Ramana Maharshi famously said "your head is trapped in the Tiger's mouth" (consciousness). If you consider that in your birth you were "thrown into this world" (Heidegger), and time is an infinite regress (Hume), there is a compelling argument that you are eternal. You may come back to life and live the exact same life form from its beginning again, a sort of eternal reoccurrence (Nietzsche). Your eternal form may show up in another lifeform, dimension or reality. I think the idea of eternal damnation is probably mankind's more trivial and juvenile concept. But the idea of the Tiger's Mouth or eternal reoccurrence has serious consideration. All my study of decades in philosophy suggested to me that there is a good (almost inevitable) conclusion that existence is eternal. Many times when I am close to dying it is the realization that not even death will stop my pain that has me reconsider and start focusing on fixing things in life. Of course death is the true complete unknown so it's best seen as a complete unopinionated mystery but if one were to ask the question than the eternal nature of man cannot be disputed. And when you really think about it, having an eternal nature but a finite life is a pretty dang good balance in my book. I always thought people who worry about permanent death have not worried enough about permanent reoccurrence which is a far more anxiety provoking idea. It seems I'm the grand scheme of things there is a perfect paradoxical balance between our finite lives (body) and eternal nature (soul). Any thinker who tries to discredit our eternal component has insurmountable paradoxes they cannot answer. Hell to me seems to occur in life and is the suicidal desire itself -- that's the definition of personal annihilation or wished nonexistence. I am in a better state today (decided to take time away from my gun suicide planning) and what I'm speaking here is my honest opinion and while I'm not necessarily going to engage in a debate I am confident my ideas outlined here are the most intuitive. It seems ultimately that we are designed by higher constitutive forces to live the lives we are designed to live and breath the breathes the body is designed to breath. Death is part of that plan, but here too even nature has prepared us, for even wild animals have a death evolution whereby prey submits themselves to their predator and submits their spirit to them before dying. At least for me death is the highest informing factor of how to live this life, but should not be feared (and probably not "avoided" as silly as that sounds or pursued) and discovering more of my eternal life is my spirituality which is the Will to Live (Schopenhauer). The best thing to do to relieve an uneasy mind about all this is to let the organizing principles operate which means flowing with life and embracing physical death in a sort of Taoist harmony. Nothing is more scary to me than my suicidal pain which is why I believe death probably will not cure it. The physicalists and reductionists who believe in permanent death are avoiding too many obvious logical errors with their position and the nihilists or those who believe in no meaning of the universe have an unreasonable absurd rational progression that something that has no purpose exists in the first place. These ideas seem to lead one to hell, which discussed earlier is really a state of the living, and should probably be discarded in favor of a more intuitive personal cosmology. The readings of Chuang Tsu may bring you comfort.
