Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor, Agnostic

"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones. I am not afraid." Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Roman Emperor (161 to 180), last of the Five Good Emperors, Stoic Philosopher, Persecutor of Christians.

This is a good bet, live a good life and hope for the best. The problem is what is "good"?

Every employee knows of this thing call "KPI (Key Performance Indicator)". The Employer defines the KPI (i.e. what is good for the company) and the employee works towards it. Now, if Marcus Aurelius is an employee, he would probably say something like this, "I do not know what my company's objective is. I do not even know which company I am working for. I just do my best in my job. If the company is just, I would be rewarded. If the company is unjust, maybe I should quit. If I am actually not an employee, too bad, I worked for free, but at least, I found something to occupy my time."

A lot of religion does not give clear KPI. It is always a vague "live a good life" thingy, but never clearly stating how good is good enough. The Christian God gives a very clear KPI.

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. (Mark 16:16 ESV)

Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. (John 3:18 ESV)

So it is very clear, and these verses are just two of the many verses stating the same fact. Salvation is not what you do, but what you believe.

By putting the KPI as what he did, "live a good life", Marcus Aurelius, the last of the Five Good Roman Emperors, the great Stoic philosopher and author of the book "Meditations", made a great mistake. This mistake led him to persecute Christians and he is now condemned in Hades, waiting for the Final Judgement at the Great White Throne (Revelations 20:11-15). His ultimate sin is to refuse to believe his Creator.