Qcmbr states the LDS position quite well. There is much we don't understand about spirit and intelligence. Christians differ on life after death. I just read that despite the fact the latest pope has given some respite to atheists, others in the Roman Catholic Church maintain that even if atheists do good works, they will go to hell. Talk about tough crowds!
There is no spirit realm inhabited by any kind of creature.
Well, if there is, you'll know it instantly when you pass from this life. And if you're right, we'll never know. When we die, things will go black, kind of like going under anesthesia, and that will be that. We'll be like a burned-out light bulb, to be discarded and of use to no one. But that would be preferable (to me) over reincarnation. My maternal grandfather insisted that his parents and friends who had passed on had visited him shortly before his passing. And my father told us he had seen his mother and had several conversations with her.
Then there is the account of the death of Stalin, one of the world's worst murderers, by his daughter, Svetlana: “Father was dying horribly and hard.. His face went dark and changed...his features were becoming unrecognisable. The agony was terrible. We could see how it was stifling him. At the last moment he suddenly opened his eyes. It was a horrid look—either mad, or angry and full of the horror, and sort of either pointed up somewhere, or shook his finger at us all.... The next moment his soul, having made its last effort, broke away from his body.”
In another account of the same event, Svetlana stated that although, at the very last, Stalin had seemed at most merely semiconscious, he suddenly opened his eyes and looked about the room, plainly terrified. Then, she recounted, “something incomprehensible and awesome happened that to this day I can’t forget and don’t understand.” Stalin partially lifted himself in the bed, clenched his fist toward the heavens, and shook it defiantly. Then, with an unintelligible murmur, he dropped motionless back onto his pillow and died.
(See Svetlana Alliluyeva, Twenty Letters to a Friend, trans. Priscilla J. McMillan (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), 5-11. See also the account given by Ravi Zacharias in his Harvard Veritas Forum, 19-20 November 1992. Alliluyeva, Stalin's daughter, was an eyewitness to the scene. Zacharias heard the story from Malcolm Muggeridge who, in his turn, based his report on three weeks of interviews with Alliluyeva, conducted for a three-part BBC series.)
There are no souls, angels, demons or gods.
There will be no resurrection.
This life you have right now is the only shot you'll ever have.
This is not a rehearsal for something else.
This, of course, is conjecture; however, if there is no God, you are correct. I would find it difficult to face life with such an outlook. For myself, I cannot believe that all the correct events just came together without any guiding or intelligent life. What events? The distance of the earth to the Sun; a moon foreign to our solar system of just the right mass, distance and size to stabilize the planet so it has a fixed equator; temperatures that keep the water from either freezing or boiling; the complexities and beauty of the earth and its life forms. As one prophet observed, all things in nature denote there is a God. And even renowned atheist Albert Camus changed his outlook late in life and even contemplated becoming a Catholic priest. Unfortunately, he was killed in a car accident.
That said, I don't believe that atheism leads to an eternal hell. Certainly if there is a God, He would not condemn someone for their heartfelt views. But I think there's something within man that will eventually lead them to question their commitment.
After murdering millions, Stalin is said to have
shaken his fist at the heavens on his deathbed.
