In My Time of Dying: How I Came Face to Face with the Idea of an Afterlife

by Sebastian Junger

believing things you don’t understand is either obedience or desperation, and neither leads to the truth. Would we believe in God if we didn’t die?

I thought about that version of death for the first time. The version that isn’t a thing; the version that is absolutely nothing.

“Instead of thinking of it as something scary,” she said, “try thinking of it as something sacred.”

It’s an open question whether a full and unaverted look at death crushes the human psyche or liberates it.

Every object is a miracle compared to nothingness and every moment an infinity when correctly understood to be all we’ll ever get. Religion does its best to impart this through a lifetime of devotion, but one good look at death might be all you need.

experiences could be entirely the result of neurochemical changes in the dying brain but still mistaken for actual trips into the afterlife.

Why wasn’t everyone crying all the time over this? I thought. Have you seen the trees—really seen them? Or the clouds? Or the way water droplets form digital patterns on the porch screen after it rains?