As I experience what I am told are the “Golden Years,” I find my mind turning now and then to thoughts about the afterlife and, more precisely, whether there is in fact an afterlife. Some refer to it as the “Future Life,” and I prefer that characterization as well.
This subject has been on a lot of our minds ever since the June 24 collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium in Surfside. It is difficult to comprehend how those poor souls lost their lives in an instant, many in their sleep. So, this topic is more relevant today than perhaps ever in our lives.
If we approach our analysis of the Future Life with logic, something many journalists today have forgotten about, one has to ask why life is important and why what we do during our lives has meaning if there is no Future Life. If the door simply slams shut, does it matter whether we were pious during our lifetime and treated everyone with unparalleled kindness, or whether we were serial killers? If there is nothing past the closed door, who cares? If there is no reward or punishment for our deeds, what do the deeds matter, whatever they were?
But that does not feel like a logical conclusion. Something good must come from being nice to people and some bad must confront those who abuse others. Right?
I have to let you in on what may be a little flaw in this analysis: What if there is no Future Life but it is the uncertainty about whether or not there is a Future Life that keeps us in check? That would be one of the most colossal, all-pervasive tricks played on mankind in the history of the world! But who would have created it? The creator, of course. What? Are you certain? Do you want to risk it? Is there a risk?