Vociferous
Valued Senior Member
That's a parody of what people actually believe. While this life may be believed to be but a small fraction, it is also believed to have very serious consequences beyond it. There is also the importance of helping others find their way to a "better place." Both of which add significance to this life, rather than undervalue it. Even in reincarnation, your actions in this life have significant repercussions on the next. Otherwise, such a life, or cycle of lives, would be completely superfluous. That seems to be what you think believers actually believe, which again, is complete parody.That's actually one of the things that makes me pity believers in an afterlife of one sort or another - or in reincarnation for that matter.
If you spend all your time thinking that this earthly life is no more than a prelude to the "real" life you'll have in a promised heaven, or that this earthly life is unimportant because you'll shortly being going to a "better place", or because you expect you'll be born again to repeat more or less the same thing in another life, then you risk undervaluing the life you have now. What if you're wrong and this life isn't just practice for your entry into heaven or whatever? What if this is all you get? Life might pass you by while you waste time hoping for something that isn't real.
No believer lives as if they are just passing the time, except maybe in their golden years, where non-believers tend to do the same.