i just read an amazing novel about death, basically the writer looked closely at every religion from the incas to Jehovah's witnesses, and he gathered the similarities and ended up with a concept that is pretty cool about life after death...
here's a basic resume:
after you die, your ectoplasm goes upwards, attached to a string from his belly button, and once he's definately dead, the string cuts, so he's free to "fly" towards a huge, blue spiral.
after entering the spiral, he goes into several "rooms" in which he feels different emotions, like there's a room where all your fears come to haunt you, there's one where all your sexual desires become true, there's one where you wait for thousands of years, for teaching patience, there's one where every question is answered, etc etc
after these rooms, the dead people go into what could be called as the paradise, and they wait in line, until some angels come to them and they get evaluated for their life. every good action adds points, and every bad actions takes off points, and if you dont get a certain amount of points you get reincarned. sometimes it takes thousands of reincarnations to get the amount of points to stop the circle of reincarnations, and finally become an angel, wehre the main goal is to guide humans through good actions.
i think it make a lot of sense, and i am pretty sure i have described it very poorly, so maybe it doesnt for you, but if you can read french, i strongly suggest you the book "Les Thanatonautes" by Bernard Werber.
