dispatched to heaven

Do you think that your life, and the lives of those around you, would be improved if you knew the truth about the exact date of your death, e.g., April 19th, 2010? Would your life be improved if you knew the full truth about your best friend, e.g., that sometimes he badmouths you? Would your life turn for the better if, being married, you knew in advance that you were going to divorce within the next three years? Do you think that your quality of life would be ameliorated if you knew beforehand that you are going to die under conditions of excrutiating pain?

Suppose we knew the truth about afterlife and that such truth is that there is no afterlife at all. Most people who lived throughout history have done so under extremely difficult conditions of poverty, illness and oppression. What would keep these people alive if they knew beforehand that there was no reward expecting them for enduring such suffering? The truth that there is no afterlife would have led most people who ever lived to rationally put an earlier end to their lives. Obviously, a society where a lot of people, rationally balancing costs and benefits, were led to put an earlier end to their own lives would also be a society where people would feel much more at ease to put an early end to other peoples' lives.

Suppose now that the truth about afterlife is in accordance with Christian belief: there is indeed an afterlife and people are rewarded there for all good works and suffering of their earthly life. A society based on this truth would be as cruel as the one described above, if not more so. Each man would now try to do his best to meet as fast as possible the conditions that would entitle him to a life on heaven which is better than the one he has on this earth. Once those conditions were met the rational decision for him to take was to kill himself. Sooner or later the conditions for people to be entitled to a better afterlife than their earthly life would be made explicit by law and would apply to all, so that the moment you met those conditions you would be rationally shot and dispatched to heaven.

It is the uncertainty regarding afterlife, not the truth about it - whatever such truth is -, that keeps people moving on doing good works and enduring suffering. The mistery regarding afterlife is a rational, sophisticated creation of religion, not science. In my view, the Christian belief in afterlife, and other such unproven beliefs, have done more - actually, much more - to promote human life and make human societies possible than all the achievements of science put together with their demonstrable laws and unquestionable proven facts.