Looking towards the future is always a hindrance to appreciating the now. As a teenager in high school, I remember badgering my parents with a countdown informing them of how many days there were left until I could get my driver’s license. Nowadays, I beg my friends to drive me places just so I can avoid dealing with the traffic myself.

But as that 16 year old boy, I didn’t appreciate the position I was in, being exempt from the responsibility of transporting myself to the places I wanted to go.

The problem of desiring the future arises when we forget that all our experiences happen within a finite space; we each will one day have to face our mortality after which there is no “later.” This is where I believe the temptation in longing for an afterlife manifests itself.

Because we as humans assume that the next minute is guaranteed and our futures limitless, we find it incomprehensible to think that at some point there actually is an end.

From here, we find ourselves at a crossroad where we either choose to accept our fate and continue to enjoy the time we have left in our lives, or formulate a future hoped for after death, whether in the form of reincarnation, or through the salvation of a deity.

Though whenever I hear someone proclaim their dedication to some sort of eternal and wholly other being, I wonder what their belief does to change the predicament of finality. Whether or not there is a god, its existence does in no way guarantee an afterlife.

For thousands of years, philosophers from Epictetus to Dennett have argued over the viability of an omniscient, omnipotent being guiding the course of our universe. However, what I am proposing is that the argument should not be focused on whether or not there is or could be a god, but rather if there is an afterlife or not.

For if there was a god, but no afterlife, then why would we care if it was “the first mover,” or that it decided to give us a temporary experience on this rock we call earth. It still wouldn’t change the fact that a day would come where our consciousness would be taken away forever.

All arguments in favor of there being a god have no say when it comes to the topic of what happens after our deaths. I ask you, would you worship a god if you knew there was no afterlife, and no reason to appease it for mercy in hopes of a better future?

If we begin to disregard the perennial argument over a god’s existence, and focus on this question of the afterlife, we realize that we have automatically been brought closer to authentic freedom on this earth. Seeing that we can never know if an unseen god has provided a paradise for us rather than oblivion, we must find peace in our uncertainty of either answer.

The beauty of it all is that it is exactly this uncertainty that makes life worth living. Some of the best moments in our lives happen when they are spontaneous and unpredictable. It is the desire for safety and certainty that brings us to reject our reality at present and hope for something more than what there is.

If we can begin to move to a point where we stop fearing what’s ahead and look at what’s at hand, we will have begun the process of unshackling ourselves from existential fear.