Materialism and the soul
Human beings have a limited life span. This is such an important measure that age is defined and recorded by law. People understand mortality unlike any other creature, and must choose between various choices to take one direction of the will.
This means the economy is limited as well. There is a limit to wealth and a zero sum game of market forces decide winners and losers.
Life is a choice driven event cycle which ends with death. What we choose to do affects the world some what after bodily death. Some leave greater marks than others.
But the real end game is a different animal. What proceeds death is what interests most because this is where the will is stopped and comes under the force of greater reality.
Just as a corpse cannot stave off decay from its environment, the soul cannot stop what happens to it next as it is no longer under the control of personal will.
This leads to an existence without the power and will previously had. Therefore much debate is introduced surrounding the state which the soul will enter after death.
Some philosophers like Plato believed in the transmigration of the soul, which theorized the inhabiting of a new body by the same soul. Many religions also believe in this theory.
Others believe the soul will go other eternal spheres, where they suffer or enjoy an eternal existence.
The materialists don't believe the soul to be any thing at all. And they are certain that nothing will be experienced after the body's death.
There are many theories and ideas. But to argue that there is no soul has many flaws.
First, this nothing which the consciousness becomes, implies that matter can be erased from existence.
Second, nothingness as an experience is undefined. The closest experience would be a concussion where a person does not remember the interval at all. It is described as if between point A and B, there is a gap of time which is erased from memory. This gap is similar to the experience of prenatal and post death periods where one does not know what or where the self was.
We neither know where we were before birth and after death. It is a complicated matter than cannot be explained by the denialist theory of the materialist.
The scientific studies of out-of-body and near death experiences confirm that people have gone and returned from a realm which went beyond observable reality. And this makes more sense than the material view as science has proven multiple fields within the observable universe which cannot be detected by human senses.
It is far more reasonable then to the acknowledge the existence of a soul's separate reality outside the human body. And it is no surprise as all the cultures and religions of the world come to the same conclusion based on this logical conclusion.
This puts the hard question now to those who become aware of this reality.
Where does the soul go after death?
If we look at the religions, whether they are of the reincarnation or heaven and hell beliefs, they conclude that the actions of living humans have dramatic effects on the after life of the soul.
And these conclusions come from notions of morality, whether the person has done good or bad within their life time of free will.
Therefore the true end game of life is reaching this next step with the utmost caution. What the current material world view provides hardly constitutes a proper frame of mind to human existence and ignore the truths which lie beyond the observable doldrums of every day life.