The Epicurean view of death

Death is in fact, well nothing.

The Epicurean view of death is one of liberation, many of us in the modern world (and especially here in Ireland with the catholic church) are told that our actions in this lifetime are being judged by God, if we don't act in accordance with Gods will you get, well, cooked. To Epicurus, nothing really happens after death because with death comes the cessation of any feeling, there is no more pleasure or pain, we can't feel anything with our hands, we can't taste, we can't smell scents and because our brains and bodies one in the same we have no thoughts because a dead body =  a dead mind.

As you can imagine in Ancient Greece dying was a real concern to people from the moment they can conceptualize death. Epicurus himself came to Athens  during or after the death of Alexander the Great, it was, for the people of Greece, a constant worry that Darius and the Persian Empire would come and ransack the city, Athens was the capital city of anxiety! Epicurus however had a cure for this...

Conclusion

Why would you fear being dead? There is no need, you won't experience at all. It's so freeing, both to my own death and the death of loved ones, there is no need to worry about them suffering because they loved drinking or didn't go to church every Sunday, nothing is happening to them - they aren't there.

This is the only life  you and I have, why would we choose to live it in devotion to a God that probably doesn't exist? Let us be happy, find pleasure in things YOU like, not what society says you have to like.