Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your Brain
Neural Gourmet Archives | Feed Your BrainThe very notion of an afterlife is both inhumane and immoral. It feeds the masturbatory fantasy that things will not come to an end. With that, we can take our lives for granted. In fact, we can take the lives of those around us for granted - as surely we will be able to meet those we love and care about again someday (as, of course, they will end up in heaven with us).
The belief that there is life after death (which, definitionally speaking, is a contradiction of terms) serves to ease the fear of nothingness, but does little to cope with the reality of the situation. Delusions may comfort us, but do not illuminate much outside of our fractured psyches.Further, the oasis of life eternal continues to persuade many of us into thinking that our lives, here and now, are only important insofar as being vehicles to a final, time-infinite destination. It allows us to strap bombs to our chests and fly planes into buildings in order to achieve paradise. It allows us to condemn other human beings on the basis of 2000 year old literature and actively prevent life-saving research in order to gain favor with an absentee, metaphysical father figure. Such approval seeking has been the principle cause for the suffering of untold billions of human beings.
People have died choking on the stench of their own flesh being roasted at the hands of the Inquisitor. Of those who died on September 11th, those that were lucky were incinerated instantly. Those that were not faced the agonizing decision of jumping to their death or succumbing to the smoke that contained the remains of their friends and colleagues. Girls have been murdered by their family because they had the audacity to be the victims of violent rape. An exorcism that went wrong resulted in a teenage girl dying a slow, terrifying death from a plastic bag placed over her head by her mother. Parents have elected that their children forgo life-saving medical treatment for their children on the basis of god's will, condemning them to die. The list goes on, and on, and on, and on. I tremble to contemplate the entirety of the tragedies. I have neither the time nor the fortitude to complete such a terrible collection here.
The scars of religion's profanity are apparent enough for anyone who chooses to view them for what they are, and not further delude themselves into thinking that superstition played no part. That fantasies about life everlasting held no sway. That dreams of paradise did not motivate, did not consecrate the countless murders, the endless hours of torture, the vast landscape of suffering.
Religion has murdered humanity. The murder weapon is the afterlife.
Note: I originally posted this as a response to a thread at DU but I have a hunch it's going to get the axe, so I figured it would get some more play here.
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Religion has had a rôle in history of suppressing the consciousness of the disenfranchised. Many people accepted their life of subsistence because a place in eternal paradise awaited them if they led an accepting uncomplaining life. Dominating social classes were let off lightly in many cases. Left-wing historian E.P. Thompson in 'The Making of the English Working Class' put forward the viewpoint that religion had a rôle in suppressing revolution in Eighteenth-Century England. Sentiment that brought about the short-lived republic called 'The Commonwealth' in the Seventeenth-Century still remained a hundred years after, and which gave a reference-point to rebellious American colonists in the late Eighteenth-Century. It is interesting to note that the U.S.' Founding Fathers directed a secular revolution.
States which are religious or are characterised by a religious population are more easily manipulated by the dominating social group. God is mixed with nationalism, cunningly referred to as "patriotism", and a struggle over prestige and resources is boiled down to "Good versus Evil" in the name of Mysterious Cloud Man.
And one with which I thoroughly agree. The notion of an afterlife has perhaps wrought more damage on the human race than any other idea.
a couple of months ago. I even got a guarded agreement from a Christian (TallahasseeGrannie), who is always reasonable. I think the area of an afterlife is the most likely to cause the problem of "good people can always do good things; bad people can always do bad things; but for a good person to do evil, you need religion".
Is the problem the belief in an infinite afterlife?
Especially an infinite afterlife for which your fate is decided, permanently, in this life.
If people are convinced that they only have this life to behave as a deity, or deities, or 'the universe', wishes, and that after that they will forever more be in a perfect world, or everlasting torment, then it's only natural they should be obsessed with the details on how to achieve the perfect afterlife - relegating how this life is lived to mere details, unless they're explicitly told by someone or something they believe has divine authority that your behaviour in society is a vital part of the judgement. And similarly, they may put their concern for their fellow humans into practice by doing all they can to convert them to the 'one true religion' - because they're convinced this is the only alternative to infinite suffering.
Compare that attitude to religions which believe in reincarnation - while they can have a goal for our 'spirit' to aim for, worldly life isn't shunted off as a prologue to 'the real thing' - so getting on with other people, loving them, putting food on your family, etc. becomes a major part of "the reason we're here". Believers who think God could forgive, or still love people who didn't conform to a certain religion or sect, are similarly freer to think more about humans than eternal life.
There's a division between humanists, whether secular or religious, for whom our interactions with other humans are either very important, or all that there is, on one side; and fundamentalists, for whom some form of theology means everything. I remember a late night, somewhat alcohol-fuelled, conversation between various believers and non-believers about how humans should behave, and whether there was a universal 'purpose' to life. I (an atheist) could understand most viewpoints, including a minister, because they all talked about people, until one guy, who I didn't know well, came up with "I believe the sole purpose of life is to love, worship and glorify Jesus Christ Our Lord and Saviour". There really isn't much arguing with that - it was a conversation stopper. I couldn't work out how I could relate to him - and I wasn't sure if he even wanted any relationship with me.
How many people suffer needlessly through their lives, either by choice or at the hands of others, because religions insist that "Earthly life" is of no value or purpose (save worship) and only the hereafter is of any importance? People are so focused on the afterlife that they cannot enjoy their actual life.
The afterlife is a bill of goods, much like the majority of religion's promises. It provides believers with a comforting notion that they are special, loved and eternal. Such ego-stroking is hard for many to overcome.
The belief that there is life after death (which, definitionally speaking, is a contradiction of terms)
No more so than "heat after cold" or "health after sickness." "Life after death" is only contradictory if you *define* death as permanent, but that doesn't accomplish much, since that's not the definition of death that afterlife-believers are using.
Great post!
I first perceived the danger of belief in afterlife when a Church of Christ missionary told me he was glad his son had died at the age of two. I didn't understand, so he explained that his son was fortunate because he never got old enough to sin, which meant he was absolutely assured of going to heaven. It was a blessing, he was convinced, that his child died so young.
Maybe it was part of his grieving process. Maybe he was trying to rationalize how God could let children die. I don't know. But it gave me a very strange feeling.
