Death is a frightening state of (non)being to think about for most. But some people, myself included, do not fear death. Some people think that's unhealthy. Death is not comparable to any other experience in one's life unless one speaks about the state of being unconscious or asleep. Most people don't find the concept of ‘sleeping' scary, but we know what goes on in the mind when one is asleep (roughly), while death is unknown. The real question one has to ask: should we fear the unknown? In some ways, the people who do not fear death do not fear the unknown. Others, especially older people, find life weary and look forward to death. Death, as a state of non-being in any description is an epistemological problem. There is no experience, there is only the absence of one. For a scientific mind, death is nothing. All brain activity ceases, everything goes to darkness. One can't fear the experience since they can't experience (and it isn't an experience). What is there to be frightened of? Peering over the edge of a cliff is frightening (facing death), falling to one's demise is frightening (realizing death and possible pain), but ‘death' the actual ceasing of mental functions should not be scary simply because it's not possible to fear whilst being dead. There can be a fear of loss potential I suppose.
Since I have never experienced my own death, I don't know if it's bad. Everything else that people fear have some attachment to something they have experienced previously except for the fear of experience. The fear of experience is the fear of the unknown. Many people fear excessive pain since they have felt pain and know it to be bad. One could argue a reducto ad absurdum and say any woman that has never experienced rape should not fear it, but the analogy falls short since rape frequently involves pain. It also involves being forced to do something that one does not want to do. Most women do not want to be forced to do something that they don't want to do; they have experienced it in some other form and know it to be undesirable. If the rape isn't forced, then the analogy falls apart again since rape by definition must be forced. So it's either they fear something that they have experienced before (such as pain) or they fear the unknown. It's arguable that death is not part of the unknown and the scientific explanation should be adequate. Many skeptics find the scientific explanation valid and use ockam's razor to conclude nothing happens at all. Why should we expect anything to happen other than the ceasing of the mental faculty? Most arguments for the after-life are arguments from personal astonishment. Many can't believe nothing happens at all since they view humans as having a special destiny. This opens up a whole other argument on whether humans are mere animals or not.
Despite these many arguments for and against the experiences after death, in the end it doesn't really matter. Countless humans have died before us; it's not like we're doing anything damning, new, strange, or unnatural. Death is inevitable, might as well get used to the idea.
©2007 (rewritten)