Life is fundamentally a mental state. We live in a dream world that we create. Whose life is truer, the rational man of action pursuing practical goals of personal happiness and wealth or the philosophic man who lives in a world of theoretical and metaphysical ideas? We ascribe the value quotient to our lives by making decisions that we score as either valid or invalid based upon our personal ethics and how we think and behave.
I had an enemy - myself. Getting rid of the ego-self, in came the Self. Now, here, there, everywhere is nothing else. Just One Self.
It's tough to get out of one's inherited imbecilic culture, and a thus inherited or endowed lunatic belief system. A freethinker must overcome every deadened system. Especially one's own.
Any silly ism or stupid book that considers men above women, must be shunned like a lowlife demon. For, all's one, barring none.
Believing or not makes no difference to the Absolute of Things That Be. But it does to you. For you shall live and die accordingly. A wise person, or a fool. Choose.