...to emphasize the afterlife is to deny life. To concentrate on Heaven is to
create hell. In their desperate longing to transcend the disorderliness,
friction, and unpredictability that pesters life; in their desire for a fresh
start in a tidy habitat, germ-free and secured by angels, religious multitudes
are gambling the only life they may ever have on a dark horse in a race that
has no finish line.
-- Tom Robbins, _Skinny Legs and All_, 1990, p. 305.