So, if you don't believe that we have souls that are separate from our bodies, and if you don't believe in heaven, you have the problem of explaining what happens to us after we die.
What I've been working on lately, especially around Easter time this past year as Easter always includes many themes of death (but also of rebirth and eternal life), is that what happens to us when we no longer live within our earthly bodies is that memories of us continue, in the bodies of others, in their memories which are their brains which are physical things here on earth.
If people remember you, and/or if people continue to share your stories, then you live on, although not in your previous form, but still in a real and physical way, as part of other people's bodies.
You can see this working in the Eucharist, which is also much featured at Easter. Everyone gather once a week, eat bread together and drink wine, "Do this for the remembrance of Me." As these behaviors continue and get passed down, the memory continues. You could do a Materialist reductionist interpretation of the resurrection by reading it this way. Christ lives forever, the Church congregation is the Body of Christ, they already talk this way, but his immortal life doesn't have to be in some other extra-dimensional place. He lives on because we do this and remember him.
So, if I want this to be true of me, it puts a lot of pressure on getting all the stories written down, in a form in which they will persist.
So, hello, new blog :-)
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