Touch Heaven
By objective standards, our lives are rather drab and pointless. We are biological machines forged by billions of years of natural selection, programmed with the purpose to ensure the propagation of our genes. On a cosmic scale, our lives are insignificant and extremely short. There is little doubt that, in a few thousand years, we ourselves and everything we did, will be completely forgotten by the direct descendants of our children and also by everyone else.
We have long tried to console ourselves from the fact that we will inevitably die by the promise of an eternal afterlife. Unfortunately, there is no evidence we have found as of yet to indicate any belief about this afterlife may be true. And, to be honest, it is a pretty outrageous claim that our consciousness will continue to exist even without our brain and bodies. So I would say the burden of proof should not be on showing that there is no eternal soul and afterlife but rather to find evidence that there is.
There is moreover little evidence for the existence of a divine being or force which imbues our lives with purpose. Therefore it cannot be assumed that if we follow a set of simple rules (such as don't kill, worship regularly etc.) our lives will be good and purposeful whereas otherwise they will not.
It cannot be denied that considering these things being facts to the best of our knowledge makes live look bleak. If there is no relevance and purpose to our existence, why bother existing at all? If there is no way to tell good from evil, why bother being good?
In the American Declaration of Independence it is written that men are endowed by their "Creator with certain unalienable rights". I do not believe that there was a single conscious being (at least according to our current understanding of consciousness) that created us. As such, we also could not have been endowed with rights, since for something to give rights, they need to be conscious. I do however believe that we have been endowed by that which created us, Nature, with certain abilities and limitations. Among these, I believe is the ability to touch heaven.
For instance, every human culture studied appears to include elements which require a belief in the supernatural (see Human Universals by Donald Brown). I think this is due to each of us having a sense of the supernatural world, in which magic and gods exists. This is no indication that magic and gods actually exist. However, I think that this sense is our single most source of consolation, and it must not be one that is grounded in untruth.
Since I believe that our 'spiritual' sense, for lack of a better word for it, can guide us towards actions which generations before us have identified as good and noble. If we seek out our connection to the divine, it often becomes especially powerful if we do so in the context of sacrificing our self interest and aim to bring good into the world.
Thus I think it is critical that we engage with our spiritual sense, to reach out high with our minds and touch heaven, a sphere of existence that cannot be seen or measured but that we can feel. I believe this can bring warmness, colour and strength into our lives. However, we must also be cautious. As much as our spiritual sense can be used in the interest of what is considered good, it can also be used to great ill effect; many wars have been fought and many crimes committed which were fuelled by our imagined connection with a higher power.
