how can any one religion make a valid claim to be the fundamental truth?

Rive,
You're right, it is a good question. I've heard and read it broken down in three parts: Body, soul, and spirit.Body (obvious)Soul (the mind, the will, and the emotions)Spirit (that which goes back to God (one way, or the other).

There are numerous discussions and commentaries on that subject, and I'm always open to new ways to look at it. But, since you ask, here's my take:Adam was created from the dust of the earth. But so were dogs for that matter, so what's the difference between these two creatures? God gave man a spirit; something the dog doesn't have (don't respond with a [qs] on that or this thread will turn into a Bible study). I can probably guess what you're thinking, but don't starting loading your gun yet; plz hear me out first. God is a spirit, and in order for us to commune with him in a "living" way we must have a "living" spirit; thus, God gave Adam a spirit. God can communicate with his entire creation (even "the rocks would cry out") but MAN is different because of his Spirit that "came from" God. But then how does the spirit commune with the flesh (or body)? That's where the "soul" comes into play: The mind, will, and emotions.
Back to the dog (before you start loading); the dog ALSO seems to have a mind, will, and emotions (anyone who has ever had a dog KNOWS that dogs can think, can be quite stubborn, and can be happy or sad or display a number of various emotions (perhaps debatable). And anyone who has owned SEVERAL dogs can attest to the fact that EACH dog is VERY unique with its own "personality" (also semantically debatable). But (stop reaching for your ammunition, plz), let's look at it this way: Let's say you have some moisture that inadvertantly got into your fuel tank and it mixed with that over-priced aliphatic hydrocarbon mixture that you just finished pumping. Ah, wait; it DIDN'T mix! It can't! To get that moisture out of your tank (at least a QUICK and CHEAP way of doing it) is to pour in something that CAN "mix" with both gasoline AND water; for example, ethynol. It'll move the moisture right out (assuming a balanced mixture) of your tank.
The H2O won't mix with the C7H16, but the C2H6O can work to bring them together (same chain). Don't argue with me on my chemistry, it was my worst subject, but just use the example for the question's sake (a truly BAD analogy, but it's the only one that I could come up with). So, the soul (C2H6O) sort of straddles two "warring" players; the body (H20) and spirit (C7H16) together. These two STILL "war" against each other, but they're nevertheless stuck in their situation (combustion chamber). You used the word dichotomy, but man is really trichotomous while dogs are dichotomous. As to the "dog", note that he does NOT have a spirit. Man, on the other hand has an "extra helping" from God that gives him a special designation of a "living" soul (as opposed to just a "soul").Imagine if, say NosyNed gives his life to Christ and I eventually meet him in heaven. Will I be able to recognize him? I mean, will he look like he does in his "avatar" or how he looked in his high school yearbook? Or even his baby picture? (Now THAT I would like see!) The answer is NEITHER; in spirit (and in heaven) we are neither young nor younger, neither male nor female (Matt 22:30), etc. God uses the he/she, Father/Son, and many "mansions", etc. designations because that's about all we can understand. What heaven will really be like cannot be comprehended by us at this point.So much for that tangent. But in the Bible, the words soul and spirit often seem to be used interchangeably or even simultaneously, but a hebrew/greek scholar could shed lots of light on that (see Matt 10:28, 12:18, 26:38, and Luke 12:20, Acts 2:27, 2:31, etc, etc. And an even peculiar use of the word "soul" is in Revelation 16:3; and there are many others uses of the words soul and spirit in the Bible.But just looking at the CONTEXT of the use, we do see the Bible make a striking difference between soul and spirit: And: Of course, some commentaries will say the use of "soul" in that verse really means "body", but I don't think it difficult to separate the "body" from the "spirit"; men do that to each other every day (sadly). What the Hebrew writer is talking about is something supernatural. But in the previous verse, Paul DOES refer to three separate entities. A psychologist uses the terms "conscious" and "sub-conscious" or the layman would refer to "use your heart, not your head", etc. The Soul and Spirit, which God's Word can divide asunder, are as different as when a defendant pleads "not guilty" (coupled with LOTS of excuses) with his mouth but knows in his heart that he's guilty as a rat. Just my opinion.Anyway, to you specific question: When the body dies, so does the mind, will, and emotions. Now the next question: Does the Spirit have mind, will, and emotions? Well, yes, of course. But the spirit is perhaps sort of like PC game software that resides on your HARD DRIVE, but "runs" in random access memory. When you shut your PC down, everything in RAM "dies" but the program on the hard drive is still there, along with any updates to "high scores", "completed levels", "user names", etc. What was "running" in RAM was sort of like the C2H6O as mentioned before. Hey, now THAT could be developed into a GOOD analogy! (but nevermind). But now we're getting deeper and deeper; so deep that I'm not even sure what the topic of this thread is anymore (I had to go back and check it; I think we might be ok). Anyway the Spirit (with full memory of life) moves on as outlined in the Bible: Again, this is just my take. Due to my windiness, you might have to read my post twice (sorr). And instead of this turning into a thread between Crash and me, I would like to hear some others' thoughts on this.