I am bothered by the focus of humanity on death, rather than life. You see, I feel that too many people jump to things like religion and God for nothing more than a fear of death and the beyond.
I often have conversations about this subject. It usually starts out as a conversation about beliefs and values, ends up moving to God/gods and/or the afterlife. There is this deep seated fear in people that they do not want to die. I can understand, sympathize, and agree with this. I love life and I do not want it to end. But, I am not going to crawl fetal into the corner and cry for a diety to come save me. I am disgusted by how my conversations can go to these places, as well:
“So, you are an atheist?”
“Yes.”
“You do not believe in God?”
“No, that’s why I am an atheist.”
“Oh, well, I just wanted to make sure.” Don’t get me started on people who do not know what atheism is, nor on the resulting response to people like that causes me to have to repeat myself–or people like Douglas Adams to make the claim of “radical atheist.”
“Okay.”
“How can you not believe in God?”
“Because I don’t.” Sorry, asking me “how…” and “why do you not…” are two very different questions. One deserves a good answer, the other deserves a good swift kick.
“What do you think happens when you die?” It’s amazing how fast a lot of these conversations get here.
“You die.” Sometimes, I wonder if some people even know what the definition of “death” is.
“How can you believe that? That’s soo scary!” Case and point?
In short, I am not using this as an argument against religion or God. But I believe that there is an overwhelming movement in people to look towards death and “afterlife” because they are so afraid of it. When this happens, these people stop living for today. I would even venture to say that they stop really living.
I do not like the idea of death. I, like most everyone else, do not want to die. Sadly, it is going to happen. We all die. However, I am not afraid of it. I live every day to the fullest and my life means something. When the day comes that I must give it up, I will be content with the knowledge that I am happy and that every day I lived was a day worth living–even if it was sad or bad.