[Lestat]

<font color="blue"> But given that he is responsible for the creation of our universe, it would seem reasonable that he has the power to create the universe in such a way where consciousness could continue to exist past biological death. </font>

Why does that follow? I guess what I'm asking is, what makes you think God is capable of granting after-life?

In your example, I'm sure the programmer could write a new problem if the original failed, but what if: This program spawned millions of other new programs and they in turn, spawned millions more programs... Now one of these spawned programs self destructs and ceases to exist. You as the programmer might not even notice the absence of this insignificant spawned program and even if you did, your main creation is continuing just fine. So...

First, God must have the capability of giving after-life and even if He does... He must now want to grant it. So I ask again with all due respect... Why are you assuming that these two things follow *if* God even exists in the first place? That seems to be a lot of assumptions.