In school I tried to reason out what death would be like without an afterlife.
We'd read Plato's The Apology of Socrates, & he said death without an afterlife would be like a dreamless sleep. That didn't make sense to me; I'd already read we always dream; we just don't remember them unless we wake up during them.
So I tried to solve the question using my understanding nothingness, based on what I'd learned in science. It would be dark, for there would be no light. It would be cold, for there would be no heat. It would not be wet; there would be no water. But darkness, coldness, & dryness are all things I could feel, & I wouldn't have a ind to feel them. I wouldn't have a mind to feel the passage of time.
So then what? Without an afterlife we could not feel death, but we could feel the events which led to our death, & we'd never realize those events ended. In short, hell is inevitable, but Heaven would have to be the work of a merciful God.
If Hell is a place... I'm not sure it would work if it was escapable. It would become an economic issue, & years of pleasure would no longer be scarce. The rich man might decide 5 minutes with Abraham are worth a 1000 extra years of torment. After all Lazarus has been sitting in Abraham's lap so long, it's only fair to pull him away.
Sooooo, a "merciful god" creates a universe and life where "hell is inevitable" but heaven is only a possibility?
I'm no fan of mormonism and would love to see a certain Mormon in some sort of hell, and I think mormonism's effect on Utah is a good argument for keeping religion out of government, but I bave to admit their idea of he afterlife is better than most abrahamic spinoffs.
As to me if there is an afterlife I can't imagine it. Maybe there's a transition stage where things seem to be like your old life at first or at least are familiar for a while as you adjust. Maybe this life is just "existence 101" and it's point it to be he beginning of an existsence tbat goes behind it.
I look at humanity and while therecs so much awfulness in it there is also wonder. Wecve gone from the stone age to discovering and mastering some fundamental forces of the universe like the electron and the photon, we'vs cracked the atom open and found new worlds inside them, wecve done so much for creatures that thousands of years ago just used wood and stone.
Maybe there is something better and being this. But I never could accept any of the abrahamic views that tells us we exit either to be mindless praise production units for an egotistical megalomaniac or to suffer eternal torture for not becoming mindless praise production units for said egomaniac. Humans have developed such knowledge, grown our science and technology, we're able to be so much more than the dismal alternatives offered by the abrahamic faiths. I just feel they can't be right.
