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What Should I Believe? Why Our Beliefs About the Nature of Death and the Purpose of Life Dominate Our Lives

Author(s) : Dorothy Rowe

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Suddenly, in the twenty-first century, religion has become a political power. It affects us all, whether we're religious or not. If we're not in danger of being blown up by a suicide bomber we've got leaders to whom God speaks, ordering them to start a war. We're beset by people who demand that we give ourselves to Jesus while they smugly assure us of their own superiority and inherent goodness. We're surrounded by those who noisily reject science while making full use of the benefits science brings; by the 'spiritual' ones; the ones who believe in magic; and there's the militant atheists berating us all for our stupidity. We wouldn't object to what people believed if only they'd keep it to themselves. We want to make up our own minds about what we believe, but it's difficult to do this.

Whatever we think, our choices are fantasies that determine the purpose of our life. If death is the end of our identity, we have to make this life satisfactory, whatever 'satisfactory' might mean to us. If it is a doorway to another life, what are the standards we have to reach to go to that better life? All religions promise to overcome death, but there's no set of religious or philosophical beliefs that ensures that our life is always happy and secure. Moreover, for many of us, what we were taught about a religion severely diminished our self-confidence and left us with a constant debilitating feeling of guilt and shame.