Yale University offers a free online class called, The Philosophy of Death. I took it, watching lectures only, and here is my summary—along with a few opinions.
None of the course deals with religion. It’s simply a discussion of logic. And the logic comes mostly from Plato, who lived 700 years before the assembly of the Bible and the formation of Christianity. The first topic is that of dualism.
Dualism
Like all philosophers of his time, Plato looked only at raw life, without any external influences. He ascertained there must be more to human existence than life followed by death. He concluded that in addition to body and personality, we also have soul. And our souls exist long before coming onto this planet and well after.
He goes on to explain that life in the “other world” consists of forms. For example, something like beauty on earth is just a partial representation of true (or full) beauty that exists in heaven. And this must be so in order for you to recognize beauty in the first place. He uses the same analogy with justice. How could you intuitively know whether something is fair unless you’ve had prior familiarity with the concept?
He says our souls inhabit a vessel (body and personality) for a while on Earth and then return back to their world armed with the experience. So it’s like training school or some wild Club Med vacation.
Physicalists
Opponents to Plato’s views are called physicalists. They say no, we humans exist only for a period of time, only on this planet. And for every dualist point of view, they have a counterpoint.
Dualists say “we humans have reason,” they say so does a computer. Dualists say “but we have feelings,” they say so does a dog. And when dualists say “what about consciousness,” they don’t have a good answer but discard it anyway by saying that doesn’t prove anything.
Physicalists say the person is just a body that can do some amazing tricks, and when you die you simply fall asleep forever. They also get hung up on Plato’s concept of immortality. Sure it’s great to stare at total beauty but who wants to do that forever? Dualists say perhaps time is just an instrument of this world.
Summary
Since humans are equipped with purely logic, this sort of discussion can never be solved. Not only because no one has come back to inform us but because logic itself is flawed. George Carlin used to make a joke, “Can God create a rock so heavy that not even He can lift it?” And of course, we still have the chicken and the egg. As a result, neither of these possibilities is a slam dunk. At best, we’re stuck with 50/50.
You can turn this into 51/49, at least for yourself, but before doing so consider the following: psychologists who are also atheists say for most people it’s healthier to believe. The connection with a loving God and the comfort of an afterlife makes it easier to navigate this existence. So even if you’re not a big believer in anything being out there, let others keep their peace.
P.S. There’s also the witnessing of transcendence—because once you’ve seen the fireplace turn on for itself, you’re totally sold.