Thanks Curt for the compliment on the story. However it was somewhat lessened by the major implication of the rest of your comment which is that anyone who believes in the afterlife is obviously stupid and can't handle the truth. Knowing that nearly every human throughout human history, including most of the most brilliant minds would fit in this category, it strikes me that your certainty about your position might be a bit misplaced. You are a deterministic physicalist. OK, but I recall the question put to Richard Dawkins who believes the same. Why is he taking credit for his beliefs and the brilliant books he has written if everything he does is fully determined? How can anyone take credit or be held accountable? You do not hold the beliefs you do, it turns out, because you are smarter than the rest, but that the configuration of particles following the big bang made it so.