The idea of life after death is - among other things - a way for people to invite themselves to think of their own death freely in order to distract themselves from life. Without this idea, many people find a final death as too depressing to think about. Perhaps one could seize thinking about death and occupy him/herself with thoughts of what there is to be done during life, for the benefit of one's own life and others, present or future, as well. I fear that many people have worried far too little about their current life because of their assumption that a following life would be the final and most important one. These people might stall many would-be-significant actions only to find (or lack the ability to find) that their death is, in fact, final and what was important all along has now been lost. Death is death, try and live with it.