Good stuff, Bill. What you are, in my opinion, is a freethinker.

It's not surprising that you begin to question the religious precepts your parents passed on to you when you reached your teens. Most teenagers question their parents' ideas pretty stringently at a certain point...it's part of growing up. I also questioned my parents' values in my teens and 20s...but what they had inculcated in my upbringing was not religion, but conventional science and materialism

So I became a skeptic too, questioning whether they might have possibly missed the boat in a few respects, and I started looking into all kinds of stuff they had not taught me.

And that led me into various forms of spiritual philosophy. I wanted more out of life than what the materialist viewpoint had given me, and I went looking for it with a deep longing, and that brought me to where I am now.

My father died in 2006, still absolutely convinced that the material world is all there is, so I can't help but wonder if he got a surprise in that respect? The interesting thing is, I had frequent dreams for 6 or 8 months after his death which went this way:

I'd go down into the basement where he had his home office....and there he'd be, sitting at his desk, doing his usual workaholic daily routine.

I'd say, "What the heck are you doing here?" He'd look up, a bit annoyed, and say, "What do you mean?"

I'd say, "You died. Back on May 30th. You died at the hospital. What are you still hanging around here for?"

He'd look like at me like I was totally nuts and say, "You're crazy. I never died."

I'd say, "Yes, you did. I can show you the Death Certificate if you don't believe me."

He'd say, "Bullshit! Stop wasting my time. I need to get this work done."

And so we'd argue, and argue...

I had many of these dreams, several a week, and it went on for months, always basically the same general scenario. In my opinion, his soul didn't know his body had died, and he was coming back just by regular habit. He was very attached to his work. And he didn't believe in death anyway, when it came to him. (he'd said a number of times to my mother that he "wasn't planning on dying" when spoken to about possibly drawing up a will at some point.)

Oh, he believed that other people died, sure....but NOT him!

So, this went on and on with the dreams. I went one day, cleared off his desk, and put his Death Certificate on it in plain view. I thought maybe that would do the trick. It didn't. The dreams went on.

Finally I came down there in one dream and there he was, as usual, so I started talking to him about him having died, and he scoffed at the idea.

So then I said, "Look at yourself. You're in a tired, aging body at age 85. You're stiff and you can't bend over. You're weak and worn out. Wouldn't you like to be in a young, strong body again? There's nothing more for you to do here now, your work here is all finished, but if you just leave all this stuff behind and go on to the next thing, you can be YOUNG again! You can be in a young and lively body again! You could even date good looking girls again! Wouldn't you like that? What do you say to that idea?"

He looked surprised. I saw the light of a brand new possibility dawn in his eyes.

And that was the last one of those dreams I had about him. This is the truth.

Draw whatever conclusions suit you, Bill. ;-) I think my father finally let go of what he was hanging onto and I hope whatever he moved on to from there turned out to be a whole lot better.