Life after death?

A few days ago and friend and I stumbled over some statistics on typical Germans. One of the numbers surprised us alot: 70% of German teenagers believe in a life after death.

My friend and I are not religious or spiritual so logically we thought that this number had to be way too high. We decided that 40% was a more realistic number but agreed to ask our friends the next day. We sat down with some wine and chocolate cake and discussed that number, life after death and personal believes in general. It was n imensly interesting and inspiring conversation, I have learned new things about my friends who I know up to 11 years, it was great.

I do not believe in a life after death. I think we die, we get eaten by worms, our bodies disappear. Whenever I say that out loud people tell me how sad that sounds but personally I have to strongly disagree. We are a part of nature. Our time on this earth is limited as is the life of every creature on this planet. At some point it is time to go and open some space for new creatures, new people, new animals, new plants. When we die our physical bodies become part of nature, we feed and nurish it with everything we have left to give. It is our gift to her, it basically says 'thank you for letting me live'.

As to what people call the 'soul' I don't believe it just vanishes. It lives in the  memory of other people. As a historian I know that even the simplest of all lives still leave a footprint, all we have to do is cherish it. Your great-grandmother's purse, an old necklace you find on a flea market, letters that are found in the future,

all these things leave a piece of us behind for the ones who come after us to take care for. 

I don't think that sounds sad at all.

How about you? What do you believe about death and how does it make you feel?

Have a great day,

The Countess