The fear of death troubles our existence. Anxiety over death leaves no pleasure for us in this world. This fear can cause men to violate their honor and friendship. But what is so bad with death that we fear it so much?

Our fears are no more real than the fears that a baby possesses in darkness. Death should not be feared. There is nothing out there for us to be dreading. The wise should not fear death because everyone dies, and there is nothing we can do to prevent that. No one makes it out of here alive. Death has no meaning for us, and therefore we should not dwell on it. A life devoted to worrying about death is pointless, because you are living every waking moment in fear, and thus not enjoying life to the fullest. If one goes through life fearing death his years will become an obsession with that fear and thus his life is not even worth living. We only have one life here, don’t spoil it worrying about the future. S

Lucretius holds that a mind can have no existence with out the body. When we die, our body and soul will go their separate ways. Consequently, we will not care or have feelings about anything that goes on. Even if the mind has some sensation it does not matter, because without our body we have no identity. Without an identity we have no self recollection. We then can not feel what happens to our mind or body after our death.

People should not be worried that in death we will lose our possessions. Death is just like sleep. During sleep we will never find ourselves missing anything or find ourselves searching for our identity. If we were to sleep forever we would not never find ourselves lacking anything. Death should be viewed as an eternal sleep. We should look forward to death in the same way that we look forward to sleeping at night. Death is actually somewhat less distressing than sleep, because in death we will have no chance for our matter to reassemble and have our bodies awaken. There is no reason to fear death because in death everyone is care free and has no worries.

Just as we were not affected by the occurrences before our life started, so too we are not affected with what happens after our bodies leave this world. For example, scientists have hypothesized that one day, far from now the sun will explode and the Earth will be no more. This however does not concern us because it will happen so long from now that we will not see this event, and will have no impact on our lives.

Death is an eternity. It is futile to waste ones life wanting more. Even having years shaved off death will not make death any less of an eternity. It does not matter when you die. What matters is how you live your l

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