What if you take religion out of the question of life?

Is there life after death without religion? Do souls actually exist?

If souls exist, then does life after death exist too? If so, then death is not the end of our life. If it is not the end, then would we continue to live upon the earth in spirit form, or would we live somewhere else? Or would the soul be reincarnated into another form, a human or animal form, or roam about somewhere else as a spirit?

Then if so then what happens when we die? Does the 'tunnel of light' and 'tunnel of darkness' theory hold up?

Why are people afraid of death, anyway? Isn't it more or less like just a phase which we all have to go through in the end, the same as birth? If there is life after death...then I would liken death to birth, as birth is the death of your life within the womb, but then it's the start of your human life here.

So is death a passing phase, a route to another life?

If it is the route to another life, then will there ever be a true death, where the soul ceases to exist?