Life, and what happens thereafter

Hello all

Recently, well I say recently, for a lot of my life, I have contemplated what happens after we die and I've heard many theories. Obviously there's the religious theories that, if you choose to believe a book, you will go to a new existence that will be determined by how you lived your life, then there's the complete polar opposite of that in that nothing happens, you just die and that's it, I'm not sure quite where I fall in between there, although I know one thing for sure, I'm not going to base my opinions on what a book says.

Don't get me wrong, I am not against religion, I think it serves a good purpose in the sense that it tries to convince people to not live their life like a twat, in other words be a nice person and you'll be well rewarded, which is a nice thought....if you choose to believe it. And there are some religions that I actually really respect, Buddhism for example, a religion where you try and find inner peace and dedicate your life to that peace, I really respect that.....not that I would ever become a buddhist because you have to give up music.....or at least according to their Wikipedia page.

Young Buddhist monks

I'm not quite sure what I believe to be precise. I know I believe in the theory of evolution because it can be proved. The reason I know it can be proved is that in my favourite podcast, RadioLab, they talked about a scientist in their "New Normal" show that pointed a gun at a fox, it's reaction would be the different between whether it lived or whether it died, in other words they were selective breeding. Several generations later and  all foxes that were born started showing different visual differences and they were effectively evolving into a different type of animal. To me that proves evolution exists, however, it means precisely nothing in the debate of what happens after we die.

Back when me and Jodi were friends, we once had a conversation about the afterlife and we sort of agreed that maybe there is some new form of existence that we inhabit, but not like a heaven or hell, but just another existence that we can't comprehend, and maybe the reason we can't comprehend it is because our brains are damaged during childbirth. Now, I know that may sound strange, but think about it, your skull, until a certain point during your childhood, is not set properly and is still, for lack of better words, soft. Now imagine what your head goes through during childbirth, your head is being impacted upon by vaginal muscles and that could cause your brain to rattle against the skull at that point, damaging your brain. It does make you wonder if that is the reason humans can only use certain areas of their brains at certain times. Without that potential brain damage, would you be able to use more of your brain?

A street preacher (albeit from a film) - You can see one of these on most
major high streets at various points

One such other existence that I've heard a theory on is again from RadioLab in their "Afterlife" show. The theory in that is that you spent your afterlife reliving all of your life events again but not in the order they happened, but rather they are categorised and you move through each category. So in other words, you retake every single shower you've ever had but all at the same time, so say for example, if you only ever have 100 showers or baths during your life (eww, by the way if that is the case) and they last 15 minutes each, you would spend 1,500 minutes in the shower in the afterlife before moving onto 100 lots of 3 minutes cleaning your teeth, just over and over again. Obviously for stuff you enjoy doing, that would probably sound quite nice.

My one problem with that theory is that no matter what order you put it in, your afterlife would only last as long as your actual life did, so what actually happens after that?

I think the true frustration in life is that no-one will ever truly know. Some people think they know (i/e religious people or the athiests) and some of those will annoyingly try to force their opinions on everyone, but no-one will ever truly know. I imagine that's what drives the athiests mad, they know if they're wrong then they will have the religious people gloat and if they're right, they don't get to gloat themselves, they are in a no-win situation on that level.

So I don't know what happens after we die, I have no idea. I would like there to be some sort of afterlife....preferably a pleasent one, but I'm not going to like those people who are so afraid of what might happen that they live a sheltered life,