[Zateel]

Boowinstheday,

That's some pretty heavy thinking for a nineteen year old. Many people die of old age, having purposely avoided speculation out of fear of disappointment or failure. I'm posting not so much to give you a direct answer( for I'm afraid nobody on this forum can, with any authority, not even mighty Ziroc), but to let you know that there are others of us out here who do believe in a life after death.
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I'm Christian. By that I simply (and only) mean that I believe that Christ is the son of God, lived on Earth as a man, and died in my place. I don't go to church, and I have no demonination with which to affilite my beliefs. I would call myself a church of one, except that is a contradiction by definition. Let me offer you some of my thoughts and speculations, free from the "ARE YOU SAVED, SON?" salvational imperitivism that has soured many of these unbelievers.
For a Christian, the question is not so often IS there an afterlife, but when? Is it immediately after death? Of course from the deceased person's perspective it would be, but in the chronology of time, as we know it, when does our counciousness, reason, ability to understand and make and act on choices return? Do we wait for all who will die to die, and then are they raised? Are we "thinking" before we have raised bodies,or are are we asleep and unaware? What will we be like after we are raised? Will we be flesh and blood, imperishable, or energy "spirit" (etheral) beings? What is a soul, really? If there is no beginning or end to eternity, are we reliving history "recycling" time (from the Big Bang to the eventual reversal of the Doppler effect, where gravity between masses sucks everything in the universe back together, for example, over and over), or does God exist in all moments at once, with an aware conciousness that communicates to itself across time, lending foresight to the past, effectively "sitting still in time, but everywhere(or everywhen)"?
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All these questions and thousands more you will encounter if you search for truth. Look with an open mind and a sincere heart and you will find what you seek, sooner or later. As a child, I was raised in a church, and I had images and concepts presented to me that were hard to shake when I began to "look" for myself. If you follow the Christian path, I would give you this advice: all men are corruptable(not corrupt) and that Revelatory knowledge is rare. People will ask you to accept things on "faith". Usually this means that they cannot explain something, but nonetheless want you to believe it. Faith is a double edged and dangerous word, since it is a necessity of the believer, and a tool of the charlitan.
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On the Bible: There are many examples that show how the Bible was written by men(who are fallible, and were not divinely "possessed" as if by a demon to transcribe a direct dictation from God), and our most ancient manuscripts differ from each other. If only differing by a letter (not to mention the entire last chapter of Mark, etc.), this proves that man is fallible, if only as a transcriptionist, how much more so as the author. If you want more info or links to textual criticism, I'll try to find them if you Email me. I'm not saying the Bible is wrong about anything. I'm just saying that man can force a belief out of any word. Did you play Baldur's Gate II? Did you do Jahiera's Harper quest where she took the character back to Galvarey for questioning, and your answers were twisted? This is part of what I mean.
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So, to answer your question a little, no one can tell you there is or is not life after death. Nearly every culture has a belief that there is, if that helps. Certainly no one can tell you there is not, for they haven't died to find out, and if they did die, returning to tell you would nullify their argument. So why not consider believing the best? Most Christians can recall an event in their life when suddenly they DID believe, ever so completely, without thought to reason or logic. Proof simply was found as a gift of knowledge from God, that one without cannot appreciate, regardless of research and one's ability to read ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek manuscripts.
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As an addendum, I would recommend reading Josephus' "Discourse to the Greek's Concerning Hades", which is short. Josephus was a Pharisee, and had also spent time with the Essenes, so this work gives a good idea of what the Jew's just after Christ's time thought about what happens when you die (Christ was also a Jew, don't forget). I would then read the last half of Luke 16, and compare the description, which is often written off as "a parable" or "a metaphor". A more complex work, The Book of Enoch, which only exists in it's entirity in Ethiopic, although portions of the original Aramaic were found in the Dead Sea Scrolls of Qumran Cave 4, has a similar, although more complete (or at least complex) description. A point of interest is that the Book of Enoch IS included in the the Ethiopic canon (version) of the Bible, and it has been positively dated BEFORE the time of Christ (most guess about 200 B.C.E). Anyway, that's a good place to start from a Christian standpoint to look for your answer. Good luck to you; I can remember when I first questioned...