Finding ways to cope with the loss of someone you love is a self-preservation mechanism. You can never blame someone who lost their children or their spouse to believe they are in a good place and that they will see them again soon.
The afterlife is a touchy subject. For that comforting belief to work, you have to believe that:
- you keep your individuality and are not merged with all other people after they die
- you will have a physical body, capable of hugging, kissing, seeing, hearing and talking
- people will look like you remember them and not change age, gender, or physical appearance
- you will not look like they did at the time of death, which would be horrifying in some cases
- you stop aging and stop being sick
- you and your loved ones will recognize each other, both physically and mentally when you get reunited
- you will be able to find each other in the billions of people that populates the afterlife
- you will still feel the same about each other as you felt on Earth
- you will have kept all your memories
- the afterlife will include pets, but not mean or dangerous ones
- you get reunited at the moment you die and not 20 million years after
- family members and friends will all find each other and get along
- there will be no conflicts to spoil heavenly relationships
- you will not get bored of seeing the same people for 137 trillion years
- every good persons will be together
- you will not miss people who are not there
Another way to look at the afterlife idea is that reality doesn’t matter as the afterlife concept is for the living and not the the dead. It doesn’t matter if the popular afterlife belief or the biblical version is true or not, since its main goal is to provide comfort for people who lost loved ones.
You can choose to believe in something without evidence for personal comfort or to make sense of something so horrible you would not be able to live otherwise. But there is a difference between something you choose to believe and something being true or real. I think the afterlife is a personal belief and not something you can convince people of with arguments.
In this case, you would be better off believing in a totally made up version of the afterlife and surely not the one proposed by the Bible.
The popular version of the afterlife is a warm place full of people you love, without conflict, sickness or death, forever.
the biblical version is a large floating cube with streets made of gold, presided by creatures full of eyes and mercenary angels. There is also an idea of a New Earth with a New Jerusalem, without war, sickness or natural disaster. You get access to that version only at the end of times, which is a timeframe not defined. People you love who were not Christian or messed up on one important thing Jesus allegedly said in one of the parable that was edited, mistranslated or mis-reported in the chosen and published books that made the final version of the Bible.
Which version will make you feel better when a love one dies?