being aware of the world around me. I want to be around in 300 years when we colonize another planet in another solar system. I'm a nosy person. I want to see where mankind goes. To simply no longer exist is terrifying to me. Seriously, it keeps me up at night.

I see the appeal of believing in an afterlife. People who believe tend to have no fear of dying. I think that maybe the idea of an afterlife was first created simply to give comfort to people when faced with the big unknown.

I know I said I wasn't religious, but God speed, Johnny Cash and John Ritter. You'll both be sorely missed.

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