Well, I'm calling it a win that I went after it.

Yay! Good luck.

I'm an empirical person, but I believe in an afterlife. I've tried not to, because it's not scientific, but I can't not.

I go back and forth about it myself, but if it makes you feel better that's worth something.

I have no belief in an afterlife, but not on a rational basis - though I can make plenty of rational arguments. But the emotional rejection came first. And I won't explain further, cause I've had religious people who can live with purely rational rejection of the supernatural get offended when I explain the emotional basis of my view. And I don't want to convince anyone anyway, cause if someone gets comfort from the opposite view that is fine with me.

Honestly, the main thing I do is to walk around with a batch of anti-racist stickers, so that whenever I see a racist sticker/sign I can cover it with the anti-racist sticker.

Mostly all I can do is sign on-line petitions and repost things on Twitter and Facebook. (And make small donations here and there). But I believe that doing these little things is helping to create the spirit of change. By speaking up and saying in our small ways that certain things are Not OK, we give our energy to that spirit, rather than giving it to the spirit of keeping things the same.

As for the afterlife, by dint of religion, I believe. And I knew a rocket scientist not from my faith who pointed out that conservation of energy means that the electrical energy of a person's brain has to go somewhere, it cannot simply cease to be. Then she said she had occassionally felt the presence of deceased loved ones.

Judaism's stance on the afterlife is essentially "There's something there, but we're not sure what," and I find that that works well enough for me.

I was willing to write off the vivid dream I had of one of our old cats coming to visit, but then Hubby said he'd had the same dream, and it was years after that cat had died. We would tell each other that a cat had come to visit. Brains are weird.

My shoulder has been hurting all day. I managed to get through teaching, but it was a lot of pushing through the pain. I really wish I had a job where I could work from home sometimes, or call in sick without it being a huge hassle.

Then she said she had occassionally felt the presence of deceased loved ones.

I have felt the presence of people who weren't there, none of whom were my own deceased people. One person has visited me in dreams, but I've never been certain those weren't just dreams. The only encounter I've had that I've been certain was the spirit of someone I loved, was a dog. A terrier I had when I was a teenager, wonderful dog, died in a car accident, and I was heartbroken. Inconsolable. He came to me and curled up beside me to let me know he was all right and didn't want me to be sad, and then I was okay. Still sad, but okay. I said goodbye, and he was able to go. Nothing will ever convince me it wasn't real. It was him, as solid and real as an incorporeal creature can be.

Anybody who'd try to convince you that isn't true is sort of the kind of asshole I wouldn't want to know.Which is why, even though I found myself going along with a lot in "The God Delusion", I'm not all that pleased about it.