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The question remains, however, as to what that afterlife is. Equally interesting is the question of where consciousness comes from. And this is where philosophy lets religion take the torch.
I'm really getting bored of those pseudo-sophisticate ultra-materialists that seem to be everywhere these days. It seems funny to me how so many smart people insist that their capacity for logic and reason can somehow reach outside the bounds of our existence, explain it in a meaningful way, even though the very terms and concepts they use to, oh so authoritatively, state "idiot, when you're dead you're dead, see?!" have been invented in minds very much created by the very phenomena they so glibly dismiss as irrelevant. "Consciousness? Pff, a hallucination of the brain! Qualia? Ephemera! There's meat and dirt, and that's IT, and you're a fool, and probably some sort of weirdo, if you think otherwise."
The vehemence with which many of those people defend the idea that they're ultimately nothing, completely irrelevant and futile, makes me think that there's more to it than just pure calculation and cold logic on their part, as most of them claim. People don't get so worked up over things just because they think they're true. Most aren't nearly that noble. They have some sort of emotional stake in the game.