TLDR: the mystery isn’t the absurdity but our reaction to it might be absurd.
Are there any beliefs in particular you were thinking of?
The disbeliever tries to ridicule the concept of an afterlife as to allievate the dread of being held accountable for their deeds on the day of judgement which would likely lead them to an eternal and painful hell.
In Islam, it's very clearly mentioned that each individual will be judged according to their deeds. There are two destinations possible paradise or hellfire.
Other religions that came before have often tried to tone down this reality by either removing accountability like Chrisitanity with the concept of Jesus (peace be upon him) having died for our sins or by simply removing the concept of an afterlife all together.
The Quran clearly tells us that many prophets were sent in the past with revelation but as time passed on they were falsified by people. In light of this, one could easily see how polytheistic religions came about.
In the end Islam is the last religion and it was intended to be preserved which makes it unlike any other religion in the world today. It has one book there a no multiple different versions. It is perfectly constructed and there are 0 inconsistencies and errors. No arab linguist can deny that.
Allah sent the previous prophets specifically for their nations however the last prophet Muhammad peace be upon him was sent for all mankind until the end of times.
Give the quran a read. https://quran.com Do some research on the topic. YouTube is a great ressource for this. Make your own opinion.
In light of this, I still want to invite you to become muslim. Islam answers all the questions Chrisitanity and other religions couldn't. Most importantly it will save you in the hereafter. I'd suggest putting your hand on a hot stove (not too hot) and ponder. Do you really want something like this for yourself and for eternity?
I tried to read some of the Quran but couldn’t find anything that spoke to me. Can you recommend any good sections or translations? Maybe the parts that make you so certain of the afterlife?
I will criticise one of your points since it seems fairly objective. Aren’t there many versions of Quran and countless hadiths? https://answering-islam.org/Green/seven.htm
The Quran is multi form. Oral texts tradition and from the Hadith we know that the Quran was recited in different modes by the Prophet Muhammad pbuh. But these are all valid revelation. Actually one of the “miracles” linguistically about the Quran is how the authentic Qiraa’aat (the reading-out of the Quran) can be traced back to a chain of reciters authentically. And each Qiraa’aat adds eloquence to the Quran and it also speaks to the people of a certain dialect. Think about British English and American English and how the same word can be pronounced differently, and you begin to approach an understanding of Qiraa’aat.
Actually, different Qiraa’aat are essential to the revelation of the Quran and giving evidence about how it has been revealed as an “Arabic Quran” in which many examples of mankind and prophets are related.
These qiraa’aat add enhancement to the meaning of the Quran. For example, if you look up tafsir Al-Qurtubi [not sure if there is an English translation but you can find the Arabic text on Quran.com] (tafsir is an explanation of the Quran), of (verse 87 from chapter 20)[https://quran.com/20/87 ] you will find that the word ملكنا has three different readings مِلكنا ، مُلكنا، مَلكنا which when we transliterate to English we get: mulkinaa, milkinaa, malkinaa. Malkinaa and milkinaa translate to “our will”. Mulkinaa translates to “our power”.
And all together in the verse it enhances the meaning that shows that the Children of Israel were made to carry the burdens of weight of the jewelwery/ornaments from the Pharoah’s people.
Also in this verse, we have two readings for حملنا which are: حُمِّلنا and حَمَلنا which is hummilnaa, and hamalnaa, respectively. Hummilnaa is the passive voice and means “we were forced to carry”. While “Hamalnaa” translates to “we carried”.
Both of these convey a similar meaning of carrying, they enhance aspects of what is happening in the verse. Passive voice focuses on how people were forced to Carry while the active voice focuses on how people indeed did carry.
This is just one example of how important and helpful knowing Qiraa’aat are and Arabic.
So given this background absurdity, how do you even delineate what's absurd and what's not, when it comes to concepts relating to the nature of existence itself? It's certainly fashionable to attempt putting everything in terms such as "cognitive distortions", but it's not clear it's sound reasoning when it comes to things like this.
And I say this as a rather staunch irreligious person.
I like the Zen approach to mystery, which is to accept it and resist the temptation to rationalize the mystery away. Thus no absurd concepts are needed, since concepts are not needed. (I’m relatively new to Zen so I may be off the mark a bit here, but I think I got the essence correct)