Yeah, that line was surprising to me, too.

I guess it's true in a sense (see: Vanitas art) but usually in the service of deflecting the idea that we actually end. Less "how can anything in this life be important when you stop existing?" and more "how can anything in this life be important when there's an eternity of unimaginable bliss and continued, but changed, eternal life ahead?"

The point of much religion is that there isn't an end, in a very real not-metaphorical sense, which makes death qualitatively different than if there is.

Yes they talk about death in the self-serving "how can anything in this life be important when there's an eternity of unimaginable bliss and continued, but changed, eternal life ahead?" sense.

You're talking about doomsday cults, not major world religions. The existence of even a single church-run soup kitchen is the black swan that destroys your argument. Major world religions are very much concerned with the here and now and taking care of the people in it.

churches spend aid money/donations very, very ineffectively, when they do spend it on non-evangelical causes.

Why does a soup-kitchen disprove it?

The single most recognizable sign of Catholic identity is the sign of the cross received on Ash Wednesday, at the imposition of which the priest says, "Remember, man, you are dust and to dust you will return."

Even the cross itself - a contender for most recognisable sign in religion - has a lot of symbolism associated with death.

I think at least some consider the end of life as something independent/separate of "what comes next", for lack of a better phrase.

It depends on how you define major, but I believe there is no afterlife in Judaism.