Speaking of death

(More trivially now, in terms of our constructions about it rather than what I believe it Is.)

I'm going to go out on a limb here and tell you about one of my Bugbears. I think people are mostly very tedious when they get onto these things, and I try not to do it, but tonight I feel brave enough not to worry if you scratch your head and think, I wish he'd go back to writing about restaurants.

You know this afterlife theory? "I think whatever you believe in happens to you after you die."

I hate this theory.

It's crappy logic, for one thing. Why would it be any more likely to be true than that you go to one of a series of random colour-coded dimensions chosen on the basis of your astrological sign? What you believe in doesn't happen to you while you're alive, unless you're Richard Bach, and Richard Bach is a privileged asshole.

I suspect the original idea is some attempt to be inclusive -- to believe in an afterlife in a non-denominational, less ethnocentric way than dominant Christian ideology. Anyway, that's what I'd guess the people I've heard it from were trying to do.

To recognize that a received or dominant theology is just that, is a good thing. To translate this into some kind of literalized metaphysical principle is an absurdity.

By the logic of such a system, someone who thinks long and carefully about their beliefs, questions, doubts, and arrives at the conclusion that there is no afterlife, is annihilated by the universe for not being gullible enough. And any (D)ick in, say, the Republican party, who thinks he's going to heaven, goes? Gets to sit next to Dog and laugh at the unbelievers (or, I guess, guilt-ridden believers) writhing in hell? So the order of things is that belief, no matter how self-serving and inane, is rewarded, and doubt, no matter how thoughtful and painful, is punished?

What a stupid universe. I put a lot of hard spiritual work into being an atheist. If you're going to make up something arbitrary and illogical to believe, why don't you believe that Dog rewards those who struggle as hard as they can to understand the universe, even if they ultimately fail?

That way, you could have me there with you in the afterlife. Wouldn't that be more fun?

--rf

psych 101

An odd thing happened after I posted all that about death last night. I felt good.

I'd felt rotten all day, very stressed about moving and about life in general. I turned down a dinner out (!) on grumpy bastard's tip money to stay home and pack and brood. But writing out something so personal, and hard, and meaningful (to me, anyway), and posting it -- rather than something just meant to be entertaining -- was remarkably freeing.

Such that when my former co-conspirator came home, still unhappy about the way a difficult conversation had gone the day before, I was so far from the place I had been that I found it kind of funny. And I was able to articulate some things that had been bothering me about the moving process. He didn't agree with my take on things; but oddly enough, that was okay too. When I reflected on it, I realized that I was satisfied just having expressed my concerns. I didn't need to convince him.

So. Let that be a lesson. Talk about death. It'll cheer you up.

--rf

It's a posty day!

I should say that I'm not trying to subtly blame the former co-conspirator for my anxiety; I think it's been going on for a while. The life changes exacerbate things in the short term, but I am quite capable of producing vast quantities of dread all on my own. Like a perpetual motion machine, only not useful.

--rf