One of the most common irrational misconceptions I have encountered is the oft-repeated maxim, "nobody knows." "Nobody knows" whether the afterlife exists or not, or "nobody knows" what it is like if it exists. Why do people say this, when there is literally no possible way they can know what everybody on the planet "does not know?"
Obviously, the people that confidently repeat this strange maxim are, first and foremost, admitting that they don't know, but why are they dragging everyone else into their self-admitted ignorance? How is it that they are so confident that "nobody knows?"
Personally, I think they gain some measure of comfort in their entirely unwarranted and unfounded belief that "nobody knows." The answer to the questions, "is there an afterlife" and "what is it like," are two of the most profound and meaningful bits of knowledge a human can possess here. Many people do not like to think that other people know the answers to such universally significant questions while they do not.
Perhaps it is because many people assert different, apparently conflicting answers to those questions that one would feel psychologically entitled to wave it all way with a "nobody knows." That's a bit like saying that because you might get many apparently conflicting answers to the question, "does Tuvalu exist" and "what is Tuvalu like," like possibly "that's not a real place!" - well then, throw your hands up and say "nobody knows."
Right now you're probably wondering, what the heck is a "Tuvalu?" What if I claimed that the capital of Tuvalu is Funafuti. Would you believe me? Look it up.
The afterlife is just as researchable as the existence of Tuvalu and Funafuti. People have been to the afterlife. You can talk to them. You can talk to people who live there now and listen to how they describe it. You yourself can go there and visit and see for yourself. Thousands, if not millions, have done this. People have been doing so since the dawn of recorded history. As I laid out in my blog post "The Demystified Afterlife," what we call "the afterlife" is just another place, or continuum of places.
Unlike Tuvalu, the afterlife is a big place, with lots of different conditions and landscapes. So if one guy describes his home on the beach, and another describes the mountains, and another describes city life, all of those different kinds of places, communities, beliefs and lifestyles exist in what we call the afterlife. Some people might have met Jesus, others Buddha, some their great, great grandparents whom they never saw before. Some might describe a pleasant, loving atmosphere of pure love; others might describe other kinds of atmospheres. It's not one homogenous location everyone lives in. This is why accounts of life in the afterlife can differ from person to person, just like accounts of people living in this world can vary immensely from person to person.
This is not some deep spiritual or religious mystery that can only be solved by decades of meditation, aligning your chakras or acquiring the correct vibrational level of your soul. I'm not saying those things don't work or are not helpful; but they are not necessary to gain the knowledge that the afterlife exists and at least some general understanding of what it is like. All you have to do is some research and apply a little effort towards breadth and depth of your examination of the multiple categories of afterlife investigation and related fields of inquiry.
If you don't want to do the research yourself, that's fine. However, some of us have done the research; we have applied some of the methods and techniques, and we know - yes, we know - that the afterlife exists, and we know something about what it is like. I'm a little tired of giving people a pass when they irrationally say "nobody knows" and spread this ignorant myth as if it is some kind of universal fact.