Death is the last great taboo.... The fact of death unpicks many of
the truisms by which we live. A detailed survey... from 2003 claimed
that fully 92 per cent of Americans believe in God, 85 per cent
believe in heaven and 82 per cent believe in miracles. But the deeper
truth is that such religious belief, complete with a heavenly
afterlife, brings believers little solace in relation to death. The
only priesthood in which people really believe is the medical
profession and the purpose of their sacramental drugs and technology
is to support longevity, the sole unquestioned good of contemporary
Western life.

If proof were needed that many religious believers actually do not
practice what they preach, then it can be found in the ignorance of
religious teachings on death, particularly Christian teaching....

Christianity is about nothing other than getting ready to die. It is
a rigorous training for death, a kind of death in life that places
little value on longevity. Christianity, in the hands of a Paul, an
Augustine or a Luther, is a way of becoming reconciled to the brevity
of human life and giving up the desire for wealth, worldly goods and
temporal power. Nothing is more inimical to most people who call
themselves Christians than true Christianity. This is because they are
actually leading quietly desperate atheist lives bounded by a desire
for longevity and a terror of annihilation...

- Simon Critchley, The Book of Dead Philosophers