I was raised thinking that moral and ethical standards are universals that apply equally to everyone. And these values aren't easily compatible with the kind of religion that posits a Creator. To my way of thinking, an omnipotent being who sets up a universe in which thinking beings proliferate, grow old, and die (usually in agony, alone, and in fear) is a cosmic sadist.

Although I am unconvinced that I desire life, I am not yet ready to embrace death.

First and most importantly, death is just the absence of life—oh, and for human beings, the absence of consciousness, too, but not just the absence of consciousness, the absence of the capacity for consciousness.

Sometimes I think death is even more inevitable than taxes," his grandmother replies bleakly. "Humans don’t live in a vacuum; we’re part of a larger pattern of life.