I consider myself a very philosophical person, and I have been lucky enough my whole life to be around a lot of smart people with interesting ideas. In previous years I would think that there was nothing after death, that we would just cease to exist. I believed this because I considered human beings another unimportant, practically nonexistant piece of life just like insects, all the way down to bacteria. And if germs dont have an afterlife than why should we? but something happened ages ago that produced humanity, and intelligent thought through the course of evolution. I believe there must be for a reason for this, that the earth couldnt have been existant for billions of years with life on it, then just suddenly beings whose mental capacity involved only the basic need for survival, grew into unsurpassed intelligence without some force behind it. And I suggest reading near death experiences, search it on google.