I am not interested in the afterlife. Religion is supposed to be about losing your ego, not preserving it eternally in optimum conditions.

The remark contrasts a popular, reward-centered view of religion (focused on personal survival and comfort after death) with a more classical ascetic or mystical emphasis on self-transcendence. Armstrong’s point is that many religious traditions treat the ego as a problem to be disciplined—through compassion, humility, and practices that decenter the self—rather than something to be perpetuated forever. Read this way, “afterlife” talk can become a projection of consumer desire: the self seeking “optimum conditions” indefinitely. The quote thus reframes religion as ethical and spiritual transformation in the present, not a metaphysical insurance policy for the individual personality.