There’s something very deranged about not even hoping for a life beyond this one, about loving the idea that death means annihilation. Atheists claim that belief in a future state necessarily denigrates this life. Not so. They look forward to tomorrow; I look forward to infinite tomorrows. Great happiness implies the desire always to enjoy it.
It would seem clear to anyone here that the belief that killing infidels with a suicide bomb would entitle one to seventy-two virgins in an afterlife is fallacious, but we have no more evidence that the islammofascist is any less wrong than any other belief about an afterlife.
It seems contrived to me to believe in an afterlife that is supposed to make up for the stuff we have to put up with here. It sounds like a convenient way for the rulers of a society to get people to give up any and everything for the state, or for the hierarchy of a religion.