The Most Important Thing

What is this thing we call Life?

And what is the most important thing in it?

After more than 70 years on Planet Earth, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s about Just One Thing that guides our days and is the foundation of all religions:

What happens to us after we die.

As humans – and everything that lives – we are born, we live, and we eventually die. This is something we all know and must accept.

Most every “religion,” it seems to me, is fundamentally about what happens after we die. In truth, no one – no one – absolutely knows the answer to that burning, ever present question.

But some people can’t accept that notion, and they are drawn into religions and belief systems that promise to give them the answer. Usually, those answers offer some kind of comfort or “certainty” about an afterlife. Most often, religion offers salvation and redemption based upon a well-lived Life or at least one that meets the requirements of that particular religion’s demands:

I.e., that you prayed regularly, attended and donated to the church and ate certain foods and avoided others – just so you might have some assurance that your soul would hopefully enter some Sweet Afterlife filled with angels and fluffy clouds and where you would be reunited with deceased loved ones.

Or at least not go to Hell – or whatever a particular religion chooses to call it.

But not all people are religious, as we well know. There are agnostics, who generally don’t hold any particular religious beliefs but who more or less accept the existence of God and whatever that may mean.

I guess that’s kind of where I am. Not religious, but spiritual — and with an open mind about what it all ultimately means.

And then there are the outright atheists who reject the concept of God and religion and an afterlife. For them, when we die, that’s it.

Game Over. Kiss it all goodbye. That whatever we did in our time on Earth ultimately doesn’t matter and the memory of who we were will soon fade into oblivion.

These folks accept that our existence is pure happenstance, and that we live out our Lives in a cold, indifferent universe.

I feel sorry for them.

And while I don’t buy into any particular religion, I realize it can be the glue that holds a society together. Because not being tethered to some religious belief system that rewards good behavior could ultimately bring about the End of Civilization if people simply live for the moment and don’t care about what might come next.

To that extent, I give religion some credit – particularly those that Walk the Talk and actually help the poor, the afflicted and the innocent.

But for me, I mostly see religion as the root of much evil in the world, engendering endless wars and crazy cults and human cruelty. That feed off the fear of death and suck hard-earned money from trusting believers and allow the Pope and other rich religious leaders to live in luxury while they live in squalor.

I maintain that – of all the aspects of Life and Being Alive – the One Thing we all share is NOT really knowing what happens to our spirits after we die. 

It all comes down to our own individual spiritual journey – of what we experience while we live and how we interpret that experience. 

And of what resonates in our heart.

Some people simply can’t live without some form of religion in their lives. And if that makes them a better, more caring, sharing and tolerant person, then I say: Fine.

As for me, I have no particular belief about an Afterlife. I would certainly love to be reunited with those who have gone before me but – as an agnostic – I prefer to leave it all in God’s hands.

And that’s really all we can do. 

Life: It’s not about worrying what comes after we die, but how we choose to LIVE.