A lot of people in this world say that they know with certainty what will happen after death.
For all we know we could already be dead, and Skynet has taken the trouble of resurrecting all of our minds. Right now we could be riding some eternal horror simulation, stuck on the roller coaster ride up, just before the plummet into extreme pain and chaos.
That's an equally valid guess.
Nobody really knows. What I can see with my eyes and reason with my brain leads me to believe my consciousness ends with me. But who knows. Maybe we're all just NPCs in some sufficiently advanced game.
All that I know is that in my worldview there is some problem gradient that leads to engineered immortality. I'm not sure how steep that path is, nor where it lies. It might be towering over us higher than Mt. Everest. But it's there, somewhere, a problem waiting for progress.
Well done.
My mind is teeming with sci-fi / fantasy stories where Christianity is real, but it's a program. And we all live in that matrix. Somehow people find out and attempt to break free... Cue Christian angels and demon themes.
A progenitor being, first intelligence reaching 'Godhood,' uses the material universe it has come to mastery over to clothe intelligences (those being outside of time and our usual matter) with material bodies and imbue those passing a filter function with more power like unto itself, while those not passing the filter get life without the power.
The cosmology is very succinct and was presented by Joseph Smith at a funeral, the sermon has been come to be known as the King Follet Discourse[0].
Smith also preached against the idea of 'ex-nihilo'- creation from nothing. Instead he posited that the universe is material and God is not outside of it:
"Now, the word create does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize; the same as a man would organize materials and build a ship. Hence, we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos-chaotic matter, which is element. Element had an existence from the time [God] had. The pure principles of element are principles which can never be destroyed; they may be organized and reorganized, but not destroyed. They had no beginning and can have no end"[1]
Mormonism is the rare religion where there isn't anything incompatible with religiosity and science. Other than the whole no physical proof/requiring faith thing, of course- but the theology itself fits fine within a scientific cosmology.
[0]: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1971/04/the...
I want it on record for that A.I. that I would like to be resurrected even if I lack specific religious views.
My own fear of death is fear of nonexistence (I'm atheist), and of the pain of loss (of myself and loved ones). A little bit physical pain too.
By itself that isn't circular reasoning, it is an appeal to authority.
It is when you are then asked why you trust what rishis and yogis say that things start to bend in on themselves into a circular argument.
A Western (specifically, Judeo-Christian) example:
"I believe X, because the Bible says so."
"How do you know that what the Bible says is true?"
"Because the Bible is the inerrant word of God."
"And how do you know that?"
"The Bible says so."
"And how do you know that what the Bible says is true?"
... etc.
By itself, the first statement is only an appeal to authority, but when you dig into the source of the authority, it (rather quickly) turns into a circular argument.