My philosophy on the after-life is easy to understand, but will take alot so be prepared to read. This is also a collaboration of three intelligent minds, mine being one of them. Lets get to it, and remember the power of the mind. Yes that is a cheesy line, I'm aware. Also, this is just to throw out there, throw it back if you'd like, just don't be hostile about it.
First off, the after life. Many people believe the great journey of which the bible and many other scriptures mention. The great journey being the road to heaven. They also tell of the punishment for sinners, which is hell as we all know. But what if these things were all written as metaphors for the mind process after death and were taken to seriously by people as history played out? Kind of like how in mythological times they made up stories about gods to explain the goings on in the world.
With the notion of this, think about your conscience, there is obviously a good and bad side to your conscience. Now, think about the good side acting as God telling you not to do anything bad, then the bad side that acts as The Devil of which would tell you to do bad things like commit a crime. There is where the whole idea of God and The Devil would evolve from.
Now coming back to the after life, and thinking about the power the mind has. When you die, the heavens or hell will not be in a physical form, that religious pretenses make it out to be, rather a state of mind. Heaven being the state of mind of which you feel good about the things you accomplished in life and you feel at ease about them and can create a good environment for yourself. Sort of like if your taking a vacation and when your finally at the height of your enjoyment or relaxation you probably think "It's like I'm in heaven" or something along those terms. What you think at that moment in time is a state of mind the environment and yourself place in your sub-conscious, just like as I stated with the heaven like state of mind for the after-life. Next, the hell like after-life. This is the kind of state of which one feels uncomfortable and very unsettled by the things he/she did in their life. Maybe they never came to deal with something bad they might have did in their life and create a very bad environment for themselves in the after-life thinking about those specific things, and showing extreme remorse for them. Thus, creating a very hellish state of after-life.
That is the just of the first part, I am currently tired of typing and need to write the rest down on paper before it is finalized. So wait for a part 2. I would like to thank my two best friends who sat around with me and ranted and vented about the after-life and how ignorant the world can be to free-thought.