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fundamentalist Christians may have helped thousands of people to lead better lives. However, objective statistics point to much greater rates of social dysfunctions (from divorce to murder) in states where fundamentalism is powerful, compared to states where liberal Christianity and secularism are more popular. This suggests one of two things: in thebest case, these “family values” are not very effective at fixing the problems they try to address; worse, they actually may contribute to them. In either case, the evidence tells us that fundamentalist family values could use some serious adjustment. 24
    In choosing the values we want to use to create our own religions, let's always keep an eye on the evidence. Effectiveness is not measured by the complexity of a theological argument, or by how loudly its supporters scream. It is measured in action. Values are only as good as the results they produce.

CHAPTER 3
THE INTANGIBLES: GOD
    I have known many gods. He who denies them is as blind as he who trusts them too deeply. I seek not beyond death. It may be the blackness averred by the Nemedian skeptics, or Crom's realm of ice and cloud, or the snowy plains and vaulted halls of the Nordheimer's Valhalla. I know not, nor do I care. Let me live deep while I live; let me know the rich juices of red meat and stinging wine on my palate, the hot embrace of white arms, the mad exultation of battle when the blue blades flame and crimson, and I am content. Let teachers and priests and philosophers brood over questions of reality and illusion. I know this: if life is illusion, then I am no less an illusion, and being thus, the illusion is real to me. I live, I burn with life, I love, I slay, and am content .
    —Robert E. Howard, L. Sprague De Camp,
and Lin Carter. Conan of Cimmeria

    May I have a drum roll, please? Are the cheerleaders ready? Good, because this is it. It's showdown time. The big game is on. While the topics of several other chapters may be more stimulating to meon a personal level, no religious issues are as important and hotly contested as God and the afterlife. They are the two forces at the very core of the religious life of billions of individuals around the world. In addition to the central role they occupy, the Big Two have something else in common. They are completely beyond the realm of tangible, day-to-day experience. We crave knowledge about them but possess not a shred of physical evidence to guarantee us the existence of either. However, the lack of logical or physical proof doesn't diminish our desire to know.
    It is precisely for this reason that, while the Big Two steal the spotlight in many religious traditions, they find little or no sympathy in others. Some branches of Taoism, Buddhism, Shinto, Confucianism, and Animism discount to varying degrees the importance of the Big Two in favor of more pragmatic concerns. Buddha, for example, snubbed his disciples' requests to discuss the existence of the gods and the nature of the afterlife; he argued that such things had nothing to do with his central goal—the improvement of the quality of our present lives.
    In the minds of most people, God and the afterlife are what religion is all about. I don't agree with this view, but that doesn't mean I believe these issues should be ignored. Everyone on earth will have to take the Big Two's challenge head-on. Whether you end up agreeing with my answers or not, it is crucial to clarify where we stand on these issues. Much depends on the conclusions we reach.
What Are We Talking About? From Santa to the Tao
    God! God! Oh God! Yes! Oh God! The voice of my screaming neighbor makes me painfully aware of several things at once: (a) she is eithergreat at faking it or she is having some seriously mind-blowing sex; (b) whoever built this house should be shot for making the walls way too thin; and (c) I am always uncomfortable when people toss out the word “God” like they know exactly what they are talking about. Most of