Just an interjection here, I'm not necessarily addressing you or Jody here, just commenting on our ideas about the afterlife.

I think the idea of a place you go after death that is either a paradise or a place of punishment is not a natural human belief. Many religions, including some sects of Judaisim, don't believe in an afterlife. Others think you spend eternity as a ghost. Most faiths don't even bring it up.

The ancient Greeks though everyone went to hell, an unpleasant but not necessarily painful place where only those who had really pissed off the gods were punished. Everyone else just wandered about, bored to tears and feeling sorry for themselves.

I think this idea of going to paradise and being reunited with your loved ones is a relatively recent invention from the great Monotheistic religions, and may be a reason why they seemed to catch on so fast. After all, it's a classic carrot and stick, goodcop-badcop double whammy. Youre threatened with torture or bribed with pleasure---if you make the right choices now. You know, the more I know about religion the more I'm convinced it's the sleaziest enterprise of all time. Remember the quote from Mark Twain about religion being something invented by the devil to keep man away from God?

This latest outrage from these Brazilian Catholics only reinforces that belief.