This book is a comprehensive review of the religious concept of "The Afterlife." In it, the author describes and compares the afterlife ideologies of every major contemporary religion on the planet, and some historical ones. The development of afterlife ideologies over the ages and within religions are described, and shown for the absurdities they are.
Religion admonishes humanity to live their short earthly lives in pursuit of a better outcome in the Afterlife. But is this a reasonable way to live our lives?
The teaching is also that the hell will be the afterlife destination of most of humanity, with only a small number following the so-called narrow path, attaining heaven. Alternatively, a number of Eastern religions, discussed in this book, including Hinduism, Sikhi and Buddhism follows the idea of reincarnation of souls, from one body to the next. This process starts from lower life forms such as insects and other animals, to a few rounds in human form, typically progressing from low to high social status or caste, and culminating in a selfless and peaceful state named moksha or nirvana. The latter having a surprisingly large number of similarities with death.
More troubling questions exposed in this book are: Is there any compelling evidence for afterlife claims, which, from a rational point of view, sounds like pure fantasy? Is an existence in which billions of people are burning in hell, an ethical existence for a deity and it's selected human followers? How do these ideologies influence people and their politics? What kind of activities are likely to occur in the afterlife, and what would for example be the purpose of sex in the afterlife, as proposed by certain religions. Or would afterlife only consist of praising a deity, and would that be a sensible way to exist? If there is no good evidence for any afterlife, does it still make sense to live one's only life in pursuit thereof?
This book is an important critique on a major and universal claim of nearly every religion on the planet. If afterlife ideologies are indeed absurd and untrue, it has implications for how humans choose to live their lives and how they conserve their only habitable planet.
This book is also unique in the genre of critique on religion, in that it appraises both the Abrahamic religions with their heaven-hell duality and Eastern religions following the ideology of samsara and reincarnation.
