Genesis 3:19 "In the sweat of your face you will eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were take. For dust you are and to dust you will return."
This is the point I made earlier about decomposition.We die, we rot away and we eventually return to the original carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and whatever other elements (looked it up and we're almost made completely out of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus) that we were made of.
Ecclesiastes (hope I spelled that right) 9:5 "The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all."
That's pretty direct. We're conscious of many things, including such as we will die (relating directly to the thread title). The dead, however, aren't conscious. And as the scripture brings out, conscious of "nothing at all." Along this note...
John 11:11-14 "Lazarus our friend has gone to rest, but I am journeying there to awaken him from sleep.'...Jesus said to them outspokenly: 'Lazarus has died.'"
Jesus himself compared death to sleep-like state. And Jesus had performed resurrections before in his ministry, so he certainly could, and he did, "awaken" Lazarus from death. Go ahead and read further in the account, it's touching. He hadn't done it yet before Lazarus' sister, Mary, was there to go the grave and witness it.
Psalms 146:4 "His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts do perish."
Any mental activity after death ceases. This includes any internal recognition of our environment and feelings and memories, at least I think it does, no? We do think to ourselves, "Oh, it's raining today. Better put on a jacket..." sometimes to the point where we just say it outright. (A little guilty of that.)
But...it did mention "His spirit goes out." Suggestion of an immortal something?
This scripture was originally in Hebrew. The word for "spirit" was derived from the Hebrew word ru'ach. Some translators render it as "breath". When that ru'ach, or life-force leaves the body, the person's thought's perish; they don't continue in another realm.
For further explanation, here's Luke 23:46. This is at the end of Jesus' life. This was originally written in Greek so the Greek word rendered "spirit" was pneu'ma.
"Jesus called with a load voice and said: 'Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.' When he had said this, he expired."
Jesus expired after his spirit went out - and it apparently wasn't on its way to heaven. Out of all humans, perfect, Jesus certainly deserved it. Not until the third day after death was Jesus resurrected. And back to life on Earth. Later on, in Acts 1:3,9 it was 40 more days before he ascended to heaven. Well...what did he mean with his words recorded in Luke chapter 23 there? He knew that, when he died, his future life prospects rested with God. "Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit." You'll see that in resurrection accounts, credit was given to God and I believe all of them directly prayed to him beforehand to perform that. So God was the one to resurrect Jesus.
If there's anything you would like further explaining on, just let me know. I hope I showed you a solid stand on this subject and maybe even overdone it a little. *shrugs*
Consider yourself
answered. xD
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or B- there'll be some sort of tapestry of afterlife that was woven by some sort of higher life form for those who strayed away from an evil path.