Originally published at: Al Pacino confirms there's no afterlife - Boing Boing
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I’m trying to decide which Pacino character’s voice I hear when I read that quote and realized it’s “all of them”. Especially “You’re gone.”
There is, yes. I don’t know if I’d call it “nihilism”, but the moment I fully embraced the fact that I never had any faith in a deity, an afterlife or some perverted fear of eternal “justice” gave me a sense of peace and acceptance I had never experienced before. I realize it’s a common conceit among believers that the rest of us are just in denial or a state of avoidance, which I find quite insulting, but life before was terrifying, miserable and riddled with unearned guilt. Good riddance.
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It can be incredibly liberating to believe that no judgment awaits in an afterlife, no higher power damning you to eternal torture or reincarnation as slime mold.
Despite some people obviously deserving it.
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That’s a no-brainer:
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“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” —William Shakespeare, The Tempest
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“To sleep; perchance to dream." Hamlet 
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I already know what my death will be like. It’ll be a return to the state before I was born.
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Utah?
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I’m impressed you know what that was like. I don’t even remember the first few years after I was born.
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I am still waiting for confirmation that regular life exists. It could, like, be a figment of someone else’s imagination.
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I suppose the state you existed in before conception was ‘potential life’.
It’s the same for after death - just the odds are for a different kingdom, phylum and class. 
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I was dead for a while and I felt a warm contentment. No time, no memory, no senses just comfort. It could have been endogenous opioids from the head trauma, but I still find it a comforting thought.
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Great. I haven’t had an existential crisis in a while. Now’s as good a time as any to start having another one after reading OP.
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It was actual life — it was just actual life as germ cells in our ancestors’ bodies
We’ve all been alive for billions of years
but anyone who can read this is closer to the end than the beginning 
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Once I hit junior high school or so, I really began to question the existence of God. Especially the Judeo-Christian God I was taught about in the Methodist church. I kinda thought he was an asshole. I mean…condemning people to an eternity in hell just because they had the bad luck to be born to a Hindu family? It didn’t make any sense to me. Once I decided the most likely explanation that would resolve this problem was that there was no God, I was really relieved. I also found it remarkably freeing. Not because it meant I could do anything I wanted, but because it meant I could do what I believed was the right thing to do in any situation without consulting some ancient text or asking some guy who wore special robes and a special collar. And I could update my sense of right and wrong over time as I learned more and gained more life experience. Sure, when I was younger, the thought that I would just cease to be one day was a little uncomfortable, but the older I get, the more I’m starting to think I will probably welcome that day when it comes. Life is hard.
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Interesting. I tried to die from a heart attack, and my abiding memory is that there was a big nothing – a void. It wouldn’t say it was attractive or disturbing, it just kinda was. I had this sense that I was trying to join with the nothing and something (paramedics it turns out) wouldn’t let me, and my semi-conscious mind was trying very hard to escape the interruptions.
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In 2012 I had a doozy of a heart attack, full cardiac arrest. I didn’t find out for a few days that they were actually preparing my wife for my death.
I did not see a white light, maybe I wasn’t kind of dead enough.
When I joke about it I always say I saw the white light, some people freak out and want to know what it was like.
As scared as I was I think my wife saw a different kind of white light and had an even scarier experience.
Despite Pachino’s declaration and my lack of a white light sighting I still believe this can’t be all there is.
I’m betting on seeing my best friend again.
If I’m wrong, it’s not a bad way to go through life, believing.
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No. I’ve never tah anyone. Not a teacher.
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Well, that does it. After thousands of years of human experience, Al Pacino has solved the greatest mystery of all time.
Now we can really focus on the pineapple on pizza question.
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