@warpus I like the squirrels metaphor, but it doesn't come close to addressing how Hinduism/Buddhism handle the issue of how reincarnation happens and what is required. That would take being educated on those cosmologies.
Aha, but the point is that some sort of "infrastructure" is required for it to work. Otherwise who's coordinating the resurrections? Who's deciding who gets to resurrect into which body? That's a lot of overhead and a lot of maintenance work that's required to keep the system going.
You could say: "Oh, that's all inherent to the universe, and already built in". But it is infrastructure nevertheless, even if it's framed like that. That's the essence of my argument - that for the afterlife to work, you need a system in place to deal with all that. Of some kind. It adds complexity where none has been observed (so far, perhaps)
Religions never (from my experience, correct me if I'm wrong) outline exactly how the afterlife works. It's described using vague terms and mentioned in passing. So they don't exactly outline the infrastructure needed for that particular religion's take on the afterlife, so it would probably not be possible to analyze religious texts, hoping to approach the question from that pov.
Honestly, the best shot at the afterlife for us might be if the universe is a simulation. We're just brains in a vat, maybe in somebody's science experiment, or some sort of cosmic joke. When we die, we'll wake up in some room and we'll be all "Whoa, we're aliens"
That seems incredibly unlikely to me, but not any more unlikely than all the other descriptions of what the afterlife might be like if it exists.
I've been playing with this mental idea that when you die, and your brain slowly shuts down, your internal time just slows down.. It gets slower and slower and you live in that moment, seemingly for a very long time. Maybe forever? People say they see their life flashing in front of their eyes.. during near death experiences.. And we all know that dreams can at times feel like they lasted soooo long.. while studies show most dreams last minutes at most.
There's also a slightly more philosophical approach.. Sort of.. I am essentially a part of the universe that's decided to look at itself, and wonder about it. I am a tiny part of the universe becoming conscious. This is true for every single person on the planet, and for all sentient life. When you die you remain as a part of the universe, clearly, as the atoms that were a part of you don't simply disappear. What does that imply? Nothing. But perhaps the whole universe is conscious on some level, and that's why evolution happened, and how sentient life arose. The universe wants to be more sentient. This all sounds like crazy-talk really, and I don't believe it, but I'm throwing it out there as an option. As long as we're talking about crazy ideas.
The takeaway from all of this for me is to treat every day as a gift. None of us know what happens after you die. For all you know you'll still be alive in some weird form, your energy will remain in some ways intact, in some strange dimension, and you'll be completely in a different sort of existence, where you won't have any of your current senses, but a set of other ones. And you'll float around wishing you could just be with your friends eating pizza.
Or you'll just not exist, at all. That seems to be the most likely conclusion. So treat every day like it's the gift that it is. You're here, living, feeling, smelling, loving, hurting. Remind yourself how amazing it is! When we're children, this is evident to us.. But over time you get used to life and you take it for granted. Take the time to look around and just be amazed that you exist! You are lucky to be here, at this time, in this place. Death is the one thing that should be reminding us of this every day.
