afterlife

A post over at AgnosticMom's blog got me typing. I wanted to share my answers here.

1) Do you believe the soul continues to exist after death?

I believe consciousness ends with death.

2) Have you found peace with the probability that when it’s over it is really over? Does this fill you with fear and dread? Or are you somewhere in between (please explain).

The idea of no afterlife was very scary to me at first. Here are some ways I have coped with this idea and adjusted from "I've existed forever" to "this is all there is."

I like to think of the idea of leaving a legacy, a mark, a memory on the earth among those that live after me. In this way, I live on.

Beyond just memories and ideas, I am a part of a great system of life that goes back millions of years, and will continue. Not only do I leave my human DNA in my children, and they in their children, but I am also part of a greater tree of life that connects all life on earth to each other. That doesn't end with my death.

I am a part of the cosmos. I have been and always will be a part of the universe (for the whole time the universe exists, anyway). I love to tell my son he is not 4 years old, but 14 billion and 4 years old, because the basic building blocks of his body (hydrogen, etc) have been around since the Big Bang. And our bodies will return to the earth, and be a part of it until it dies. Then be a part of the solar system, and the galaxy, and the universe until it "dies." But by then, we'll be dead, so we won't care. For me, it replaces the comfort I used to have in Mormonism's pre-mortal existence and afterlife. For him, it's just pretty darn cool. He loves outer space, you see.

What do you think?

1) Do you believe the soul continues to exist after death?

2) Have you found peace with the probability that when it’s over it is really over? Does this fill you with fear and dread? Or are you somewhere in between (please explain). Or, as I asked it once, Which is worse to you: forever or nothing?