Speaking of death
Aug. 28th, 2004 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
radfrac_archive_full(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
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
