The following was prepared from the article Afterlife, by Gerald A. Larue, Ph.D., published in Humanism Today, the Journal of the North American Committee for Humanism.

If one observes everyday existence, the non-believer lives a life not too dissimilar from that of a believing neighbor. Non-believers make the same sort of choice in terms of life style. It is often assumed that without the restraints of the threat of punishment in an afterlife that a person would probably live a to-hell-with-everything-and-everybody life, greedily absorbing pleasures, ruthlessly exploiting others, indifferent to the future of humankind and the environment. Of course anyone can choose such a way of life, whether or not one believes in an afterlife.

On the other hand, a non-believer, a humanist, can choose to live this life to the full, seeking that which enhances the human spirit and contributes to the future. Art, music, the dance, the theater, great literature, glorious sunsets, magnificent forests, amazing wild life, beautiful fauna, and so on to enrich the soul and the mind. Warm companionship, love and friendship, work that contributes to human welfare enliven and give meaning to the precious moments of existence. Where there is pain and suffering, the caring person, whether or not he or she entertains belief in a future life, reaches out in compassion. Where others hunger and are in poverty, the full human responds as best he or she can. Morals, values and ethical principles are drawn from the highest and noblest dreams of philosophers, psychologists, poets and painters, realists and dreamers, theologians and skeptics, and most of all, lovers. The non-believer, the humanist, chooses, not out of fear of punishment but out of love and commitment to life, to living so that one feels within the self a sense of achievement and fulfillment, believing that because one is here and is committed, the world will, at death, be just a little better than it was at the individual's birth.

What is different is that although the humanist path parallels that of the highest ethical concepts entertained by the great religions, the path is freely chosen because it is good and satisfying, rather than out of fear of consequences.

In other words, one may live a fine, meaning-filled life without belief in a hereafter. One chooses so to live with the only reward being an internal awareness and satisfaction experienced in the here and now.

--Flo Wineriter