I am currently on my first read-through of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Shortly after reading about The Bablefish, a scene in the film I enjoyed, something clicked into place in my brain that didn't before. God existence is purely based upon a belief in him/it so therefor, to prove it's existence is to prove it's non-existence since proof of the existence of God would eliminate the belief upon which God exists. Therefor, to prove any aspect of God (Heaven, Hell, Angels, etc...) would be to prove and thus, disprove God's existence.
Humans are organic constructs able to perceive the Universe around them through sight, sound, touch, smell and, taste. Using these five senses, we have discovered nothing divine nor have we the means to find divinity short of giving a preacher copious amounts of money and allowing them to hit us in the head. The major issue at hand of course is that we don't know what divinity even feels like should we sense it anyway, nor have we any sense of detecting it if we have sensed it previously. Without this vital information, we cannot prove that we have sensed divinity even if we think that we have, further fortifying God and all things connected with said entity.
Humans have been able to disprove older Gods by visiting their homes thus proving them to be non-existent. When we climbed to the top of Mount Olympus for example, Zeus and the others disappeared, only to reappear in children's books and cartoons. Similar things happened to other Parthenon's of divinity. We have not discovered the existence of the current God because of how vague God's Kingdom of Heaven is which is another point in it's favor. To be fair though, we have dug rather far into the ground, the supposed resting place of Hell but, have found no such fallen angels or even heard laments from damned souls (that is, until a miner's lunch reaches his gastric track and bits of it escape in near-lethal clouds of methane).
Once a human dies, the body becomes inert (unless the body dies while falling or some other means that would render the body unable to stop moving for some time. The decomposition process also causes movements as gases escape the body etc.) The human body decomposes into it's base elements until little to none of it remain. What happens to the consciousness is completely unknown. The existence of the soul is also unknown but death would be the time in which a soul passes on to the afterlife to be judged by a higher entity where after it would spend eternity in paradise or hell.
It is my belief that Consciousness dies with the body and brain in particular. In order for the afterlife to exist, it must stay in the same plains of belief where God resides. To be conscious of the afterlife is to prove it's existence and to prove the existence of the afterlife is to prove the existence of God and thus, undo all of it in one fell sweep of logic. Once the soul is judged and is sent on it's way, it spends an 'eternity' in either paradise or hell. With no sense of consciousness, that time frame becomes meaningless and can be considered a break from the pains, pleasures and, tedium of tangible life. After the alloted time, the soul is sent on it's way back into life.
Whether or not the soul choses it's next vessel is unknown nor can it be known since the soul has no memory storage system to be heard of (if nothing else, it would be unwise for the soul to have a memory as the memory of an afterlife would carry over and thus be known to the next entity the soul commandeers thus, undoing the afterlife) I assume the soul does have a choice in which person it inhabits next as well as when and where it inhabits that person but, I am lead to believe that it isn't very accurate. It is only as accurate as the approximate year and planet. As has been hinted, Time is not strictly linear which would explain why 'old souls' are thought to be found in people who are long dead and 'young souls' are thought to appear in times when the world is thought to end.
I also think that there is a sort of imprint of the afterlife present in the soul. That is, the most recent afterlife. One soul who has just spent an eternity in hell for instance, may feel bitter and become a person hellbent on revenge even if he has no conscious reason as to why he should feel so darned angry. Or one soul who has been to hell may inhabit a body destined to try it's best to be good for reasons it doesn't quite understand as an organic, so as to avoid another eternity of mild discomfort (which I would think far worse than outright torture. Some can get used to the intense pain but nobody is immune to discomfort which is able to adapt better than any organic construct)
