TLDR full of philosophy and my personal assumptions.

because eternal life conceptually feels like a coping mechanism it honestly never appealed to me

It's strange but I used to be an agnostic and viewed the idea in pretty much a similar light to you, always dismissed it as wishful thinking, but three things always struck me: 1) The something from nothing paradox. 2) The fact that the universe looks like a data store. 3) The composeability of nature as almost a form of programming e.g chemistry, genetics, light/matter duality.

So I was always an uncomfortable Agnostic I always said that if I had to flip a coin, I would be 70% on heads that there is a design to all of this.

So with that, I kind of just meandered around philosophy and theology for a long time, not really liking religion for the people involved which kept me from really understanding the underlying philosophy trying to be conveyed in them.

As I have grown older and given my being OK with either outcome I have come to understand, if there is a architect intelligent life existing for a period of time and then extinguished seems to be the least logical option. Human knowledge transferred thru generations seems to be the most inefficient way to evolve it assuming knowledge is the only point and usually in nature we see the path of least resistance. So I generally assume we are not ants just here to build something and our lives are insignificant.

If that is the case then a transformed existence after this one seems logical (based on a bunch of faith and assumptions I will give you).

When you look at it in that light the philosophy of many religions has some good reasons, though the explanations may be dated, as to why things are the way they are.

Logical explanations about free will, why death would exist, why we seem to be abandoned to our own fate and a recognition that in our current state, eternal life would not be that great and how transformation is needed if we are to be eternal beings.

Now in saying all this in my flipping coins odds thinking I am less of a betting man on the concept that this is a science project that someone abandoned. That I am closer to 50-50 on.

Now please do not take this as a pitch for hey go find god. I believe every person according to their free will needs to live their life according to that free will. I am just telling you a story of how I got to from where you are, to where I am now. So anyways back to the 50-50 odds I came to the conclusion that we either are abandoned and if that is the case nothing really matters, not happiness, not love, not Hitler, not Stalin, not Gandhi, not Christ. While they all may matter in the temporal, in the grand scheme of things it all burns out and the Architect throws it in the trash bin. There will be no observer for any of it to ever matter.

I for obvious reasons don't like that line of thinking so I figure this Architect either left an manuscript to life or it did not. Either there are instructions or it figures we will learn what we need to learn in this existence.

So I started reading a lot of religious text and I saw a lot of similar themes. For example in Buddhism Nirvana is the final state of enlightenment where one has extinguished the 3 fires (greed, hate, ignorance). It is the destruction of desire. The Sikh's use a little different terminology in that it is the end of suffering. The Hindus see it in a similar light but see it as unity with Brahman.

Now I bring this up to directly contrast it with Abrahamic religions as I really don't see them as all that different I think what is different is the style in which the concept is conveyed. Whereas many eastern religions tend to get straight to the philosophy. Abrahamic philosophy tends to be woven into a tome that is part history, part parable, part philosophy which can make it harder to extract from the text but when one understand that, in my opinion the layers of the philosophy and theology tell a deeper story. Going back to Nirvana for a moment, this concept is played out in the fall of man, the inability of man to see their imperfection, the inability of man to accept devine authority, those that finally do see life for what it is "will see" (enlightenment) and finally according to one sect of Abrahamic religion will unify with creation (i.e the bride of christ). Again not a pitch for christianity or Buddhism or Hinduism. I just find it fascinating that there are many parallels in what they say the lesson is to learn.

Anyway a really long winded post to explain that I don't see an existence after this as wishful thinking anymore, I see the purpose, but only if there is any purpose at all.