death for an athiest

Andrew Sullivan has had an ongoing discussion about what an athiest thinks about death. Here is a short sampling of some of what people wrote in.

As for myself, I'm happy there's no life after death. I thought about this quite a bit after my father died, and again recently after my grandmother died. At both funerals, there were were lots of people and stories about the lives they'd lived. At my Grandmother's, there were stories I'd never heard from people I never knew. It was like listening to an epic tale, and it was hard to believe that these stories were all from the life of one woman--she'd lived a life worthy of several! I began to think that when people say things like, "death is only the begining" I disagree. Not only do I disagree, but I disagree and it's because I disagree that I can be unafraid of death.

I don't know if this will make sense to anyone else, but the idea that death IS an end. It's a final end. A period on our lives. And I'm OK with that. After all is said and done, I won't spend an eternity thinking, praying, dancing, praising, burning, swimming or anything. Life will go on without me and around me people will continue to love and live. Hopefully what I will have done will make the lives of those around me better, but for more than that, I cannot hope. For me, to hope for more than that, considering the life I've been able to lead, the people I've been able to love and the experiences I've been able to have--well to me, it would just be selfish to hope for more.