In his book Amazing Truths; How the Bible and Science Agree, scientist and science writer Dr. Michael Guillen's argues that the Bible's view of the afterlife is not unscientific.

"I believe that when I die I shall rot," said Bertrand Russell, the noted British mathematician. Stephen Hawking, who has a simple, mechanical view of life and death, agrees: "I regard the brain as a computer which will stop working when its components fail. There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark." American actor Joaquin Phoenix is just as sure of it: "I don't believe in god. I don't believe in an afterlife. I don't believe in soul. I don't believe in anything."

The opinions of such well-known people naturally attract a great deal of attention. But in the grand and diverse scheme of human beliefs, they uphold a minority view of what happens to us when we die.

In late 2011, Reuters and the Ipsos Social Research Institute conducted a poll of 18,829 people from twenty-three nations. Only 23 percent of respondents expressed the belief that death means we just "cease to exist." Everyone else said they are certain (51 percent) or not sure (26 percent) that there is life after death.

Believing in an afterlife is consistent with believing there is a huge part of reality that is hidden from us. Not believing in an afterlife is in line with believing that what we perceive, what we experience in the here and now, is all there is. But science itself has discovered that there is a great deal about the "here and now" we can't see and certainly don't understand. Most of it—black holes, dark matter, dark energy, and who knows what else—is no less incredible than the claim of an afterlife.