Hi Knt, " There is no human on earth who does not fear his demise, no matter what religion he belongs to." Not only is that not true, but Shastra specifically gives methods of removing abhinivesha. One only need follow it. Regarding the scientific method, there is no reason whatsoever to believe in that brand of empriricism. The problem with that brand of empricism is that even if something beyond the senses existed, it would have to be automatically rejected. This is just silly narrow-mindedness. Furthermore, it doesn't stand to logic. "2. An observation: Here is where the idea that God exists fails. There has been no scientific evidence of the existence of God." So scientific evidence is the second stage of the scientific method? Thats a bit circular because something is only scientific if it follows the scientific method, then how can something be scientific prior to the completion of the scientific method? I would suggest that what you mean is that there is no experience of God. This is an unfounded claim. In fact the very meaning of the word "Veda" is experience of God. The proof for God is one's own experience of God. However, before one gets that experience, one should trust someone reliable who has stated that s/he has experienced God. This is the secondary meaning of Veda. If someone shows you something very complicated about nuclear science, you will not understand it unless you are trained. So in order to understand it, you have to learn about nuclear science. Similarly, you have not been trained to understand and see the truth of God for yourself. Once you train and practice correctly, you will be able to see God. Until then, tradition has given a lot of logical reasons why our position is extremely reasonable. You only need look in the right texts. "3. Test the hypothesis based on observation: Now the idea that God exists goes downhill. You cannot test what cannot be observed." Wrong, you only need to follow the correct procedure as taught by an authentic teacher while taking interest in the subject. Just like with everything else. "As to the original question, suffering ends when one dies. Our duty on earth is to procreate and pass our genes to our posterity. That is the ultimate biological goal of every organism on the planet." If your form of atheism is materialism/naturalism in the sense that our minds are merely our brains (ie: Carvaka darshana), then the rest of your post is useless. Since according to your position our minds are merely our brains, our mental processes are merely collisions of particles. All this works in predetermined (or if accepting copanhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics, predtermined + random) fashion. The conclusion of your position neccesarily (though you may not know this) is that there is no free will. In light of this, whatever you say has no value because no one has any control whatsoever over the future. Also keep in mind (excuse the pun) that no set of brain activity that is phenomenal consciousness has yet been found. There is no evidence whatsoever that the brain is the seat of consciousness. Eliminativism has its own set of problems if you for some reason subscribe to that. So unless one really does not believe in free will for some silly ideological reason, one has to believe that at least in relative terms the mind and the brain are different entities. So what is this mind? Since the mind is intuitively kind of movement, or vibration, we should say that the mind is energy (as scripture does). Let us not forget that Sruti said that everything in the world is energy about 3,000 years before the clever little scientists did. This was very strongly elaborated in Tantra Shastra about a 1,000 years ago. There are two things in the choice the mind will make upon dissolution of the physical body. One is the strength of the energy. So different brain structures and so on require different mental energy to sustain them. The second factor is that the mind will choose the vehicle which allows it to fullfill whatever is one's strongest desire most fully, As Sruti says, sarvam khalvidam brahma: "All this is verily is the Supreme Reality", R.