Hell, yes!
However, it is more like Roger put it during our last videocall: ‘I am more afraid of dying.’
The longer I live, the more I realize that religions are wrong and there is no afterlife, no post-mortem awards for a perfect life, etc. We all enjoy benefits for our good deeds and take responsibility for the bad ones right here, during our lives.
There is a song by Nick Cave, Brompton Oratory:
No God up in the sky
No devil beneath the sea…
So here we go. Honestly, I’ve taken it a bit out of the song’s context, but for my state of mind these two lines sound perfect.
Look at the humanity’s worst criminals like Lenin, Stalin, Mao, and that Cambodian guy I can’t remember his fucking name: they all suffered in the end of their lives and that was an equivalent of hell on Earth for them as there’s no afterlife punishment.
My belief also leads me to conclude that you may do bad things in life and not be punished after you die. Vice versa, you may live an angel’s life and die in pain from cancer…
As to heaven and hell and all the gods, from Christianity to Hinduism and Shinto, these are just poetic ethics. I admit that there were personalities like Buddha or Jesus or Mohammed. I think they were people, very outstanding ones, but not gods.
We made them gods.
So, I don’t like the idea of death. While I am still healthy enough to go on, on this planet, the idea of dying sounds even less attractive! On the other hand, sometimes death looks like a solution when people come through hell in their lives, be it physical or psychological or both.
Every living creature is being born and then dies. We are not different. So, it’s ok to die. Let’s accept it and try to enjoy life, all these big and small good things that the world is full of.
And then, the movie will end.
Are we afraid of death?
I’m not sure that, on a personal level, I actually fear death itself. After all, I wasn’t alive for the first few billion years of the Earth’s existence, and it doesn’t seem to have done me any harm. Once I’m dead, I will simply revert to the state I was in before I was born. What’s to fear?
I suppose I may fear dying, as opposed to death. The prospect of falling ill, losing my mental and physical faculties, and experiencing excruciating pain is certainly more fear-provoking.
Nor am I particularly worried about what I’ll leave behind. I won’t know anything about it. At 74, I know I have fewer years ahead of me than behind me, and I’ll do my best to ensure my loved ones are well cared for long after I’m gone.
Perhaps my greatest fear isn’t about me at all. It’s about someone else dying. My wife, my children, their children. That anxiety has been with me since I met and fell in love with Chrissie, my wife of 53 years. It intensified enormously when our two boys were born, and as the family grew, so did the list of people I couldn’t bear to lose.
I spend far more time worrying about the deaths of those I love, something I can barely contemplate, than I do about my own.
Are we afraid of death?
And we come to the ultimate Rorschach test… you. You cannot hide behind an ink blob. Close your eyes and it’s still there. Not a picture of you: You. Some of us do better with the bitter truth than others.
Donald, for all his bluster and strong man posing, actually seems concerned with death and in particular with the idea that he should not pay any price for his behavior. He seems to dream that Heaven is a real, Protestant place in the clouds and he will be somehow welcomed. I think he would be welcomed in a Southern Baptist run heaven. An oxymoron if one ever existed.
For most of us, myself included, death and the “what comes next” question are linked. Should it really be this way? Its seems thousands of years of religion have had an impact. The words Death and Afterlife have been welded together in much the same way that Islamic and Terrorist has been for Fox News viewers. But is this right?
In my mind, the whole heaven and hell thing seems contrived. The Book of John, for example, is little more than a hit-job on Thomas. Why? If you read The Book of Thomas, it feels different than the regular Bible. Thomas says there’s a light within each of us. Imagine you’re some random Dark Ages Bishop. Thomas is poison. You NEED a Book of John. “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Now, if you don’t play by the Bishop’s rules, he can excommunicate you. You’re toast. But if you listen to Thomas, there’s a light within each of us… What the hell do you need that mean Bishop for?
Each major religion, except Buddhism, has some version of the same thing. Pledge loyalty to us and you’ll receive Frequent Flyer Miles towards Heaven.
I have no doubt that the idea of something coming after death has brought comfort to countless millions in their last hours. What do I think? Truthfully, I don’t think that matters. What you think is all that counts. Come to peace with your inner self and you can die in tranquility.