I have a question. A friend told me that some Atheists believe in an after life even though

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

11. Atheist with a Buddhist leaning here...

Born and raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, I embraced atheism at a rather young age, sixteen. I looked towards Buddhism for moral direction. Catholicism seemed to me to be too disingenuous. I was born into a very scientific minded family which probably explains the "Proof of God" problem that I have.

In physics, the law of conservation of energy states that the total energy of an isolated system cannot change—it is said to be conserved over time. Energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but can change form, for instance chemical energy can be converted to kinetic energy in the explosion of a stick of dynamite.

Our physical bodies are powered by energy. Fact. That energy some call the soul, life force, spark of life, ect. Belief. Can that energy be encoded with our memories, can it be used to power another new body, human or otherwise? Unknown. Where does it go after it leaves our body? Unknown. Yet it is not destroyed. It will be somewhere in this cosmos either changed into a different form of energy or in stasis till it is, loosely worded here, used again. Is this the "afterlife"? Unknown.

I do not believe in god, heaven or hell but I do believe in the laws of physics. I used Buddhism to balance the beliefs I was encoded with as a child to the facts of those laws.