What happens after you die?

There are so many ways I want to attack this question, and my views definitely resonate some with what others have said, but mostly my response is an objection to the typical scientific/materialistic approach to death as "ceasing to exist" or "experiencing nothingness".

Death, or at least our concept of death, evades the realm of science. Science is a reductionist linguistic system, it takes composite phenomena and breaks it down into it's component parts, names those component parts (atoms, electrons, protons, elements, genes, organs, organisms, eco-systems,) it takes those components and tries to describe what they do and how they interact with other components, but there are pretty much two things that undermine science (or at least the idea of a universal science that can describe and predict anything).

 1. Science can never say that this component thing will always behave this when when it interacts with this other component thing. That only draws a reference to another component phenomena that was first set in action, and another one before that, on down the line, like a chain of referential actions. Think of how, if you are learning a language, the dictionary always refers you to other words, and this is an infinite process. We jump into this process and try to understand it, but essentially, no philosophy or science can detail everything, only try to describe the composite phenomena and how it tends to act,

2. Experientially, science can do very little to help us tackle questions of consciousness and the seemingly sticky subjects that arise out of this unique state of being. It can try to give us materialistic answers as to the parts that work in our brain, but as far as dealing with our perceptual reality as a whole it is hugely flawed. We still have philosophy and religion departments in colleges because science fails us in asking the bigger questions about the larger composite reality. Sure, when my tire goes flat I can go to a mechanic and he can locate the puncture and patch it, but he can't, and when I have a bacterial infection a doctor can give me the right antibiotic, but neither can conclusively tell me how to deal with the fact that I got the flat tire, the infection, and my girlfriend left me, and my dog died all in the same day.

With death and dying I think the question that is far more important than "what happens when you die," is, "how will I prepare for dying." Tibetan's think dying (and living for that matter) is an art, and practice the art of dying their entire lifes. There is a test at the end, and we must all face it. You are going to lose your youth, everyone you love, everything you cling onto now, including your own ability to remember what you did 10 minutes ago. This may sound depressing but it's believed that death can be a joyful and exciting adventure if you choose to face it that way.

And yes, we were all born of stardust and there isn't a single atom in my body or any of yours that wasn't forged in the same furnace.

In my mind, and in Werner Von Braun's (famous rocket scientist, watch October Sky), nothingness or the extinction of consciousness is a scientific impossibility. Science only knows rebirth and connection.

I think that we don't drop out, we drop back in. In other words, maybe heaven, nirvana, enlightenment or whatever, happens when we realize CONSCIOUSLY, NOT JUST CONCEPTUALLY,  that we are a part of the blanket and not just a single thread.

I think hell is just living life as if you are really YOU, a singular solid identitfiable person, independing and belonging to yourself. This notion does more damage and causes more suffering than anything else.

inb4 TLDR