I face my own mortality every day. So yes, there is an emotional need for me to find meaning to this life and hope for something after death. While this does lead to my fascination with the meta, I also try to keep a logical mind about myself and search for scientific reasoning that can shed light on death.
Obviously one of the best ways to find evidence of what comes after death is to resuscitate someone who has been dead for awhile. We have a long way to go, but recently scientists were able to bring a dog back to life that had been dead for about three hours, which is pretty cool.
Blood Swapping Reanimates Dead Dogs | Fox News
I respect science and what it can do for humans in many ways. I also believe that science can prove existence after death without the need for god. Things like the eleven dimensions of string theory and the theory of infinite parallel universes have plenty of potential to allow for this.