As a nurse with 30yrs experience i have learnt that a person's attitude to death depends on one's perspctive. If you are healthy,full of optimism and loved then death holds no joy. For others it's a case of 'walk in the other person's shoes' before making a judgement about whether their life is worth living or not. I once cared for a young man who could move absolutely nothing but his eyes. I'm know he welcomed the decision to allow him to die. Personaly, I'm not counting on an afterlife, so I'm in no hurry to leave.

Death may be a good or a bad thing depending on circumstances.

Life is potentiality. The possibility of things happening. Death is the remove of such potentiality.

If you have no hope for the future, if the only possibilities involve different types of miserable ways to live out the rest of your existance, then death may be a good thing.

Otherwise, death is something that should be postponed, either as long as possible or until your life reaches such a horrible state.

I believe the question is intimately connected with spirituality and anthropology; the understanding of the person.  I'm going into a line of work where I will see death on a regular basis, in many different forms.

 The reality is, people die.  Old people die, kids die, everyone dies at some point.  As an experience, we cannot truly understand death until it befalls us.  From a relational perspective, its a bad thing.  It represents an end in relationship.  Its a transition from someone contributing to our lives in community, to existing only in our memories, and that's painful to experience.

 Personally, as a Christian, I hold death to be a good thing.  In Christian history, the experience of death was a mode of separation between humanity and God.   But because of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, death is now an experience that we share with God.  Instead of death separating us, it now brings us closer in relationship through shared experience.

 I understand that other spiritual perspective will differ, and I am excited to discuss them here.

Life has no absolutes.  Dying is not always a bad thing.  I am a funeral director who has presided over 1000's of funerals and has prepared 500 plus bodies for viewing and I am here to tell you that I have personally met hundreds of people who are intelligent, confident, clear of thought and ready to die.  This may be an impossible concept for younger people to grasp, but wait until you are 90 years old and living in a world with no  physical pleasures and few remaining intellectual pleasures.  Wait until you reach an age where there is no one left to talk to who understands you.  Wait until you have no friends because your peers have gone before you.  Wait until you have to live each day in unbearable pain or discomfort and feel you contribute nothing.  Wait until you live in an age that you don't understand.  I once prearranged a funeral for a man who told me, "Live as long as you can.  Then when you feel you can't live any longer, accept it is time to die.  If it truly is your time, it will come."   Within two months of him telling me this, he died peacefully in his sleep.  I think he died happy.

In addition to age, I have seen suffering.  I will not elaborate on this point except to say sometimes death is merciful.        

Death is the failure to survive. Everyone fails, but when you do is what counts. If your 23 and get drunk and smash up your car into a pole, you've failed to survive.

I plan on being damn good at surviving, I believe I could survive alone.

Not all people feel the same way so tell me what you think.