The funny thing is atheists believe that there is no afterlife, which is completely fine and totally there right to believe, but the second one of their loved ones dies, a rather large portion of them will all of the sudden say something like, "oh, well I know he/she is up in heaven looking down on me". I don't want to throw the flag and say all or even most atheists are like this, but in my life I've seen quite a few. Many people say that we create the false illusion of an afterlife in order to sustain happiness, in which case the happiness is fake, but I fail to see the logic in this argument because it could just as easily be flipped the other way to argue that atheists create the false illusion that there is no afterlife because of a fear that they have in being accountable for their actions. Maybe they feel like they've already gone so wrong that they couldn't possibly amend their lives (which of course isn't true). Or, maybe many of them are filling the desire to fall into a social hierarchy. That group is scientists or "intellectuals", the true idols of our day. Because our society constantly stresses people to quantify everything and find an answer for everything, most people believe scientists are the correct group to follow and since the majority of scientists are atheists, they feel like in order to be valid or intellectual members of society, they too must believe in no afterlife. I'm not trying to point the finger or psychoanalyze anyone, I'm just pointing out the fact that this argument could go on forever. I understand that science shows that our brains cease functioning when we die so of course "we" (our soul) must die too, (according to science) but there are forces which we as mere humans will never be granted the authority to understand and that's okay. I'm not saying just give up on trying to understand our world, but in the age of information trust has been forfeited, for good reason i must say. Because so many manipulative assholes are in the world, many feel the need to see in order to believe, unfortunately by the time they see, they'll be dead. I realize this argument won't persuade anyone who has already decided to reject the idea of God and follow the trend of modern thought, and that's fine, but I still feel my conscience telling me it's the right thing to do. (commence trying to persuade me that my conscience is nothing but my perception and we'll get involved in a nice little circular argument, wait no we won't because I won't reply back) Until we can create concreted definitions, we can't have an argument worth pursuing, and with our widely varying histories is there really any chance we'll ever agree on definitions? Let's just be content to prosper in our own convictions and marvelously respect those of others.