Three types of life after death?
I've long thought that outside the basic teaching of love and brotherhood, the idea of the Trinity is the most important insight that Christianity has to give us. My reasons for believing in God are divergent, in the same way that the Trinity is, and I'm not sure how exactly they relate to each other (or, to put it in Christian parlance, "it's a mystery"). It makes sense to me that the Universe on a whole might have some meaningful existence, that we human beings couldn't possibly comprehend ("God, the Father"), and that when we try to comprehend it, we would either experience a mystical moment of ex-stasis ("The Holy Spirit") or a better understanding of our human experiences of the Good ("God, the Son").
I also feel that after we die, we may live on in three very distinct ways which mirror the aspects of the Trinity. Our indestructible consciousness, in the Platonic or Buddhist sense, is in the image of the Father. The memories we pass on to our family and friends, are in the image of the Son. And the extent to which each of us lives on in the spirit of others who lead similar lives is in the image of the Holy Spirit.
