I consider myself an atheist and I am nonreligious. Also, I am a naturalist, humanist, and find value in the non-supernatural portions of buddhist and taoist philosophy.
Anyways, I know they say logically you should call yourself agnostic if you do not believe in deities because you leave yourself open for the tiny chance they might exist and you cannot definitively prove either way. But, I actually prefer the stronger claim that no supernatural beings are overseeing our lives. Similar to the idea that it is freeing to be nonreligious, I think it is empowering for humans to commit the idea that all their activity is on their own shoulders involving the natural mechanisms of a biochemical organism and the conscious intentions of the intelligent mind- a useful little commitment.
Its completely normal to have death anxiety. It is one of the great unknowns in our lives, and considering it signals the finality of our own conscious existence it seems like something us conscious beings should particularly pay attention to. There have been times when it is more salient for me, but for the most part it doesn't bother me so much. It seems coming to peace with death is one of the quintessential tasks of being a human being. Something we should figure out when we are young because it is inevitably around the corner if not for us than for those we care about. For me, just meditating on its inevitability has helped me let go of any anxiety I have of it. I just assume its going to happen, a lot of it, all around me, and one day to me. Just as natural as birth...
Also, I remember that death means complete loss of consciousness i.e. no one to experience any pain or thoughts of loss of life or to sit there and determine if my life really mattered. I didn't worry about being born before I was conceived, I don't remember most of what happens when I sleep, and as the details in my memories fade, many things in my life have already just disappeared. When I die, I won't be around to worry about it, so what's there to be worried about? You literally will not care either way. Its fair to be worried about the moments before death which may involve pain as your body shuts down, but again what does that really all mean when once you are dead there is no longer any feeling or sense of time. No you to worry or feel the pain of death. That's a pretty fair deal. A few moments of pain relative to an eternity of nothing.
Many supernatural tales are useful stories to help us cope with our inadequate knowledge. The afterlife is an easy way to pave over the existential problems of death. Can't know what death is, then here's a nice story that turns death into something you can understand, an extended sort of life. Its no coincidence that many depictions of heaven and hell involve very human arrangements and activities (torture, playing golf, doing things you loved on earth with family members etc) There's literally no reason why an afterlife would have to be that way. Anyways, its all a construct to help us deal with the problem of death. It became an even more powerful tool when morality was infused in it all. Make the afterlife even more interesting, let's add the piece where what you do on earth determines where you go- lifted right out of primitive ideals of justice and punishment. Its super powerful stuff. Tell people they will be held accountable by a supernatural experience brought upon by an event they cannot control. Its very clever. And its been super useful for ordering society and convincing people to act a certain way for thousands of years.
Anyways, you mentioned you are experiencing existential crisis which suggests you may be more concerned about what is the meaning of life in the face of inevitable death. That's another issue more about living, since its more about what you are doing when you are alive, not when death actually occurs. What is the meaning of life without an afterlife? Well, as a naturalist, it has little to do with what our consciousness tries to think it is. Remember, we are literally the interaction of billions of atoms arranged in a precise way. Just matter put into an extremely complex form. I'm a bundle of chemicals fulfilling duties in really beautiful and complex arrangements. Some of those arrangements gives me the ability think about those very same arrangements. But, consciousness is just more of the same complex electrochemical interaction. How can you really know what is you as an individual and you the biochemical machine, for better words? The idea, and remember its just an idea created by other biochemical machines, that we have souls and a discrete identity, its all just perspective. From the perspective of time and physics though, we are just little bundles of energy constantly changing. Our mind likes us to obsess about our discreteness and individual identity, but can you really trust these thoughts? They are after all very useful programming to get us to work with other biochemical machines, to live long enough and to cooperate enough to reproduce.
You may think that its silly to reduce humanity in this way, but I think my bigger point is more how unreliable our commitments are to certain notions of what we are fundamentally. I think this screws with our thoughts, creating anxiety, because we trick ourselves into the reality of our own existence and identity, when they are all constructs. What really bakes my noodle is that this death anxiety and existential crisis, again, might just be manifestations to improve and carry out my chemical programming according to my current chemical arrangement and the laws of physics acting on them.
It actually reminds me of the afterlife idea. Just stories, little lies, to keep us alive and to compel us to carry out our basic functions. I have no problem with having very little connection to real truth in the world. Humans are incredibly stymied in knowledge acquisition. I have no problem with just living a constant lie. It gets me by, and it just how it is within the limits of my biochemical logic. Everyone does it.
Now, you may think this makes me some kind of nihilistic relativist. However, my version of a meaningful life simply acknowledges all these shortcomings. I think, ok, there are all these basic facts and rules we know from observing nature. Most of them are probably missing a lot of the story anyways, but I know there are all these processes going on outside my control. Given these processes that cause certain tendencies for human behavior, how can I work with this and make "the best of it." Well, it seems by focusing on what we are, we get some good ideas. We are social beings, we want to work together. We are creative beings, we want to change the world and create new tools and ideas. We face the realities of experiencing the physical body in certain ways. We need food and water to carry on. We need exercise to keep us healthy. By maximizing our body processes, we can avoid unnecessary pain and suffering by eating and drinking on schedule as well as keeping physical active as possible. We get a lot of natural pleasure from sexual activity. Given our love of social acitivity, raising children is a great outlet for this and arguably key to our programming. Psychologically, again I focus on basic tendencies for behavior. We enjoy the opportunity of interfacing with others and building tools and ideas. We like building things together. Let's focus on improving ways of doing that. Given our primary communication of abstract ideas is currently through language, let's improve our ability to use that tool. Etc Etc Anyways, I could go on and on, but my general idea of a meaningful life is being a human who is making the best of what I have. Humans have severe limitations, but we do have things we are good at. What's great is we also have limited attention spans and memories so we can do similar things over and over until we die without going crazy. So, for me, its just focusing on the core human strengths and avoiding getting out of sync with these properties. Its the best you can do, just maximize your core programming. That all said, this cool consciousness thing and emotions will mean I will have all kinds of crazy experiences in the process. I hope to maximize the "nice" ones. Whatever, I decide that means....
Anyways, I've just enjoyed exercising the human proclivity for abstract communication and creativity. This satisfies me. Now, I will go to bed, sleep again, wake up again, and eat breakfast again, and do something slightly new, but mostly similar to the next day while trying to do what my nature indicates is important. Well, that's my little story. I encourage you to never give up on finding yours. And, make sure to allow yourself to relax. Any answer you come up with will never be ultimately true, but it will be yours and it can could be very creative and useful. I think you'll like that. Well, its a good guess anyways, remembering after all, that you are just a human.
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