Every one of us is afraid of death at a cellular level. Hardly surprising. Nature selects against an acceptance of death in most cases. The only exceptions I can think of involve altruism toward one's relatives.
Every culture dwells on death to some degree. Every religion claims to have answers for the "meaning" of death. The most successful promise you eternal life of one sort or another (and guarantee you'll be happy--how is that possible if you still have a free mind?).
However, there's no evidence that death is anything other than the absence of life (in itself a difficult condition to define). Death is nothing to be afraid of, because it is literally nothing. In some sense, you ought to be more fearful of walking into a dark room than of being dead. At least there's a chance that you'll encounter a lion or a crazed terrorist in the dark room.
Obviously, I'm not eager to be dead, but it strikes me that many religions (starting from the Egyptians) exhibit an unhealthy preoccupation with the subject. I suppose that if fear of death prompts you to do good things, it's a net gain, but what kind of life is that? Waking every day and thinking, "I've got to go do something good today. I need my brownie points. I haven't got much time left." That's not for me.
On the other hand, you might use an afterlife as an excuse to not go out and do something worthwhile. "God's going to forgive me for all of that, and I've got all eternity to do things. Think I'll just sit here on the couch today." The point is that you're not reasoning based on objective reality. Shouldn't you be making your decisions based on what you think is the best use of the life you know you have?
