Death, Part II

Even as a young child I heard this same ol' line in church: "If you were to die right now, are you sure you are going to heaven?"

I mean, crap, I was just a little kid and some preacher, Sunday after Sunday, was rambling on about death. When this continued into my 30s, I realized that church was a death cult.

The great irony is that church leaders WANT you to be scared because fear motivates people to comply. And even though you are promised with a wonderful afterlife in Heaven they keep you frightened week after week.

So, there I was, just a confused little kid, thinking, "Well, I think I'm saved. I'm sure I'm saved, but maybe I should ask Jesus to save me again, just in case. You know, insurance."

Afterlife

The cavemen had a lot of time to think at night, after all there was no reality TV. The afterlife sounded like a cool idea. For thousands of years the idea kept evolving until people actually believed it.

No one knows if there's an afterlife or not, but probably not. It defies logic, physics, and technology. When we're dead, we're dead. We will all be a cooked goose.

Coming Out

The saying "there's no atheist in a foxhole" keeps popping up in the news lately, and more and more soldiers are "coming out" and saying they are nonbelievers.

As for me, I'm only capable of believing the best available evidence. That's all the faith I have, sorry. So, I really don't know what happens after death, and I really don't care. After being indoctrinated all my life on Heaven and Hell, it took several years to adjust to the idea of "nothingness." But, now I like the idea, I really do.

Freedom

So, when your spiritual leaders intimidate you with the death scare, just stick your thumb on your nose and wiggle your fingers, and say, "Poo poo." For, one day all of us will become space dust, floating peacefully in space. And in the billions of planets and billions of years of the cosmos, this little place called Earth will be forgotten. You won't have to listen to crappy harp music for a trillion years — thank God. And you won't have to swim for billions of years in a fire lake with Ted Bundy. Sorry, cavemen, I'm not falling for your story.

I am alive here and now, and that's all that matters. It is this little, very, sacred moment that I'm alive and have a consciousness. I'm part of an absolutely incredible cosmic miracle, which only goes to prove that when you mix all the right gases at all the right temperatures, well, you create people who have gas. And here we are, little, amazing, freaking carbon-based, fragile people.

And then we die, and eventually we all die, and eventually the Earth dies, the Sun dies, and the Universe dies. And there's no one to even care. And that, my friend, is life.

So, to the preachers who make their living from scaring the shit out of people, I say that you can have your death religion. For, tonight, at least, and for this day, I have life.