Methodology

What this is

An observatory of continuation under mortality. The central question is not whether God exists. It is why humans continue when a verifiable answer to why life should be lived is not supplied.

What this is not

• Not a religion comparison website.
• Not a theology website.
• Not an argument for or against God.
• Not a ranking of Christianity, Buddhism, atheism, or philosophy.
• Not a death statistics website.
• Not a self-help or wellness product.
• Not a judgment of whether a life had meaning.

This observatory studies documented continuation under mortality. It does not argue for or against God, rank religions or philosophies, or decide whether a life had meaning.

Evidence classes

All interpretive claims must preserve the split. Never convert INFERENCE into OBSERVED. If evidence is insufficient: UNKNOWN. Never fill missing meaning with interpretation.

STATED

What the subject explicitly said.

OBSERVED

What can be directly established from sources.

INFERENCE

A clearly marked analytical interpretation.

Classifications

Mortality encounter names how finitude became visible. Continuation names documented behavior. Meaning mode is analytical, never a religious identity assigned to a person.

Continuation distance

Distance is measured from the first documented point at which mortality became visible to the last documented act. Posthumous remainder — recordings, texts, institutions, children, influence — may cross the death mark. That crossing is inheritance, not survival of the person, and not an afterlife.

Forbidden operations

• Do not label a person Christian, Buddhist or atheist as a score of the life.
• Do not infer belief unless it is directly stated in a reliable source.
• Do not say that illness produced faith, or that unbelief produced courage.
• Do not convert “he kept making music” into “music was the meaning of his life.”
• Do not rank lives as fulfilled or unfulfilled.