At the start of Thor: Love and Thunder, a god laughs - and then dies. It’s the start of a vendetta against the gods, mostly conducted off screen. I love the scene, and have rewatched it many times over the last few years. But it also hurt - and still does - because the discussion of an eternal reward felt so true to my former life.
We are biological organisms. Our consciousness ends when our physical existence ends. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary. One of the most obscene things about religion is that it detours us away from genuinely living -- with its hoakum promise about life "afterward." Our lifespans are very brief. What a dirty trick, then, in that context. Live now. Create the meaning of your own life. There are plenty of meanings to be had. Live a productive, good, meaningful existence. Then you can rest, unafraid, at the end of your work.
ReplyDeleteLive with clear eyes. Face both life and death, unafraid. Knowing we have a termination date will help us to live our lives with greater meaning and intent. It is still worth the journey. It is more so. Put not your faith in imaginary gods, nor superstitions and other foolishness.
ReplyDelete"This is my vow: All gods will die." Profound. Several of the lines spoken in the clip are very profound. Makes me think of this recent Mother's Day, just three days ago. We visited a cathedral close by our home, one in danger of becoming townhouses. Aside from the paid staff, in a huge sanctuary were -- count them -- a Sunday service with fourteen attendees.
ReplyDeleteHe kept his vow.
This essay triggered me. I once worked a block away from St. Patrick's Cathedral. I'd sometimes wander into the midday service. I did it enough times to encounter an elderly matriarch, well regarded in the community, who "served" informally in the cathedral in various capacities. She was diminutive, but regal and aristocratic in appearance. She'd reportedly undergone many trials and tribulations, and remained steady in her faith. She presented an aura of humility, but it was difficult to say if it was genuine or feigned; I always suspected the latter. A service had ended, and she went up to the alcove of the sanctuary to light a votive candle. Slipped on the marble floor, and whumped her head. An ambulance was summoned, and she was taken to the hospital and died three days later. What I remember most from the incident was a homeless man, sitting two pews ahead of me, who turned after she fell, grinned at me, and said, "Look. God has a sense of humor, doesn't he?"
ReplyDeleteMy mother, a good and honorable woman, died some years ago. She had been a devoted Christadelphian. On her deathbed, a few days before her death, she said to me, "You think, when you die, that the world will stop. But it doesn't. The world doesn't even notice." I reassured her that it would feel like the end of the world to me, and several others. She had been dutifully neglected by most of her Christadelphian coreligionists and relatives. She then said, "Wouldn't it be ironic, if all that we have believed turns out to be nonsense, and if our deaths are just the end for us." I thought quickly, and said, "Albert Einstein once stated that the complexity of nature and the universe point to the existence of God. He was the most intelligent human being who ever lived, and it supports our belief in a higher power." I wanted to say something to reassure her in this apparent wavering in her faith, though I think Albert Einstein's actual quote was much less emphatic, and I have also read that he made no such comment at all. My mother made no response, but I remember thinking how deficient and absent CDism was in that particular moment. It did not even serve the purpose of comforting her as her death approached. And I hated them and their dog and pony circus in that moment.
ReplyDeleteI think it's a difficult one, and giving reassurance is not a bad thing. I personally want to try and find what I think true, whether or not it's comforting, but I suspect my elderly relatives are and will be better off remaining religious. Like I think I said in the post, I don't believe they have an afterlife waiting for them, but I think they have benefited from Christadelphian community and that's not a bad thing. I don't know what I'd say in the situation you describe, but I think they probably know enough of where I stand that if they do ever need reassurance they won't come to me...
DeleteRegarding Einstein, the main quote I've heard is "God doesn't play dice", and I understand he meant by that more that the universe was and should be an orderly place than that there is a caring God directly involved in the universe and offering salvation.