Interesting. I’d say that the comparative advantage of believing in the afterlife (not always a part of religion or of Monotheism even) has many assumptions (and there are secular versions of this) that don’t always hold.

To paraphrase Achilles: better a live slave than the king of the dead.

Even for someone who believes in the afterlife: how often do they think in such terms (for themselves for loved ones that passed away).

I’ve always wondered about our language and how our definitions of people are probably not fluid enough. I think this is the same with religion or beliefs.

No human is rational.

No human stays the same in beliefs at all times (or few at any rate).

Tribal and group impulses work on this species of apes in similar ways.

Our analysis, then is infected with the same virus. Read Iliad and see gods interfere. Read 3kingdoms and there is no god interfering (in that way). Yet the results are the same.