What do you think happens after death?

Lots of religions don't offer heaven or hell to believers, or they lay comparatively little stress on them, and yet they achieve cultural dominance in their societies.

Lots of religions maybe, but very much a minority of religious adherents, from a Pew research report on population by religion

Removing the religiously unaffiliated Hindus and Buddhists, we see 71% of religious adherents believe in heaven and hell. Allowing that Hindus and Buddhists also have the notion of an afterlife, and the quality of that afterlife is dictated to a large extent by following rules of the religion, this numer jumps to 93%.

I'd say my logic stacks up pretty well here. The majority of culturally dominant religions, in terms of size, clearly do offer life after death as the reward for towing the party line so to speak.

Also, bear in mind that many of the examples of religious oppression that we are familiar with, in the western world at any rate, involve oppression by those who believe in an afterlife of others who also believe in an afterlife.

Quite so, but when selling the promise of imortalility to the great unwashed, the organised competition represents a bigger problem than the sceptical punter.

If the powerbase of any given religion carrying out violent oppression of other religions is based on them selling a belief of their version of the afterlife, it is any contradticory position to this that is bound to be repugnant.

It is a funny one. Also getting on a bit, but accepting the finite nature of life is a great motivator to enage in life and seek out the good things rather than just letting it all pass, or for the younger generation scroll, on by. There's always plenty to hope for, just that winning the lotto or becoming immortal seems like the wrong thing to pin your hopes to.

Fun article from the beeb suggests People aged 65 to 79 'happiest of all' No doubt the religiously inclined on here will be pleased to note that they're happier than their irreligious peers on average.