From the dawn of human consciousness people have found their mortality unpalatable and the belief that a reunion with those dear to us after death is indeed a seductive and comforting one.

Throughout the Middle Ages most people across Europe were peasants who tolerated their backbreaking lives in the belief that a heavenly reward and eternal life awaited them when they died. They were constantly reminded in Sunday sermons that their earthly suffering in an age marked by famine, disease, drudgery and lack of opportunity would be compensated by a glorious afterlife if they adhered to religious doctrine and societal norms.

Conversely, the fear of eternal punishment in the fires of hell served as a deterrent against disobedience and uprisings.

The Church was promising (and threatening) something that it had no proof existed, but its monopoly over people’s minds meant this state of affairs continued for centuries.

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Unsurprisingly, the concept of life after death seems to be fundamental to the doctrine of most faiths, but for Humanists the desire for evidence or proof before commitment to a belief prevents them from believing in an afterlife. Instead they concentrate on what they know is true – the here and now.

To believers, the idea of a life that doesn’t strive for personal salvation and paradise in heaven – can seem nihilistic, void of meaning. But Humanists, grounded in reality, find purpose in what exists now on our overcrowded and polluted planet. It is a world in which millions of poverty-stricken children across the developing world have to scavenge for a living; where religious and ethnic genocides have become almost regular occurrences, with wholesale slaughter and suffering across the Middle East and  Africa, and where numerous theocracies and dictatorships restrict people’s basic  freedoms.

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Humanists are indeed mindful about what happens after they die, but their concern is about events here in the existence they know is real. So for them, the meaning of life is to continually try to improve the world for everyone – both now and for the future.

Before we ponder our death we should consider our life –  our time on earth. Knowing that we have done some good – perhaps even a lot of good – can ameliorate our passing. And being mindful of the fact that we are here in the first place can help to soften our departure; we made it, many, many others didn’t, and now it’s someone else’s turn. So, to quote Dr Seuss, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened’.

Nevertheless, in one sense Humanists do believe we live on after we die – in the memories of loved ones and people who knew us, in the work we have done while alive, in our achievements and in our children and grandchildren. And even if even if in none of these, in the void we leave on the stage of life.