and no afterlife would be just one last ironic joke on everyone.

Hey!! Your get to live forever!!! Kidding!!.

I am an Atheist and have been since I was 11. My family and friends are Atheists too but my mom had my sister and me Christened (the "thing to do" at the time, apparently) and I went to the Catholic Church on the big holidays until I was given a choice about this at 11 years old and said, "Nope". 99% of the people I know who were raised as a Catholic, for a little while, became Atheists.

But.....

Most of my friends believe in the possibility of ghosts, after life experiences that are non-religious, reincarnation, aliens, etc.

So...

If you take away religion, would you still believe in the afterlife?

I do. Personally, I have had too many "odd" experiences on my own to at least acknowledge that we don't have all the answers at this time (science/religion). Hamlet was right.

I guess we prove the reverse of the OP's question: if you take away religion, some will still believe in an afterlife.

I didn't know if my intent was clear or not.

its beliefs? You are saying something that you have no proof of, that if you take away religion there will still be some who believe in a afterlife. We just have to take your word for it that you are not religious. How are you not religious?
Thanks,
Eko

It emphasizes doing well in this lifetime.

Like in Judaism, afterlife is a more esoteric aspect of Islam. It has more to do with deep studies, best left to the most learned among the believers, than living your life in the present.

In Hinduism, on the other hand, there is no difference between life and afterlife. It is one continuous experience, with souls traveling from one body to another. Essentially, it is one long continuous afterlife, body or not.

there is likely nothing - there may be something - and either way , it is of no consequence.

My wife, my dogs, my daughters, my hobbies, music, the beauty of nature - that is more than enough for me.

The more I asked questions and researched the more I realized that the concept of God (or Gods) is a mixture of mythology, tradition, certainly patriarchy, and ignorance. We socialize our children into our belief system.
Giving up the idea of a judging God, the fear, and an afterlife is freeing. We are stardust and that is pretty awesome.

Only your dying will tell" B/S/T

Some believe that we recycle through reincarnation.

Not sure if that counts as an afterlife.

the afterlife. I cannot imagine dying and there's nothing. I realize I could be wrong, that there may well be nothing after this life, but since I believe in an afterlife, I'm fine.

Oh, and I strongly believe in reincarnation. I've had a number of past life regressions. They have made this lifetime make a lot more sense to me. One and done makes no sense.

My religion is more grounded in this life than in an afterlife. It is about how you live, not so much about what happens after you die. Of course, there are elements in it that address the afterlife, but they are also closely tied to this life.

So afterlife or not, my religion still endures.

Not believing in those is just a belief, on exactly equal ground as believing in them would be.

Right?

Belief is not a reflection of something tangible, but a strategy for coping. This includes search for meaning. Depending on our needs, leprechauns and unicorns, afterlife and no afterlife, religion and atheism, appear and disappear from our conscience.

Isn't it just someone telling you they know what happens when you die? Pay me and I will protect you. Snake Oil

Be kind to everyone! Strive to make the future better. (well, that's a low hurdle to jump)

Strive anyway.

Although your post isn't specifically directed at my beliefs, my ego responds.

It's been 5 years since my friend's stepson died. He was 24. My friend asked me to remember her spouse, and this idea came to me. My spouse has been dead for 4 years. And this is what my brain thought I should know:

"I think of John as a raindrop on a pond. John's life still creates a wave that ripples through time. We are all brief raindrops on the surface of time. But even as the drops disappear, the waves left interact and form beautiful patterns on the surface of time.

We are all part of that pattern and it is beautiful."

This differs from "Gone But Not Forgotten" because that phrase puts the impetus on the person remembering to remember. Thinking of the past person as a wave gives them more agency. Those gone still act on the living.

However, what comes after life is not the same as our current consciousness. If that were the case, having 100 billion people lived before us, at least one of them would have manifested themselves in a meaningful way and not as a dream, or "something in the side of your peripheral vision", or a fleeting thought. At least one person would have communicated at least as clearly as I'm communicating with you.

There is a reason we call dead "dead". Whatever happens after death is as different as what we call life is (as living-and-breathing) is different from being a zygote or a blastocyst.

I apologize for fighting the hypothetical. But I don't accept the paradigm. We can't know the divine but we can touch it from time to time.

I agree with the raindrop on the pond. Our lives create ripples through time.
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Thank you for sharing

not all religious people believe in an afterlife. Many Jews don't, for example.