I don’t believe in an afterlife, but I can understand why people take comfort in the idea, both for the pleasure of imagining a vile shit-stain like Dick Cheney getting jabbed in the sack with a pitchfork while roasting in hell for all eternity as well as for the more benign solace of believing that a deceased loved one isn’t truly gone forever.
But surely the most powerful impulse of all to believe is our own mortality. Like Bill Nye said the other day, “Despite our best efforts we’re all going to die, and I think that makes all of us a little nutty.” Yep.
My grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher, and I was compelled to go to church every Sunday until I flatly refused upon reaching my teenage years. Granddaddy was an old-fashioned hellfire-and-brimstone preacher (a persona that was jarringly at odds with his non-pulpit manner, which was typically humorous, kind and indulgent, at least toward grandchildren).
His sermons often included lurid details about the torments that awaited those who refused to accept Jesus Christ as their personal savior. The descriptions of the heaven that awaited the saved were less vivid, and my grandmother inadvertently put one of the first cracks in my Christian belief system when she told me that heaven would be like an endless church service.
“Fuck that ‘sit-down, shut-up and no-playing-rock-paper-scissors-with-your-sister’ noise,” I thought, though possibly in less salty terms since I was around nine years old at the time. “I’ll throw my lot in with the damned.”
Anyway, I’m here to tell you, there ARE atheists in foxholes because I’ve been one, albeit not in a literal foxhole, but in a couple of life-or-death situations. So I don’t think much about the afterlife I don’t believe in. But a couple of days ago, I caught the tail end of the 1999 film “American Beauty,” in which Kevin Spacey narrates his character’s afterlife experience:
I had always heard your entire life flashes in front of your eyes the second before you die. First of all, that one second isn’t a second at all, it stretches on forever, like an ocean of time…
For me, it was lying on my back at Boy Scout camp, watching falling stars… And yellow leaves, from the maple trees that lined our streets… Or my grandmother’s hands, and the way her skin seemed like paper… And the first time I saw my cousin Tony’s brand new Firebird…. And Janie… And Janie… And Carolyn.
I guess I could be pretty pissed off about what happened to me… but it’s hard to stay mad when there is so much beauty in the world.
Sometimes I feel like I’m seeing it all at once, and it’s too much, my heart fills up like a balloon that’s about to burst…
And then I remember to relax, and stop trying to hold on to it, and then it flows through me like rain and I can’t feel anything but gratitude for every single moment of my stupid life…
You have no idea what I’m talking about, I’m sure. But don’t worry… you will someday.
That vision of the afterlife appeals to me: the opportunity to revisit the beauty you perceived in the world even if most of your life was squandered on petty bullshit, squalid longings and tragic misunderstandings. What beautiful thing would you focus on?
donnah
Like most people, hundreds of images spring to my mind, but one moment I recall was when I was hugely pregnant with my second son and I took the firstborn, who was just two years old, to a frozen yogurt place for a treat. I remember sitting there, touching my son’s hair and feeling so much love for him, and so much joy with what lay ahead, I nearly burst into tears.
That was pure happiness.
Tommy
I was raised a Methodist. Went to church every Sunday. I guess at like 14 we have this confirmation process. You have to take these classes and get “Confirmed” at church. After one of the classes, my parents got a call from the Minister, saying their son (this wouldn’t be the first nor last time) was being difficult.
I have “being difficult” because I asked how Noah got 60,000 species of insects on his boat.
Not sure how that conversation went between my father and minister, but we NEVER went to church again.
Elizabelle
Thank you for the American Beauty monologue, and your story about fire and brimstone and heaven is just being nearer to God. That’s heaven, isn’t it? (A: no! Although being up there with dog souls and no religion might be a start. I’d take the American Beauty afterlife too.)
It’s a tonic, because I have just about had it with the negativity and shabbiness and lying anyone who follows the current scene has to try to surface through.
That is my definition of hell, and the challenge is always to get beyond it.
low-tech cyclist
Or, as Billy Joel sang,
I’d rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints,
Sinners are much more fun.
Villago Delenda Est
Dolores Umbridge getting sacked.
The patronus conjured would be spectactular.
Amir Khalid
I suspect that the common conceptions of the afterlife are all completely wrong, if only because that’s what I think is true of our fondly held beliefs about the things no one has ever seen. I’m confident any new guesses we might make up about the afterlife will also be completely wrong.
Violet
I always thought Heaven sounded boring. Sitting around on clouds, wearing togas, playing harps and worshiping at the feet of God, who apparently is sitting in his golden throne. It just seems dull. And WTF with God needing all that worshiping? Needy fella.
smintheus
Janie had a different name. So did Carolyn.
Mustang Bobby
Mark Twain once said “Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company.” Point being that all the interesting people will be in Hell.
If there’s an afterlife, I’d like to be there with my dog Sam as I best remember him, running and chasing waves on the beach on Grand Traverse Bay in Michigan. I’d also like to at least catch up with both of my grandfathers, neither of whom I knew very well.
Eric U.
I was literally an atheist in a foxhole once. The funny thing was, when the all clear sounded after the huge explosion that we were waiting for (scud landed 10 miles away), I thought of that saying and did a personal inventory of my beliefs. “yup, still an atheist” I also thought of all the people that slept through the whole thing, if the Iraqis had better aim there would have been 1000 casualties.
satby
@donnah: I agree donnah, I think heaven has been those moments when love and happiness have overwhelmed me; and
@Elizabelle:
That too!
It’s the people (and animals) who matter and give me a chance to be loving in big and small ways, which is the way we open to being loved back. That life runs us over and often makes us forget that is what makes up hell I think.
The saddest statement ever is the one that says ” he who dies with the most toys wins”. Not even close.
Elizabelle
@Violet:
I know. Doesn’t God sound like nature’s worst narcissist? I could never get the “put me first in all things, always worship ME ME ME ME.”
Always figured it was to create work for religious grifters.
Elizabelle
Haven’t read this, but it sounded great.
NYTimes essay: What the Rabbits Taught us.
About petkeeping, but probs a lot more.
Gotta scoot; catch you later. Great thread topic.
Violet
@Elizabelle: He really does. I don’t get it. If God is so great and all-powerful, why is he also so needy, requiring such worship all the time? Dude, develop some self-confidence! You’re the top dog! You can do anything, from making miracles happen to smiting at will. Why do you need everyone to worship you all the time too?
You’re probably right that it’s more about religious grifters than anything else. When you’re God’s representative on earth (like, say, the Pope), then you get all the adulation and gifts and money on his behalf.
raven
Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they all came from.
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.
But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.
Some say once you’re gone you’re gone forever, and some say you’re gonna come back.
Some say you rest in the arms of the Saviour if in sinful ways you lack.
Some say that they’re comin’ back in a garden, bunch of carrots and little sweet peas.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.
Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they all came from.
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.
But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.
Some say they’re goin’ to a place called Glory and I ain’t saying it ain’t a fact.
But I’ve heard that I’m on the road to purgatory and I don’t like the sound of that.
Well, I believe in love and I live my life accordingly.
But I choose to let the mystery be.
Everybody’s wonderin’ what and where they all came from.
Everybody’s worryin’ ’bout where they’re gonna go when the whole thing’s done.
But no one knows for certain and so it’s all the same to me.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.
I think I’ll just let the mystery be.
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
The Islamic heaven I was taught about was suspiciously hedonistic — free booze and sex for all eternity are a strange reward for a life of regarding them as wicked things we should abstain from. Or are they not wicked after all?
dedc79
Isn’t it obvious?
Aimai
Somebody here reccomended the film Dean Spanley, a little meditation about grief and reincarnation. Its just a perfect little movie. On netflix. I highly reccomend it. I come from atheists and rationalists and have been engaged with the finality if death since my sister died when i was 8 and she was six. I don’t have any hope for an afterlife. The main thing i want is to live this one more fully.
Tommy
@Mustang Bobby: If I could I’d want to spend time with my grandparents as well. Spent a ton of time around them, but they were kind of assholes. I never really knew them as an adult where I’d call them on this or that and stand up for myself. Well to be honest I didn’t interact with my parents nor my family from like 18 to 38. My mom and dad are now close to my best friends. I only knew my grandparents as people we visited when I was a kid for the holidays. I wish that wasn’t the case.
SFAW
@Violet:
You might have it backwards. As modern theologian R. Newman quoted The All-Powerful Entity What Ain’t The FSM:
“I burn down your cities-how blind you must be
I take from you your children and you say how blessed are we
You all must be crazy to put your faith in me
That’s why I love mankind
You really need me
That’s why I love mankind”
EconWatcher
My two kids, aged 6 and 3, safely behind a glassed French door, alternately laughing and squealing with fear as a bat flew back and forth in the next room as I tried to chase it out the window. Then running to tell their mother all about their adventure, with the 3 year old flapping his straight arms up and down because he didn’t know the word for bat. I guess you had to be there, but it was the happiest and funniest moment of my life.
Roger Moore
As far as the Dick Cheneys of the world are concerned, I’d be happy with Hell being the other side of the coin: spending eternity replaying all their mistakes, regrets, and miseries on infinite repeat. Too bad I don’t believe in an afterlife.
Amir Khalid
This song seems apt.
Pogonip
Never mind all this frivolity about life and death. How is your dog? Also, how does a dog sprain its tail?
MomSense
@Villago Delenda Est:
HA!! I love that you share my loathing of Umbridge. Fucking pink suits, prim hairstyle, and a wall full of adorable cat plates cannot conceal her evil.
Constant vigilance!
Felonius Monk
Ah, Betty. You do know how to turn a phrase.
MomSense
@Aimai:
Yes! I recommended that movie. One of my favorites. Sam Neil is fantastic and I just love Peter O’Toole’s face in that movie. He looks every bit the boy remembering one of the seven great dogs.
Bob
Ya think SNZ ever listened to Bonzo Dog Band?
SFAW
@Aimai:
I would expect you’re familiar with Phil Ochs’s work.
Jerzy Russian
I went the funeral of a neighbor recently. The pastor was one of those fire and brimstone types. He talked about marriage in the bible having stages of negotiation, separation, and consummation, and how coming to Jesus was like this. All of the time I was thinking about getting screwed by Jesus on my wedding night. There was also mention of the rapture, and how my neighbor’s life actually started a few weeks ago (when he departed from our physical presence). Other than the pastor, the service was rather moving.
BGinCHI
If heaven is full of white evangelical Christians then count me out.
But something tells me they are not getting in.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: The problem is, the things that you and I, as fairly with it and together human beings, see as things to be miserable over, as mistakes, or to be regretted, the Dark Lord revels in.
He is utterly evil. Beyond James Bond villain evil.
His horcruxes need to be found and destroyed.
Violet
@Amir Khalid: That sounds a lot more fun, but it is weird that they’re held out as such rewards for studiously avoiding them your whole life. Maybe in Heaven they’re okay. Opposite Land, or something?
The whole “72 Virgins” has always seemed ridiculously sexist and misogynistic to me. They’re offered up, like a slice of cake on a silver platter. What if they don’t like the guy? They have no minds of their own they’re allowed to use?
And what do women get in Islamic Heaven? Don’t hear a lot about that.
Aimai
@MomSense: an absolute gem of a movie. Thznk you so much for reccomending it.
skerry
For reasons I do not understand, my parents have returned to the Southern Baptist church after leaving it decades ago. During my recent visit, my mother made sure I knew there was a Bible in the guest bedroom. There was also one on the coffee table. And another on a side table. They both spoke about their church and drove us past it, but didn’t push too hard. I find it curious.
ArchTeryx
@MomSense: According to “Word of God” Umbridge ended up with a life sentence in Azkaban after Voldemort fell (though minus Dementors). She may not have been a Death Eater, but nobody, and I mean NONE, of the lifers in the Ministry went to her defense after Kingsley Shacklebolt took over.
She wasn’t just sacked. She was tossed in prison and they threw away the key.
(Yes, I spent way too much time reading this stuff. Comes with the territory of being a geek).
Jack the Second
For me, the root of the problem was choosing what to believe in. I’d grown up around a number of different churches, and while I’d only been raised in one, at some point I stopped and asked myself what I should believe. And then I realized I couldn’t choose to believe in anything.
To give an apropos example — not the one that motivated me, but a clear one — in early Christian theology, the afterlife was in the future: at some point in the near future, there would be The Resurrection, when Jesus would return. The faithful would be resurrected in spirit to live happily ever after. Until then, the dead slumbered, nowhere.
As Christianity evolved, the afterlife evolved to be a place separate but concurrent with our own. After you die, if you were good, you immediately see the white light and move on to the next life. The dead are somewhere right now, watching us or maybe even interacting with us.
These are two very different possibilities. They both cannot be true (you can create a third possibly that combines them, but then only one of the three can be true). How can I choose which to believe in? These possibilities represent the fundamental nature of the universe, reality. How can I just arbitrarily decide the entire universe works one way or the other?
I can’t, so I don’t.
Betty Cracker
@Pogonip: The dog’s wag radius seems to improve daily! We think she sprained her tail when she landed awkwardly while leaping around like a fool when my brother-in-law visited. (She lurrrrrves him!) I had no idea it was possible for a dog to sprain her tail, but apparently it is. That dog has one tough tail, too. It’s like rebar wrapped in velvet and is a constant hazard to our shins.
Keith G
The Obama administration is actively fighting against the release of pictures documenting the CIA torture regime. These are photographs that earlier President Obama had no problems releasing – or so his administration said.
If there were an afterlife, certainly Bush and Cheney and their friends would be barred any happiness there. But right now, Obama isn’t doing his karma any favors either.
Violet
@skerry: Returning to religious roots in one’s older years seems a common phenomenon. I know three people in my extended family who have done that (different sides, different churches).
Manyakitty
On a tangentially related topic, the calendars are done! Not sure how I missed the post about them, but I got mine ordered. Yay!
SFAW
@Villago Delenda Est:
Tricky, that. There’s gotta be, like, hundreds of thousands of them, right? One for every murder?
Maybe if the current Rethug Party were wiped out, that might do it. (And if it didn’t get all the horcruxes, well — you gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. [Or omelette for you francophiles.])
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: Best news ever! May she keep wagging for many more happy years.
someofparts
Isn’t there some old joke that says we go to heaven for the weather and to hell for the company?
Amir Khalid
@Violet:
Eternity with their loving husband. Which is plainly inequitable: for a woman virtuous in life, the only just heavenly reward is of course 72 16-year-old boys.
I don’t take those myths seriously. The “free booze in heaven” thing just sounds too much like the Pastafarian promise of beer volcanoes.
Violet
@Betty Cracker: Glad she’s improving. Poor thing! Probably has no idea why wagging is painful at the moment. She’s just so happy and wants to wag!
Roger Moore
@Villago Delenda Est:
That doesn’t mean he has no regrets or miseries to relive. I know he has things he regrets and wishes he had done differently; they’re just polar opposites of the way you and I see the world. He’ll still be miserable spending eternity considering them, even if you’d enjoy the same recollections.
That actually makes me think of the possibility that Heaven and Hell are actually the same thing, and the only difference is the attitude of the people experiencing them. So all the people who say they’d rather be in Hell because they don’t want to spend eternity sitting at the feet of God will get exactly that when the time comes. I don’t believe it, but it makes a fun idea to contemplate.
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t see why it wouldn’t be. A tail is just a long set of joints, so it should be just as possible to sprain it as any other joint. Maybe even easier, since there are more joints there to sprain.
ArchTeryx
@SFAW: Technically, the most horcruxes ever made were one – until Voldemort came around. Making 7 damn near broke him before the events of the books even occurred.
Cheney’s probably out there stroking some bauble from his Nixon days, murmuring, “My preciousss” to it over and over.
The Thin Black Duke
@Roger Moore: Remember that famous Twilight Zone episode, “A Nice Place To Visit”, which starred Sebastian Cabot? It takes your premise and follows it to its logical conclusion…
Cacti
Ruh-roh…
Looks like St. Greenwald and Disciple Snowden have some ‘splaining to do.
Top German public prosecutor says no evidence that Merkel’s phone was bugged:
One can argue the merits of Snowden’s theft. Outright fabrication is another matter.
Roger Moore
@ArchTeryx:
Not strictly speaking correct. He had only made 6 before the events of the books; the seventh was made in the first chapter of Goblet of Fire. Also, too, he had lost control of the process to the point that he didn’t even realize he had created one of them./pedant
Betty Cracker
@ArchTeryx: I thought she met her doom at the hooves of the Centaurs!
Betty Cracker
@Cacti: The evidence must have been pretty convincing if it’s true President Obama apologized for it, as was widely reported. It would be funny if he just took Snowden’s word for it!
Violet
@Amir Khalid:
That sounds great!
I kind of figure if there is a Heaven, it’s whatever you want it to be. You want 72 virgins, you get that. You want endless spa days and lounging by the pool being served Mai Tais by chiseled pool boys, you get that. You want time with your loving family, you get that–even if for some of those family members, their version of Heaven is time on the golf course or living in a vat of chocolate. Whatever it is that an individual wants, that’s what they get. And it can change.
Bob In Portland
Brought to you by your friends in Ukraine, the Blood of Russian Children.
Villago Delenda Est
@Violet: I want the parties responsible for the entire “Han shot first” controversy to be roasted over hot coals like pigs on a spit.
Villago Delenda Est
@Bob In Portland: Meanwhile, Gospodin Romanov sheds no tears for Ukrainian children’s deaths. “We do not care about the brats of mudbloods”.
Cacti
@Villago Delenda Est:
Truly, one wonders why so many of the former Warsaw Pact nations went leaping into the arms of NATO at the first opportunity.
Spinoza Is My Co-pilot
“American Beauty” has sometimes gotten a bad rap (I’m looking at you, LG&M) though its Rotten Tomatoes scores are pretty damned high – nearly 90% on critics, over 90% on audience.
It’s one of my very favorite movies for a number of reasons, and my favorite scene is exactly the one you quote here.
A similar scene occurs near the end of another of my very favorite movies – “Pan’s Labyrinth” – where the sweet little girl who is the main protagonist pictures herself going back to the “magic kingdom” she believes is her real home in the moment before her death after she has been shot by her fascist stepfather. That scene, too, ranks as my favorite in a wonderful though tragic tale.
I’m an atheist, a “strong atheist” in fact. My atheism isn’t just a “lack of belief”, it’s a dead certainty (as certain as I am about anything) that there are no gods, no “supernatural”, no afterlife. Seems highly, highly unlikely to me, though it would be pretty to think so, I suppose.
I love those scenes from “American Beauty” and “Pan’s Labyrinth” because they at least seem maybe (very minimally) plausible – a sort of “life flashing before your eyes” providing some ease or contentment that perhaps seems timeless at the moment of death before consciousness goes dark forever and we re-enter the eternal oblivion of non-existence that pertained prior to birth. Alas, also just pretty to think so, most likely.
An “afterlife” accounting, reward or punishment after death for the deeds of this life, ultimate justice? Nah.
Oh, and great song by the Squirrel Nut Zippers. One of my favorites from the 90s.
ArchTeryx
@Betty Cracker: Oh, they left quite a lasting mark on her, but she survived. (She never talked about what actually happened, though).
After Voldemort took over the Ministry, she was given a high ranking position, and pretty much led the (quite literal) witch hunts to find, capture, imprison and torture Muggle-borns both within and outside the Ministry.
It’s something of an irony that she never actually was a Death Eater. She was “just” a free-range sadist and sociopath. Even the main characters couldn’t believe she wasn’t a Death Eater.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@ArchTeryx: I like this game. So what are the items Cheney would conceal pieces of his soul in?
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Roger Moore: I dont think that is exactly correct. The horcruxes were the ring, the diary, the cup, the diadem, the locket and the snake. All of those he choose to use at hiding places. The 7th was Harry himself but that one was only “made” because the killing curse rebounded on him and a stray piece of his soul attached itself to Harry. That was the only one he didn’t know about.
ArchTeryx
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: As I said, probably some bauble from his Nixon days, what gave the budding young sociopath his start in politics. Cheney’s a cunning bastard, but he’s neither smart nor talented enough to make more then one Horcrux. Voldemort, he ain’t.
Avery Greynold
I take sunsets as a metaphor for life. You ignore the sun during the day, but as the end of day comes, it has great beauty if you aren’t too preoccupied with trivialities to notice.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Betty Cracker: no she was back at the ministry after that. Recall they had to break into to steal the locket from her. That was after she got run off from hogwarts
Violet
@ArchTeryx: Dick Cheney is going to be on “Meet the Republicans” with Chuck Toddler this Sunday. That has to be some circle of Hell.
Woodrowfan
@Violet: Did you ever see Steve Martin’s take on the 72 Virgins? It’s wonderful!
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/01/29/seventy-two-virgins
Virgin No. 16: Even I know that’s tiny.
Virgin No. 17: “Do it”? Meaning what?
Virgin No. 18: I’m saving myself for Jesus.
Virgin No. 19: Somewhere on my body I have hidden a buffalo nickel.
Virgin No. 20: Don’t touch my hair!
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: Yes, he had lost control of the process at the point where he created the sixth intentional horcrux at the beginning of Goblet of Fire. Voldemort never knew about the 7th horcrux that he unintentionally created when he tried to kill the one-year old Harry, and Avada Kadavera curse rebounded back at him. Voldemort himself destroyed that 7th Horcrux when he cursed Harry in the Forbidden Forest, as Dumbledore knew he would if he tried to kill Harry.
Love did Voldemort in, in the end.
Will it do the same for Cheney? One wonders if the vile creature can actually love. He can procreate, but I daresay that the actions he took with Lynn could not be called “making love”. More like “synthesizing Daddy’s little draft exemption”.
Helmut Monotreme
Going through the meaningless rituals of politics as it’s currently practiced in Washington would be my version of hell certainly, but does it really count as hell if no one realizes they’re damned? Cheney enjoys the attention, Chuck Todd enjoys the access, it’s only the news watching public that suffers.
Woodrowfan
Heaven? My wife, every dog I ever owned, and an endless library…..
Villago Delenda Est
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
Pretty much literally by the centaurs.
Which explains Betty’s comment.
Villago Delenda Est
@ArchTeryx: Perhaps the tape recorder control pedal from under Rosemary Wood’s desk?
Roger Moore
@ArchTeryx:
She was what people in the 1950s called a “Fellow Traveler”. Although she didn’t call them that, Rowling made it perfectly clear that there were plenty of sympathizers who were more than happy to go along with the Death Eaters when they came to power.
Paul in KY
@ArchTeryx: She would be akin to Eichmann or maybe Hans Frank.
Villago Delenda Est
@Roger Moore: The Black family, for example. Sirius tells us in Order of the Phoenix about his “Toujours Pur” family’s attitudes towards Voldemort.
It is to their credit that Regulus had the veil lifted from his eyes and took action against him.
Betty Cracker
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine: Right you are, now I remember. The kiddo and I have an annual Potterthon, but I’m not nearly as up on the lore as y’all.
@Avery Greynold: I like that! My old gran (the pious soul who accidentally set me on the path to atheism) once told me that someone wrote the following in her yearbook: “May your life have just enough clouds to make a beautiful sunset.” Alas for Gran, who’s still with us, there are too damn many clouds…
ArchTeryx
@Roger Moore: That was exactly Rowling’s point. You didn’t have to be in the cult to support its aims. And since she was doing such a good job of advancing the Death Eater’s agenda in the Ministry, they were quite happy to give her all the room she wanted.
At the risk of Godwinning the thread, she made that point based on the fact that during WWII, quite a few Germans who were not part of the formal Nazi party structure, or that even voted for it, quite happily supported its aims. Reality does inform fiction.
And not all actual Nazis supported the Nazi Party’s aims, either. Regulus was a good Expy for those sorts of folks – he was an *actual* Death Eater, but undermined Voldemort at the cost of his own life. Wolfgang Petersen’s Das Boot also was a good example of it.
NotMax
I got nuthin’.
EriktheRed
When my children were babies.
Miki
What beautiful thing would I focus on? Hmmmm – something like this:
Harold Samson
@Eric U.:
I would rather share a foxhole with an atheist. At least I know he would be fighting for his/our lives.
Roger Moore
@Gordon, the Big Express Engine:
My interpretation has always been a bit more complicated than that. Dumbledore makes a big deal about how Voldemort wanted to use not just killings to make his horcruxes but significant killings. I assumed that Voldemort was planning on using Harry’s murder as another of the significant killings that was worthy of use to make a horcrux. Because of that, he had already done the preliminary steps for the creation of a horcrux, which made him vulnerable to having his soul torn apart when the curse rebounded.
Gordon, the Big Express Engine
@Roger Moore: agree with that.
brendancalling
I don’t believe in heaven or hell, or an “afterlife” as such. I DO believe that there’s a multi-verse, and that one’s consciousness doesn’t simply stop when the physical body that carries that consciousness dies. In other words, I see my physical body as analogous to my old Subaru (RIP, at 265,000 miles). I was sure sad to see that old car go, and someday I hope to own another vehicle. I also believe that when you die, your pineal gland releases quantities of the potent hallucinogen DMT, which facilitates the exit from this universe to wherever you’re off to next. I like to joke that the reason newborns scream is because the consciousness that inhabits that baby is from some other dimension/multiverse that has just arrived in our world. Who knows what form that being took previously: perhaps it was gaseous or plasma, and now it’s got physical, alien, incomprehnsible physical dimensions.
That’s why, whenever a friend dies, I don’t say RIP or anything like that. I say “safe travels”.
(I realize these beliefs are ridiculous, but no more ridiculous than the Judeo-Christian-Islamic beliefs.)
Tree With Water
“Despite our best efforts we’re all going to die, and I think that makes all of us a little nutty.”
That reminds me of Harper Lee’s observation about the south in To Kill A Mockingbird- so much to admire about the people, yet they are bat-shit insane where black Americans are concerned.
Emma
There is no conclusive evidence of life after death, but there is no evidence of any sort against it. Soon enough you will know, so why fret about it? — Robert Heinlein
My philosophy, succinctly put. Live your life the best you can, be the best person you can, and don’t worry about it.
SFAW
@ArchTeryx:
Yes, but it was only Voldemort, whose evil soul would blench when confronted by Cheney’s. (That, of course, assumes that Cheney has a soul, which had been proved to be completely false.)
evodevo
@Betty Cracker: Yes – it is rather common for dogs with that type of tail to sprain it. My husband’s uncle’s dog was the first one I saw that happen to. Turned out it was not unusual. Same as spraining a wrist or ankle, evidently. You can give a couple baby aspirin if it seems to be really bothering it.
Betty Cracker
@Miki: Wow. That is beautiful. Thanks!
ETA: I offer this in return:
patrick II
The most beautiful thing:
My wife is from Taiwan. We had a wedding here, and she looked beautiful in her white wedding dress. But we returned to Taiwan the following year and had a wedding party for her family there. I will never forget her waiting for me at the top of a few steps, looking at me and smiling while wearing her custom made Chinese wedding dress. She was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. She was wearing a, traditional dress, full length, high neck,red with gold filigree throughout. We have been married 41 years now, two kids and many other beautiful moments, but I will never forget that.
Twenty years later my daughter wore that same dress to her senior prom. I remember the look on the young man’s face when he came to the door, pretty much like mine must have been 20 years earlier.
Roger Moore
@ArchTeryx:
One of the things I like most about the Harry Potter books, as opposed to so much of the fantasy canon, is that she shows that history is not destiny. It’s possible for a pureblood to support the muggle-born, or for a mixed blood to support the Death Eaters. Even giants and werewolves were able to make up their own minds about who to support. Even Voldemort had a theoretical chance to repent and save his soul. It’s a nice break from the more typical “race X are all good and race Y are all evil” that you see in so much fantasy.
Betty Cracker
@patrick II: Awww, that is such a sweet story. I love these threads where people expose their soft underbellies! We spend so much time arguing and insulting each other that it’s nice to get a reminder every now and then that we’re actual human beings capable of love and kindness. Well, most of us, anyway. Now fuck off! (I don’t mean you, Patrick II.)
cckids
One that readily comes to mind is a day 14 years ago. We’d just found Pixie, our Pomeranian – he was roaming the streets & found me, to be exact. After 2 weeks of no answers to our “found” ads & posters we were starting to believe we could keep him. He was about a year old, so still a puppy, but was very skittish & had no clue how to play at all. So, one day I was in our yard with all three kids; the oldest in his wheelchair, the two younger ones running around. And the idea of “fun” just clicked in for Pixie. He started chasing/being chased around & around, barking madly while the kids giggled & laughed. Every few circuits he’d dash over to me, jump onto my son’s lap & lick his face, with that doggie expression of pure glee, practically saying “Holy shit!! This is so cool!!” . Then off again to play chase.
Just a perfect afternoon. Pure happiness.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
@Roger Moore:
One metaphor I’ve heard is that Heaven and Hell are exactly the same: you’re sitting at a dinner table filled with all of your favorite foods, but the utensils are too long to reach your mouth. In Heaven, it’s the greatest dinner party ever, because everyone is merrily feeding everyone else at the table, but in Hell everyone is starving because no one is willing to trust the people around them to feed them and be fed in return.
Like I said, more of a metaphor than an actual myth.
JustRuss
@Violet:
Pretty obvious really. Since sluts are going…elsewhere, only women who hate sex will go to heaven. And since you’ll be sharing a man with 71 other sex-hating women, you won’t be having the sex you hate so much very often.
Don’t thank me, I’m just the messenger.
JustRuss
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Pretty much my belief, such as it is. Selfish assholes will get to spend eternity with selfish assholes. the rest of us will be enjoying free love in groovy communes. That’s my conception of the afterlife anyway, I don’t really “believe” anything one way or the other.
SiubhanDuinne
@Elizabelle:
Because this was a thread about religion, you’ll find it understandable that I read that as “What the Rabbis Taught Us.” It wasn’t until your next sentence (Petkeeping? Wait, what?) that I went back and corrected.
WereBear
@brendancalling: Yep.
I see this body (and those of cats and dogs and other more evolved creatures) as simply a Carbon Envelope which contains and shapes the consciousness for the trip here, much like renting a car.
Carbon Envelopes wear out. Then, we need to get a new one.
J R in WV
My parents, who I grew to admire greatly, were both free thinkers and agnostics or atheists, who helped found a Unitarian/Universalist fellowship in our home town. Fellowships were churches too small to afford a real minister, so they took turns reading articles and sermons each Sunday.
As my Mom was suffering from COPD and nearing death, she became more atheistic, and less agnostic, which I thought was quite brave. She finally died in my Dad’s arms very early one morning, which was quite an experience for him. He worked hard to care for her at home, and I believe she lasted far longer than the doctors expected because of his care.
After that, my Dad was diagnosed with CMML leukemia, which wasn’t a problem for him until it finally went acute. As he dealt with his illness, he told me several times that he had decided to hope that there was a heaven, so he could spend more time with Mom. So he became less of an atheist and more agnostic as he neared death.
They lived quite a love story.
I think if I were imagining a heaven, my friends and loved ones would be there, certainly including the wonderful dogs and cats I have known. Horses too. And dairy cows, which are sweet creatures.
Nature, the clouds and storms, waterfalls filled by rain, snowdrifts and ice, sunbeams and rainbows after storms, water spouts and fish jumping, the colors of the reef and the reef’s fish.
Flashes of lightning miles away across the western plains and deserts, purple mountains majesty. Gorges and clilffs of colored rock, ancient stacks of rock walls. That’s a deliberate quote there, by the way.
What a nice thread!
Thanks, all for the sweet thoughts!
WereBear
@cckids: Awwww. That was like when we took in kitten RJ (just skin and bones) and discovered that, while only 4 1/2 months old, he had no idea what to do when we rolled a ball at him.
He got over it :)
cckids
@WereBear: Pixie too! A ball was the first toy we tried with, he had no clue. He’d obviously been either yelled at or ignored all his life, yet had the sweetest disposition, and (to my shock) no fear of our son’s wheelchair. The day I found him, brought him in the house, he trotted around, saw the chair, immediately clambered up onto our son’s lap, did the doggie turn around thing, then settled down with a big sigh. I knew then, 10 minutes after finding him, that he had my heart. So glad his previous owners were negligent assholes.
Angela
Delurking to say thanks. Your words are balm to my sore heart to read. Moments of pure joy.
I remember being pregnant with my second son and wondering how my heart could possibly expand to love them both. Then, bringing home the newborn and seeing my oldest and feeling my heart break wide open, in such a good way, with love.
Such good memories.
J R in WV
@cckids: Our last adoption was a good sized white lab mix from the county shelter, which announced an adoption emergency, they were nearly full and feared they would need to put down healthy dogs for lack of space.
So I walked down the hall by the cages, and this dog was labeled as 9 months old, good with cats, which is always important. When I took her outside on a test walk, she was pulling hard at the leash, until we got to the edge of the paved lot. She stopped at the grass, and bent down to smell it.
She didn’t know what grass was… nearly 50 pounds, 9 months old, didn’t know what grass was. It was so sad!
So I made a appointment to pick her up the next day, to let spousal unit check her out. Then when we brought her home, to our 66 acres of wooded hillside, she didn’t know what leaves on the ground were, or trees, or the other dog we already had…
She’s a pretty good farm dog now, though. They learn goodness very quickly. Badness they pass off as soon as it’s over, mostly. We named her Alice, after Wonderland, because everything was so strange to her at first. It took a while to get her to let us know when she need to go out, but other than the communication issue we haven’t had any trouble.
I think her first humans kept her in a crate, which is OK part of the time, but she was in there almost all the time. She would eat dinner and immediately pee on the floor. So we would feed her and the very last bite would be the sign to let her out into the woods. She is a very sweet dog, and has become a good friend to Happy, our older dog, who is a brown/blonde lab mix just a little smaller than Alice.
Dogs are how we know life is supposed to be a good thing! And beer!
Tree With Water
My father was an altar boy who turned his back on the Catholic church when he attained the age of reason. My Mother took after her mother believing religion to be hooey- although my grandmother was a regular, church going Unitarian (I think it was). Whatever church it was, they helped take care of her near the end, which indeed was a blessing to my family. Neither parent presumed to have a clue about an afterlife, but tended towards the Utter Oblivion School of Thought.
I still belong to ‘There is a Life Force [to which I’m a part, and can never be extinguished, consider the lilies of the field..] School of Wishful Thinkers. Of course, no telling how I’m going to feel when I’m eyeball-to-eyeball with the abyss. Probably not so upbeat.
Miki
You’re welcome.
And thank you.
Way back in the day I used to fish, a lot. I’ve caught that fish before, and lost it more than once,too. It’s a Northern Pike, btw.
Gus
Thanks for the reminder, that after all the negative backlash against American Beauty, it really did have its moments.
tones
@Roger Moore: to be fair, they did imply that having the horcrux made people mad and angry and such, so maybe part of what drove her to it?
tones
@J R in WV: so you mean, the way this world is supposed to be.