why do so many non-religious people seem to completely reject the mere possibility of an after-life, or even just a soul, or some kind of spiritual energy connecting lifeforms?
why do so many non-religious people seem to completely reject the mere possibility of an after-life, or even just a soul, or some kind of spiritual energy connecting lifeforms?
That's true. But, as a tangential point, we do actually affirm this line of thinking with actions as well as words, even for important things. For example, just like the teacup and (from an agnostic's point of view) God, I have no reason to think there's an axe murderer hiding in my closet, but I also can't rule it out. And the result of that is that I act exactly the same as I would if I was sure there wasn't an axe murderer.
So even when my life depends on being right, I act exactly the same for "I don't know if X is true" as "I don't believe X is true".
Yeah great point. If we treated daily life like we treat the concept of a god, we would be fucking diving left and right all day to avoid snipers or something.