I tell people that we can only say what we actually know to be true. The body ceases to live, it decays and rots, and the person is no more. Beyond that no one comes back from the dead, by definition, so we have no data about that. But if the body dies, why should we assume that the person someone continues on in some recognizable form? All the evidence and understanding we have says that consciousness is an emergent property of the biochemical and bioelectrical processes in the living substrate of the human brain -- basically a particular configuration of matter and energy. There is ZERO evidence that the brain is a transceiver for your consciousness or that it could continue absent that foundation. So ... dying is like turning off a TV, it quits operating as a TV and is just a thing sitting there.

Many, perhaps most, people will object that this CAN'T be true or there's no hope. This is just operant conditioning. Of COURSE it can be true, and is likely to be true. And people who believe it have hope and happiness and joy -- they don't all commit suicide or even become depressed. They live full lives and many feel, fullER lives because the one life they have is all the more precious as a scarce resource.

Religion has sold us on the notion that we should live outside our true scope as a mortal being, that we will and MUST live forever or there's no point. I have had people ask me silly questions like, if the sun is going to burn out and the universe is going to suffer heat death -- what's the point? Well for dog's sake, the point is to live now, those things won't happen in your lifetime or your grandchildren's so it's not an appropriate topic on which to spend much effort sorting out.

it's the same way with living -- focus on your "three score and ten" years and let someone else worry about what comes after for the world. Leave the world at least as good as you found it. Pass on as much wisdom as you can. It is enough.

Yes , it's like that. A rather pointless question actually. It's sometimes asked in this way. "What happens after you die ? Well, my answer to that is, lots of things happen. It's just that I"m not around anymore or anywhere to know about them.