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.
The part of the clip that resonates most with me is when the "worshipper" smiles back over his shoulder at the flower muses, thinking they are laughing with him, rather than at him. He thinks they're celebrating with him. They aren't. And isn't that the situation of so many of us? What woe, to come to the end of your life and discover everything you suffered and denied to yourself was only for the sake of a delusion. What a terrible realization, and how deserving then, that "all gods must die."
DeleteI always looked at CDism with skepticism. I never put full faith in all of their doctrines. Maybe many people don't. I decided, however, that it was as good a religion as any, and I'd sit tight because of its familiarity to me.
ReplyDeleteThen, after many years of exposure, I grew weary of it all. The long, droning exhortations, many of which were deeply depressing. The somber ambiance of it all. The Doomsday crap. The unending squabbling and the favoritism some received, while others were ignored. The need to say loud prayers over a meal in a crowded restaurant -- and the need to pretend that this rendered moral superiority over the other diners. Lord, spare me! The association with Christianity that was often malleable, depending on whether that identification benefitted or disadvantaged individuals or ecclesias. The interminable lack of altruism toward the rest of humanity, replaced by condemnation or contempt or avoidance. The hypocritical dual standards for behavior and punishment, within ecclesias and between them.
Good riddance to all of it. The fact that it can take many years to rise above all of that nonsense and discard it......it is a tribute to the power of brainwashing. Nothing else.
Well, Perlman Haberdashery, you have certainly hung your Smalls out to dry, and much of which I agree with. But I do think that there are CD communities with "normal" people in them who, for one reason or another, hang on in there and go along with all the nonsense for the sake of a quiet life and, unfortunately, miss out on a real life experience.
ReplyDeleteAs far as I can judge the real problem that the CDs have is to believe that the
bible is inerrant, when clearly it is not. Their understanding of what is in the bible is therefore closed off to them. It has interesting history, not all correct,
interesting geographical records, not all correct, and similar comments can be made about much else in the collection of books contained therein.
WAKE UP at the back there!!
Mancott, if the example of the Christadelphian family that I was once adjoined to is anything to go by, the real problem that Christadelphians have is that adhering to their own bible teaching, or indeed any mainstream bible teaching, is an unattainable goal for them on even the most basic level.
DeleteI think that Perlman Madhatter has a point, I am a firm believer that those Christadelphians with a penchant for loud and lengthy prayers of thanks for food (which most likely they will try their hardest a few hours later not to pay for) , is a good indicator of a Christadelphian bullshitter that should be thoroughly rejected. I have known two such types, who both went on to illegitimately father children with women who were not their wives, and who they went on to abandon to the "world" to feed and look after. I am of course aware that correlation is not the same thing as causation, but still, my advice to anybody involved with this cult of clowns, is to pay for your meal up front and ignore whatever twaddle they loudly pronounce by means of "thanks" .
"My" former family has produced adulterers x3, sodomites, Muslims, and some illegitimate abandoned children, and now front the western end of a people smuggling operation, still never mind, it is they and they alone that have the truth and will live eternally in the kingdom. Nice work Brethren!
Joseph's comments made me laugh. As good a start for my morning as any. I had a close friend who worked diligently to bring Third Worlders into our country, all, reportedly, to increase CD numbers. It was clear to me early on that most of these people were just opportunists who regarded her and CDs in general with contempt; we were simply gullible facilitators of their invasion. I can remember with great clarity the scorn visible on some of these individuals' faces during and after services. We all saw it and sensed it, but carried on with the play anyway. This same female enabler was entirely convinced of the morality of what she was doing, however, and whenever we were in public eating establishments would shoulder her way to the front of the serving line for the purpose of having her meal cashiered first -- in order to point back at me and say, "She's paying for my meal."
DeleteAfter a decade of paying for her in restaurants and feeding her regularly at my own table, I asked her to reciprocate once or twice a year by preparing a meal for me and my children. She adamantly refused, citing poverty as her reason. When she later died, I discovered, as her power of attorney, that she'd sent large checks to Christadelphian charities in Britain and the U.S., "buying" her way into the Kingdom, perhaps.
And it made me hate her. She'd left several of the checks unsigned and unprocessed amongst her papers. I tore them up. Better for her negligent heirs to get the money than a cult.
Jody, my second home is not far at all from one of the main centres of Christadelphian Iranian recruitment. In fact my home is barely a mile and a half away from the so called hostels where they recruit from. One of the Bizarre aspects of the yarn spun by the Christadelphians, is that there are no less than three Iranian supermarkets in the same area ( I actually use one of them, their butchery has packs of lamb's tongues which are not particularly commonly available in UK butchers), to support such outlets, it is obvious that there is a large established community in the area, so far from being a long way from home with no support, the opposite is plain for all to see. The Christadelphians are simply useful idiots helping them in their quest for a UK passport and all that goes with it these days.
DeleteThe one thing I am sure of is that Christadelphians love to have their food cooked for them by others, and preferably paid for by others too!, and when it comes to clearing up afterwards, well that is for others to do too, the Christadelphians need to dash of and engage in Bible study and/or talk preparation, I saw it too many time for it to be coincidence :)
So many things are frauds in this life. Nursing homes, that are actually just storage for old people. "Universal" medical care, that is often just rote and a pretense of care. Public hospitals, that are actually the equivalent of killing centers. Universities, that are just indoctrination centers. Massive "enriching" Third World immigration, with the impact of tidal waves. The political classes, which are just self-enriching bordello residents.
ReplyDeleteAnd the biggest fraud of all, heaped up on this motley, sordid, godless and fraudulent mess?
Religion.
I'm just going to say that while there is probably some truth in each of those statements, I think they're mostly way too negative.
DeleteAs is sometimes the case, I am mostly in agreement with Jon, my recent experience of (UK) nursing homes is mostly through my work as a delivery driver, the vast bulk of the "carers" are not UK nationals, and have very poor English skills. I was quite recently appalled when attempting to deliver parcels to a resident to find that not one of the five "carers" even recognised the name of the resident, or even understood what I was asking. How you can care for someone without even knowing their name is beyond me, and this was not an isolated incident, it is one of many, repeated over months, and a thing that has come to concern me greatly especially as I saw very similar in our hospitals when my parents were in their last days. Many of them are carers in name only.
DeleteWith regards to the religion part of the comment, yes, a fraud, and most of the so called carers are from a religion known to not be keen on diversity of religion, which concerns me even more.
Australia has had nursing home scandals, so I'm certainly not going to say nursing homes are perfect here. But in my personal experience carers have not only known the names of their patients but have appeared to care about them.
Delete