pure delusion. The idea that this may be the only crack at life I ever gets makes me value my life, and the lives of all living things much, much more than I would have otherwise. It makes me appreciate every moment I have on this earth...good and bad. If I were shown absolute and irrefutable proof that there was a better, more perfect life awaiting me when I died, I suspect I would have much less regard for this one.

The responsibility I feel for the preservation of our species is far greater now than when I was still convinced there was eternal life beyond this one. The thought that we may be the only sentient life forms to have evolved in the cold, vastness of space...the only beings capable of perceiving the universe and its mysteries...fills me a sense of awe and love for humanity that I had never felt as a true believer in life after death. Instead of living in constant disappointment in my fellow human beings and in myself for failing to measure up to the standards of perfection we as religionists manufacture for ourselves, I marvel that human beings exist at all.

I see no reason to view this life as a state of perpetual manure. I have had far more good days on this planet than I have had bad. I've laughed, I've loved, I've had children and have watched them grow, to succeed, to fail, to live. These things are all worth experiencing, even if only during this brief period we call mortal life. Why would you deprive your children of life, just because you could not guarantee them an existence beyond the shadow of death? This life is amazing, even if it ends when you breathe your last.

Even if the earth were to be temporarily shattered by some catastrophe, I would fight like crazy to keep the spark that is humanity from being extinguished.