Two ALS patients in electric wheelchairs, both seeming to be coping reasonably well, given the circumstances, remarked to each other about how things were going for them.  The first states that his faith is seeing him through. He said “I just don’t know how I could get by without the love of Jesus and the thought of the afterlife”.  The second one, who seems to be coping about as well, states that he is an atheist.  The love of his friends, family and all of the people he shares the earth with is so nourishing.     How is it possible that systems so completely different from each other can produce seemingly similar results.  Even the atheist would think that the prospect of continuing on forever in bliss would change everything.  How does the religious beliefs of a person appear to make such a little difference in life outlooks?  I truly don’t pretend to know the answer to this.  The best that I can do is to make guesses and then try to run mental experiments to see if the idea might have merit.  I hypothesize that, with just a little adjusting of perspectives, all of the systems that humans use have much more in common than one might think.