Atheists & Agnostics

 
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With the exception of some insects that live in colonies with queens, all animal species instinctively avoid death because individuals that do are more likely than individuals that don't to stay alive and reproduce. (I figure that insect queens have evolved to produce offspring that will die for them, but I've never found confirmation of that.)

That's why death is hard to accept, and why people crave the comfort of believing they have an immortal "soul". It's an attempt to reconcile intelligent understanding of nature with instinctive feelings and reactions that are the result of natural selection.

There's an anesthetic called propofol that has made me feel like I've traveled through time. I open my eyes without remembering having closed them, and everyone is gone but one nurse waiting for me to wake up. It feels very different from sleep. If you ask me what the experience is like being under the influence of propofol, I'd have to say that there is no such experience.

I believe death is the same except without waking up. It makes no sense to wonder what the experience of being dead is like because there is no such experience. Non fui, fui, non-sum, non-curo.