Given this world's misery, and life's transitory nature, if there is not a sufficient positive purpose for this life and a destiny beyond this one that is worth the suffering here, it would, to my mind, be better to either commit suicide OR INVENT a sufficient purpose to justify this suffering- a happy existence for us all in the life following this one and a Good Father-God whose wisdom has ordained a quite nasty but necessary "school" (this life) to form/prepare His children for their "Real Lives" that come after this one.
It would be far better to live in an illusion of purpose for this suffering world as preparation for a sufficiently joyful one to come, than to settle for this life's reality as an end and not a beginning. It would be far better to "pretend" that there is more, than to live in the view that this is all there is.
by Thomas Whittemore, 1840