Why does the prospect of no afterlife scare you?

Question

Whoops, missed the details.. oh well, to err is human I guess...

Basically are you really so desperate to live forever that you'd believe that there is some immortal part of yourself that goes on and yet that no one has ever seen?

I personally would prefer to gracefully fade away as most people do. Well either that or something dramatic.

Answer 1

People fear nonexistence.
Can you possibly imagine living, doing your thing, and then suddenly nothing?
I suppose we'd never know. People have a never-ceasing stream of consciousnes that just blends ideas together one after another. It's what makes you who you are. It's hard to believe, I guess, that that stops.
So then, since the loss of a stream of consiousness seems so hard to swallow, man couldn't come to terms with his own end, so he invented God, and gave himself an afterlife to believe in.
It is instinct to think that you are, have been, and always will be.

At least that's how the story goes according to Dennett.