Genesis 51

1-The LORD saw this and he was pleased.
2-Unto the brothers of Joseph He thus spake. "Your days have been difficult, yet your people have persisted."
3-"You seem to have the hang of this, more or less. I've got some other projects I've been working on so I'll be going now."
4-And the brothers lamented, "O Father! What are we do to without you?"
And in return the LORD replied, "Don't sweat it, fellas. You'll be fine. It's a big world with lots of people. You just do what you think is best with it."
5-But they feared responsibility the LORD thus endowed and so they pleaded, "Stay with us, O Father! O King and creator of all! We will build great temples to Thee and pay homage and sacrifice!"
6-The LORD found their offers endearing and did pity them. "Indeed I have created all by my will, and as king of creation I only give one command:
7-That ye be, and make use of the creation I hath wrought."
8-The command of the LORD did stir the meek men's hearts. But their minds were unresponsive to sorting it out just what they were to do about it. And so they cried again unto the LORD.
9-"We will honor your command, O Father, O Lord, and it will be law!" And the brothers murmured to themselves for a bit before asking, "Could you maybe, though, be a little more specific?"
10-Now the LORD was becoming a bit irritated. The LORD double checked the LORD's notes to make sure that he had, in fact, instilled in his creation of human kind the ingredient of free will.
11-And lo! It was so! Right there, check-marked, day 6, sure enough...
12-"I have made you in My image," endeavored the LORD, "So really... you can figure this out for yourselves. It's quite simple, as I previously stated in verse 7. I must be going now, take care!"
13-And then the LORD left the Earth, though he continued to observe His creation since it did please him ever still. But the brothers of Joseph remained vexed and frightened.
14-"What are we to do!" they cried to eachother as they gnashed their teeth and tore at their hair. "We must have the intervention of the LORD to know what is right, or else others who do not believe as we may run amok!"
15-And the brothers agreed and they took council and decided on just what they were pretty sure the laws of the LORD might well have been had he taken the time to spell every detail out.
16-And hither forth in the rest of the books of this text is an account of the fruits of their labors.

Crazy Talk

I don't have much in the way of hard-fast BELIEFS. I'm more Engineer than Philosopher. We don't have beliefs we've just got PROBLEMS and GOALS. But in order to work the problem to reach our goals we've got to steal MODELS and ASSUMPTIONS from the scientists.

An assumption is like a belief in that we arbitrarily use them as a starting point. They require faith to be useful. The difference between them is that a belief is arbitrarily regarded as true, while an assumption is only regarded as useful.

Ok so there's my disclaimer and an explanation of the semantics I'll be adopting for the following answer to your question.

I assume there's a purpose to existence. I assume that there is a certain way for me to live my life that will aid in this purpose. Stories throughout history depict that those who are happiest are those have lived with purpose. I have found only corroberating evidence for this (most of it coming from my gut, aka intuition). Therefore my plan is to live life, as best I can, in fulfillment of my purpose.

Because reports from people who are not me about "how to live life" do not completely agree, I assume that it is up ultimately up to ME and my intuition to interpret the information I get from the world and those around me.

Finally to the question at hand... Neither logic (reason) nor my intuition lead me to believe that I will experience an existance remotely similar to this one after I biologically die. What happens to my material remains is easily extrapolated. What happens to my "consciousness" is unclear because it's properties are not understood. At this time my expectation is that my consciousness as an individual human named Matt will cease.

Life, however, will continue after my life. Life will have been influenced by my life, physically and systematically. Therefore it can be said that my after-life is the effect I've had on Life after me.

Perhaps I will remain a disembodied consciousness and get to witness it. Perhaps I'll be an embodied consciousness in some sort of "place" that could be described as Heaven (or Hell for that matter). That remains unlikely, however. We have "places" in this life and the elements of this life are what define them. Once I have left this life it doesn't make sense for the concept of "place" to carry over. And so I take a figurative interpretation to the history's descriptions of afterlife, God, and the soul.

And I look at Life, and the universe as we know it, without time. Regarded as a whole, the universe is infinite. When I cease to be an individual consciousness stuck in the middle of a finite timeline, the perspective shifts (with or without "me") to that of the infinite, timeless, whole.

Infinite, timeless, whole. Everything that is was and shall be. THAT sounds a lot like God to me.

So for now I assume that I, just like you, are actually a fragment of God. Savoring that seems to lead to enjoyment, conflicting with that seems to lead to suffering. Even though our biological processes will stop, the universe (God?) is eternal and so is our existence as part of it.