Bill O'Connor asked Lois McMaster Bujold:

In the world of the five gods, how different are the afterlife experiences of the various gods? That is to say, if a person is taken up by the Brother, do they experience a truly different afterlife from someone taken up by the Daughter? And, as a corollary, do each of the gods have a separate "heaven" or is there one afterlife that may be affected by the perceptions of the god whose gate you came through?

Lois McMaster Bujold
Not answerable -- the gods are ineffable -- and it's hard to say what happens to a soul in the hands of any god over enough time. But it's fair to guess that people who have been in the afterlife a short time like a century or so will have the most resemblance to their earthly selves, the way ghosts hold their forms only more so, but will begin to change to something less imaginable over longer time, like many millennia. "Union with god" may be rather literal over those scales.

Much the way the next 90 years may shape a person more than the first 9 months, however critical those 9 months were for existence at all. And will certainly be better remembered.

So there would likely be the most perceived differences in one's experience of the afterlife near its beginning, with, mm, maybe not fading differences, but less understandable ones, as time goes on.

Or, imagine trying to explain college life to a 3-month fetus. Heaven here is not a replication of life in the world only better, but an existence qualitatively different, however much it still depends on the world for its growth and sustenance.

Remember, these are not creator gods, but created ones, emergent properties of the world. Though for life after death, they are the only game in town.

Ta, L.

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