I don’t plan on sojourning on this earth forever, and yet, I plan on surviving my own death.
I am inclined to argue for immortality, not because I have any direct rational or empirical evidences to support this exact claim from my own personal life (or the lives of anyone I know); however, I have plenty of rational and empirical evidences to support my Christian world view, and that world view supports the notion of life after death.
Because I am such a rationalist, this is probably one of the only things that I can think of that sometimes bothers me at night when I’m lying in bed, thinking all alone in the silence (due to my wife and children and dogs and cat all being asleep) – this is one of those things that I have to take utterly and entirely on faith.
Now faith is the evidence for things not seen; I think there are evidences; because I think the evidences for Christ and his teachings are clear; and so, I have secondary evidences that what he has taught and what was recorded in the pages of the bible must also be true.
I think this body is mortal, that is, it will cease, at some point in the future to be the corporeal housing place of my existence; and I shall be given a new body (which interestingly this view creates problems with some of the observable truths of the materialistic identity theories).
I find this quote by C.S. Lewis from his book Mere Christianity very intriguing:
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.”
Fideistic? Yep! Do I like it, well – that’s what faith is for!