@BillRM,
jwagner wrote:
Seems legit, what do you think the purpose of life is then? If all we do is live and then die with no hope for afterlife then what reason do I have to live? or is there an afterlife?
Life is its own purpose. Look at an apple tree, for example. It lives to do all the things it does as a tree: grow, make shade, absorb CO2, make apples, feed the apples to animals who spread its seeds.
You as a living thing, a human, have purpose of human life. Human life is a bit more complex because you have a very strong mental ability to choose between many different life paths and actions in various ways.
But everything you do with your energy, effort, money, etc. has effects; so you should choose to influence the world in the best way that you can, and to harm it as little as possible; and that included not harming yourself, because you are part of it.
There is afterlife because consciousness is fundamental in the universe. We have a very concentrated form of consciousness and strong, complex minds; so we disregard lower/subtler forms of consciousness, but all living things have some level of consciousness, and thus it is logical that there is also even subtler and more diffuse consciousness throughout non-living systems.
So when an organism dies, all its constituent aspects must continue on in some form other other, so why not the consciousness as well? You may lose your memory and/or mind, senses, etc. after your body dies, but somehow that soul that experiences itself as you in your current form will continue on to experience some aspect of the universe in some way, so you can only hope that whatever experiences happen to your soul after your body dies are more heavenly than hellish (and of course there are religions available to you that you are already familiar with that you can go to for guidance, e.g. the Bible and people who study it and offer counsel to anyone who is sincerely seeking it).
