Does humanist eupraxsophy* offer any hope for humankind? For many people this is the ultimate test of the secular outlook.

For theists, the single most important hope is theism's promise of eternal salvation. The term religion in its original etymological sense meant religäre or "to bind." This referred to a state of life bound by monastic values. Those in monastic orders had the hope of receiving salvation in the next life, presumably as a reward bestowed by God on deserving believers. Unfortunately, the evidence for immortality of the soul is totally insufficient. The belief is based on wishful thinking. Human consciousness ("soul") is a function of the body, and as the body dies, consciousness, too, disappears.

The belief in immortality should be exposed as a false hope. Death is final for everyone—the believer and nonbeliever, the commander of armies and the lowly soldier, the dedicated teacher and the beginning student, the moral idealist and the profligate hedonist. Would life be truly hopeless, as many theists expect, if everyone accepted the reality that each of us will die some day?